Question from a reader:  It’s now been six months since my mother died. In many ways it seems like worlds and eons since then, but in some ways not at all. I really miss her …

One early weeknight, I accompanied military personnel to announce the most dreaded news that any family could receive. Once we arrived at the address, we walked up to the lighted front door and knocked. A …

You were there
I took my first breath.
Knowing there would be many left.
You were there
I looked into my mother’s eyes.
It was your plan never to be denied.
You were there
I took my first steps.
You love me even …

It was only in the sanctuary of Dr. Walter’s office that I began to feel safe enough to talk about my mother’s suicide. His voice was calming. It was a relief to talk openly with …

Today — February 23, 2010 – is third anniversary of my daughter’s death.  She died from the injuries she received in a car crash.  I have conflicting feelings: sorrow that will be with me always, …

My mother and father passed away in 2008. They had Alzheimer’s and they died 36 days apart of each other. At the time of their diagnosis, their neurologist told me that my father …

Mother Agonizes Over Pet’s Burial
Question from a reader:  I am writing in hopes that you may be able to provide advice or support that I can give my parents who just had to euthanize their 12-year-oldd …

Have you ever had an experience where you said, “Wow, what a coincidence.”  Maybe it was more.  Maybe it was actually a “synchronicity.” Let me explain through a Jungian perspective.
Carl Jung, the prominent Swiss psychiatrist, …

Oprah has one of the top shows on television, but I rarely have time to see it.  Last week, however, I watched part of Oprah’s interview with Rosie O’Donnell.  For decades, Rosie had been portraying …

I have never been one
To accept what I see
As reality for all to be.
I have always questioned
Everything I have seen
As what if, and what could be.
Mother, days before
Entering the light
You smiled with serenity.
Father, days before
Entering …

Your eyes follow me everywhere
Never breaking their gaze.
When I look into them
I’m lost and in a daze.
Your eyes always speak to me
Sending a loving message
From the heavenly kingdom
You’re now rejoicing in.
Your eyes follow me everywhere
Never …

The first Christmas without my mother was agony. Actually, the month before was probably worse than the day itself. Because my mother had been sick between December 6 and January 11, I relived the whole …

When my brother died in the spring of 2007, I barely had time to mourn him. Our elder daughter — mother of our twin grandchildren — had died four months earlier. My father-in-law died the …

Why, do you show your face?
Is it because it is cold outside
Or, because the leaves have fallen
Because, the snow is blanketing
The ground with white crystals?
Why?
You visit often, just recently
Taking a life, my father
Then, you took …

In 1987, when I was eighteen years old, my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia two weeks prior to Christmas. We brought Christmas to her in her hospital room that year in …

Nancy Rappaport, a Harvard child psychiatrist, was only four years old when she lost her mother to suicide. Years later, Nancy investigated her mother’s life and the mysteries surrounding her death, looking at the past …