Listening to Easter

All about me are signs of renewal.  Easter is here and with it are the always hopeful signs of rebirth: the arrival of a new season of Spring, Christ's Resurrection, plants and flowers bursting forth in bloom and the feeling of being refreshed; of being given the opportunity to start over.

 

I still make and hide an Easter basket for my young adult son full of chocolates and jelly beans and multi-colored Peeps.  It's a tradition that we both enjoy and these days I laugh as he searches through the house for his hidden basket as I watch and say "hot", "cold" or "warm" depending on where he is in relation to the basket that has sometimes been hidden in places such as the shower, the dryer and the stove.

As my Easter unfolds, the Easter basket search always takes me back to my rambunctious childhood and also to the Easters when my husband was alive.  I know that Easter, and other holidays, are times of great celebration but also are emotionally difficult for those who have just lost loved ones.

 

I know of a woman who just lost her husband last month to cancer after a long and tough fight.  She has two young sons and my thoughts are with them today.  I know that her family and friends will do their best to make sure she and her boys are included in Easter activities but sadly there is no getting around the pain they all are feeling.

 

I think people are aware of others who are dealing with feelings of grief during the traditional holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas but holidays in general, whether it is Passover, Easter, Memorial Day or the 4th of July, all tend to carry their own little hidden emotional minefields.  Grieving is stressful all by itself and then when you add the pressure and expectations of holidays, it can add up to unexpected meltdowns because it hard to escape the old sights and sounds associated with these special days.

 

I found these helpful tips from the Hospice Foundation of America and thought they might be good to share:

 

-- Be aware than an approaching holiday might be a difficult time for you.  The additional stress may affect you emotionally, cognitively and physically; this is a normal reaction.

 

--Take care not to drink alcohol (a central nervous system depressant) in excess, overeat (which brings fatigue), or overwork.

 

--Recognize that holidays won't be the same.  If you try to keep everything as it was, you'll be disappointed.  Doing things a bit differently can acknowledge the change while preserving continuity with the past.

 

--Be careful not to isolate yourself.  It's alright to take time for yourself but don't cut yourself off from the support of family and friends.

 

--Talk over your plans.  Decide what you want to do and what can be avoided.

Do what is comfortable for you.  May you find what works for you.

Giving Comfort

Yesterday was a snow day in Washington, DC with the local and federal governments shut down and people resigning themselves to once again bundle up and go out and shove and clear their cars of winter's one two punch: ice and snow.

 

Before I braved the outdoors, I indulgently hung out in my pajamas and worked on the computer, answering emails and checking out Twitter for Oscar gossip.  I also made use of my snow day by tackling a large stack of magazines in my home office and in hopes of ridding myself of some unnecessary clutter.

 

I came upon an old 2007 Town & Country magazine which featured a special section on grieving.  Ah! This must be the reason why I had saved this issue I said to myself.  I remember being surprised at the time that I bought the magazine that Town & Country was tackling such an uncomfortable subject since most of its articles are about lighter subjects such as traveling, beauty and celebrity trends.  But in this particular issue, I found an informative and insightful section on dealing with grief.

 

 

 A column about grief and loss titled "How To Comfort" by Kate Lardner popped out for me upon rereading the section.  Here are a few to consider:

 

-- "We live in a culture that is afraid of illness and death.  There's judgment from every direction, and it slows down the healing process.  Trust your own experience, and be with people who aren't telling you  to pull yourself together." ~ Cynthia O'Neal, cofounder of Friends in Deed, a crisis center in New York City.

 

-- "I was terrified of my sons' impending deaths from AIDS.  What helped the most when they were dying was to do whatever I could to open up my heart, instead of shutting off from the fear of the anticipated loss.  I talked to mothers in hospitals who were visiting sons with AIDS." ~ Brenda Freiberg, chair emeritus, AIDS Project, Los Angeles.

 

-- "Be with a grieving person quietly, and offer the stability of your presence, which is not the same as trying to 'make it better.'  Much more important for the bereaved is to feel the actual loss in the moment.  Human beings are amazingly resilient; we think we won't be able to survive, but we will.  Grief, the hurt, is a good sign." ~ Acharya Eric Spiegel, a Buddhist teacher in New York City.

 

-- "Think twice before telling anyone that they ever get over the loss of somebody close; on a feeling level you never truly get over it." ~ Sanford Pepper, M.D. San Francisco psychiatrist.

In Honor Of The Oscars

In honor of the Oscars last night, I'd like to give out a personal award.

Last night's Academy Awards speeches seemed to me to be particularly emotional, expressing the gratitude of recognition, the fulfillment of dreams and deep thanks for the years of incredible support that people received while working on their ground breaking film projects. 

It brought to mind for me the role that others play in our lives during difficult times and reminded me that support groups around the country are on the front lines of our communities, doing the nitty gritty, down and dirty and painful work of helping us put one foot in front of another as we learn to live with the unexpected challenges that life has brings us.

 

In my case, I'd like to give out a personal award, The Best  Support Group award to Widowed Persons Outreach (WPO) located at Sibley Hospital in Washington, DC.  The people at Sibley who run this incredible program are the unsung heros of bereavement work and I'd like to draw the curtains aside a bit to reveal that grief support groups are not strange secretive gatherings of people who wallow in their sorrow and loss.

