Seeing Clearly

"Give yourself the gift of time in coming to answers for your life. . . .

 

It takes time, and a lot of introspection and soul-searching,

 

to get clear about what you really want to manifest in your life."

 

                                       ~Author David Emerald

The 64 Untalked About Ways of Grief

People love to read lists.  I'm not sure why, but it could be because all of the best ideas relating to a particular subject are organized in one place.  Or maybe it's because people want to see if what they guessed would be on the list is actually on the list.

I think that sometimes lists are over used but not in this case.

Today's list comes from a wonderful website I recently discovered called What's Your Grief? (www.whatsyourgrief.com) and I bet you a million dollars that you probably have never read a list like this one.

Titled "64 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Grief," it is refreshing and revealing because of the stigma surrounding the subject of grief.  People don't want to talk about it and will go out of their way to make sure that it isn't brought up in conversation.  If you are grieving, people act as though you have an infectious disease and being around you will cause them to catch it (#9).  And then there is the idea that you think you know what it's about until it actually happens to you (#1).

#23 really resonated for me.  "Grief  doesn't come in five neat stages.  Grief is messy and confusing."  I didn't experience grief in the prescribed five stages that are always written about and I don't think anyone ever has.  You do feel denial, sadness, frustration and many other emotions but sometimes you feel some of them one at a time, sometimes none of them for a long time and sometimes you may feel them all in one day. 

It just depends on your relationship with that person, how they died and how you process your emotions concerning your loss.  Everyone's grief really and truly is unique.

A lot of thought went into making this list and I really think it's helpful to everyone, children and adults, because you may come across a truism that you have felt yet no one has acknowledged to you.  To find out that someone else has felt exactly as you have felt is comforting and tells you that it's okay.  You're not going crazy.  I think it is always a blessing to find out that you not alone.

In some ways, the list feels like a big hug!!  Please check out the What's Your Grief? list in the link below and share what you think so we can help each other.

http://whatsyourgrief.com/64-things-about-grief/

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.

 

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.

Fathers & Sons

Today I'm going to visit my Dad and celebrate Father's Day a day early.

My son won't be joining me because he is out of town visiting his girlfriend.  Even if my son were here in town, I would still be emotionally torn on Father's Day.

My Dad is still alive and our family is lucky and blessed to have him. But my son's father, who was also my husband, died nine years ago and the celebration of Father's Day makes me feel guilty and conflicted. Guilty because my father is alive and his isn't.  Conflicted because I want to make my son and my Dad happy about this day but I can't.  I know, I know, life is never fair but I wish my son could have had more time with his father when his father was in better health.

 

The memories that hold true for my son of his father involves hospitals, doctor's offices, medicine, and constant badgering from me to get his father to do the things he needed to do to stay healthy.  My son was too young at the time of his father's good health to truly remember the Halloween outings, Christmases, beach vacations and other fun times we did have as a family.  There are lots of pictures to remind him, but that's not the same.

 

 

I can't change that for my son but I still wish for it.

I've asked him about his feelings when Father's Day arrives and he just quietly says he doesn't like to watch other people with their fathers. That's probably the understatement of the century. He also says that he forgot that this weekend was Father's Day. Right. When he does see fathers and sons together, I know his mind starts to wander and he thinks about how it might have been different for him if his Dad hadn't gotten sick and died when he was 13-years old.

And that makes me feel bad even though I have no way to change the situation.

So full of guilt, I go visit my Dad and hang out with him for awhile and wish I could make things different for my wonderful son who deserves to have his healthy Dad with him today.
 

What Am I About?

One of the presents that my insightful son gave me for Mother's Day is a book about blogging.

From the very first post I wrote, he has always been my biggest supporter.  I love it!

He is always asking me what I am going to write about and I run ideas by him to get a younger point of view and I also ask him for permission to write about him or something he said or did.  Some writers would disagree with requesting permission from him but I feel it is the polite thing to do and asking also prevents angry or hurt feelings. 

At 22 years old, my son has very good instincts about life plus he visits completely different websites than I do.  He is happy to give me a heads up about an idea that he thinks might translate into a timely post and I am glad he does.  He has given me some great ideas! And so has my son's book!

One of the first exercises the book suggests is to make sure that you know who you are as a blogger.  Are you a baker? A decorator? An athlete?  I am a little bit of all of those things but that's not why I chose to start writing my blog.

