News That Inspires

I don't know about you, but when I read newspapers, magazine or books, I am always looking for stories about people who have overcome a tragedy or some other kind of obstacle in their lives.

 

I am always amazed when I read about how someone who has experienced the death of a loved one or another kind of personal crisis then manages in the midst of this personal pain to find reserves of inner strength to work through their conflicting feelings and move forward to pursue something positive.  The same is true of someone whose life seems full of things going wrong yet somehow works through those obstacles and turns their life into something constructive.

 

In reading about someone else's story, no matter what the situation, I find that something clicks within me and I am reminded that I am not alone in my healing journey.  Life hands you choices that you don't expect and frankly don't like at all.

But life then also shows you that others have burdens or baggage, if you will, and I am inspired by people from all walks of life who expose their human and vulnerable side to the world and aren't afraid to recount what has happened to them and how that sadness affected their world but they decided to rise above it.

I love sharing these stories with you, my fantastic readers, and I hope you find them inspirational too!  I know I can't do it alone and I when I read about how other people handled their tragedies, I say to myself that if this person moved forward with their life then I can do it too!

This particular story that I read recently in The Washington Post is very uplifting to me.  It concerns a mother named Annette Weller and her daughter, Lauren Weller Sidorowicz, who sadly lost her valiant battle with bone cancer in 2011.  One day during Lauren's eight year stay at the pediatric unit of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, a pediatric cancer psychologist dropped off some colored markers and told Annette that she could draw on her daughter's window if she wanted.

Photo Courtesy of The Washington Post

The human spirit can be resilient in its ability to take a wide range of feelings and thoughts and channel them in a therapeutic way through drawing, painting, writing, singing or even sewing that can lead to a healing of broken heart.

Please read this touching story about Annette and Lauren and how Annette now uses her art to help others: 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/colorful-murals-keep-a-daughters-memory-alive/2013/08/12/37f0234c-0105-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html

Making A New Bedroom

On the weekends, I like to try and organize myself.

Sometimes I succeed in my de-clutter efforts and sometimes I don't.  During the work week, I have a very bad habit of throwing clothes and papers into piles.  By the time the weekend rolls around, I know I have to deal with the piles and hang stuff up and throw things away.

 

This past weekend marked a milestone for me because I just had my bedroom painted and most of the stuff that was under my bed,  hanging on wall and door hooks and on top of my furniture was in another room.

Just typing that sentence is a big deal.  It's my bedroom; not our bedroom.  I am taking a big leap by changing the room and making it look different than it did when my husband was alive.  Not that the room looked all that great when my husband was alive but it was ours and it was comfortable.

 

This was my opportunity to practice what I am always writing about: to embrace your life and move forward.

I was going to paint the room myself last summer but something always seemed to happen and I never got around to it.  Other rooms in the house have changed since my husband's death but this one has remained essentially the same.  I enter the room but I never really look at it or spend any time in it.  I usually go to my bedroom when it's time to sleep or change my clothes but I don't go there to hang out and say, read a book, or talk on the phone because there are too many memories there.

 

Now, nine years later, after all this time, I finally realized I had to make it a different room.  Otherwise, it would always be "our" room and that would be rather silly since my husband died.  I didn't even put any of my clothes in the drawers on the other side of the bureau because those once belonged to him.  It didn't feel right putting my things in his drawers.  But last year, I slowly started taking over all the drawers (it felt weird at first) and I must admit I am thankful for the extra space.

It was a gradual decision to change the room.  Over the past year, I found it was getting be a real downer to be in the room because here I was trying hard to rebuild my life and move forward yet when I came into my bedroom it was stuck in time.  I had flashbacks to our time together and I loved the memories, yet I knew that I would still have the memories even if I painted the room, bought a new bedspread and pillows and moved the furniture around.

Of course, this didn't come to me all at once.  It took awhile for me to push myself to do this.

Even though it was hard to do, I am now glad, and actually sort of relieved, that I am changing my bedroom because now it feels fresh and renewed.  It's okay to give yourself as much time as you need to feel comfortable with whatever changes you make in your life after you lose a loved one.  You know how it feels and you know when you are ready to think about your life in a different way.

It's not sad to change.   It just means that I am taking what has happened to me and learning how to blend it into my present life in a positive way.  I'm not leaving my husband behind because that's not possible. 

But I've come to the point where I realize it's okay to make new memories for myself.
 

Healing Therapy

 

Drawing By NYC Multiple Medium Artist Joe Mangrum

One of my sister has a shoulder that is frozen and she is going to a physical therapist to work through the incredibly stiff shoulder muscles and joint.  If the physical therapy doesn't work, then she may have to have surgery and she really doesn't want that to happen.

 

We were talking about her physical therapy and she was telling me about how the therapist told her that to really get the exercises to work and unlock the muscles and joint that the therapy would have to increase to another level and she asked my sister if she was prepared for the "wall of pain" that she would have to work through to achieve her goal.

 

My sister said she was prepared and she knew it was going to be bad; that it would be so painful that she probably would cry.  But she still is committed to the next level of therapy, know that it's going to be awful, but also feeling hopeful that this increased therapy could be successful.

