Funeral Industry Causes Me Grief

I have to do some venting today after reading an article that truly appalled me about the funeral industry. I’m sharing it with you in the hopes you will tell those you care about to be vigilant and prepared as you can before having to plan and pay for a funeral in the future. Read more

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Grief, Healing & Resilience Spoken At Women’s Conference

The annual California Women’s Conference broke some barriers this week by having a panel discussion about grief and the resilience it takes to walk through and heal.  Read more

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Listening to a Bereaved Child

When a child loses a significant person in his/her life, the surviving adults usually rally around trying to make everything better.  Since you can’t bring the person back (which is what the child wants), it is virtually impossible to make it “better” right away.  (Grief is not the same through the eyes of a child) Read more

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What Can Faith Do to Heal Your Grief?

I talk with people about their losses all the time and it seems evident to me that more often than not it is ones faith that see’s them through their darkest, most difficult times.  Read more

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Grieving Changes – Breast Cancer & Widows

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and I bet everyone reading this has been touched by this insidious disease, either personally or through a friend or relative. Breast cancer is one of those few cancers that can leave a woman disfigured, leaving her often grieving how her body used to look and how she used to feel as a woman.

She grieves in many of the same ways as I have as a widow. I grieved for a life I used to have and was forced to find a new normal, so does she.
A woman with breast cancer often wonders how she will handle dating, sex and her self esteem, again similar stages of grief that a widow faces.
Often a woman with cancer will have daily reminders after her treatment ends of her loss – her loss of hair and often her breasts, a widow has reminders of her loss seeing pictures of her partner on every shelf reminders of a life gone by.
Both cancer patients and those of us grieving loss are faced everyday with the fear of what the next day, week or month will bring during the grieving and healing process.

During this month of awareness I recognize that loss and that grief come  in many different forms and a thought I wanted to share with you.
Loss and grief surrounds us everyday, perhaps this awareness will make each of us more compassionate & hopeful with those who grieve loss in whatever form it takes.

I met a beautiful woman named Stephanie Sowder last week who has a line of butterfly jewelry to honor and support those whose lives are touched by cancer. The butterfly is a symbol of life. If interested you can check it out here: www.butterflyoflife.com

If you know a woman who is battling cancer and want to give her a meaningful gift of support, here are a few ideas; CLICK HERE

CLICK here for store link

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Grey’s Anatomy Faces Grief

I don’t know if you watched the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy last Thursday, if not I’m sure you can watch the replay online.

It was a wonderful episode on how individual the grieving process is for everyone.  Many of the characters went through disbelief, denial, anger and even laughter.  I don’t think the episode ended in acceptance because that takes time and my hope is that the series writers will continue to shine a light on the grief journey the characters will continue to experience and how their lives will be changed.

As you and I well know, this journey takes time and the experience isn’t the same for any of us.  Our grief  is different depending on the relationship we shared with the person who passed as well as other factors.  I bring up this episode because I am thrilled that grief was talked about so openly, and I hope it will encourage both the mourners and the supports to speak openly about death and the grieving process rather than sweep it under a carpet as our society is so quick to do.

Unfortunately our society in general wants us to buck up and get over it!   Isn’t it ironic that we give 6 to 8 weeks paid family leave following the birth of a child but in the case of a close family members death,  our employers might give us a couple of days off for a funeral , and  family leave often  leaves grievers out in the cold to deal with their grief on their own time.

If any of you watched the episode, would love to read your coments on how they handled the topic of grief.

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No Need to Grieve Alone

Last week my friend Pam was faced with the two year anniversary of her husband Denny’s death and she didn’t want to do it alone. She had asked our mutual friend Linda and myself to accompany her to light a candle at church in his memory and to share a meal with her which we did to celebrate Denny’s life.

I was proud of Pam for asking for what she needed, and that was the support of friends who understood her loss, which both Linda and I did after losing our significant others and to not be alone.
Often grief can be isolating and we feel like we have to cry and grieve alone. If you are reading this and grieving loss you will understand when I say that after a relatively short period of public mourning most people think you should have gotten over it and moved on and can’t imagine why you would be grieving two years later. Those of us on this journey through grief know this is not true. Grief takes time and grief takes work, grief can be a roller coaster of emotions and no one knows this journey until they reach it themselves.

“One of the most important factors in healing from loss is having the support of other people, sharing your loss makes the burden of grief easier to carry. Wherever the support comes from, accept it and do not grieve alone.”

Pam, Linda and I became friends as a result of our losses. We have been able to support one another because our losses were all years apart and our stages of grief have been different. We are able to share, support and provide strength and hope for the future.

If you are unable to find your own support group whether it be a professional grief group or group of family or friends, here are some links that may offer help;
Widow Match
Grief Share

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Thoughts on Change

This week while riding my bike I got to thinking about the word change and how it affects all of us who grieve loss.

Change is inevitable, just as death is an inevitable part of life, but as I rode on through the beautiful bike trails around my home I wondered how do we accept or embrace change when it isn’t a change we ever wanted and in some cases change we didn’t expect to happen?

