Death of a Parent

‘I Want My Dad to Walk Me Down the Aisle’

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

When Your Father Dies Have you ever wondered why the good die young? I think about that all the time. It was a perfect Saturday. The couple went to the Bronx, walked around laughing and reminiscing. They went home watched a movie with their kids, but he couldn’t fall asleep. His chest was hurting, he didn’t feel well. Suddenly, he wasn’t breathing. That great man was my dad. How could a perfectly healthy man just suddenly not be there when you get home from school? The thought of what happened that night is always in my head. I wonder if […]

Death of a Child

Bereaved Aunt Asks, ‘Where Do I Fit In?’

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Question from a Reader: Two months ago, my 21-year-old nephew, my sister’s only child, was killed in a car accident.  I was 19 when he was born.  I have feelings of love for him almost as if he were my own son.  But I can’t find others like me.  I have searched a few online forums, and it seems there isn’t a specific place for me to go.  Where do I fit in?  Also, I feel so guilty — something similar to “survivor’s guilt.”  I wonder how my sister can stand to look at me, at my 20-year-old daughter, at […]

Death of a Spouse, Special Topics, Your Grief

Grieving Through the Holidays

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Grieving Through the Holidays I know I’m not the only one who is feeling the effects of the season. Grieving during “normal” times is a full-time job.  Throw in 2 or 3 holidays back-to-back and whatever milestones we might have in the middle…well…we’re all working on nervous breakdowns of epic proportions. I think one of the cruelest things about the holidays (and this may just be me) is that we’re dealing with something we used to look forward to so much. And it’s turned into something we can barely get through. My first Christmas without my husband was definitely the hardest.  […]

Death of a Spouse

After Husband’s Death, Dreams Must be Reinvented

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Dreams Die with Your Spouse One of the hardest struggles I’ve found about widowhood is that the life you had before pretty much dies with your spouse. Well, at least mine did.  The hopes, dreams and plans that we made as a couple were buried with my husband. Every morsel of my being was changed because he is no longer here for me to love or be loved by him. At first, his vacancy left the obvious holes; no more him, no more seeing, smelling, holding, or sharing with him.  As time passed, more holes appeared: no one to help […]

Death of a Spouse

Five Years into Widowhood, Life Goes On

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Five Years into Widowhood I still can’t believe that he is gone, and perhaps I never will.  And that’s all right.  I never thought that I would be alone, and in my mind, I know that being alone is the hardest thing that I will ever have to do.  If you have lost the love of your life, then you know what I am talking about. You confront the same unbearable pain and heartbreak each day as I do, and you too have loneliness as your constant companion. It has been five years since Eddie died.  My friends and family […]

Bereavement, Death of a Child

Lessons from Wild Boy

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Lessons from Wild Boy He was a toddler who played with plastic dinosaurs, Tonka trucks, and dirt. His older sister made me feel like an accomplished mama because whenever I reminded her not to touch the house plant, she would obey. “No, no,” she’d say, standing yards from the cascading ivy. Wild Boy didn’t care. Not only did he knock the plant stand down, but he watched the wet soil seep into the carpet. Then he jumped on all four into the mess, even gnawing a leaf to see how it tasted. If there was a puddle on an afternoon […]

Open to Hope

Caregiver Remorse: 3 Ways to Find Peace

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

I’ve not yet met a fellow caregiver who, at some point, hasn’t expressed at least one regret…maybe more. Caregiving can be extremely rewarding and challenging. The rewards are pretty clear. On the challenging side, there is care delivery. Caregivers end up on the front lines providing services that, in the past, have been in the hands of trained healthcare practitioners. Patients are moved home at a faster rate out of hospitals and treatment centers often leaving injections, wound care, medication oversight, and more in the hands of the family. Another challenge that weighs on caregivers are the medical care decisions especially, […]

Death of a Child

Forgiveness in Grief

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

I visited my 95-year old grandmother recently. She lives over 300 miles from me, so I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like. As we sat catching up, she mentioned that she had been having more and more thoughts about times earlier in life when, in her words, she did things that “were not very nice”. The example she gave me was when, as a frustrated young mother, she spanked my father out of anger during potty training that wasn’t going too smoothly. Recalling the memory brought her to tears. Knowing my father was coming to stay […]

Death of a Child

Messages of Love

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Over the years since my son’s death by overdose in 2004, I have received many messages and signs from him. Some have come in dreams, some through songs on the radio. Perhaps the most powerful of all have been the heart-shaped stones and shells washed up by the sea to remind me that love never dies. September 2004, South Padre Island – Calling Out Four months after my son died, I visited South Padre Island and walked on the beach, feeling broken, drained and missing Cameron. I shouted and cried my grief into the sky and the sea. I felt […]

Death of a Child

‘How Are You?’: A Silent Signpost for the Newly Bereaved

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

“How are you?” It is such a seemingly simple, benign question. Often, those who ask the question are not doing so out of real concern, but just as a polite, meaningless pleasantry. Just as often, those who answer the question would never think to respond with anything other than the implicitly expected “I’m fine” or “Good. How are you?” – even if everything wasn’t fine. But what happens when the simple question of “How are you?” becomes a harsh reminder of the isolation felt by anyone struggling with overwhelming grief?  What happens when it becomes the silent signpost marking the […]