 

Best Support Group Award

No indeed.  They are groups of compassionate people dealing honestly and directly with the confusion that grief brings.  I spent almost two years as a participating member of the WPO support group and then after leaving the support group I spent many years later as a volunteer trying to give back the unconditional support WPO gave to me.

I learned a tremendous amount from the other widowed members of the group and also the amazing people who ran the group while I was there.  One person I would like to give a shout out to is Julie Potter, a calm and patient woman with so much insight that she reminds me of  a wise Buddha.  WPO taught me how to slowly gather the shattered pieces of myself and figure out how to best to put them back together in a way that gave me worked for me.  The group gave me the strength to help myself and my grieving young son.   

 

Whether it's alcoholism, gambling, overeating, drug addiction or grief, I believe that others who are traveling the same unpredictable path as ourselves can often offer the greatest amount of inspiration.

It may seem slow and incredibly painful but I found that when you sit and share your story with others facing the same issues, there is a sense of relief that you have finally found people who understand the depth of what you are feeling and how hard it is to handle.  In searching for a way to begin healing, support groups offer a safety zone because you find you are not alone in your emotional turmoil. 

 

Many people are uncomfortable with the emotional pain of grief.  As a result, family and friends are sometimes unsure of what to say or how to be helpful.  Support groups are the places where we can let it all hang out, revealing the thoughts and feeling we might not want to tell others because they might not get what we are really telling them.

 

You deserve to talk through your feelings and get them off your chest.  It's all part of starting a healing process.  By letting your emotions come to the surface and then working through them, you acknowledge and face your changed life and find others who are also dealing with the same sorts of issues.

 

Each grief may be individual but you shouldn't feel that you have to handle it all by yourself.  Support groups can be a crucial first step when you find yourself unsure of how to deal with a personal crisis.

A Broken Christmas Ritual

I can't tell you why but for the first time in many years, I didn't place a Christmas wreath on my husband's marker at the cemetery.

 

I thought about it.  I was going to do it.  But then I never did get around to it.

 

I'm hoping that this doesn't make me a bad person.

I'm really hoping it just makes me a conflicted human being dealing with life the best way I know.

Every Christmas since he died 10 years ago, I have made a personal ceremony out of placing a large Christmas wreath with a big red bow on his grave.  It was a healing ritual that made me feel good and I thought it also was a ritual that would let him know that I had not forgotten about him at Christmas.

 

But this year it all felt very different.  I couldn't bring myself to buy the wreath and take it to his grave.  I didn't want to drive my car anywhere near the cemetery. 

I don't understand it but I think it has something to do with the trickery of grief.; how you think you are on solid footing and then you're not.  I used to emotionally bounce all over the place in my new grief of the first few years and since then, I have been working hard to go forward with my life, stay positive and embrace happiness.  Yet my feelings shifted this Christmas.  Out of nowhere, a powerful surge of conflicting emotions washed over me.  I have to say that having this happen is truly a bummer because I don't like being sucked back into those feelings again.

Honestly, I think one reason I couldn't go near the cemetery is I just get tired of grieving and missing him and reminiscing and being the widow.  I find it hard now to think of my husband actually occupying the physical space that makes up his grave and to me it's more likely that he, as a spiritual being, hangs out wherever he wants with whom ever he wants anytime that he wants.

  

Still, my inner voice says to me that it was almost as if I was annoyed that he wasn't here this Christmas!!  You would think I would have felt this way the first Christmas after he died instead of the tenth Christmas!

But grief isn't linear and it certainly isn't logical right?
 

Newtown One Year Anniversary

Today we pause and pray for the community of Newtown, Connecticut and in particular for the families of the 26 victims shot in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  At a press conference earlier this week, the families asked that people remember the 6 adults and 20 children on this tragic one year anniversary by performing an act of kindness or volunteering with a community group. 

 

You can visit their new website at www.mysandyhookfamily.org

 

50 Years Ago In Dallas

On November 22, 1963, I was 9 years old and off from school that day because I felt sick.

 

I was under the covers of my parents bed and watching the black and white television they had in their bedroom.  For some reason my Dad was home that day and he come upstairs to see how I was when the television programming stopped and the unbelievable and shocking news was announced that President John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas and died.

 

I had never seen my father cry before and I didn't know what to do.  He went over to the window and raised his left arm up against the wall and pressed his head into the crook of his elbow and starting crying.  I silently watched his shoulders shake for a few minutes.  I pulled the sheets up to my face and started to cry too because I knew, even though I was only nine years old, that what was happening was bad, really, really bad.  Bad in a way that I knew was different from anything else I had ever known.  Eventually, my father turned around, wiped his face with his hands and stared at the television as the awful news continued to be announced over the airwaves.

President John F. Kennedy & First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy ride
in the Dallas motorcade moments before shots were fired.
Photo Courtesy of Reuters/STR

 

I don't think anyone turned the television off for days.  Our whole lives revolved around what was being broadcast and no one moved from where there was a television from the moment the news broke of the assassination to the burial at Arlington National Cemetery and even for days after.