Here are a few thoughts I came up with;

- we usually sit in fear of the unknown, which is when the change is unexpected or unwanted (surrender to the unknown, even if you have to force yourself)

- fear can paralyze us from moving (so do what you know how to do today and tomorrow the next step will be given)

- change is uncomfortable (so breathe your way through it, yes lots of deep breaths, be conscience of letting go of fear)

- Surrender to the fear, doubt and change ( out of surrender will come grace & a new you)

- Sometimes change just requires some faith in knowing everything will be alright (this doesn’t mean you forget,  faith just asks that we believe in something greater than ourselves and our fear)

“Life is change – Growth is optional – Choose Wisely.” – Karen Kaiser Clark

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Giving Grief Its Due

Just days before my fiftieth birthday last  April, my beloved dog Tanner became gravely ill. He was diagnosed with a rare, terminal condition and died in June.

My friend Suzy helped me bury Tanner in my backyard, right by some special lilies I’d planted in memory of my husband. Adam also had died of a rare illness, a relatively rare bone marrow cancer called Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia, in May 2003.

In between losing Adam and Tanner, I lost my mother, as well, to complications from strokes she suffered at a family reunion on a beach in Maine in August 2005.

With three major deaths in five years, my grief has been profound. Sometimes it seems endless. And because these deaths occurred in such a relatively short stretch of time, just as the pain was beginning to soften from one loss, the next loved one died.

Yet for all the sorrow that has been telescoped into these last few years, I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom of giving grief its due.

Grieving takes time. Grieving takes energy. Grieving takes courage.

I have been amazed at grief’s power to affect every part of my being-physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

In early grief, an extreme fatigue wraps around me like a blanket I cannot throw off.  Some days, I crawl right back into bed after having just eaten breakfast.

Sleep doesn’t necessarily bring respite. The tears flow even then. And my loss seems even louder as evening comes and the quiet magnifies the emptiness.

The simplest chores take Herculean effort. The figures in my checkbook just won’t balance. Items I never misplace disappear into thin air. My words sputter and stop mid-sentence.

“Grief takes up a lot of space in my head,” I try to explain to friends.  It’s the only way to depict how my brain wrestles with a reality so devastating that it seems incomprehensible-that my loved one no longer breathes on this earth.

And my heart? Who knew it could break so many times and so sharply and into so many pieces? And that emotional pain creates a fatigue that surpasses my extreme physical exhaustion.

Contrary to popular myths, I don’t “get over” my grief in a week or two, after a month, or even following a year of first anniversaries.

But thanks to hospice bereavement groups, some wonderful books and friends who’ve walked through loss ahead of me, I’ve learned to live with grief as best as I can. I slog through it, in fits and starts, in bewilderment and clarity, in sorrow and in grace.

It is a much longer, harder process than popular modern culture would have us believe. It feels that as a society, we’ve lost touch with the wisdom and rituals and reality of death that our ancestors understood.

The difficult truth is that the healing comes through the grieving. The respite after the tears. My laughter is jumbled in with my sorrow. The same poignant memories that stab with heart-aching longing also hold the warm, soothing comfort that eventually flows.

Gradually, very gradually, over months and years, the gratitude for the life we shared takes up more space than the grief. It is hard work to heal. Personally, I don’t “get over” my loss. Why would I want to get over a love so sweet and maddening and dear?

I do, however, learn to live with the loss, to move forward in my life, in what friends call a “new normal.” And I’m let in on one of humankind’s deepest and, in this culture’s, often unspoken truths:  facing death changes life forever. How often we forget this reality. Yet how differently we might live, and treat others, when we remember.

Helene J. Powers, a freelance writer and educational consultant who lives in Florence, MA, contributes frequently to www.fiftyshift..com, where this essay first appeared.  She can be reached at hjpowers@verizon.net.

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Can Writing Be Healing?

If you are reading this you are no doubt on your journey through the grieving process. I want to suggest no matter where you are on that journey, remembering there is no right or wrong way to grieve nor is there a time limit that writing can be healing.

Well you might say, “I’m not a writer” – but I challenge you to just jot your thoughts in a journal or a spiral notebook or what ever works for you.    Writing is a process just as grief is a process and remember no one has to read your thoughts if you want to keep them private, but in the act of doing sometimes we learn alot about ourselves, how we view our life, our loves, our challenges and our future.

I write in my journal often, I don’t plan what to write, I simply write about my day before I go to bed.  I find that if I let the pen lead I tend to write from my heart and not my head.  When I’m thinking too hard about what to write it is more contrived then when I even write words that express the day.

I wrote many things just after my husband died, I wrote about the week he was in the hospital and after he died I wrote about being mad that he left me and how that made me feel.  I wrote about my struggles and pondered what I would do next. It made me slow down and sort through my mixed feelings.

If you read the August newsletter I sent out, I asked for writing submissions from anyone who wanted to share a story  relating to their grief process.  I challenge you to share because often times you can help someone else who might be experiencing what you are going through.

The story I choose for September will receive  an autographed copy of the book “The Shack” & as a bonus a writing journal.

Email your submission to:  joanne@heartachetohealing.com

Include (optional)  your name, small photo and email address if you want the readers to be able to contact you.  You can also say “Anonymous” and I will leave off your name.

Please include you mailing address with your submission. Send by August 31st if possible for consideration for September.

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