By Joy Johnson, Centering Corporation —

When the goddess emerged from the cave of her sorrow she wept anew
for there was no one there to greet her. (ancient Greek myth)

One widow said it well: “You find out who your friends are!” Many people think that illness, death and other tragedies bring people closer together. Actually, the opposite is more often true. Stresses build, relationships have changed, anger, guilt, sadness and all the other emotions that come with grief seem to attack everyone at different times and in different ways. Recognize that all your family and friends will be grieving differently.
They don’t know what you need.
They don’t know what to say.
They are probably afraid of their own feelings.
They want you to feel better so they’ll feel better.
Most of them are uncomfortable around grief and loss.

There are many times when you will have to take the lead. Audrey’s eighteen-year-old son killed himself. Three weeks after his death, she took her seven-year-old daughter to church to get ready for the Christmas program. As she walked in the door, thirty women working on costumes became suddenly silent. Audrey sighed. She turned to the friend who had carpooled with her and said, “Our pastor said we would have the burden of making people comfortable. I guess I start now,” and she walked to the nearest table and simply opened up her arms for hugs. Voices rang out and she was immediately surrounded by loving arms and heart-felt tears.

Take the lead! If no one calls you to meet for lunch–call somebody new. Want to see a movie? It may take six or seven calls, but find someone or go alone and have your own popcorn. Even though it’s hard, make a list of what you want to do and go after it.

You will hear a lot of stupid things. People worry and worry about what to say to you. They’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, reminding you of bad memories and hurting you, so they try to make it better and often fail miserably. As one bereaved mother said, “At least they gave me lip service and didn’t ignore me.”

Another had words of real wisdom: “When people say how I’ll feel better soon and that at least I have other children or good memories or it could have been worse. When they say he’s in a better place, I’m not ready to hear it. In a few years, I’ll look back and think how most of those sayings were true, but not yet. When people give you cliches and obviously don’t understand, it may be helpful just to say, ‘Thank you,  I’m just not there yet.'”

Prepare to be surprised. You are likely to be surprised at who among your friends and family step up to the plate and who disappears into the shadows. People you hardly know will contact you and tell you their stories and know how you feel. Others will not invite you to their parties and ignore you completely.

People are afraid of grief. And you may be surprised at your own reactions to friends and family. Aunt Doe (no cousin ever called her “Aunt Doris”) was gentle and as my mother said, “Never said a bad word about anybody.” But after Aunt Doe’s husband died, mother said something and Aunt Doe let her have it with both barrels. Mother was astounded. “That just wasn’t Doris,” she said over and over again. “That just wasn’t Doris.” She didn’t understand about grief.

Some families have sea-gull grievers. “They fly in, usually from out of town. They make a lot of noise. They bother everybody. They make a crappy mess, then leave and make somebody else clean it up.” This is your grief and your life that is important here. Find the help you need, whether it’s legal, spiritual, emotional or medical and take care of yourself. It’s not your job right now to take care of everyone else. It’s your job to make sure you grieve in healthy ways without interference from family and friends.

Find a support group or a good listener. In the beautiful book, Tear Soup, an old and somewhat wise woman named Grandy suffers a great loss and has to make tear soup. She hears of some other people who are also making tear soup, calls them together for a BYOS (bring-your-own-soup) dinner and they all share their tear soup. The last sentence on that page is vital. It says, “And they became Grandy’s new best friends.”

Your funeral director, pastor, local hospice or hospital social-work department should have a list of local support groups. You don’t have to say anything when you go. You can share at your own comfort level, and you will learn a lot from people who have walked the walk. Louise said, “I walked in and they were gathered around having coffee and laughing. I thought, how can they laugh when I’m in such pain? but way back in my head, a little voice said, ‘Lou, someday you’ll laugh again, too.’ That group saved my life.” And if the first group isn’t a fit for you, try another. If there is no group in your area, find a friend, family member or someone who will listen to you without criticizing or telling you what to do.

You will hear, “Call me if you need anything,” or “Let me know what I can do.” Those are caring statements. The problem is, it puts the burden of contact on you, the griever. Never be afraid to ask for what you need. Never be afraid to find new friends and every night before you go to sleep, say a quiet “thank you” to those friends and family members who are there for you. Some nights it will be short, but gradually it will expand into an impressive collection of love and support.