The loss was, and still is, profound.  People were in shock and deeply grieving for the young and charismatic president and felt the immediate need to reach out to offer support to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children, Caroline and John.  This was a president who spent a lot of time on television and Americans felt that they were a part of the Kennedy family's life.  At least our family did.

There were no computers in those days so people sat down and expressed their feelings of grief and sympathy the old fashioned way:  they wrote heartfelt handwritten letters. 

The White House said in the weeks following President John F. Kennedy's death that it received more than 800,000 condolence letters, 45,000  of which were received on the Monday following the assassination.

People seemed to instinctively know that one of the most important things you can do for a bereaved person is to acknowledge their loss.  Don't ever be afraid to acknowledge another person's loss.  When in doubt of what to do, it's best to push aside your own anxieties and please keep it simple.

In this tragic instance, it was a loss for the whole nation, as our President was killed right before our eyes.  And while Kennedy was our President, he was also a husband and father and uncle and brother and it is those other human roles that Kennedy filled that also were acknowledged in the days following his death.

And so we take a moment today to remember.

In the words of Monica Lehner-Kahn, "Condolence is the art of giving courage."

 

Holiday Party Questions

Hi there!! It's me again and I am back today with what I hope is timely information to help you deal with the topsy turvy happenings of the holiday season.

You will, and probably already have, received invitations to holiday parties and you may or may not be looking forward to going.  If you have recently lost a loved one I am very sorry that this personal tragedy is happening to you.  Socializing while in the throes of grief can be a bit of a high wire act.

 

I say it's a delicate balance because you don't want to isolate yourself because that is unhealthy for your broken heart and sometimes isolation makes you feel worse about what is happening to you.  However, you also don't want to be accepting every invitation that comes your way because answering all of those unfiltered questions and comments about your loss  is emotionally draining.

What to do?

A guy I knew in my widowed persons support group handled it this way:  he took his calendar and opened it to the months of November and December and wrote in capital letters the word "NO" across the dates.  He said he did this because he didn't want to lie to his friends about his social mood, so when someone would call him and invite him to some party or funtion he would say, "Let me look at my calendar.  Yup, just as I thought, my calendar says 'no' I won't be able to make it."

While that might not be the most gracious way of accepting or declining an invitation it worked for him and the group gave him credit for thinking ahead and coming up with something to help himself.

 

Every effort does not always hit the mark.  Boy do I know this!  I went to a very large Christmas party by myself a number of years ago.  I knew some of the people there and tried to join in the festivities but after about 15 minutes I felt overwhelmed and went to go to the host and hostess and thanked them and explained that I had to leave.  I was an emotional wreck!

To help you decide what kind of social events will or will not work for you as you recover from a loss, AARP suggests you ask yourself the following questions:

--Is this event a "must do," and do I like doing it?

--Is it observed only our of habit or for reasons that no longer fit?

--What are the consequences of skipping the event for now?

--Is there another event we would all enjoy more?

--What would we like to do differently?

 

There is no rule book for healing after a loss.  I just know that it can't be rushed and that we must respect the process others go through to find their own path to processing their pain and trying to do it during the holiday season can make that precarious journey a lot more unpredictable.

 

Hugs to all!!

 

10 Years

Dearest Tommy:

How can it be 10 years?  I miss you!!

                            xoxo

Soul Talking

Just because someone isn't with you doesn't mean you can't talk to them.......right?

People have imaginary conversations all the time.  In the shower.  While shaving or putting on your make-up.  In the kitchen.  Taking a walk.  Jogging.

It's not weird.  At least, I don't think it's weird.  I think of it as collecting or organizing your thoughts to make sure you explain yourself exactly the way you want.  Or sometimes it's venting your emotions to the only person who might really get what you're feeling.

So what if the person is no longer here on Earth? 

It doesn't matter to me because I truly believe with all my heart that those people we have lost to Heaven or whatever you want to call it, can hear us talking to them.

Today is All Souls Day and I bet your loved ones can't wait for you start yakking away.  Go ahead and try it.  I bet it will make you feel better.  Usually I'm at home when I have my talks, but sometimes I'm in the car when I go on about what is happening in my life to my husband, my grandmother, and many other friends and relatives whose souls are peacefully resting in the great beyond.

 

I am not alone in my talking to departed loved ones.  Yesterday a great friend sent me the below story by Mary Schmich, a wonderful writer and columnist for The Chicago Tribune.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!!!!! 

This is a Week To Speak To Our Departed Souls

By Mary Schmich

Chicago Tribune

 

October 30, 2013

 

 

I talk to the dead.

 

Whenever I'm startled by the shapes and colors in the sky, I talk to my brother Bill, an artist who loved to paint the clouds.

 

Some days I talk to my friend Steve, usually along the lines of, "Where the bleep are you, Daley, when I and a whole lot of other people need to talk to you about the idiocy of politics?"

 

Every now and then, while having tea in one of the dainty china cups I inherited from my Aunt Mary Louise, I feel moved to say aloud, "I'm sorry I didn't come visit you more."

