OK, I am cheating. I am pre-scheduling this post to run a couple days after my surgery to talk about anticipatory grief. What is that? It is the grief that you fear is coming and that you can’t stop from happening. It is the fear that grips me now, in not knowing the outcome [...]
Every year when August hits I am reminded that the holidays are right around the corner. The holiday season can be stressful on it own without the added layers of grief. Grief is a difficult emotion to describe because it is made up of so many other feelings such as sadness, anger, devastation, and so [...]
One of the fears that most people have as they age is the loss of health. I know this because as it has become a real life situation that I happen to be facing. I am facing surgery in a couple of weeks and the fear and surrounding grief associated with this loss is [...]
Grief is not linear I used to think that I would move through each stage of grief progressively. When I completed one stage, I would move to the next, never to return again. Grief is nothing like that. It is messy and chaotic. Especially in the early days, we can be all over the place. [...]
Some friendships are meant to last a lifetime while some blossom beautifully and fade. There is grief associated with each of these types of friendships. What does it mean to be a friend? How can you tell a long term from a short term friendship. I hope that everyone has a friendship or two [...]
What’s a Death Cafe? Another format for having those heart to heart conversations that are difficult to start can occur in the most unlikely places. There is another organization that we are affiliated with that has a funny name but does a great community service. Death Cafe seems like an unlikely name for almost [...]
One of our early attempts at providing grief support out to the community was to use MeetUp. MeetUp is an online community that intends to gather like minded people together for a common activity. In our case, to create a community gathering where it would be ok to talk about grief. MeetUp seemed like [...]
I know that "Patience" is difficult for me. While I try to make the best of things, sometimes it is just not easy. As I count down the days to a surgical procedure, my mind wanders to all the “what if’s” and begins to spin into chaos. Thankfully, I have some tools to use [...]
I’m often asked what it means to heal from grief. It’s a question I’ve pondered for over 20 years, and I’m not sure even now I know what it means. We hear often that “Time heals all wounds.” Time by itself isn’t the only factor; it’s what you do with that time that makes the [...]
When I saw this question as a prompt my first thought was, “No one will be interested in that.” Then I realized that quite often, my first thought is an attempt to avoid a place that feels too vulnerable. I wondered why I felt vulnerable writing about what inspires me. My biggest inspiration is my [...]
