Connie Vasquez

Connie Vasquez is an only child who recently lost her mother after years with Alzheimer's. Through that experience, she learned about compassion, love, forgiveness and grace. Her sense of humor also saw her through. A practicing attorney, cardiac yoga teacher and life coach, Connie lives in New York City.

Articles:

Christina Vasquez: Art Therapy

Board certified art therapist Christina Vasquez spoke with the executive director of Open to Hope, Dr. Gloria Horsley, during the 2015 annual Association of Death Education and Counseling Conference about the role art can play in the grieving process. She works in New Orleans in a psychiatric hospital as well as in a private practice. One of the first things clinicians can do to help patients in the grief process is to provide a safe place, explains Vasquez. “My approach to art therapy is meeting them (the patients) where they’re at,” she says. Entering into the process with compassion sets […]

I Used to Love Christmas, Until My Mother Died

I used to spend every Christmas with my mom, no matter what. It was always just the two of us and when I became an adult, she alwasy ask if I’d rather spend Christmas with my “little friends.” But my mom was “home” for me and Christmas was ours. Each Christmas, we had one particularly crazy ritual: we’d give each other several cards. There’d be cute ones, funny ones and always – – from me to her – – a big, mushy one. Over the years, I realized that this kind of card always made her cry, so I started […]

Simple Comfort: How to Help Someone in Grief

I was a 48-year-old only child when my mother succumbed to Alzheimer’s Disease. I’d I spent three weeks alone at her bedside in the hospice wing of a wonderful nursing home in Connecticut — remembering with her and for her, singing to her, and being grateful — until she died that hot August morning. When I think back on what most helped me through my grief, I am fortunate to have more than several memories. I speak now to those of you reading in the hope of learning what you can do to help someone you care about when they […]

The First Mother’s Day Without Mine

I’ve always been adept at compartmentalization or, as it’s less euphemistically known, DENIAL. I’ve read some wonderful books about the grieving process and its non-linear stages, most notably Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler’s On Grief and Grieving. While those books were comforting, I confess that being an only child and a New Yorker make me disdainful of generalizations. Sometimes, though, there’s just no escape; try as we might, the heart feels what the mind and senses seem to ignore. In April, the lilacs begin to bloom. I push back the familiar thoughts that they have always been the Mother’s Day […]

There’s No Grief in Santa

Last year was the first year my mother didn’t recognize me at all . . . not even a glimmer. I’d been expecting Alzheimer’s to take away her ability to recognize my face, but wasn’t really prepared. That was the first Christmas it seemed to make no difference whether or not I called my mom for the holidays since she didn’t know whether it was Christmas or St. Swithens Day, whether it was me or the Easter Bunny. She’d long since forgotten what the telephone was and what those noises coming into her ear were. Christmas was always a big […]

Anger a Natural Part of Grieving

Anger could never be the first stage of grief. First, you’re busy making arrangements, then you’re just numb. I figure it takes a good couple of weeks before you get good and pissed off. If you’ve never juggled before, but always wanted to, you will now have an opportunity to experience the “thrill” of trying to navigate your own grief, while donning the socially-expected stiff upper lip, while simultaneously restraining yourself from slugging someone. It’s quite a feat. Nowhere will you get more practice than when you return to work (more about that in another post). Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book On Grief and Grieving, found that “anger […]

Pssssst . . . Your Pajamas Are Open

Nobody could possibly have prepared me for what it would be like when my mom died. I’m barely able to describe it, seeing as how I’ve lost my mind and all. What I can tell you is what it feels like. It seems to boil down to, “You’ve completely lost my mind and that’s perfectly normal.” This is typically said to me by someone with a piteous tone and a pat on the head; and I’m grateful as I can be for the tone and the pat! The word that keeps running through my head is torpor (“a state of […]

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