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Follow Your Heart When You Have a Chance to Comfort Bereaved

Posted on October 1, 2023 - by Monica Novak

Follow Your Heart with the Bereaved My friend Wendy recently told me this story.  On her way out of church that morning, she saw an older woman sitting in the pew crying.  It’s a large congregation, and Wendy didn’t know the woman, but something inside Wendy told her to stop. She followed her heart and walked up to the woman to ask if she was okay and could she do anything for her.  The woman wiped her face and told Wendy that her 2-month-old granddaughter had just died, and she had to go help her son and daughter-in-law through the […]

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Ten Common Signs that the Deceased Send to Loved Ones

Posted on October 1, 2023 - by Karen Noe

Ten Common Signs that the Deceased Send to Loved Ones After our loved ones cross over, they are very anxious to let us know they are okay and are aware of what is going on in our lives.  If we are not able to feel them around us, they will often give us signs that we cannot ignore. The person who is given the sign usually knows he or she is receiving a message from the other side. I always tell my clients that they do not have to look for signs – the signs will come to them. How […]

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Widow Fears Sharing Thoughts of Suicide

Posted on October 1, 2023 - by Marty Tousley

Widow Fears Sharing Thoughts of Suicide Question from a Reader I know I’ve heard plenty of times that it is normal for ‘grievers’ to feel despondent and wish to be with their spouse who has passed on. But, it doesn’t feel like it’s normal to me because I don’t want to live any more, although I am not going to do anything to harm myself. In fact, I am on a healthy food plan and I am doing whatever it is I need to do to live from one day to the next. I stay in for days at a […]

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Gratitude Amid the Unfairness of Loss

Posted on September 18, 2023 - by Ken Lefkowitz

After losing two children, Carolyn and Matthew, and then having two more children, Kim and Danny, my wife explained a recent experience. Holding Child After Death She said: “The other night when you were gone on a business trip, I was watching television after I put Kim and Danny to sleep. Our kids are so wonderful. A nurse on a news show was demonstrating how mothers whose babies died were allowed to hold the small lifeless bodies in order to say goodbye and get some feeling of closure. Most of the mothers spoke very positively about the experience. As each […]

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Reconnecting with Mom Through Plant Medicine

Posted on September 18, 2023 - by Ken Breniman

Losing Mom as a Teen I was only 18 when my mother succumbed to pancreatic cancer. However, in the following two decades, I persistently avoided the profound pain of being a motherless son. Though I maintained a façade of functionality, pouring my energy into my career and globetrotting adventures, my heart limped along, unable to foster any lasting or meaningful relationships. I had constructed an emotional barricade around myself, but it exacted a heavy toll in the form of escalating anxiety and a relentless yearning for reconciliation. If only my mom and I could have figured out a different way […]

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An Old Testament-Grief Connection

Posted on September 18, 2023 - by Colleen Friesen

In recent months, I have been struggling with what I have come to see as a different stage of my grief journey. I wrote about that challenge in my last article. Writing that article, I thought I had turned a corner. I thought I had grasped purpose and was ready to move forward but the winds of hopelessness scoured my resolve from me and left me groping for … something. Direction through Grief As I looked around me; at work, at writing, at yard or housework, the same lost echo would reverberate back to me… “what’s the point?” I found […]

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Retraining Our Brains Through Grief

Posted on September 18, 2023 - by Ellen Besso

Retraining Our Brains Through Grief “During periods of grief the human brain undergoes a process known as neuroplasticity, in which the brain rewires itself in response to emotional trauma.” ~ Widows Empowerment Trust Moving one block away from our home has been surprisingly disorienting for me. Although I can walk the same routes on the streets I’ve walked on for 30+ years, the neighbourhood seems different. Across the road from Marina Place is the beautiful forest trail of living breathing trees as well as the fallen nurse tree skeletons. I go there daily, it’s short but healing, bringing me out […]

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Dreams Can Help the Grieving Process

Posted on September 18, 2023 - by Ellen Besso

Dreams Can Help the Grieving Process I began preparing myself for my mother’s death a long time ago, even before she came to live in our community so that we could support her. Occasional dreams appeared in which I or we (my partner and daughter) had to save Mom; in those dreams, she was called “Little Mommy.” Often, water would be involved. Perhaps she would fall off a dock, and we would pull her out of the water. The dreams became even more prophetic before our last trip to India in the fall of 2009, when I dreamed that she […]

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What is a Good Death?

Posted on September 11, 2023 - by Julie Nierenberg

What is a Good Death? What constitutes a good death? Many among those who’ve approached death themselves, or assisted dying people, have contemplated this question and made suggestions on this subject. The following discussion of factors that support a good death is neither comprehensive nor thorough. There are so many divergent thoughts on the topic of a good death that an entire text could be devoted to that subject alone. But some fairly common themes emerge when one gathers such information. Dignity or a Sense of Control The word dignity appears again and again in the literature about a good […]

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When a Parent Starts Dating: The Role of Adult Children

Posted on September 11, 2023 - by Mike Bernhardt

Dating After a Spouse-Loss Our society has so many expectations for us after our spouse has died. We should grieve—depending on the expectations of our friends, religious traditions, or workplace expectations—for anywhere from a few weeks to many years. The reality of course is that we will grieve for however long we will grieve. The world might forget that we lost the love of our lives; but we don’t. Our friends, even family members, might encourage us to move on before we are ready because they need us to move on. Contrarily, if we feel ready to build a new […]

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