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Grief in the Workplace

Posted on July 15, 2009 - by Jane Galbraith

The workplace is like your second family to many people. Let’s face it, some people spend more time at work than with their immediate families!! After my mother died I don’t think that I was a very good employee. Of course, I couldn’t show it. You have to try to act like your old “normal” self. That in itself is exhausting. People in the workplace are sympathetic for a short time and then like the rest of society “moves on” and don’t mention anything about it again. In the meantime you feel like the walking wounded getting through your daily […]

Losing Your Role Model

Posted on July 13, 2009 - by Eric Tomei

I love watching Tiger Woods play golf. Now, I can’t stand watching golf particularly, because to me it’s boring. I think I would rather watch paint dry on a wall, but when Tiger is playing I tune in. I like watching excellence in motion. The very way he carries himself both on and off the golf course is something to be admired and duplicated. You get the sense that no matter what situation Tiger is in, he always gets it and understands the broader scope of his actions and how they influence both young and old. Tiger will say himself […]

Signs of Hope

Posted on July 13, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Monica Novak – When our daughter Miranda was stillborn, the word “hope” took on new meaning for me. Used often to describe the feeling that what you want in the future will happen, for example healing and moving beyond grief, hope for me meant knowing that my daughter had not just disappeared into oblivion. Hope meant knowing that she was still with me, now, and that I didn’t have to wait until so-called death to be with her again. I began asking for her to give me a sign that she was indeed with me. It didn’t take long […]

Signs from our children

Posted on July 11, 2009 - by Sandy Fox

by Sandy Fox, author of I Have No Intention of Saying Good-bye Mothers have an uncanny way of knowing exactly about their child’s health, and in Susan’s case, it was gratifying to have the head of pediatrics realize it when he said to her “You knew all the time, didn’t you?” Susan did. He had no clue how she could have known that her daughter was dying because the doctors kept reiterating until the day the baby died that she would be fine. Susan’s baby was born with multiple physical birth defects and was in and out of the hospital […]

Holding On and Letting Go

Posted on July 11, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Beth Seyda – After my infant son, Dylan, died I started jotting down various things and scenes I recalled from our experience. I wanted to write about these memories not only to capture the details of Dylan’s life and death as a personal keepsake, but I also wanted to send it to our health care team. I wanted them to learn from our experience. Writing our story felt good, it was therapeutic for me. I wanted to share the parental aspects as well as the medical. Writing allowed me to release all this “stuff”. Afterward, I felt different. For […]

A final farewell…

Posted on July 10, 2009 - by Eric Tomei

As most of the world viewed Michael Jackson’s funeral on TV, it was truly a larger than life experience for a larger than life entertainer. It is really strange when a celebrity dies in this country. I think people finally understand, “Hey we really all are human. Death is going to happen to each one of us.” It is such a big deal to us because of the perceived joy and excitement they have brought to our lives. But here is a news flash: celebrities are just normal people who have been given an extraordinary talent that they have used […]

Lessons Learned in Grief Loss

Posted on July 9, 2009 - by admin

by Risa Mason-Cohen English actress Natasha Richardson was only 45 when she suffered a devastating brain injury resulting from what appeared to be a minor fall during a beginners ski lesson, leaving behind a husband and two sons. A client of mine lost her closest lifelong friend to a drunken driving accident only seconds after they said goodnight at a mutual friend’s house party. A man in North Charleston woke suddenly to the smell of smoke and was forced to throw his beloved dog from a third floor apartment building in the hope of saving the animal’s life. A woman […]

Not a Flower

Posted on July 7, 2009 - by Alice Wisler

There was a day when the sun ceased to shine. You may have missed it; it didn’t make the headlines of any national paper. February 2, 1997, to most, was only Groundhog Day. For me, it was nothing as trite as whether the furry creature did or did not see his shadow. Forget the promise of spring, what did it matter now? My life as I dreamed it stopped when my four-year-old laid lifeless in my arms. How I remember those early months after his death. I wanted to be like my Victorian ancestors and wear black, even a veil. […]

Holden Caufield: Still relevant?

Posted on July 7, 2009 - by Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn

First off, I love J.D. Salinger and all of his books. So I was surprised when, as my step-kids went through that particular reading phase in high school when they were assigned Catcher in the Rye, they reported that they kind of hated it. Whaaaat? One big problem, they said, was that they couldn’t really relate to Holden, the teenage, trash-talking, car-wreck of a main character. As I thought about it, it made sense. I mean, the language is dated. Holden’s lifestyle–tony prep school, money, a lot of freedom, doesn’t resemble the way most kids live. (Unless you watch “NYC […]

Are You the Black Sheep Sibling? The Unlikely Caregiver?

Posted on July 7, 2009 - by Carol O'Dell

Life is funny. Sometimes the most rebellious of us, the teen gone bad, the unwed mother of three, the Harley brother in leather and bandanas and lots of tattoos who become the best caregiver, the most thoughtful son–or daughter. Why? Sometimes those who travel counter to society have the most tender souls. Sometimes the battle with their personal demons have made them even more thoughtful, more real and more alive. They may wrap the package in a prickly covering, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a teddy bear underneath. Our lives are like boomerangs. For some of us, we fling […]