 

I often talk to my mother, just to say her name.

 

To some people this will seem kooky, though the rest of you understand. You talk to the dead too. And if there’s any week when we’re licensed--practically commanded--to commune with the dearly departed, this is it.

 

There’s Halloween (Oct. 31). All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1). All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2). And, spanning the first two days of November, there’s the celebration known as el Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

 

Each day, in its own way, prompts us to connect with lives that, to steal a poet's line, have slipped the surly bonds of Earth.

 

In our culture, Halloween is the one that makes the biggest bang. With its candy corn, Batman outfits, naughty nurse costumes, ghosts, goblins and periodontally challenged pumpkins, it's a day when pop culture meets the pseudo-occult.

 

I prefer the other days, not on religious grounds, though they're rooted in religion, but because they encourage a more genuine reflection on death and the relationships that we retain with people who are gone.

 

In many places, the days of saints and souls matter as much as or more than Halloween. From New Orleans to Mexico to France, they're the days for rituals that connect the living to the dead.

 

Clean up the family graves. Build a little altar to the deceased. Picnic in the cemetery. Pray that souls in purgatory be released. Party with a transcendental purpose.

 

As a kid, growing up Catholic, I was particularly fond of All Souls Day. It seemed less celebrity-driven than the day dedicated to the saints, more about the little people.

 

But that wasn't why I liked it. I liked it for the word "soul."

 

What was a soul? At the age of 7, I knew exactly.

 

A soul was a little dog bone planted in the center of a person's chest. When you were born, the dog bone was as white as snow and as smooth as polished stone. When you committed small sins (hitting your brothers, saying bad words), little stains like ink marks appeared on the white dog bone. A big sin (murder) turned the whole bone black.

 

Confession could clean the dog bone, but wherever it had been stained by sin it would remain forevermore rough and porous, like pumice.

 

I have no idea where the vision of the soul as a dog bone came from. From something a nun said? From the primal recess of my child's mind?

 

At any rate, on All Souls Day, I imagined all the dog bones of the departed rising, winged, from the Earth and fluttering free for a while, an image that has endeared the day to me ever since.

 

For Catholics and members of some other faiths, these days have specific, profound meanings. But even for people without those faiths, this week is a good excuse to pause, here in the first chill and fading light of autumn, to feel your connection with your departed people.

 

I no longer know what a soul looks like, but in the past few years as more of the souls I've loved have vanished from view, I have a keener sense of what one is, and that they're still here.

 

A trick of the mind? Could be. I just know that I feel those souls around me, and I like it, and I like the occasion of this week to think about it.

 

It's not all about the candy corn.

Arlington Cemetary Allows Personal Mementos

Arlington National Cemetery has a heart.

 

Officials at the cemetery recently talked to families about their months long practice of leaving personal items on soldier's headstones and Arlington is now compromising on its policies about leaving the personal mementos at gravesites.

 

Today's post is an update of a story I  wrote about on October 3 discussing how staff at Arlington National Cemetery were collecting and discarding personal mementos left in Section 60 of the cemetery an area where soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.  This area of the cemetery is where each visitor's grief is new and raw. 

 

A Military Headstone in Section 60

 

The families had no idea that their love letters, photos, balloons and other items were gone and thrown away until they visited their loved ones and found their tombstones bare.

 

Arlington National Cemetery staffers sat down and met  with the families on October 6 and discussed the situation and a compromise was reached.  Arlington says it now has a better understanding of the comfort that grieving families and friends receive when they leave personal treasures at the gravesites and softening the rules is a measure of support to the families in their time of grief.

 

Cemetery spokeswoman Jennifer Lynch said the cemetery will allow displays through the fall and winter months when the grass doesn't need cut often and that the cemetery will also review its regulations and policies to see if long-term changes can be made. 

 

Arlington National Cemetery is one of the nation's oldest cemeteries and is run by the U.S. Army.  Section 60 holds special significance for that is home to soldiers most recently killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Arlington National Cemetery said it collected the mementos because it had been receiving complaints that Section 60 was looking less than military with photos, stuffed animals, balloons and love notes taped to headstones.  Officials also said people sometimes left inappropriate items in the cemetery such as ammunition, glass and alcohol.

 

But inappropriate as others might think them to be, those personal items were mementos of love, reflecting shattered lives and a need to try and make some sense out of what had happened to their loved ones.

 

Section 60 is truly hallowed ground.

 

 

 

Amazing You!

A significant and ongoing part of the grieving process is learning what to do with the confusing feelings you experience.

 

What am I supposed to do with the sad, angry, and surreal emotions I have inside me about the person who used to be in my life?  That person who was here yesterday, but is not here today, and won't ever be here for a lot more todays in the future.  How can I turn those sad, angry, surreal feelings into constructive feelings so that I can make a future for myself?

Acceptance of my new life and my new status is something I work on all the time.  Sometimes I push myself even when I'm not really sure where I am going because I know I have to challenge myself.  We all need to have something in our lives, something that we are passionate about, that makes us want to get out of bed in the morning and get dressed and go out in the world and interact with others.

