Bereavement, Your Grief

Yes, I’m Still Grieving

Friday, November 22, 2024

Yes, I’m Still Grieving If you or someone you care about has ever suffered a painful loss, you’ve likely heard, communicated, or thought something like the following: That earnest wish that a person could “move on” or “get over” the intensity of grief. The well-meaning concern that someone is “dwelling on,” “wallowing in,” or “stuck in” grief. That kind directive to “focus on the positive” or work to get one’s “life back.” We often feel it, deeply, when friends or family members are grieving. Perhaps we experience their hurt empathically, or maybe we sense its weight because we wish for […]

Bereavement, Death of a Child, Self Care

This Could Save Your Life: Writing Through Tragedy

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

“It is, in the end, the saving of lives we writers are about. We do it because we care. We care because we know this: the life we save is our own.” ~ Alice Walker Days before my four-year-old son’s anticipated death, a nurse gave me a blue-flowered journal. After the memorial service, the crisp white pages became stained with my pain. I filled each lined surface. When I got to the last page, my pain was still strong, so I bought a notebook. And another. In the evenings, I unleashed the bottled feelings I’d accumulated throughout each day. My […]

Open to Hope

Death From Drug Overdose and Survival Support During Covid-19

Monday, April 13, 2020

On today’s Facebook Live, we discussed dealing with the grief associated with losing a loved one to a drug overdose. However, we  also extended that to other areas, including those impacted by drug and alcohol addiction who may have also died from suicide, impaired driving, murder, accident, or organ failure. Each year, tens of thousands die from drug overdoses while thousands more die from related situations. The loved ones left behind must address their grief, which has become even more difficult in the wake of COVID-19. The Epidemic Before the Pandemic Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were dealing with […]

Death of a Spouse

Give Yourself a G.I.F.T. This Holiday Season

Thursday, October 31, 2019

The holidays are a time of togetherness and family traditions. It’s even been dubbed the “most wonderful time of the year.” But for many in the widowed community, it can be filled with grief, loneliness, and reminders of our loss. Once solid relationships with family and friends may have frayed throughout the year because our grief was too much for them to handle and our in-laws, one of the last few connections to our spouse, might as well be called “outlaws.” If you’re fortunate enough to have been invited – and accepted – to spend the holidays with loved ones, […]

Death of a Spouse, Your Grief

Recovery in Pieces

It’s been many years, many miles, and many tears since the early, raw days of being widowed. The life I am living now is one I would never have recognized as mine when I walked down the aisle to take the hand of my soon to be husband. And, yet, it is of my own making. Completely designed and created by me with an incredible amount of effort, courage, and support from people who love me. Pieces from the Past Bits and pieces of the past are peppered throughout the life I am living without Gary. His artwork, a painting […]

Open to Hope

A Statistical Look at Grief: Markers on a Lonely Journey

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Throw the stages of grief out the window. They simply can’t be trusted. If you are like me, or most people who are grieving in any way shape or form, the stages of grief aren’t’ stages at all. They can happen all at once, and whenever they want –– from the moment the loss happens to 10 or 50 years later.  The reality is that loss is cyclical. The grief of it never goes away –– it’s just that in the “new normal” you find in which grief will always live, so too lives joy and love and passion.  Of […]

Death of a Spouse

10 Lessons Widowhood Has Taught Me

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

1. You Can Go On Even When You Feel Like Giving Up I honestly didn’t think I’d survive the first month of being widowed, yet here I am… 88 months later. The sad, broken part of me couldn’t see myself climbing out of the rawest stage of my grief. There were many times that I questioned why I was left here without my spouse. There were times when I literally had no tears left to cry. But somehow, through the grace of God, I survived the first year, then the next, then year 3…and on and on. It feels like […]

Open to Hope

Turning Less Into More

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Well, that was unexpected. It seems, even when dozens and dozens of years have passed, grief, and what triggers it, can still surprise me. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day. I’ve been motherless since I was seventeen years old. It was a quiet day today in my neighborhood. As I stood in silence, watering some succulents that seemed a little thirsty, two women walked by, each carrying a single rose and holding hands with a boy and a girl. “Ah, a Happy Mother’s Day must be in order here for both of you,” I said. I like to engage with […]

Death of a Spouse

Every Single Breath

Monday, May 7, 2018

The 17th anniversary of my husband’s passing was on my mind in the days leading up to it. Some years, it slipped by me without much notice. Other years, the day brought me to my knees and threatened to be the undoing of me. Grief is like that. This year, I saw it coming. Ticking and tocking it’s way ever closer. How do I want to honor my late husband this year? This is the question I often ask myself. But this year, a dear friend had a different question for me. “What’s one cherished moment you’d like to share […]

Special Topics

Living in the In-Between Time

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

There is a classic psychological question you may be familiar with that is related to our ability to wait on God:  ”If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” When we pray the words of the Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” we present God with three requests: 1) The first request is for the ability to accept the things that we cannot change. Here we […]