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Helping a Friend Who Loses a Child

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

The Message By Betsy Bottino Arenella – My spiritual awakening began on December 11, 2004, with a life-altering phone call. I was walking down the front hall stairs in a bathrobe, my wet hair wrapped in a towel, when I saw my husband standing at the bottom. He was holding the telephone and looking up at me with a strange expression. “Bad news,” my husband said. “Sophia passed away last night.” My legs buckled and I fell into a sitting position on the stairs. Sophia was my best friend Melyné’s rosy-cheeked, active toddler. She had turned one the week before […]

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Remembering a Child Who Lived a Short Life

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Jenny Hander – One of the greatest tragedies in losing a baby is that you don’t get the chance to form enough memories to carry you through a lifetime of living without them. It isn’t that you forget to remember; it is that you don’t have many memories to recall. Though I think of my sweet daughter every day, there are some days I feel as though I created her in my own mind. I ask myself, “Was she ever really here?” I know that she was, but she was here such a short time and so much time […]

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October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Nina Bennett – I know all too well the devastation of pregnancy and infant loss. My precious granddaughter Maddy, after a healthy full-term pregnancy and normal labor, with no indication of fetal distress, slid still from her mother’s womb. She was a perfectly formed, beautiful baby, with every indication that she would survive delivery. But she did not. As you can imagine, our entire family was devastated. It turns out that Maddy was one of more than one million babies in the U.S. to die in pregnancy or in the first few months of life last year. For a […]

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Stillbirth: “We Knew You Before You Were Born”

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Judith O’Reilly – I love my children. All four of them: there is one I cannot hold. Not true. I hold him in my heart. I just cannot hold his hand in mine. He would be eight today. Two days before he was due to be born, he stopped moving. I did the things you do, ate vanilla ice cream for which I had no appetite, climbed awkwardly into a hot bath, dribbled water onto my still belly, fell silent, thought: “Fuck and buggery.” My husband drove me to hospital. I spoke. “I’m sure it’s fine, but I can’t […]

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Why the Stillborn Should Have a Certificate of Birth

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

Copyright by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore. My story began 14 years ago. On July 27, 1994, I gave birth to my fourth child. It was my baby girl’s due date. About 15 minutes prior to birth, my beloved child, Cheyenne, died. After a full postmortem evaluation, the pathologist could find “no determinable cause” for her death. I was left with countless questions and few answers. About one week after her death, I received Cheyenne’s death certificate in the mail. What I really wanted, though, was the record of her birth. So I called the vital records office in Arizona to request […]

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Swayze Inspires as He Battles Cancer

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Eric Tomei

By Eric Tomei —

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Am I Holding Onto the Past? Why We Keep the Clothes of Those We Love

Posted on January 13, 2009 - by Carol O'Dell

I’ve had my Daddy’s suede jacket hanging in my closet since 1982, the year he died. I didn’t know I’d be a keeper, but I guess I am. It’s brick-red suede, and has completely worn through at the edge of the sleeves. It no longer smells of him, but I keep it. I remember when I was a child, riding with him to Sears on Saturday morning just to buy salted peanuts and look at the tools in the tool department. He wore that jacket. I was adopted and maybe that makes me more sentimental, I don’t know, but keeping my […]

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A Widow Asks: What Does He Think of Me Now?

Posted on January 13, 2009 - by Mie Elmhirst

By Mie Elmhirst I had a lovely holiday this year. Nothing really big happened. My daughter Anneke and I baked bread, we told each other silly stories about what presents the other was getting, we made soup, went to a movie, hugged a lot and we celebrated our family. Our very small family. We were enough. I had enormous gratitude as I remembered where we were eight and nine years ago, when we were trying to keep our heads above water as we watched our husband/father die, and then as we struggled to learn how to live without him. But […]

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Got Faith?

Posted on January 11, 2009 - by John Pete

WHAT IS FAITH, BY THE WAY? It’s a simple question, right? Maybe not… Faith can mean many things to many people, and whatever one’s personal beliefs, they should be respected as everyone’s journey is their own. This is reflected in our everyday life experiences, including grieving the loss of a loved one. And regardless of those beliefs, we all have the opportunity to comfort and support one another in the most important aspect of our lives – the here and the now. Most of us have an inner faith of some sort, including the strong conviction by some that there is nothing beyond this […]

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Nine Steps to Self-Forgiveness

Posted on January 11, 2009 - by Fred Luskin

By Fred Luskin, PhD — 1. Know exactly how you feel about what you did. Be able to articulate the specific wrong you have committed and the harm it caused. Tell a couple of trusted people about your experience and about your feelings. 2. Understand forgiveness. Forgiveness enables you to feel at peace even though you did things you wished you had not. You do not have to reconcile with the person you have hurt and what you did may not be OK. Still you can make peace with yourself. 3. Self forgiveness can be defined as the recognition that […]

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