Lo Anne Mayer

Lo Anne Mayer, author of Celestial Conversations: Healing Relationships After Death, and co-founder of the International Grief Council, offers motivational talks, workshops, and retreats on transpersonal journaling. She resides in New Jersey but travels throughout the US to share her message of forgiveness and unconditional love. http://www.internationalgriefcouncil.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb0BSUC-sn8

Articles:

The Shock of Losing a Child

Returning to the Place Excitement coursed through my veins as I anticipated my appointment in Glastonbury, England. Thirteen years had passed since I stood in this exact spot. I couldn’t resist sprinting up High Street and turning right on Wells Road. I slowed down from fear and perspiration on this hot August morning as I approached my destination. The shock of seeing the Abbey House through its huge gate was overwhelming. I leaned against the 10-foot-high stone wall that surrounded the property. I needed to catch my breath and focus on why I came. The charcoal-gray stones were cool and […]

Father’s Day After a Daughter Has Died

Father’s Day After a Daughter Has Died Father’s Day in our house is a mixed blessing. Even though some of our six children and 13 grandchildren will come to celebrate, my husband, Ray, is still very conscious of the empty chair that would have been occupied by our daughter, Cyndi, who died tragically almost 18 years ago. The hole is Ray’s heart comes up in conversations only once in a while these days. His eyes grow sad but there are no obvious tears. Just a quiet faraway look in his eyes. All of our conversations are divided into two sections […]

Uvalde Murders Trigger Grief

Uvalde Murders Trigger Grief Ever since our daughter died in 2005, I have experienced heartbreak each time I learn of other children who have died. My own awareness of the depth and breadth of grief links me to each person who has lost a child, whether that child is a policeman, a soldier, or an 8-year-old. I now know that grief is a wound that takes years to heal. The senseless killing of the children in Ulvade brings out the motherhood of all human beings. These murders trigger grief for so many. We want to cradle the children and hug […]

Healing Relationships After Death

Excepted from Celestial Conversations: Healing Relationships After Death (Cape House Books), and may be purchased through Amazon. One year after Mother’s death, I was cleaning out a bookcase when one of my journals from the 1970’s fell on the floor. I skimmed it, remembering how I’d combined meditation and journaling to tap into divine guidance. The technique had helped me to unravel our six-year-old son’s academic difficulties. Could this formula of prayer, meditation and journaling help me heal the grief I feel over the loss of my mother? I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. The next morning I sat […]

My Summer of Grief Led to New Normal

Our daughter died on July 19, 2005. The shock of her suicide and my own gut-wrenching grief that day is painful to remember. No one in our family knew what to do or how to react. It was like falling out of a boat in the dark at high tide. We couldn’t “swim”. We couldn’t help each other. We could only survive. Everyone seemed to be in a daze. We found no help from priests, doctors, Cyndi’s husband or the investigators of Cyndi’s death. At the time, I didn’t know about Compassionate Friends. When someone mentioned it to me, I […]

Christmas Grief

Even though our daughter, Cyndi, died over 11 years ago, the season of Christmas is still the hardest time for me. Remembering our little girl opening presents and playing with her five siblings as a child still sears my mind, and constricts my heart. My husband and I were blessed with six children in 12 years of marriage. We were awash with Christmas wishes and presents when the children were young. As they grew older, married, and moved to other areas, they still came to our house to celebrate the holidays — until 2005. That was Cyndi’s last Christmas. She […]

Celestial Conversations: Reaching Through the Veil

When my mother died in 2004, we had so much unfinished business that I thought her death ended all chances of healing our strained relationship. Encouraged by a friend, I began journaling with the intention of reaching through the veil to my mother. Even though my Catholic religion frowned on talking to the dead, it certainly encouraged praying for the dead. I picked the middle ground. I prayed for mother to help me understand why we never found an intimate moment in our lives. Then I meditated for 20 minutes to clear my mind before I began writing in my […]

Reflecting on Mother’s Day, Yesterday and Today

When our daughter died, all hope seemed to be erased from my body, mind and spirit. Wherever I looked, whomever I spoke with, seemed to emphasize the despair I felt within and without. I truly believed that I was the ONLY person on the planet who had lost a child to suicide. Mother’s Day in 2005 was almost too much to bear. All I could think about was that I had lost my daughter forever. I didn’t realize in those days that, here in the US, almost 500,000 parents experienced the death of a child or young adult every year. […]

Easter After Our Daughter’s Death

“Come home, Mom,” my daughter screamed over the transatlantic phone. “Cyndi is dead, and we’ve been trying to reach you.” All the money I had placed into the red lobster phone in Glastonbury, England, suddenly was swallowed up. The phone went dead. I looked at the woman behind me, waiting for her turn to make a call, and whispered, “She said that our daughter is dead. That’s impossible. I must have heard it wrong.” Jane and I had only met in the writing retreat three days earlier, but the force of my words pierced her heart. She poured all her […]