Bereavement, Death of a Sibling

Managing Holiday Grief

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Managing Holiday Grief It was Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, the first Thanksgiving without my brother, just months after a drunk driver had ended his life. I needed to get some shopping done and I found myself at a mall. The instant I stepped inside, I was enveloped in holiday atmosphere. Everything shone and glittered, music rang out, scents of pine and cinnamon candles mingled with the smell of perfumes being sprayed on shoppers in the department stores. Delight hung in the air. But I was feeling holiday grief. It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t […]

Bereavement, Your Grief

Yes, I’m Still Grieving

Friday, November 22, 2024

Yes, I’m Still Grieving If you or someone you care about has ever suffered a painful loss, you’ve likely heard, communicated, or thought something like the following: That earnest wish that a person could “move on” or “get over” the intensity of grief. The well-meaning concern that someone is “dwelling on,” “wallowing in,” or “stuck in” grief. That kind directive to “focus on the positive” or work to get one’s “life back.” We often feel it, deeply, when friends or family members are grieving. Perhaps we experience their hurt empathically, or maybe we sense its weight because we wish for […]

Complicated Grief

Everyone Else is Carrying on with ‘Life as Usual’

Sunday, September 13, 2020

This is an excerpt from the book: Coping with Grief: A Guide for the Bereaved Survivor by Bob Baugher. You can order it at: www.bobbaugher.com   At this time in your life, the world looks different: Artificial                                  Frightening Callous                                    Indifferent Cold                                        Insensitive Dreary                                     Lonely Dull                                         Uncaring   You may find yourself surprised and hurt that, despite the fact that your life has totally changed, the rest of the world appears to operate just as it always has. Every day you see people going about their business as if nothing has changed. A common, but unexpressed feeling among bereaved people is […]

Open to Hope

Solace in a Birdsong

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

There are days when I feel the weight of old memories, heart losses, and traumas suffered along the path of life. What triggers this can vary. So, what I choose to focus on is not so much what landed me in the low energy or anxious thoughts but, instead, what can help me shift out of it. Today was one of those days where I awoke with a feeling of heaviness and worry. Logically, there is no reason for this. But emotions don’t come from logic. According to experts in neurology, emotions are a reaction to a physical change in […]

Death of a Spouse

Give Yourself a G.I.F.T. This Holiday Season

Thursday, October 31, 2019

The holidays are a time of togetherness and family traditions. It’s even been dubbed the “most wonderful time of the year.” But for many in the widowed community, it can be filled with grief, loneliness, and reminders of our loss. Once solid relationships with family and friends may have frayed throughout the year because our grief was too much for them to handle and our in-laws, one of the last few connections to our spouse, might as well be called “outlaws.” If you’re fortunate enough to have been invited – and accepted – to spend the holidays with loved ones, […]

Open to Hope

Can You Grieve for a Place?

Friday, September 6, 2019

My husband and I are moving in a month. He is paraplegic. I’m recovering from open heart surgery and have a pig valve in my heart. These factors made us decide to move to a place with support services. We are leaving our wheelchair-friendly town home and moving to a senior living community. Though the decision is the right one, when I look around our town home I feel sad. I grieve for a lost lifestyle. Our apartment is in the independent living part of the building, yet we won’t be totally independent. Wherever we go, we will be surrounded […]

Death of a Spouse

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Telling-Your-Child-About-a-Death

What is the story you tell yourself about your loss? Even as a child, I understood the power of stories. Through words, I could escape into worlds far, far away. Between the covers of books, I could find characters I could relate to when I felt misunderstood. Stories gave me comfort, sparked my imagination, and made me curious about people and places outside of my own environment. Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since our early days. History is built around the word. Stories are how we pass down knowledge and information to future generations. They are […]

Death of a Child

After Loss: Fear Can Be An Asset to Grieving Individuals

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

  “No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear”– C.S. Lewis This first line in C.S. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed , inspired me to reflect on how I experienced fear during the early days of grief following my daughter Jeannine’s death. Jeannine was eighteen when she died on March 1,2003 from cancer. My fear manifested in uncertainty about my ability to live again in a world without my daughter. I feared that my other children would also die. These fears were triggered because my once predictable ,orderly and safe world was a distant memory. To […]

Death of a Spouse

Being Exquisitely Seen

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Books Saved Me I’ve been a lover of words and books and writers since childhood. I treasure the way we can be educated, transported, and transformed through what we read and the stories we share. Every so often, I hear a phrase strung together, like pearls on a string, that resonates deeply in my soul. How a phrase lands can be as breathtaking as the most beautiful view from a mountaintop. During difficult times, I’ve often turned to books for comfort, wisdom, and to feel less alone in my struggles. The author that saved me from my grief was Viktor […]

Open to Hope

Turning Less Into More

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Well, that was unexpected. It seems, even when dozens and dozens of years have passed, grief, and what triggers it, can still surprise me. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day. I’ve been motherless since I was seventeen years old. It was a quiet day today in my neighborhood. As I stood in silence, watering some succulents that seemed a little thirsty, two women walked by, each carrying a single rose and holding hands with a boy and a girl. “Ah, a Happy Mother’s Day must be in order here for both of you,” I said. I like to engage with […]