 

In the beginning, getting out of bed was the last thing I wanted to do after my husband died.  Fortunately, my wonderful son needed to go to school and more importantly, needed to see that his only parent was functioning on some level as a regular human being.  I ignored my desire to pull the covers over my head and numb myself.  It was hard, very hard, and I felt as though I was walking through cotton candy, but I put one foot in front of the other every day and somehow managed to push forward to rebuild our lives.

 

I found that these confusing feelings were their most intense after my husband's death but even now, nine years later, I still can have a wave of sadness come out of nowhere and totally wash over me.  Last week it was a beautiful, sunny, picture perfect September day and I left my office for a walk down to the Whole Foods store near George Washington University.

Nothing in particular was on my mind so when a slide show of memories of me, my husband and our son started playing in my head I really felt down.  "I don't want to go backwards," I said to myself.  "If I do, I will only feel sad." I kept walking and breathing deeply and eventually got back to my office.

  

It takes a while to wrap your brain around the fact that someone you love very much has died and they won't be with you anymore to do the things that the two of you did over and over again and probably always thought you would do over and over again.

 

In a sense, it is as if some gigantic arm swept across the table of your life and wiped it clean, pushing everything away and laying it bare.  Your life as you know it has disappeared and all the routines you established with this person have collapsed.



Photo Courtesy of Dr. Rennie

But there is still you.  Amazing you!

 

Don't count yourself out.  Ever.

You may feel broken into pieces right now but you are still beautiful and full of possibilities.  You just need to find some glue in the form of love and comfort from friends, family and even support groups.  You do have reserves of inner strength within you and as strange as it sounds, you'll find these reserves when you allow yourself to feel the pain of your loss.  You also find them when you do something by yourself that you never have done before.  I promise.

Naturally, no one wants to feel the pain or put themselves out there in a vulnerable way, but that's when you truly and authentically live life.  I have memories that are so painful that I have mentally put them in an imaginary box.  They are raw and scary feelings but experiencing them has made me live my life differently.

Don't be afraid to spend some quiet time; time thinking about what you have been through and where you may want to go in the future.  Eventually the pieces of your life will start to come together and slowly mend, forming a stronger person.

Let's go forward, for you and I are on new paths, and together we will accept and persevere.
 

It's All About Our Stuff

Earlier this week I wrote about finding my deceased husband's tweed jacket in the back of a guest room closet and what it felt like to discover it.

 

Now, unfortunately, it's time to say good-bye to his Irish wool jacket.  It doesn't fit my son and the jacket doesn't really hold any special meaning for him.  Even though it once belonged to my husband, I have arrived at that point in my life where I know I can't save everything that holds meaning for me.  Some things you just have to set free into the universe. 

 

 

 

In my head, I know that my husband was a lot more than his stuff.  A whole lot more.  His stuff did not define him.  I tell myself over and over that a loved one's possession is just that: a possession.

My heart knows that the memory I have of his possessions will always be strong and special and I won't forget it.  But that doesn't make getting rid of it any easier.

I know.  I know.  Eventually, I'm going to have to let it go.

I can take a picture of it.  I can digitalize it.  I can donate it to someone who will actually use it.

But then I won't be able to touch it or hold it or smell it.

There are no grief guidebooks out there which tell you exactly what you should do for every situation that you will need to confront upon a loved one's death because each life journey is unique.  We each must learn for ourselves how to cope and process our grief.

 

And going through a loved one's things after their death is part of processing your feelings.  It's amazing that I found the jacket in the back of the closet and even more amazing to look at the articles that were inside the jacket.  But there is a time for everything and I think the jacket had its time with my husband.  Now it's time for the jacket to find another man.

 

You may be in a similar situation right now and looking for ways to figure out what to do.  This article from The Minimalists has some helpful hints and a touching story about getting rid of a loved one's things and may help you define what's important and what's not important, what you should keep and what you should discard:

http://www.theminimalists.com/sentimental/

Good Luck!!

Insight From Grey's Anatomy

I was clicking around on Pinterest (which is truly a guilty pleasure!!!) yesterday and found this insightful and timely quote on one of my niece's boards.

How true! Grief is unpredictable!  And that's why people don't like to talk about it, or acknowledge it, and hope, hope, hope, that it will go away all on its own. 

But Cry, Laugh, Heal is all about having an honest dialogue about grief and resilience and sharing what helped me after my husband sadly died nine years ago.  I have found that time and support from friends and family have helped me but I also have discovered that you have to face grief straight on and feel its pain before you can start to recover and get to a place where you feel you can begin to let it go.

 

And even then, even when you feel you are letting it go, grief and its sadness still has the uncanny power to boomerang back on you. 

 

In the interest of sharing and letting you know that you are never alone in your roller coaster feelings of loss, let me tell you about a personal experience that brought home how you really can't control grief or the conflicting feelings that travel with it. 

 

This past Labor Day weekend I decided to clean my guest room which has been a mess for a few months.  I keep throwing things in there and yesterday I finally decided to wade into the clothes, books, boxes and papers and start to get rid of some of this ridiculous stuff.  To make room in the closet, I started at the very back of it and brought out the first batch of hanging clothes.