 

 

I started Cry, Laugh, Heal in December 2010 because my husband died in 2003 and I was raising our son by myself and working a full-time job.  I had spent two years attending a support group for widowed persons and then decided that I wanted to contribute to the online conversation about grief.

 

In the beginning, I only wrote once a week and I only wrote about grief.  As I started to work my way through some major grief feelings, I began to see that I was doing more than surviving and getting through a day.  I was slowly but surely, with the help of others, rebuilding my life.  It's not the life that I thought I would be leading, but it's a life I feel good about and a lot of it has to do with blogging.

 

I am still working a full-time job but I always find time to write.  I too am still working through my grief and just like you I need support.  In every post, I try to be as honest and as straightforward as I can be.  It is important to me to call things what they are, for that is when you truly start to untangle a feeling, a problem or a situation.  I love the comments that readers leave and I look forward to all the different kinds of feedback that blogging makes possible.

So to answer the question of the exercise in my son's book asking who are you as a blogger?  I am a widow, a mother, a former journalist and a dancer.  I love life and I try to do something every day that scares me, that challenges me and that I am passionate about.  I try to stay authentic about what grief is and how I deal with it; how sometimes it just pounds you down.

 

But you can't give in to the pain for there is so much in life to discover anew and it's usually on the other side of the pain.

 

Thank you so much awesome readers for visiting my blog, Cry, Laugh, Heal.

I'm not sure where life is taking me but let's travel together.

 

Moving Day

I received a couple of texts over the weekend from a friend who lives in another city about how he now lives in a new place.

 

I didn't know he had moved from his home of almost 20 years so I was surprised by his news but I also knew that there was more to the story than just a regular heave-ho move from one place to another.

 

 

My friend lost his wife to cancer a number of years ago and she was a wonderful and talented person, but she also was the kind of person who kept everything.  She was not a hoarder but instead was a person who wanted to keep things so that she could pass these things along to other people because she knew that they would be perfect for someone else.  She kept all these things until she saw the person she had in mind or until she eventually got around to sending the item to the person.

 

This is why I knew that when my friend said he had just moved to a new apartment that it must have meant that he had come face to face with the dreaded day he had tried to put off for so long:  what to do with her possessions.

 

There are times when we all need to try and work through stuff by ourselves and then after a while of giving it our best shot, there comes a time when we need to talk to friends about what is going on.

 

And when what is going on is bad, I think the best thing to do is shut up and listen to the person who is going through a painful time. And listen. And listen some more until the person says they can't talk anymore and they have to get off the phone.

 

Which is what I did.

 

And I was happy to listen to him talk about the all of the tons of stuff he found and what he did with it.  I would go into more detail but this part is not my story to tell.

 

My part of the story is about the idea that even though you may not be in a crisis mode, it is always nice to have someone to reach out to.

 

To connect with someone else on a human level.  To be able to say this is what is happening to me and it sucks, big time!

 

To feel that another human being understands you and gets what you are going through.

 

To know that you are not alone.

 

And you never are either, my friends!!! Ever!!!!!

 

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.
 

Breaking Out of Expectations

 

 

Photo Courtesy NY Daily News

 

When I write in my posts to you about rebuilding our lives after a loss, I don't mean to make it sound as though I suddenly woke up one morning and decided "today is the day I'm going to try to put together a new life."

 

Instead, what I really mean to say is that the step-by-step process of figuring out what to do after your loved one has died is a much more subtle process that usually happens slowly, almost as though you were putting your toes into a cold ocean and getting used to the temperature.

 

There is a lot of trial and error and I still find it to be scary.  Yet, when I try something I have never tried before and it turns out to be a good experience, it is definitely a confidence booster.  There have been times when some financial decisions I made by myself were not exactly the right ones, but then there were other good and solid decisions which lead to funny experiences, such as giving a party by myself and driving from Washington, DC to Connecticut with my son for the first time.  I learned a lot about myself and my comfort levels.

 

It's a weird time because the person who you used to talk to about plans, ideas and dreams is no longer there and you are flying solo.  Out there pretty much all by your lonesome.  So yes, you can basically do whatever you want to do, but do you really know what you want to do?  Not really.

 

Do I want to stay in the house we shared?  Do I want to stay in this city?  Do I want to keep the person's belongings?  How do I want to spend my free time?  What do I want to do next?  These and thousands of other questions are spinning around in your brain which just feels like Jell-O.

