If you are sad this Christmas, it is ok. We tend to feel that the holidays aren't a time for sadness. That we should magically "feel better" or at least pretend to be doing fine. And while around some people it may be easier or best to pretend, it [...]
Grieving Through the Holidays For so many families the holidays hold the promise of togetherness, familiarity, tradition and comfort. But for the grieving, every one of these words is shattered and opposed by new words like, apart, strange, broken and grieved. So what does this "grieving through the holidays" [...]
Living intentionally with people is paramount to living well. I also believe intentionality is essential to grieving well. Father's Day hits a tender spot. Every year as I write posts about mothers and fathers I'm struck by the feeling of each day. Mother's Day feels pink and rosy, the [...]
The word “closure” is a tricky and usually misused word. Taken from it's Latin root "clausura," literally meaning "to close," the word is often used to signify what we expect or hope people are feeling at the end of a funeral - but in my experience, very little is truly closed [...]
As Easter approaches and Spring continues to bloom all over our beautiful county, my heart and eyes behold the hope of this season; the hope of life. A favorite song of mine growing up had the line "Death died a long time ago" - it's meaning is rooted in the Christian [...]
We all want to know how long something terrible is going to last, knowing gives us a sense of control over the unknown and comforts us with the confident knowledge of an end. But grief is very different. We know that a trip to the DMV or a root canal [...]
Each year as we prepare for and pass by our Candlelight Service of Remembrance I am confronted with the multitudes of losses experienced in our community in just 1 year. I think of these families and wonder how their holidays are going. I'm sure they didn't expect to be in [...]
One of the biggest concerns people have when they encounter a bereaved individual isn't (strangely enough) how the bereaved person is doing, but "what do I say to them?" The secret to "what to say" is simple in theory, but ironic in reality because honestly, "saying something" isn't the key. We [...]
Getting rid of someone’s stuff after they die is tough. It is an admission. For some people, it is the ultimate act of reconciling the permanence of a loss. A lot of “stuff” – baseball cards, the shirt from the family portrait, a picture they painted or a [...]
Last year I attended a conference where the topic of a panel was the significance of grief connected to non-death losses. The researchers focused their sites on college campuses and found that many students were ranking break-ups, friendship changes, divorces and stress over poor grades as more painful than [...]