 

What do I spy with my unsuspecting eye? An old tweed jacket that belonged to my husband.  I had no idea that jacket was back there, hiding like an unexploded emotional time bomb, and I just stared at it for what seemed like a good 30 minutes.  I'm not even sure I remembered to take a breath.  Then I smelled it to see if his scent was still on it, but of course it wasn't.

 

Next I put my hand into the pocket inside his jacket and I found his checkbook!  No handwriting was on it anywhere but it was weird to open it and read his name on the clean pale blue checks.  Then I put my hand into one of the outside pockets and I found a pair of his black framed reading glasses; the ones where one of the arms was bent.  Another episode of staring and remembering.

 

But then in the breast pocket of the jacket, I found two cards that were the size of business cards, which is what I thought they were when I first touched them. I pulled them out and one was a business card but the other was a reminder card from his doctor.  You know the kind I mean; those cards the doctor gives you with the patient's name written in along with the time and the date of the next appointment.

 

Only this card had my husband's name on it and the date of the appointment was November 10, 2003 and the appointment was written in for 11 am.  I stared at date.  My husband died on November 12, 2003.  I called my son's name out and showed him what I had found.  He stared at the card for a long time too and didn't say anything.  Then he handed it back to me and just said "Wow."

 

We both felt as though my husband, his father was there in the room with us.  I half expected to hear his voice or see him walk into the room. 

 

We think he was trying to tell us that it's okay to let go; but please do not ever forget him.

 

Newtown On Labor Day

Today is Labor Day and I have the day off from work.  YEAH!!! I hope you do too!

Maybe you are planning to go to a friend's house for a special holiday meal or you are going to cook for your family.  Or maybe you're just hangin' at your own house catching up on personal projects.  Or maybe you're going to go to an afternoon picnic or watch a community parade.

 

In Newtown, Connecticut today, there will be a parade.  A parade of love and community and healing.

 

 

It will be same parade that thousands of residents have watched and marched in since the town first held it's Labor Day parade in 1962.  But this year's parade is different.  There were doubts about going ahead with the parade given the deep tragedy that residents experienced on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary when 20 first graders and six adults were massacred by a lone gunman. (http://crylaughheal.blogspot.com/2012/12/newtown-connecticut.html)

 

Many in Newtown didn't think it was appropriate to hold a Labor Day parade this year when so many in their community are still trying to process their loss and rebuild their lives.

 

It is difficult to know what to do next when a life is lost; especially in Newtown where their losses happened in such brutal and cold-hearted manner.  I have found that in the midst of mourning there comes a point when you experience what I call the push-pull of  the healing process.  You know life is different; that life will never be the same without your loved one, but you also begin to search for a way to move forward with your life.  

 

I think Beth Caldwell, head of the Newtown Parade Committee, explained it best when she told the Associated Press (in the story below) that Newtown, in planning this year's Labor Day parade, wanted to be "respectful of what happened and still offer an avenue of celebration" for the residents. 

Labor Day is traditionally the last weekend of summer, a last hurrah of sorts.  Labor Day is also seen as a time of transition from summer to fall, from vacation to school.

Please read below in the link to an Associated Press story in The Boston Globe about Newtown's touching transition on this Labor Day, as it slowly moves from a terrible tragedy to a new kind of healing that I hope will get stronger with the passage of time.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/2013/08/31/with-parade-newtown-reflects-how-healing/x1O6IICVDovinXuc86W6qO/story.html

Tweeting A Mother's Life

Over 340 million tweets are sent and read each day.

 

In the midst of all those competing thoughts, messages and trending topics, Scott Simon posted a large number of tweets late last month that broke through the rush of chatter and caught the attention of  a large part of Twitter's world wide audience.

 

Simon, National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday host, was sitting beside his mother's hospital bed and relaying intimate, tender and immediate thoughts about his precious time with his mother in the last days of her life.

 

I can't imagine having the clarity of mind to tweet while you are taking care of a loved one who is dying but I am thankful that Scott Simon did.  The immediacy of his tweets and the strength and love in each of Scott's tweets took my breath away.  Mortality is a touchy subject that scares yet enlightens us.

 

In turn, I think Scott Simon's tweets courageously shared such a heartbreaking yet basic human experience that the tweets must have made others stop and think about the loved ones in their lives who may be ill or have already died.

I wish Scott Simon grace and peace as he and his family mourn and cope with the loss of his mother.  It would be so much easier if there was a guidebook or a magic formula presented to us after a loss.  How reassuring it would be to know that if we followed or did certain things that ultimately all would be right with our world once again.  But life doesn't work that way.

Losing someone you love and learning to live without them is a roller coaster of a journey we all must eventually take and no matter how much love and support we have and how much time passes by, we have to learn to look within ourselves and figure out for ourselves the best way to heal and rebuild our lives.

 

Here are some of the compelling posts that Scott Simon sent live about his mother to his more than one million followers:

 

And here is the link to the Washington Post story about Simon Scott and his remarkable tweets:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/nprs-scott-simon-takes-twitter-to-a-new-frontier-his-mothers-hospital-bed/2013/07/29/44cc67ea-f86f-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html

Within The Morning Light

I am an early riser.  I find the morning to be peaceful and so quiet.  I use my morning time to collect my thoughts about what I think is going to happen during that particular day and pray for other things that I hope will happen.

