Holiday Grief- what is it? How does it differ from other grief? What is grief anyway? These are but a few questions you might want to explore as we move ever deeper into the holidays, the season of celebration, gift-giving/receiving, parties and gatherings of various sizes and diversities.
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I was with my daddy when he died. Excuse me, I was with my daddy when his spirit left his body. I drove him to the emergency room because he was having chest pains. He said that they weren?t too bad, and his color was good. He was still walking. In fact, Daddy walked into the cubicle in the ER and hopped up on the gurney. Almost as quickly, he hopped off saying, ?Whew, doggie! Feels like somebody?s got a knife in my back, right between my shoulder blades.? Daddy said it with a great big grin on his face. […]
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Deecember is a cruel month. Christmas sales, decorations, advertisements -everyone seems so happy and cheerful – it’s easy to feel alone. It’s precisely at these happy times that the loss of our loved one can be felt the strongest. We remember only too well who is missing. Whether our loss was recent or whether it occurred many years ago, we are constantly surrounded by sights and sounds that trigger memories of holidays past, and wracked with dreams of what might have been. Holidays involve expectations about getting together with
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Scott Mastley: It didn?t hit me immediately, but after a while, it kind of came to me that I was an only child and that eventually I was going to be older than my older brother and that was a pretty weird situation where I remember the day, actually, when I lived longer than he did and I still look at the pictures and even now, I feel like he looked older than I do now which I?m sure is not the case, but it just feels that way. He?s always going to feel like my older brother. Scott Mastley: […]
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Dr. Coralease Ruff: What I always say to people about those feelings of regret, sometimes if you write a letter to them expressing those feelings of regret, at least sometimes that can help, because they do wish they had gone to the scene of the accident or gone to view the remains. Because just the loss itself, the death itself is stressful and then, of course, having those other regrets and feelings of guilt increases the stress. Dr. Coralease Ruff: You?ve got that adrenalin flowing so you?re constantly in motion, your body is secreting all these stress hormones. You can?t […]
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“Grief is healing: To take away our grief is to take away our healing. And learning about life after death helps us heal with greater hope, comfort and peace.” ~ Bob Olson In approximately five years of investigating the possibility of life after death, I have discovered convincing evidence that there really is an afterlife, that we really do continue to exist after death, and that our loved ones continue to watch over us and guide us in the spirit world. But this is just the beginning of my discoveries.
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“Grief is healing: To take away our grief is to take away our healing. And learning about life after death helps us heal with greater hope, comfort and peace.” ~ Bob Olson In approximately five years of investigating the possibility of life after death, I have discovered convincing evidence that there really is an afterlife, that we really do continue to exist after death, and that our loved ones continue to watch over us and guide us in the spirit world. But this is just the beginning of my discoveries.
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Thank you for the opportunity to share my experience with the IPPC (Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care) retreat led by Deborah Dokken, your guest on Thursday. I am the parent of Dakota, an adorable “old soul” who was diagnosed with cancer at two and died one week before he turned five. That was ten years ago. In those ten years, our family has turned our pain into a passion to help others who also find themselves suffering the loss of a loved one. When Dakota died, my husband wanted to buy our two year old son, Dylan, a gift to […]
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Last week, I visited my 81 year old widowed Aunt following the death of her boyfriend, also age 81. She was expectedly quite distressed following his sudden death from heart failure. In spite of having been widowed for over 20 years, and having three children and grandchildren and lots of friends, she felt very alone. She reminded me that even at age 81, she still needed to be held and loved and neither her children nor grandchildren could fill that role in quite the same way.
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NOVEMBER 30, 2006 – FROM PARENT TO ADVOCATE: LONG DAYS’ JOURNEY:? DEBORAH DOKKEN.? After the loss of two infants and the premature birth of her son Jeremy, Deborah Dokken became involved in programs enhancing family participation in health care. She is co-investigator for The Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care, a national education and quality improvement project.? She currently serves on the FDA’s Pediatric Advisory Committee, and is a longtime member of the Ethics Forum at Children’s National Medical Center.? She is the recipient of the Pediatric Nursing’s 2003 Humanitarian and 1998 Excellence in Writing Awards.? http://www.ippcweb.org/ Deborah Dokken:? I didn’t […]
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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.
