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Planning Helps With the ‘Firsts’

Posted on November 8, 2008 - by Susan Gilbert & Suzanne Redfern

By Sue Gilbert and Suzanne Redfern – The following is an excerpt from The Grieving Garden, authored by Suzanne Redfern and Susan Gilbert (Hampton Roads Publishing, 2008). In this excerpt, Susan Benveniste, one of the book’s 22 contributors, speaks of her family’s first celebrations, including Thanksgiving, without their daughter, Shelly. Enduring the “firsts” can be one of the hardest obstacles to face. Examples of the firsts are: holidays, birthdays, Mother’s or Father’s Day, and the death-day anniversary. These days can hit with a vengeance, like a blow to the gut. Planning in advance how to celebrate or spend these days […]

Alcoholic Families Create Legacy of Loss

Posted on November 7, 2008 - by Penelope Wesley

By Penelope Wesley — We usually don’t think of alcoholism as a loss, but it creates ripples of loss in every direction. My experience with alcohol and abuse consists of being raised with an alcoholic father and a mother who turned to drinking later and attempted to hide it, and my own struggle with drinking to drown out my memories. These memories included watching my mother being physically abused and being chased around the house by my father with a butcher knife. I grew up in fear of anger and became afraid to talk. I often feared that my father would go to […]

Obama Right to Interrupt Campaign

Posted on November 6, 2008 - by Neil Chethik

President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to leave the campaign trail to visit his dying grandmother may have been difficult in the short run: it came less than two weeks before election day. But the decision is almost certain to help him now as he comes to terms with her death. Research from The FatherLoss Survey, which I conducted for my book, FatherLoss, indicates that taking the time to connect with a dying loved one in the last days of his or her life promotes successful grieving. In the survey of 300 men whose fathers had died, only 40 percent said they had […]

Finding Your Way to a “New Normal”

Posted on November 5, 2008 - by Clara Hinton

By Clara Hinton — Grief is such a difficult journey, but it becomes especially difficult around the holiday season. Everywhere you look, there are reminders of family times, laughter and cheer, and times spent sitting around the table telling stories and eating a delicious meal together. For the person who has lost a family member, the holidays take on an entirely new meaning. There are thoughts of emptiness, loneliness, incompleteness and a fear and dread of facing the holidays without their loved one there. The family is no longer whole. Following the death of my 13-year-old sister, the holidays changed […]

Memory as Medicine: How One Heals After a Trauma

Posted on November 3, 2008 - by Norman Fried

By Norman Fried — A research study from a group of Chinese scientists reports a new drug that successfully erases memories from the minds of mice. The study reveals a molecular genetic paradigm through which a given memory, such as new or old fear memory, can be rapidly and specifically erased in “a controlled and inducible manner in the brain.” The experiment points to the possibility of the eventual development of a precise and quick method for manipulating people’s memories. In response to these findings, I offer some psychological thoughts. In particular, I write here about the human reaction to […]

Rebalancing After Loss

Posted on November 2, 2008 - by John Pete

I believe in some ways grief must be like losing a limb. In the aftermath, you have lost something you can never get back, and each new day thereafter, brings one sad reminder of your loss after another. You suddenly are faced with the stark realization that whatever or whomever is missing, was so necessary to your daily being; to a degree that you likely never had to contemplate before. In order to move forward after a profound loss, we must work to rebalance our lives. And in order to accomplish this we my painfully change the focal point from what is missing […]

Struggling to Survive Brother’s Suicide

Posted on October 31, 2008 - by Michelle L. Rusk

Janet writes in: I, along with my sister and now deceased brother, have always suffered from mental illness — hereditary-based and environmental. We grew-up in an immensely dysfunctional home, with a raging alcoholic father. My sister has bipolar disorder, and I suffer from depression. I knew my brother planned on killing himself and argued for my parents to look for him after they had had a terrible fight and he left our home in a rage. They said because he was addicted to drugs, he was on his own. He was missing for 2 weeks, until a reporter found him […]

Surviving Sister Nurses Her Wounds

Posted on October 31, 2008 - by Neil Chethik

By Ruby Rose Fox – I remember the first time I discovered an ACE bandage. I stole it from the medicine cabinet and quickly hid it in my room. I loved the soft fabric, the way it hugged my arm, and secured my muscles and joints. Like a rock climber meticulously nestling into feeble earth, I slowly curled it around my little arm. Oh, what comfort to be wrapped, to be protected. I showed my mother my carefully prepared arm and informed her that I sprained it and took care of it myself. She seemed indifferent, and I was just […]

Who Says Halloween’s Just For Kids? Easy Tips for Caregivers and Their Loved Ones to Enjoy the Fall Festivities

Posted on October 30, 2008 - by Carol O'Dell

You’re never too old for Halloween. It’s a fun fall festivity that should continue long after our toddlers have flown the nest. Life brings many challenges–disease, financial difficulties–and the best way to counteract all this doom and gloom is with a boo! Our elders really get a kick out of Halloween. They love to see the kids dress up and enjoy handing out candy, or at least watching the parade of adorable angels, fairies, pirates, and ghosts walk by. So go to a little trouble. Why? You argue that you’ve got enough to do being mom or dad’s daughter/son–and caregiving? Because […]

I Lost my Brother and Mother

Posted on October 30, 2008 - by admin

My mother had a 3 story house that is broken into one studio apartment with a bathroom in the basement, a 2-bedroom duplex on the first and second floor. I lived in the studio apartment, my mother and sister shared the first floor and my brother had the second floor duplex. We all lived there like one happy family. It’s hard to believe that 4 adults could live together and get alone but we did. On June 23rd my sister and I were awaken by a knock on the door. My sister is a chaplain at one of the local […]