 

So the morning is when a lot happens for me.  With my trusty cups of hot tea, I appreciate the solitude of the wee early hours of the day.  Quiet allows me to think and to breathe and pull myself together.

 

I am always writing down blog ideas and collecting different points of view on the subjects of resilience, rebuilding a new life and grief but the morning is usually when I actually post my thoughts.  I try to write whenever I get the chance so I don't lose my ideas, but that is sometimes difficult because I also have a full time job that I work during the day.

 

You may not be a morning person but perhaps you find quiet for yourself at other times of the day.  Try to spend some quiet time with your thoughts.

 

Short periods of time spent in solitude can be a good thing.

Solitude

By Garnett Ann Schultz

 

The sighing wind so slowly passed

Across the rolling seas,

It climbed the hill and came to rest

Among the stately trees,

Each nodding flower nestled there

Within the morning light,

Protected by the still of dawn

As darkness crept from sight.

 

The golden sun came stealing through

And lingered on the breeze,

As nature loaned an added charm,

A gentle little tease,

The dew that sparkled on the grass

The quiet, oh, so dear,

Within the tender arms of Spring

A peacefulness and cheer.

 

No sound within the forest glade

But that of singing birds,

A music sweet upon the air-

No human voice is heard,

Just Mother Nature lingers there

A carefree, happy mood,

The world in quietness supreme

God's wondrous solitude.

Widow Chick

I don't know the woman who writes the amazing blog called "Widow Chick" but I feel as if I do.

 

She (aka Catherine) is to-the-core honest and humorous in writing about her daily travels as a widow and a woman who is trying to be Mom and Dad to three young children.  I regularly read her blog and it always gives me a boost!

Widow Chick's Husband

 

Yesterday she wrote a particularly touching post about an important anniversary in her life and I would like to share it with you because she is right on point in expressing her thoughts and feelings about what happened.

 

Please read this link which will take you to Widow Chick's blog post:

http://widowchick.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-6th-anniversary-to-yall-its-just.html

God bless you Widow Chick!

The Uncertain Path of Newtown's Mourning Parents

It is rare for a national newspaper to begin a story on its Sunday front page that then continues to run for five pages of copy and pictures inside the paper and is dedicated to the subject of grief.

 

But that is just what The Washington Post did yesterday and Eli Saslow, who wrote and reported the devastating story, and Linda Davidson, who photographed the compelling pictures for the story, deserve a standing ovation for bringing much needed attention to what life is now like for the Barden family of Newtown, Connecticut, a family in the throes of raw, searingly painful grief as they try to figure out what to do next since 7-year-old Daniel Barden, the youngest in the Barden family, was shot and killed at his school.

 

Seven Year Old Daniel Barden

Mark and Jackie Barden's 7-year-old son, Daniel, attended Sandy Hook School Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot 20 children, including Daniel Barden, and 6 adults in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary.

 

Yesterday morning when I went out to the front yard to pick up The Washington Post, I pulled the paper out of it's plastic sleeve and flipped it over to see what was happening on the paper's front page.  I immediately saw the story's headline, "Into The Lonely Quiet," and started reading it as I went up the steps and back into the house.  I was riveted.  I continued to read the story about the Barden family as I found a chair and didn't stop reading it until I reached the last word at the end of the story that is so sad on so many levels.

 

Please read this insightful story about the Barden family.  My prayers are with them as they try to navigate the tragic loss of their young son, Daniel, pictured above.

Here is the link to The Washington Post story:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-newtown-shooting-mourning-parents-enter-into-the-lonely-quiet/2013/06/08/0235a882-cd32-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html

 

Your Personal Path

Unlike many things in life, there is no right or wrong way to grieve.

There's really just your way.

 

Whether it's through talking, crying, or slowly processing your feelings privately, grief must be acknowledged.  If you try to suppress your grief feelings, they will only come back later on and sometimes they come back in unhealthy ways.

 

 

Even though others will probably try to suggest that you should do certain things at certain points in your grief process, it really and truly is up to you and what you feel comfortable doing.  There is no schedule.

Some people bury their feelings and hope that their sadness will go away on its own because life feels like a bad dream.  Others talk openly about their loved one and try to constantly share the fear, disappointment, frustration and guilt of their stories.  Many people find it comforting to set up memorials to their loved one and the process of setting up such a memorial starts the healing process for them.

 

But grief shakes us to the core and makes us question aspects of our lives that we once took for granted.

Below is a different kind of story about grieving that appeared on the website Hello Grief (www.hellogrief.org).  It is a story of a woman who grieved privately, away from others as she searched for the facts and the reasons for her loved one's death.  She tried to use the process of searching for answers as a distraction so she wouldn't have to think about what happened to her.

 

This story is one more way of creating a dialogue about grief and coming to an understanding about the complicated yet personal way that people decide to process their feelings of grief:

My Life As An Analytical Griever
By Emily Clark

How being an intellectual helped – and sometimes hindered – my grief.