 

This may sound random to you but the more that I talked to my sister about her "wall of pain"  the more I felt I was talking to her about processing grief.

 

New grief can be so painful that it feels as though a part of your body has been amputated and you are walking around in a state of hemorrhaging.  You need to just take each day as it comes and little by little, you will start to feel that the pain is decreasing. 

 

But there is still a core amount of pain that requires work from you.

 

I think this concept was the hardest part for me.  When my husband died, I was stumbling around and in a state of numbness.  Every day I was full of grief and pain.  What was I going to do?  I had just lost my husband and everything was falling apart.  I thought I could read about grief and think about grief and it would eventually disappear.  Not!

 

Months and months of just feeling terrible finally made me realize that I had to do some of the work myself.  I had to actively figure out how to make myself feel better.  I found a support group at a local hospital and in the beginning I talked to someone on the phone for one-on-one time.  Later on, I joined a group and went to sessions twice a month to talk about grief and rebuilding my life all over again.

 

It was exhausting but I am so glad that I took the first step and asked for help.

 

It's important for you to recognize that you need time to work through this loss of your loved one.  There is no way to know how long it will take you to process your feelings.  Everyone grieves differently and takes different paths in their grief journey.  I do think it's fair to say that healing can come in cycles of ups and downs.

 

You have to confront your "wall of pain" and feel it.  The processing of this pain is hard for you are giving yourself permission to remember all the good things and all the bad things that your loved one was to you.  Write it down, shout it out, talk to a therapist, talk to a friend, paint it, take a shower and cry or go running and cry.

 

But get it out. 

 

Vent your feelings and thoughts and work through you "wall of pain."  You are releasing the pain and the hurt and the anger and the frustration and the confusion of not knowing what you are supposed to do next.

 

And in releasing your "wall of pain" you are empowering yourself and moving forward. 

 

For grief that you hold within yourself only keeps hurting and hurting.

 

 

Courtesy of NYC Multiple Medium Artist Joe Mangrum

 

 

Your Inner Artist

Free Your Inner Artist

Without any notice, life can change direction.  Finding that you have to suddenly walk down a new path can be scary.

One of the ways that I have found to deal with life's anxieties is to do something creative.  Being creative can take you out of yourself.  Working with your hands -- whether gardening, painting, writing, playing a musical instrument, crafting, sewing or cooking -- allows your mind to take a rest from what is happening in your life.

 

Doing something artistic also allows you to express your emotions and possibly bring about healing.

Sometimes, things are created spontaneously and you're not sure where it came from; it just happens.  As writer Kurt Vonnegut says in the quote below, "art is a way to make your soul grow."

 

One's art can say things that one cannot or will not verbalize.

 

Whether expressing joy or pain, letting your inner emotions loose can drive you to create all manner of art and in the process begin to heal your broken heart, the core of your inner being. 

 

 

Porch Painting

I am painting the screened-in porch on our house and it is taking me a lot longer than I thought it would.  This time around there is more sanding and it just seems as though there is more to paint.  I had forgotten the amount of prep work necessary before you can even put the brush in the paint.  Oh well...I'm making progress as the radio blasts America's Top 40, even though I'm occasionally pulled back to thoughts about the last time I painted the porch.

Eight years ago, the porch was new and my husband was alive.  He loved the porch and spent a lot of time there reading and resting.  Often I would find him sitting in one of the chairs with his eyes closed, feeling the soft breeze.  Or he would just sit out there by himself staring off into the distance.  I often wonder if he knew how sick he was at that point.  I think he felt very tired from the diabetes and his heart condition, but I never really knew what he was thinking about because once he saw me he acted as though everything was fine.  He would smile and then ask me what was going on in the world.



When I was painting the ceiling, my husband would sit inside in the family room and read one of the many  newspapers we had delivered to the house.  Sometimes he would read stories out loud to me if he thought he found one that was particularly interesting or weird or involved someone we did or didn't like very much.  Of course, I didn't always agree with the selection of stories he decided to read to me.  If he started to read something that I particularly considered a waste of time, I would yell something back like, "Stop reading.  I don't want to hear anything more about blankety blank."  Did he stop reading?  Nooooo way.  He would go on reading until he reached the end.  It would drive me crazy but it also made me paint faster.

As a family, we ate lunch and dinner on the porch as much as we could and my son and I still spend just about the same amount of time out there.  But DC summers can get really hot and humid and at some point the weather becomes unbearable and we have to retreat inside for a cooler place to eat.  My favorite times on the porch are late dinners on the weekend.  Just as finish our meal, the sun starts to set and we light the candles.  No one is in a hurry and we lazily talk and catch up with one another.  Of course, we thought that routine would never end; that we would always hang out on the porch and have relaxing dinners.  We had no idea what was in store for us and it was just as well.

It's still a very special porch and lately it has been the site for graduation and birthday celebrations.  I know it will continue to be the site of many more happy family events.  One event, planned for later this summer, is a bridal shower for one of my nieces who is getting married in November 2011.  New memories will be made with this bridal party and I look forward to celebrating my niece, her fiance and their exciting future.  And in the midst of all the bridal excitement and the wedding decorations and gifts, I will sweetly remember the man that I was once married to.