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A Gift of Remembrance

Posted on April 22, 2009 - by Sandy Fox

by Sandy Fox Sometimes in the mist of everyday living something special happens that you know you will keep in your heart forever. For me that something special happened about six months ago. Out of nowhere I received a letter from my daughter Marcy’s first high school boyfriend from 25 years ago, a very personal letter in which he opened his heart about what Marcy meant to him. Almost 15 years is a long time to wait to write such a letter, but just the fact that it was sent at all was so very special to me. He found me because of an […]

Spring cleaning…

Posted on April 22, 2009 - by Eric Tomei

Hopefully that summer is right around the corner (yeah right) it was hailing here in Michigan today, it is the time for year for everyone to take inventory and do the dreaded spring cleaning. Mostly, spring cleaning consists of getting rid of past stuff to make room for future stuff. Basically in the end every year, it is a recycling of some stuff always. A sense of real accomplishment comes with a good spring cleaning as new hope arises that your literal house will stay that way the whole year, if not for just a week. Last […]

Multiple Losses: Start With the Pain

Posted on April 22, 2009 - by Harriet Hodgson

By Harriet Hodgson — Nobody expects multiple losses. If and when they come the pain is unbearable. ?Who should you grieve first? How long will you grieve? Will you ever be happy again? You want to escape the pain, but it is this pain – a journey through darkness – that leads to healing. Pat McNees makes this point in her book, “Dying: A Book of Comfort.” McNees includes one of her own articles in the anthology, “Grief: The Only Way Out is Through.” As she explains, “The work of grieving, and the only way to get through mourning, […]

Nature’s Remedy – Allowing the Universe to Embrace Us in Our Pain and Need

Posted on April 21, 2009 - by Beverly Chantalle McManus

Responding to How Do I Cope After the Death of My Husband?, Annalise wrote: “When does the pain ease off?? Two months today and getting worse.” Beverly Chantalle McManus, Grief Companion, responds: Annalise, first of all, please accept my deepest compassion for your loss. The death of a spouse is one of the hardest things anyone will have to go through, and only those who have experienced it can really understand the depth of pain and loss you are experiencing. We’re glad you reached out, and hope that knowing you’re not alone will help ease the pain and loneliness. I […]

‘We Must Not Insist That God Do Things Our Way’

Posted on April 21, 2009 - by Barbara Francis

By Barbara Francis — We all need to be asking God to enlarge our hearts to himself and to others and to increase our trust that he will work in his way in his time. We must not insist that God do things our way, and we can only humbly bow before the fact that we do not understand all his ways and leave the results to him. Sometimes it may be difficult to see what God is doing when it looks like he’s not doing anything especially with rebellious, sick, or sinful people, or when those we love take […]

What It’s Really Like When Your Child is Terminally Ill

Posted on April 20, 2009 - by Lisa Buell

By Lisa Buell — How could death possibly happen to a child? We all enter into an unspoken contract that our children will outlive us. It’s what gives us the courage to become parents in the first place. When that assumption is suddenly thrown into question because of a child’s illness, we find ourselves looking for reasons hidden in the unreasonable. We seek for clues to explain why this tragedy is happening to this particular set of parents, to gain understanding and to create distance as well. As parents of a dying child, we didn’t want to see ourselves as […]

Words of Wisdom: ‘Hold On!’

Posted on April 19, 2009 - by Luellen Hoffman

By Luellen Hoffman — His cell phone call came to me at 7:00 am and I knew right away something was wrong. My son had just driven up to Detroit with his girlfriend to attend the NCAA Final Four basketball games and was driving back Tuesday morning when they hit bad weather — snow and ice on the Penn Turnpike. His girlfriend was driving the car and they weren’t speeding, 64 mph when they hit ice and she lost control of the car. My son had been asleep, in the passenger seat, when he awoke to her screams and the […]

How to Help Our Friends Help Us When We’re Grieving

Posted on April 18, 2009 - by Joy Johnson Brown

By Joy Johnson, Centering Corporation — When the goddess emerged from the cave of her sorrow she wept anew for there was no one there to greet her. (ancient Greek myth) One widow said it well: “You find out who your friends are!” Many people think that illness, death and other tragedies bring people closer together. Actually, the opposite is more often true. Stresses build, relationships have changed, anger, guilt, sadness and all the other emotions that come with grief seem to attack everyone at different times and in different ways. Recognize that all your family and friends will be […]

Grief and the Global Economic Challenge By Patrick Malone

Posted on April 17, 2009 - by Markus Redding

Technically, grief is the intense emotion suffering cause by a loss. However, grief is relative to the worst loss one has experienced. If you are among those who have suffered the death of a child, spouse, parent or grandparent, you know an intense level of grief that is almost indescribable. However there are many among us today who are dealing grief due to a different kind of loss and for them it may be the most intense loss they have experienced. Over the last three decades we have experienced unprecedented economic growth not only in the United States but around […]

Let’s Stop Judging Others’ Pain

Posted on April 17, 2009 - by Alice Wisler

By Alice J. Wisler “Never criticize a man unless you have walked a mile in his shoes.” Many of us repeat this line, most likely when we have been criticized as opposed to when we are the ones with a differing opinion. Years after my four-year-old son died, I received an invitation that got under my skin. Missing my son, a little under the weather, and experiencing the realities of a damaged engine of our Lincoln Sable, I was not at my best. So I felt I had nothing left within me to cushion my feelings when a fellow bereaved […]