In 1978, Joy Johnson and Dr. Marvin Johnson founded Centering Corporation www.centering.org. The Centering Corporation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education on grief and loss for professionals and the families they serve.

Centering Corporation has done remarkably well in the industry, with now a compilation of over 500 resources for grief and loss including the magazine Grief Digest. They continue to provide educational offerings, bookstores, and workshops for caregivers and families, with a heritage of becoming the largest provider of resources for Grief and Loss in the nation.

Joy received the Professional Service Award from the Compassionate Friends in 2004 and has written or edited 150 books on grief.  She has co-presented more than 500 workshops at seminars and conferences. Joy is the author of Keys to Helping Children Deal With Death and Grief, published by Barrons in New York, and The Very Beautiful Dragon series, published by Centering Corporation.

The Johnsons live in Omaha, Nebraska, and have six children and seven grandchildren.

The post How to Help Our Friends Help Us When We’re Grieving appeared first on Open to Hope.

It breaks our hearts, it troubles our minds, it rattles our souls; seeing children we love devastated, weeping, sorrow-filled. We want to fix it and we can’t.  I can’t just go out and buy a new daddy. I could always do that with broken Barbies. I can’t put a BAND-AID on it. I can’t kiss it and make it stop hurting. I can’t even tell her it will be all right. All I can do is hold her and help her cry. (Mom in Seattle)

Grieving children usually face at least four tasks. In a way, they apply to all of us, for when we grieve we are indeed like children.

1. Recognize the reality of the death
Probably the single most important thing you can do to help the children in your family is to be honest. When her mother shot herself when Margo was four, the children were told their mother went on vacation. Her clothes and belongings were gone; she had just disappeared. The next year when their father told the children they were going on vacation, he couldn’t figure out why they were terrified. Children deserve to know the truth. Use the real words:  dead  and  died.  Explain what happened. If the death was violent, the children will find out what happened sooner or later and it’s best if they find out from you or some other loving family member. Secrets can hurt. Welcome their questions. Getting honest answers helps them grieve in healthy ways.

2. Grieve the death
Children, especially younger ones, tend to grieve/play, grieve/play, ask questions, grieve again. Jon was eleven years old when we sat on the floor together. “What’s the single most important thing adults need to know about grieving children?” I asked him. “Tell them every day is not a bad day for us,” he said. The British talk about  puddle jumping where children jump into puddles of water then out again. They often grieve that way, too-jumping into it, then out again; while we adults tend to sit in the puddle and wallow in our grief.

3. Commemorate the person who died
When someone dies, we all need to DO something. Talking about their person who died and making something that helps us to remember that person can be tremendously healing. Children have made comfort pillows out of a piece of clothing worn by their loved one, kids have worn their grandfather’s shirts, made angel bookmarks and done scores of other activities that let them know their person lives on in their hearts. Families can do significant things together such as picnicking at the gravesite, releasing balloons, planting a tree or garden or even a potted plant. Remembering and celebrating the life lived is important.

4. Moving on to new relationships including one with the person who died.
I don’t remember the name of the movie, but I will never forget a young Barbara Streisand sitting by a tree, leaning against a stone talking heart-to-heart with her grandfather. After awhile she said, “Well, Gramps, gotta go.” As she stood up we could see a funeral procession entering a cemetery and realized the stone was a grave marker. She had been sitting on Gramp’s grave having a chat and a new relationship with her grandfather. New relationships don’t just occur with the person who died. When Ben’s brother was murdered, Ben became the eldest sibling; everything in the family order shifted. Christina’s father died and at age fifteen, she became one of the family breadwinners. Going to Grandmother’s for the holidays is different without Grandpa there. All relationships will be new in a way. Like grief, building new relationships takes time.

There are many things you can do to help grieving children in your family. Find out if there is a center for grieving children near you and make an appointment. Your funeral director, pastor or social worker should know or can find one through the internet. These centers are wonderful and seeing children helping children is awesome.

Gather resources.
There are dozens of extremely helpful books and videos available, both for children and for you and your family. Whoever gave you this article will know how to get them.