 

Nine years later, it still is scary but not as much as it used to be.  It took a long time for me to land in this place but I think I have finally given myself permission to live my life; to try things that are new and to not feel guilty about enjoying good times.  The sad and bittersweet times still visit me but not as often as they did in the beginning of my grief journey.

 

Today I think I can truthfully say I'm daring me to be more of myself, whatever that may be.

 

And that's a good kind of scary.

 

As Joan Juliet Buck writes in the following essay that was published in the October 2012 issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine: be bold in your life choices because true audacity can never be overlooked.  (For background purposes, you should know Ms. Buck's father was the American film producer Jules Buck).

  

 

Marilyn Monroe

 

Daring

By Joan Juliet Buck

Harper's Bazaar Magazine

10/24/12

 

I was with my parents at Idlewild Airport when Marilyn Monroe came toward us, escorts on each side, a big coat over her arm.  She'd been in one of my father's movies, so she stopped to hug him and shake my mother's hand, and continued along her way.  As he watched her wriggle down the corridor, my father shook his head and said, "Christ, still no girdle."  The retreating bottom looked soft, uncontrolled, and very present, as if a cat was lolling inside the tight skirt of her dress.  In those days, women's lower torsos were carefully caged up in rubber mesh.  I was five, and I was shocked.

 

Daring is about shocking children while you set free something that was seriously caged up.  It's about breaking rules.  The first rule that everyone breaks -- in art, fashion and conversation -- is modesty.  (You don't believe that about conversation?  Try going without "I" for two hours.)  Marilyn Monroe could challenge the zeitgeist and perturb the composure of men by forgetting her underwear.  My generation challenged the zeitgeist in the name of freedom, but it was really to perturb men: political and social acts were secondary to our true work of raising our hemlines, ditching our bras, unbuttoning our blouses, neglecting to shave our armpits, and consistently failing to grasp what the word sheer truly meant.

 

It's harder to shock today, when the actual part of a body that a garment might hide is often a random choice, and the Brazilian wax had to invented to disguise any evidence of the bull's-eye.  In the past few years, shoes had to carry most of the burden of shocking, but by now the sight of young women six and a half feet tall holding on to walls and doorways so as not to fall off the Trump City edifices on their feet are no longer remarkable.  No herd animal is ever daring. 

 

Acts of daring are always committed alone; even if they lead you to another person.  Once I kissed a man who was just a friend.  The only reason was that I couldn't understand why he had not yet tried to kiss me.  It set off something that lasted for decades.  I haven't tried that again with other men friends; truly  daring acts only happen once.

 

The daring are angels and geniuses and demons and divas and clowns, and sometimes also patsies, stooges, and fools.  Daring is not safe.  The impresario Serge Diaghilev said to the poet and painter Jean Cocteau, "Amaze me."  He did not say, "Reassure me," "Tell me I'm right," "Admire me," or "Stay in line and you'll get a nice pension."  Diaghilev could have been speaking for every good agent, every real gallery owner, every disconcerting collector, every casting director, even, I hate to say this but we have evidence, every TV judge.

 

Art demands daring.  It demands the new, the untested, the unproven.  And if you try, you will at some point fall on your face, just like the first wearers of impossible shoes.  My fashion life was born from little moments of daring; asking a new acquaintance called Karl Lagerfeld, "What are those brooches on your lapel?"  Pretending I could speak Italian so John Fairchild would send me to Rome for Women's Wear Daily.  Saying, "Why not?" when I was offered French Vogue.  It was daring, also, to let go when I realized how little the job suited my character.  I had no idea that would leadd to performing in black-box basement theaters and telling stories on the road, though I could have guessed; I love the unknown and am not afraid of ridicule.

 

The moment of greatest fear comes just before going onstage, because an audience is out there, and shared time is real time, no rewinds or rewrites.  The tension between wanting to flee and needing to stay and pierce through the fear is one of the most uncomfortable and delicious moments I know.  There are pills against stage fright; I would like a pill to get stage fright more often.

 

I believe, like the Surrealists, that everything creative arrives without calculation, but you must be prepared.  You need the skills to transmit unconscious impulses, but you also have to be humble.  The moment I think what an ace I am, I'm lost.  This is not an advantage in New York; where modesty is not welcome.  Performing has taught me that the second time I do something the same way, I'm developing a routine, and a routine is just shtick, the performing equivalent of a pink-slime hot dog.

 

You cannot standardize the moment when you break out of expectation and biography into something real.  You have to be uncontrolled and very present.  That's what I learned from watching Marilyn Monroe walk away when I was five.

