Posts tagged with “death”
The Art of Bereavement: A Simple Creative Practice for the Grieving
âWhen we lose someone we love we must learn not to live without them, but to live with the love they left behind.â ~Unknown
If I look like my best friend just died, thatâs because he has. Not the one whom I played with every day growing up and havenât seen in years, nor the one with whom I went to high school and stayed connected with on social media.
No. I lost my very best friend of nearly four decades. My gay âhusband,â who lived with me for fourteen years and helped me raise my two youngest sons, from …
I Won’t Let My Losses Break Me: How Iâm Choosing Growth
Loss is confronting. But I ask you to please walk beside me while I address this most challenging aspect of life.
Losing those we love.
While loss is inevitable, it is something that we always think happens to others.
Until it happens to us.
The last six months I have had a steep learning curve on loss.
The spiral began in May this year.
On May 18th, my partner suddenly walked out. I was blindsided. Heartbroken. I would later learn the truth about his duplicity. But that is fodder for a memoir at a later date.
Two weeks …
How I Cherished Every Beautiful Moment of My Daughterâs Short Life
In the spring of 2012, I heard this word, ârest.â I realized how horrible I was at it. I wasnât even sure what it was. Was it extra sleep? Was it not working on Sundays? Shortly after I heard this word, my life began changing. For one reason or another, one by one, the things with which I occupied myself were stripped away until I found myself with nothing left to hold.
A year later I was in a panic, wondering how we were going to make ends meet. Everything in me said to do what I had always done: …
How Iâve Been Shaking Out My Pain Since Losing My Daughter
âMovement has incredible healing power.â ~Alexandra Heather Foss
My ten-year-old daughter, who had been ill for all her life, was dying. She was hooked up to tubes and monitors, and they were always going off. Her numbers were off the charts, and the doctors kept saying, âYour daughterâs numbers aren’t normal, and we would normally have a team coming in here to check on her breathing and to rouse her.â
After the last operation, one doctor said she was surprised that she was still alive when she came into work. We all were. She kept fighting. She would just be …
How Iâve Navigated My Grief and Guilt Since Losing My Narcissistic Father
“One of the greatest awakenings comes when you realize that not everybody changes. Some people never change. And thatâs their journey. Itâs not yours to try and fix it for them.â ~Unknown
In 2021 my father died. Cancer of⌠so many things.
Most of the events during that time are a blur, but the emotions that came with them are vivid and unrelenting.
I was the first in my family to find out.
My mother and sister had gone on an off-grid week-long getaway up the West Coast of South Africa, where thereâs nothing …
One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed
âThe Phoenix must burn to emerge.â ~Janet Fitch
Many people were shocked when I relapsed after twenty-three years of recovery. After all, I was the model of doing it right. I did everything I was told: went to treatment, followed instructions, prayed for help, and completed the assignments.
After returning home from treatment, I joined a recovery program and went to therapy. Once again, I followed all the suggestions, which worked when it came to staying sober. I had no desire to drink or do drugsâwell, at least for a long while.
When I went to treatment, I was …
Growing Old Gratefully: How to See Each Year as a Gift
Growing old gratefully. Yes, you read that right. Gratefully. Why on earth would I be grateful for getting older, less youthful, and more wrinkly with every passing year?? I hear you cry. Let me tell you why I’m trying hard to do just that.
One bright Saturday afternoon some years back, while chatting with my uncle, he reminded me that my fortieth birthday was fast approaching. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes, Uncle, thanks for the reminder.”
He looked at me for a minute and then said, “You know, you should be grateful for every year of life you …
Looking Back: The Silver Linings of the Pandemic and Why Iâm Grateful
“You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in the sad, the gain in your pain, and what makes you grateful, not hateful.” ~Karen Salmansohn
The 2010 decade was difficult for me. Hardly a year went by without someone close to me passing away.
When the tragic decade started, I was in the midst of my residency training and free time was a luxury I did not have. When I graduated and became an attending physician, I was too busy caring for patients on my own to take a break.
In 2018, my world was shattered …
My Big Insight from Meeting the Woman Who Received My Daughterâs Heart
âI lay my head upon his chest, and I was with my boy again. I spent so long in darkness I never thought the night would end. But somehow Grace has found meâŚand I had to let him in.â ~From âJust Like That,â Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raittâs surprise Grammy win for 2023 Song of the Year was no surprise to me. In âJust Like Thatâ she tells the story of a woman who is unexpectedly visited by the man who got her late sonâs heart. Itâs a song that can reduce anyone to tears.
I have been that womanâthat Donor …
How âGriefcationsâ Helped Me Heal from Loss and How Travel Could Help You Too
âTo travel is to take a journey into yourself.â ~Danny Kaye
The brochure read, âMermaid tail, optional.â What forty-something mom doesnât have a shimmering fish tail tucked in her closet for just the right occasion? Not me. I live in Minnesota. Iâd borrow one when I got there.
I took a flight from Minneapolis to Panama City, and then a water taxi to a backpackersâ resort. Not the kind with frozen cocktails and bad DJs. The next thing I knew, I was on a sailboat, swinging from an aerial circus hoop suspended over the sparkling Caribbean Sea, dressed as a …
How I Learned the True Meaning of Strength After My Sonâs Death
âBreathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.â ~Oprah Winfrey
I tried to stay strong after my fifteen-year-old son Brendan died in an accident. It shattered my world. The shock of it numbed me but when that wore off, I knew I needed to be there for my husband and two other children. Zack and Lizzie were only ten and thirteen and needed my strength. So, I built a wall around my heart and pushed through my day. I went back to work, teaching piano students in my …
The 5 Happiness Zappers and What Helps Me Cope with Them
âEmotion in itself is not unhappiness. Only emotion plus an unhappy story is unhappiness.â ~Eckhart Tolle
When my mother told me, âHoney, you donât understand; you canât,â initially I felt like she was being condescending.
It was Motherâs Day and, unbeknownst to me, the last time Iâd see her before her final hospital visit.
Weâd spent that Saturday updating her computer, watching waves at the beach, and picking up seashells, then eating dinner at a popular local restaurant frequented by travelers, including famous musicians on tour buses because of its location off of the interstate.
By early evening, we were …
Childrenâs Movies are Obsessed with Death, but Donât Show Healthy Grief
âGrief is really just love. Itâs all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.â ~Jamie Anderson
I knew my son was watching me. We were inhaling fistfuls of popcorn while Frozen 2 played on the screen above. (Spoiler alertâŚ)
Anna has just realized her sister, Elsa, is dead, frozen solid at the bottom of a river. Anna must carry on life without her.
My son …