Tend your own grief.
Let the children know you will be sad for a long time. Let them know that every single person in the world hurts like this at some time. Let them know you can all cry together and that they don’t have to take care of you. Let them know their job right now is to be kids and that sad or happy, crying or laughing, you’ll be there for them, as will a lot of other people who love them and want to help.

Remember, you don’t have to do it all alone. “Even though I was a girl, right after we came from the funeral, my grandmother let me go with the boys in the family and pick through our grandfather’s tools. Last year I used the old hammer I picked out to hang the first picture in our new baby’s nursery.”  (Karyn)

Joy Johnson and Dr. Marvin Johnson founded Centering Corporation, www.centering.org. The Centering Corporation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education on grief and loss for professionals and the families they serve.

The post How Can We Help Grieving Children? appeared first on Open to Hope.

There are wonderful public rituals to enrich and comfort us after a death.

The Bringing of Food
In most communities people bring casseroles or snacks to the home following a death. It’s a time of talking and remembering and telling the story.

Every time the doorbell rang, a friend was there with everything from my favorite cookies to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Every time they came in I told them what happened.

The Story
Asking, “What happened?” may be as caring as saying, “I love you.” When we tell the story of the death, what we did, what others did, what happened, we are both remembering and mourning. We are framing our grief into a remembrance.

At first it was hard to talk about it. I cried; they cried. But by the end of the first day, it felt as if a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders. I wanted to tell about it.

The Funeral or Memorial Service
This is a major part of our public mourning. Whatever service you plan, you will be creating a ritual. A ritual is a pattern of expressions to share our love and say goodbye. It is a time of gathering and once again, sharing our stories. Today’s funeral can be whatever you want it to be. If your loved one’s body is present, you can choose whatever clothing you want, whether it’s a nice suit or a flannel shirt and jeans, the cheerleading or band uniform, a lovely negligee or bib overalls. Two teenage girls did their mother’s makeup and placed her favorite mug in her hands. The cremated remains of a loving grandmother sat in her urn atop her prize-winning quilt. You can do what you want to do and the caring people at the funeral home will do everything in their power to help.

At RJ’s funeral we dressed him in his western shirt, put his boots and some wildflowers beside his casket, and had western music. Our family all wore our cowboy hats.

You can have music you like, a butterfly or balloon release, a tree planting, lunch at your loved one’s favorite restaurant. After a cremation, you can have bits of ash put into beautiful jewelry. Your funeral home can help you research any need or idea you have. Years ago, we took pictures of the body to send to family who could not travel the long distance by horse and carriage to attend the funeral. You can take pictures today too, and it will not be bizarre or strange.

Making Memories
Mourning and remembering don’t stop after the service. There are countless things you can do to remember. At first, especially following a long, difficult or tragic death, the memories may be haunting and uncomfortable. This will gradually change and there will be good memories and bittersweet ones that come. You can:

Design a tasteful shrine
While this may seem like a new idea, most grievers create a small shrine and sometimes are not even aware of doing so. One young woman sat her dad’s picture, taken in 1950, on his desk and put his fountain pens in a semi-circle around it.

Wear a remembrance wrist band
These are plain black, white or colored bands with one-word or short message. Not only can you think of a gentle memory every time you look at the band, others will ask about it or know you lost someone.

Wear something that belonged to your person who died
Whether it’s a shirt, a coat, a pin or some other item, you’re likely to feel comforted and closer to your loved one. Sisters have claimed all their brother’s shirts, men have put a small pin belonging to their wives on their lapels, and wives have carried their husband’s wallet. A famous comedian could not sleep until he moved to his wife’s twin bed. Do what feels right for you.

Create a memory quilt or teddy bears
Some people take their loved one’s clothing and make it into a quilt. One mother used all her son’s soccer T-shirts. A man’s shirts, a woman’s blouses or dresses, a child’s play clothes or a teenager’s jeans can miraculously turn into a thing of beauty with the person’s name, birth and death date embroidered in a corner.

You can also have clothing made into delightful teddy bears or afghans.

Some firms will put your person’s photo on a lap robe to wrap you in memories and comfort.

Keep a journal
This may be the most helpful thing you do. Called a “cheap psychiatrist,” you can use a guided journal or an inexpensive notebook. Record your thoughts, feelings and memories. As you look back over time, you’ll see how you are healing.