Numerous studies have been done over the years that look at the ways that people grieve. A number of theories about the styles or patterns of grief have evolved from this research. Perhaps one of the best theories I have heard over the years contrasts emotional and analytical grieving.

Emotional grievers are probably the people we stereotypically imagine – loud outbursts of emotions and tears, heavily dependent on those around them, weeping on the shoulders of friends and strangers alike, fully immersed in the emotion of grief whether they are in public or at home.

Analytical grievers, on the other hand, are the people who often get a bad rap when it comes to their grief. These are the grievers who often experience their emotions when they are alone – they save the crying, weeping, and wailing for when they are alone. For me this usually meant breaking down in the car on the way to or from work or, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, in my office at work (thank goodness I didn’t work in a cubicle).

Because analytical grievers don’t often display much emotion in public, people around them often think they aren’t grieving “correctly” or at all. I remember a family member telling me 9 months after my husband had died that he didn’t think I was all that heartbroken because he hadn’t seen me ever cry. The truth was, I cried all the time. For hours and hours, every day. I just did it when I was by myself and didn’t have to worry about what others might think or how uncomfortable I might make them feel. It wasn’t until much later on in my grief journey that I realized that letting go and crying in public from time to time might actually have made me feel better. It would have saved me hours of agony trying to hold in my emotions as they built up and built up until I burst.

We analytical grievers also spend a great deal of time and our grief energy on trying to figure things out and get things done. For some this could mean hours poring over medical researching online, filling out forms, reading every book on grief possible, planning a funeral, or taking up every ounce of busy work available. While my family sat around scratching their heads in confusion, I insisted on going over every detail of my husband’s vehicle accident, over and over. I read the coroner’s report, witness testimony, and practically interrogated the first officers on scene until even they couldn’t take it anymore. I insisted on seeing what was left of my husband’s wrecked vehicle, despite all advice to the contrary. I immersed myself in book after book, seeking out literature that might hold the key to saving me from the mess I was in. For me this was all a part of trying to understand the how and the why of what had happened. I needed information. I needed answers.

Sadly, these answers never came. With every new detail I acquired, I felt as if I understood less and less. All the facts in the world couldn’t take away the simple truth: that my husband was gone and never coming back. Over time, my obsession of analyzing his passing became a distraction from my grieving. Rather than facing the truth and finding healing, I was distracting myself from the pain. Well…as much as one could anyway.

Eventually I began to realize that I would always be left with a multitude of unanswerable questions, and let myself drift into an ocean of pain and emotion. While I never lost that tendency towards trying to “intellectualize” my grief, I began to appreciate and embrace my emotional side as well. There was a delicate balance between trying to understand and just letting myself feel.

So if you or someone you know is grieving, I urge you to take a moment to consider your own grief style as well as theirs. Instead of questioning the way they express themselves, try to remember that there is no right way to grieve. For some, our comfort is in being alone and keeping busy. For others, healing comes from crying on the shoulder of a friend (or stranger). Whatever the case, I urge you to embrace your grieving style and respect the grieving style of those around you.

Our thanks to guest author Emily Clark for sharing her story here with us. You can read more of Emily’s journey through young widowhood on her blog.

Heaven

There's a place where we all want to end up. 

We know it by name but where is it?  Where is Heaven?

I was thinking about Heaven yesterday while attending the wake of a man who was one of my father's best friends.

This man was a good man, worked hard, had a wonderful wife and children and tried to do his best for others.  I'm sure he is in Heaven, wherever that is.

I'm also sure that other people that I knew and loved are in Heaven: my husband, all of my grandparents, my aunt and uncles and some friends.

I believe in Heaven but the idea of not knowing where it is nags at me.  It's a concept that rolls around in my head.  Maybe it is up above us, waaay up above us, but who knows? And what do they do there?  I imagine that people in Heaven are different ages, not the age they were when they died, and that they do things that they loved such as playing baseball, or having parties or being at the beach.

 

This is my idea of Heaven

 

I also like to think that they are with us and try to guide and help us.

I think not knowing where your loved one is located is one of the big frustrations about grief.  You are physically cut off from a loved one when they die and there's no way to find out where they are or even how they are doing.

Is it asking too much to know these things?  I don't think so.

I think it's the least they could do after leaving us.  They should at least call, email or text us about what's going on with them.  They must know that we wonder.  They must know that we think about them all the time.

People who have had near death experiences have described what has happened to them and that is probably the closest we will come to finding out what Heaven is all about.

A lot of people talk about seeing a bright light and also seeing people they know.  Katie Couric aired an episode on her daytime show addressing the subject of Heaven and interviewed people who had been through traumatic experiences and spoke of going to heaven and then coming back to their lives.  In an interview Katie Couric did with Dr. Mary Neal, Neal describes being trapped underwater for  15 minutes and losing consciousness.  Neals' description of heaven is of a place filled with love, a love we have not felt here.

Maybe your ideas about Heaven are completely different.  Please share if your thoughts if you would like to!

Here is the link to the Katie Couric interviews with Dr. Mary Neal and others:

http://www.katiecouric.com/on-the-show/2012/10/08/to-heaven-and-back/