Grief journey
Honoring The Memories of Loved Ones
Honoring the memories of our loved ones is important, it is personal and individual. Some people find great solace in with visits to a cemetery, others honor with religious services. Each year on the anniversary of my husband’s death I write a poem. For me writing is a therapeutic expression of how I am feeling about my own personal grief journey. I also have a martini every year and make a toast to my husband! It’s just a personal meaningful gesture, both bittersweet and joy filled at the same time. Here is this years poem…… Continue reading
As Time Goes By – Celebrate & Remember
Do you remember the song “As Time Goes By?” it was made famous in the move “Casablanca” and hundreds of artists have performed it over the years. Time going by is a fact of life and yet when you are grieving the loss of a loved one time can feel as it it stopped.
Just like you, every year I cope with the anniversary of the death’s of my Mom and husband – I wonder why it always feels like yesterday. We tend to conjure up all those feelings of what might have been, what we would be doing now and if only I could…(and I fill in the blank).
When do we stop acknowledging a loss?
Jan LaPitz
From as early as I can remember my Dad’s mother brought up the subject of her child that only lived a few days after he was born. That was my first encounter with death. My grandma would recall vivid details of her child’s birth and his death as if it had happened recently. I never took note of the date, or even the month when she started talking about him. As I think about it now I probably should have. As a little kid it was kind of creepy to have Grams talking about her dead baby. As I got older I felt sad for her. There didn’t seem to be any way to comfort her except to listen to her tell her story. On the other hand no one else in the family ever mentioned the dead baby, not Grandpa, my Dad or Dad’s sister. I think I may have been the only person Gram’s could talk to about her baby that didn’t live. How sad is that. Continue reading
Celebrating The Journey Through Grief
By Jacqueline Nannini – My journey from remaining alive to being alive
Death is a word many people understand the meaning of all to well. According to the dictionary, the definition of death is the end of life, or in other words the person involved has come to the end of his life. What the dictionary meaning does not refer to is that the family who loved this person has also come to the end of life as they know it. The obituary will most likely read “survived by “and list the person’s family. Death has taken during my life time my mother, my father, two husbands and a granddaughter; I know that the term “survived by” is not an accurate description. The word survives means to continue to prosper, to exist or function. The person in grief is not able to do any of this. Even though our loved one who is “dead” has come to the end of their life, in so many ways this definition is also true to those who have “survived”. Continue reading