Visit the cemetery or other special place
One widow told how she went to her husband’s grave every week and talked to him. Other people have a quiet time sitting beside the urn. If you cannot or do not feel a need to do this, a quiet place in your home or outside will be fine.

Families whose loved one died in an auto accident have built the little crosses or descansos that are by the roadside. There are yard stones to be inscribed with your loved one’s name and any other message. You can do such a simple thing as lighting a candle, or an involved one such as climbing a mountain to write your loved one’s name in the book at the top. Remembering in these ways is healing and creative and, almost universally, memorializing helps you feel better.

Think of your own ways to honor and commemorate the person you still love who has died. To do so is loving, heartwarming and can free your spirit.

Joy Johnson is co-founder of the Centering Corporation, www.centering.org.

The post Public Grief Rituals: What You Can DO appeared first on Open to Hope.

By Joy Johnson —

Grief: the range of emotions or feelings we experience when someone we love dies.
Grief is the price we pay for loving.

If you are reading this, it’s likely you loved, and still love, someone special who has died. You are grieving, and knowing some things about grief lets you know you are not alone.
o Everyone in the world grieves.
o Everyone in the world also does it differently.
o And most people grieve in four ways.

Physically – Our bodies grieve.
As my father lay dying, my Aunt Ada hurried out to the restroom. When she came back she said, “I lost my cookies,” a polite way of telling us she threw up.

When you grieve:
o Your heart may actually ache. Your head may hurt. You feel exhausted.
o You may not see clearly. Your stomach may feel upset or ache.
o Colds may attack you. You may have difficulty sleeping. You can’t concentrate.
o Symptoms of the illness that caused your person’s death may visit you.
o You may feel hungry and eat all the time or not be able to eat at all.

All these and more are common to grievers. If you are worried at all about your health, by all means see your doctor. Be especially careful, however, about taking sleep aids or tranquilizers. Some of these can actually prolong your grief.

What you can do: Make a commitment to yourself and your loved one who died to take really good care of yourself for the next year. Kelly Osmont knew her son, an only child who died after being kicked by a horse, would expect her to do just that. For one year after his death, she concentrated on eating right, drinking a lot of water (we loose water when we cry), exercising and getting sleep, even if it meant taking frequent naps.

Sometimes I’d wake up and the last thing I wanted to do was take a walk. I would see all the reasons why not to, like words on the inside of my eyelids. Then I would imagine windshield wipers wiping all the words away, and I’d get up and go.

Emotionally – We have all sorts of feelings that hit us like waves.

Here are just some of the feelings you may experience: sorrow, anger, loss, emptiness, fear, anxiety, depression.

What you can do: Accept that these feelings are normal. They aren’t good or bad, they just are. They are likely to hit you unannounced when you least expect them. Know they will not last forever and that you can handle them.

I found someone to talk to. Just having coffee with a friend helped. When I got scared, I called someone or left the house for awhile. I invited myself to cry whenever I needed to. When I was mad, I took a kitchen towel and hit the bed. I talked to my loved one, too.

Mentally – Sometimes it’s all we can think about. Grief plays with our heads.
It’s easy to get caught up in questions-the “whys” and “what ifs”. You go over and over things in your head. Decisions are difficult. You forget things. You act differently and can’t figure out why. You read the same sentence over and over. It’s just plain hard.

What you can do: Get to know Grief, and know it well. There are small, simple books to help you on your journey. Keep a journal to record your feelings, your questions and make sure there’s a calendar to mark up and check a few times every day so you don’t miss appointments. Make a mental note that nothing is too small to write down. As part of your journal, let your eyes and mind watch for one thing each day that brings you joy-and write it down.

Some of the little joys I wrote about seemed to tiny: a tulip blooming, a bird on my porch, an old photograph I found that made me cry and that went into my journal, too,

Spiritually – When someone we love dies, our whole being aches.
Some people feel they could never get through grief without their faith. Others say death destroyed their beliefs.

I felt as if a hole had been torn in my soul.

Religion is the practice of faith. Spirituality is responding to something greater than ourselves. Spirituality is that which brings you peace. The spirit searches and yearns and the heart answers. This can be a time of great spiritual growth for you. It can bring wisdom and concern for others as well as for yourself.

