Psychologist Bob Baugher studied the way the mainstream media handles loss situations. He found a disturbing pattern of reporting that left the impression that people should “heal” and “recover” from loss — and fast.
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When I think back to those dark days following the death of my late wife and daughter, I always return to an early January morning a week before my twenty-seventh birthday. In the months following their deaths, it became routine to awaken at 5:00 a.m. and go for a four mile run. It wasn’t easy. I’d awake five minutes before the alarm clock beeped and stare at the dark ceiling and contemplate the two choices I faced every morning: Stay in bed or go running. Staying in bed was the easy option. Under the covers it was warm and a […]
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Dear Jamie Ryan, Sorry to hear about you loss of Leah. Thanks for pointing out the article by Jerry Adler, Newsweek, July 26, 2008 While we have not had a chance to review the reach of O’Connor and colleagues using an fMRI machine to probe the neurological basis for complicated grief. We find the idea that grief lasting more six month is “complicated” and therefore would qualify as a mental health issue to be on the silly side. We are always concerned about the fact that the DSM 4 states that it is complicated grief after six months. We hear […]
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Mary, Provo, Utah
My son Danny died a year ago of an infection at age three. I am now wondering what to do with all his toys. It is too painful for me to keep them in a room as a memorial for him, yet I know how much he loved them. What should I do?
Cindy writes:
I have been listening to your radio show for awhile. I download to iPod and listen in the car. Eight years ago, my 3-year-old son was killed when a truck backed over him while he was walking with his sister and childcare provider to the store. As you can imagine, the pain was […]
You’re home now — From the cemetery — Just closed the door on an endless line of well-wishing-filled-with-advice strangers who didn’t know what to say but talked endlessly anyway, and now that they’re gone you know you will never see or hear from most of them ever again. Your hair smells of roses and gladioli and you secretly wish for a giant eraser to erase all the pain. You’ve just buried your life partner; your husband, your best friend. As Joan Didion says, “Life changes fast.” He’s gone now and like it or lump it, you’re not. You stand before […]
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Award-winning poet Pamela Papka Sexton touches on the experience of losing her mother (In the Mirror) and her father (Two Rivers). “The mirror doesn’t lie/She is closer than she seems,” Sexton writes of her mother. Of her father: “I look toward Round Top/and know he is there, stitched/in a tuxedo.”
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Barbara, Asheville, N.C., asks My mother died recently at age 85. I’m the only surviving child. She left a huge house full of “stuff.” I just can’t bring myself to do what’s needed to clean it out and sell the house. Is this normal? What can I do to get over the hump? Drs. Gloria and Heidi respond: First of all, we want to say how sorry we are to hear about your mother’s death. As you say, you are the only surviving child, so we assume that you have also suffered sibling loss. It is difficult to say goodbye […]
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Suicide survivor Carol Loehr shares what others often say when they learn that her son died by suicide. She advocates for educating people about the neurological illnesses that cause suicide.
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Writer Diana Gardner-Williams found a way to reconnect with the memory of a deceased loved one: “scrapbooking.” It gives grieving people an outlet by allowing them to preserve their loved one?s legacy in a positive, productive and personal manner.
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Open to Hope is an online community offering inspirational stories of loss, hope and recovery. We believe hope is the bridge between loss and recovery.