 

Marilyn Monroe

 

 

Dealing With "The Blues"



Covered Bridge in West Cornwall, CT
 By Thomas Schoeller

I keep a folder of story ideas and I was going through it yesterday in search of something timely to write about that I thought would also be helpful.  Some of the things in the folder are ideas I have quickly written down so that I don't forget them and other papers include clippings from newspapers and magazines.

 

I came across this bit of wisdom from The Washington Post's Marguerite Kelly.  Kelly writes a popular advice column called The Family Almanac.

Here is a question that a reader sent in about something I've experienced and I'm sure some of you readers may have too.  Kelly's insightful answer is just wonderful!:

Question: What is the way to deal with the blues?  My dad died two months ago and sadness has been coming out of nowhere ever since.  It sneaks up on me while I'm going about my business, eating breakfast or running errands.  Sometimes I have to retire to the bathroom at work so I can pull myself together.

It almost seems harder to get over my father's death than it was to get over the death of my husband las year, although I may be forgetting how sad I was at that time.  Or maybe it's the culmination of it all.  When I sit in my bedroom, here on my farm, I'm in the quiet, with just the silence of the sunset out of my window to keep me company, and I pray about being alone.  I guess the blues are part of my life now, a thing that has to be endured by me.  There doesn't seem to be a way around the sadness I feel.  How can I keep it from consuming me?

 

 

Answer from Kelly:  If you think that you should be done with the blues after just two months or a year, you're asking way too much of yourself.  The more love you have given to someone, and the more he has given to you, the harder the waves of grief will hit you when he dies.  Such is the price of love.  You can expect these waves to keep hitting you for the next few years.  But you shouldn't regret your grief, for it is giving you the time you need to draw on the strengths and the goodness of those you've loved and lost and to dwell on the memories you have shared.

As you stumble along, you'll find that grief is a journey and that you're going to feel pain along the way, no matter what you do.  The pain will be less intense, however, and less frequent, if you remember the happy times more than the sad ones.  You wouldn't want grief to define you.  You can also deflect some of the pain by making a few small and important changes.

 

If you've been living alone since your husband died, you may be giving sorrow too much space to grow.  Consider getting a tenant.  Your pastor may know a parishioner who would like to rent your spare bedroom, or perhaps a nearby college has a visiting professor or a graduate student who needs a place to stay.

 

It may bother you to share a fridge with a stranger at first, but a tenant is never a stranger for long.  You could also get rid of sad feeling in a more creative way.  You may not be able to paint or scult, but you can tear up scraps of paper and turn them into a collage that will be quite meaningful, if only for you.  Or perhaps you can write about our feelings in a journal.  If you compare your early entries to the ones you just wrote, you'll be pleased, and somewhat surprised, to see that your mood has gotten brighter by the day.

 

You also might grieve less if you try something you"ve never tried before, such as stargazing, bird watching, gardening or kayaking, because every new skill will introduce you to new friends and new ideas.  You'll dig your way out of grief best, however, when you start paying more attention to the living than the dead.  There is always someone who needs a meal to be delivered, an errand to be run or a needs whenever you can, because it is the right thing to do, and also because you don't know what tomorrow may bring.  We've been told to live each day as it it was the last one we'd ever have.  But we might be nicer to our loved ones if we thought that it would be the last one they would ever have.

 

In addition to these ideas, there are also many books to help you get through your grief.  "Necessary Losses" by Judith Viorst (Free Press, 1998: $16) is still one of the best.  This seminal book will help to put your heart and your mind to rest.

Finding Support

 

Re-reading my first Cry, Laugh Heal post from 2010 for Monday's edition brought all the crazy grieving feelings back to me: exhaustion, numbness, raw emotions, the scary future and sometimes even laughter!

But it also reminded how great my support group was during that time and how it gave me hope and helped me feel that life really would get better even though my husband died.  As I met with my small group twice a month, some sessions were upsetting and some were comforting but eventually I felt less alone and stronger about myself and my murky future.

There's a very good reason why they are called support groups: they are set-up to give that extra boost of support needed to help you handle a life crisis and the people in the group have been in your situation.

 

The philosophy of most support groups is this: we have been there, we know how you feel, and you can lean on us until you feel stronger.  Whether it's grief, alcoholism, drug abuse or any other condition where people reach out for help, those who have experienced it are part of the group and lend a helping hand by giving back to those trying to figure out how to deal with their crisis and the more experienced people pass along how life can be lived in a different way.