What you can do:
Learn all you can about grief and how you can use it to become the person you want to be. Read. Talk to other people who are grieving as well. Be determined, even in your weakest moments, to grow from this experience, no matter what your age or circumstances. As the old saying goes, “You can go through this and grow through this.” The person who gave you this information is a fine resource. Feel free to contact them whenever you have a question or a need.

You are on a journey. Each day will take you in a different direction. Recognize grief as a normal, healthy part of life. Know that it will lessen over time. You will laugh and find joy again.

I know that dead or alive, she would want me to have a good life.

REMEMBERING
o We never forget.
o The person we loves lives in our hearts for as long as we live.
o As soon as our person dies, the mourning and remembering begins.

In 1978, Joy Johnson and Dr. Marvin Johnson founded Centering Corporation www.centering.org. The Centering Corporation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education on grief and loss for professionals and the families they serve.

Centering Corporation has done remarkably well in the industry, with now a compilation of over 500 resources for grief and loss including the magazine Grief Digest. They continue to provide educational offerings, bookstores, and workshops for caregivers and families, with a heritage of becoming the largest provider of resources for Grief and Loss in the nation.

The post Getting to Know Grief appeared first on Open to Hope.

By Joy Johnson —

It breaks our hearts, it troubles our minds, it rattles our souls, seeing children we love devastated, weeping, sorrow-filled. We want to fix it and we can’t. A mom in Seattle said: “I can’t just go out and buy a new daddy. I could always do that with broken Barbies. I can’t put a Band-Aid on it. I can’t kiss it and make it stop hurting. I can’t even tell her it will be all right. All I can do is hold her and help her cry.”

There are least four tasks of grieving children. In a way, they apply to all of us, for when we grieve we are indeed like children.

1. Recognize the reality of the death
Probably the single most important thing you can do to help the children in your family is to be honest. When her mother shot herself when Margo was four, the children were told that their mother went on vacation. Her clothes and belongings were gone; she had just disappeared. The next year, when their father told the children they were going on vacation, he couldn’t figure out why they were terrified. Children deserve to know the truth. Use the real words: “dead” and “died.” Explain what happened. If the death was violent, the children will find out what happened sooner or later and it’s best if they find out from you or some other loving family member. Secrets can hurt. Welcome their questions. Getting honest answers helps them grieve in healthy ways.

2. Grieve the death
Children, especially younger ones, tend to grieve/play, grieve/play, ask questions, grieve again. Jon was 11 years old when we sat on the floor together. “What’s the single most important thing adults need to know about grieving children?” I asked him. “Tell them every day is not a bad day for us,” he said. The British talk about “puddle-jumping,” where children jump into puddles of water then out again. They often grieve that way; they jump into it, then out again, while we adults tend to sit in the puddle and wallow in our grief.

3. Commemorate the person who died
When someone dies, we all need to DO something. Talking about the person who died and making something that helps us to remember that person can be tremendously healing. Children have made comfort pillows out of a piece of clothing worn by their loved one; kids have worn their grandfather’s shirts, made angel bookmarks and done scores of other activities that let them know their person lives on in their hearts. Families can do significant things together such as picnicking at the gravesite, releasing balloons, planting a tree or garden or even a potted plant. Remembering and celebrating the life lived is important.

4. Moving on to new relationships including one with the person who died
I don’t remember the name of the movie, but I will never forget a young Barbara Streisand sitting by a tree, leaning against a stone talking heart-to-heart with her grandfather. After awhile she said, “Well, Gramps, gotta go.” As she stood up, we could see a funeral procession entering a cemetery and realized the stone was a grave marker. She had been sitting on Gramp’s grave having a chat and a new relationship with her grandfather. New relationships don’t just occur with the person who died. When Ben’s brother was murdered, Ben became the eldest sibling; everything in the family order shifted. Christina’s father died and at age 15, she became one of the family breadwinners. Going to Grandmother’s for the holidays is different without Grandpa there. All relationships will be new. Like grief, building new relationships takes time.

There are many things you can do to help grieving children in your family. Find out if there is a center for grieving children near you and make an appointment. Your funeral director, pastor or social worker should know or can find one through the internet. These centers are wonderful and seeing children helping children is awesome.

Gather resources.
There are dozens of extremely helpful books and videos available, both for children and for you and your family. Whoever gave you this article will know how to get them.

Tend your own grief.
Let the children know you will be sad for a long time. Let them know that every single person in the world hurts like this at some time. Let them know you can all cry together and that they don’t have to take care of you. Let them know their job right now is to be kids and that sad or happy, crying or laughing, you’ll be there for them, as will a lot of other people who love them and want to help.

Remember, you don’t have to do it all alone. Karyn, whose grandmother died, remembered: “Even though I was a girl, right after we came from the funeral, my grandmother let me go with the boys in the family and pick through our grandfather’s tools. Last year, I used the old hammer I picked out to hang the first picture in our new baby’s nursery.”

In 1978, Joy Johnson and Dr. Marvin Johnson founded Centering Corporation www.centering.org. The Centering Corporation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education on grief and loss for professionals and the families they serve. Joy has co-presented more than 500 workshops at seminars and conferences.  She is the author of Keys to Helping Children Deal With Death and Grief, published by Barrons in New York, and The Very Beautiful Dragon series, published by Centering Corporation.

The post How to Help Children Grieve appeared first on Open to Hope.

Joy Johnson:? She said, ?I won?t say grace because we don?t have anything to be thankful for.?? And Darcie tells how she began to argue with her [5-year-old] and it was one of those arguments that every mother knows, and every mother knows she?s not going to win this one.? And finally Allie said, ?I?ll say Thanksgiving at desert.?? And Darcie said, ?That?s good.? We?re having pumpkin pie.? It?ll be worth being thankful for.?? So the time came and she had them hold hands because ?The Waltons? was a TV show then.? So they all held hands and Allie bowed her little head and said, ?Thank you for the little while.?? And I think for all of us, all the parents whose child to say ?to be thankful for the little while? is so important and to remember, as you had said, to remember the good times and then to be brave enough and courageous enough to do what you really need to do on that day.

Joy Johnson:? When you were talking about what people had done ? to eat a lot, drink a lot, watch football ? I thought, well, that?s a pretty typical Thanksgiving Day.? You watch the parade.? But it is.? It is so tough and I think there are things we can all do to make it a little less tough.? One of the tough things, I think for a lot of us, is that life just goes on.? That it happens.

Joy Johnson:? It?s tough and anger just flares sometimes.? In fact, with children who have been murdered, it can become rage, and I think there?s got to be several good outlets for that.? Anger a lot of times occurs ? our stereotype is more of guys than of gals, more dads than of moms, but it goes across the board and it?s a normal, as you know, normal accepted part of grief.? It?s what we do with it that is so important.? We have a book coming out for dads and we haven?t got a title for it yet.? Rob Anderson is writing it.? His son was murdered and then set on fire.? He talks some about taking care of your anger and having a time when you can just yell.? Just yell and hit something with your fist that is not gonna hurt someone else.

Joy Johnson:? We just last week had a day-long camp called ?Tinsel and Tears and Holiday Hope? and there are four tasks of grieving children and one is to recognize the reality of the death which is hard for all of us sometimes, to grieve the death, to commemorate the person who died, and then to move on to new relationships, including a relationship with the person who died because we?ve been talking about Scott and you still have a relationship with him.?

Joy Johnson:? Sometimes for me when I look at a holiday, an anniversary, a birthday coming up that I anticipate it being so bad that when it actually comes, it?s not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.? That one day, as one mother said, this is it? because she?d expected the world to stop.

Joy Johnson:? It?s a little late for this now, but you?re right.? You can still do something.? Anger I think needs a physical outlet and if you don?t, one man said, take your anger for a walk.? It?ll bubble out.? Talk into a tape recorder if you want.? As long as you don?t hurt someone else or yourself.? Anger can be really healthy.? It motivates us.? It gets us moving.

Joy Johnson:? So if I remind myself that Thanksgiving, the holidays, grief itself can be like Darth Vader, pants are falling off, they can?t really see, then you can have the courage to move on and do what you need to do.

?

The post November 23, 2006 Thanksgiving Reflections Joy Johnson appeared first on Open to Hope.