 

For me, that was the secret weapon of my support group.  The leaders of my group had lost spouses, raised children, and rebuilt their lives.  I had no idea how they had done it but I was there hanging on to every word, reading every bit of material and drawing all of the strength that I could from them because I told myself that if they could do it then so could I.

 

We were bound by our common loss and our discussions, which usually lasted for about two hours, were supportive and healing.  People in my group were newly widowed and had the opportunity to talk about all the issues surrounding their spouse's death, things that they didn't feel comfortable discussing with even their family or friends.  The getting it out, the expression of emotion truly was a huge help.

 

I remember at my first meeting I was nervous because I didn't know what to expect.  We went around the table and introduced ourselves and I thought I would be fine until it came to telling why we were there.  I started to cry and couldn't stop.  But it was okay.  Everyone was quiet and waited for me.  I finally got through my story and when I was finished there was such understanding.  It was so reassuring to me!!!!

 

I could only belong to my support group for two years and while this support group worked me, joining a support group may not be for everyone.  Many people prefer the privacy of one-on-one talks and that is wonderful too.  I tried one-on-one chats for a few months until I was ready to join my support group.  A wonderful and compassionate woman from the support group would regularly call me on the phone and we would talk for about an hour.  I can't tell you how helpful it was to have that support!  Having someone listen and then having her tell me what she did after her husband died was such a gift.  To this day, I treasure those conversations.

 

You are not alone and you don't need to bear your loss all by yourself.  I found my support group at the local hospital but you could also ask your family doctor or a trusted friend.

 

Please don't be afraid to take the first step.  There are lots of helping hands waiting for you!

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

Happy Birthday Cry, Laugh Heal!  Yup.  It has actually been one whole year since Cry, Laugh Heal was launched as a blog and I really can't believe it.

How would I measure my first year of blogging?

In friendship,

in kindness,

and in support.

That's what blogging has meant to me.  It has opened up a new world and that is exhilarating.  Along with my son's help, I pushed myself to learn something new and I am so glad that I did.   I made plenty of mistakes along the way and I'm sure I will make more next year.  But the important thing is to keep moving forward!!

Since the day I wrote my first post, I have been pleasantly surprised by the numbers of readers from all parts of the world who log on to read Cry, Laugh, Heal.  From Saudi Arabia to Lithuania and from Ireland to Nigeria, the power and reach of the internet is truly incredible and never ceases to surprise me.

I wasn't quite sure what blogging was all about but I did my research and googled around and found I liked the creativity and the immediacy.  Most of the blogs I visited were about cooking, lifestyles, decorating, health or politics but not many blogs were set up to discuss what I wanted to write about: grief, resilience and rebuilding your life.  These things I know from first hand experience.  When my husband died eight years ago, our son was thirteen years old.  I felt very alone in facing the future.  By writing a blog, I hoped I could give back and help others by writing that it's okay to acknowledge your feelings whatever they may be.  Ignoring or repressing your feelings only assures that they will last longer.

My life today is not the same life that I had when my husband was alive but I think I have carved out a solid life for myself and my son that is full of different kinds of love and adventure.  It takes time but it is possible to make another life for yourself.  It may not seem that way some days when you feel as though you have fallen off a cliff but then something can happen the next day and it can make you feel as though you have reached a place of healing.

Photo By Katie Quinn Davies

I was nervous about putting my thoughts and feelings out there in Cry, Laugh, Heal for the whole world wide web to read...or not.  But I took a deep breath and decided it was time to put myself out there.  I was a reporter many, many years ago and then later worked in communications.  Currently, I edit a newsletter about grief and thought that blogging could take this subject to the next level.

It means so much to me that you take time out of your day to read Cry, Laugh Heal.  Your support  -- and the constant support of my wonderful son, Ryan, --  is energizing and has helped me write over 100 posts, more than I ever expected.  I look forward to 2012 and cross my fingers that the number of my wonderful, fantastic, beautiful readers will continue to grow.  All I can say is:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Bridge of Love



Photograph by Philippe Garavel

In Paris, lovers fasten padlocks to the railings of the Pont des Arts bridge.  The couple then tosses
 the keys into the Seine river below, symbolizing their eternal love.

Happy Friday everyone! 

The following quote is from the last paragraph of the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thorton Wilder.  I'm sharing it because I think it captures the essence of what we all strive to do while rebuilding our lives after the loss of a person near and dear to us:

"We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. 

But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them.  Even memory is not necessary for love.

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."