A Special Report…5…4…3…2…1…

and then…

Osama bin Laden is dead!

I expected something other than the complex and conflicting emotions running through me.

Joy really wasn’t one of them. How can you feel joy when someone has gone so far off the rails and caused so much tragedy and pain? No joy wasn’t it.

Closure? Can there be closure? What does closure look like? How am I feeling this morning? No I’m not feeling closure. Quite the opposite. I’m reliving every moment of that morning on September 11, 2001. Will that bring closure? Perhaps.

I’m thinking about what a glorious September day it was, electric company workers a couple of houses down. The radio…did I hear that right? A plane flew into what???

Watching with horror, and I’ll admit a bit of morbid fascination, as a second plane flew into the other tower. Calling my sister. Emails out to make sure none of ours had been hurt. They were safe as far as anyone knew. A cousin, it turns out, escaped.

The weeks and months following. The news coverage. The wrong war. The terror alerts.

My puppy was 7 months old then so we were out walking about 2 hours a day. We often walked by the house of one of the 9/11 widows. I didn’t know her but every time we walked by, I’d think about those planes. I’d wonder how she was doing. I’d wonder if her child had been born. I’d wonder what it was like for her. And I’d say a little prayer.

In the first few days, her house sat silent and shuttered. A light was almost always burning in a single room downstairs when we walked by at night but all was quiet. Slowly, ever so slowly, the house seemed to be coming back to life. Maybe it was my imagination but it felt like something had shifted and then the swing set appeared in the yard. Yes, life was moving on for her and her children, but at such great cost.

So is there closure today? I’ve moved on. Though Boston is an easy drive from where I live now, I no longer live just outside the city from which the planes departed. I’ve moved on. My family’s moved on.

We had our own tragedy unfolding during that time…a father with Alzheimer’s…a different storyline entirely from 9/11 but in simultaneous process. He died shortly after we invaded Iraq.

While the workers at Ground Zero sifted through the rubble, I was sifting through the remnants of my childhood, the lives of my parents and grandparents as I dismantled the house in which I’d grown up.

Osama bin Laden is dead!

It’s like pulling on a thread bringing back a multitude of memories and emotions, but closure? No act of retribution, of justice served, of punishment given, can bring closure.

We look at these things as some sort of holy grail that will make us feel able to move on, but we’re moving on no matter what. We already have.

So today, as many of my fellow countrymen celebrate, I find myself remembering all the small and sordid details of that day and the days that followed. They are taking on the irony of memory…alive and fresh as if they just happened and feeling like a lifetime ago, snippets of a distant dream…or nightmare.

Maybe some new realization or perspective will emerge from this trip down memory lane. Aha moments do happen years after the fact, but closure?

Osama bin Laden is dead.

The saddest part is that he isn’t. He lives on in all of us. He has irrevocably changed our lives.

Innocence was shattered on 9/11. Our collective innocence was demolished that day whether we were personally impacted or not. It’s certainly not how we would have chosen it. The truth in the shattering of innocence is never welcome.

Yet, innocence shattered is a necessary step on the path to maturity.

Coming face to face with death is one of the mile stones we all must pass as we grow into fully mature human beings. It is never welcome. Not ever. Each and every one of us rails against it. An understandable reaction, yet…

At some level, the continued anguish over this fundamental fact of life is in many ways a refusal to ripen. Denial can be a wonderful thing at times but denying the fact of death, as much a part of life as birth, crosses the line from denial into delusion. And it keeps at us until we surrender to the truth…we are going to die. People we love are going to die. It is the way of life and love and all of existence.

Yes, Osama may be dead but we still live.

Osama bin Laden is Dead is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Who are you?

Are you your work?

Are you where you live?

Are you the house you live in?

Are you your parents?

Are you your children?

Are you your church?

Are you your community?

Are you your clothes?

Are you your hobbies?

Are you your pets?

Are you what you hate?

Are you what you fear?

Are you the people you love?

Are you your grief?

Who are you? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Related posts on Grief and Loss:

1. On the Subject of Grief, Academic Researcher and Journalist Are Just Tilting at Windmills Last week I read two books I found rather appalling....

Last week I read two books I found rather appalling. Though supposedly about grief, neither of these books will be of any help whatsoever to people who are actually grieving. In fact they will likely do more harm than good.

Though The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss (George A. Bonanno, PhD) isn’t nearly as cynical and mean-spirited as The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss (Ruth Davis Konigsberg), both authors are tilting at windmills that simply don’t exist except within their own professional echo chambers.

One an academic researcher and the other a gotcha journalist, both doing battle with bereavement experts when in fact all they’re doing is shadow boxing with the propaganda being dished out within their own professions.

Had either of them spent any time interviewing grief support professionals with an open mind and a willingness to learn, they would have discovered that the vast majority of us have long ago left the stages of grief in the dust along with the idea everyone needs counseling.

It’s not that what these books say is so wrong. They are correct that there are no stages of grief (Lord alive, can we please put this one to rest, even EKR knew is wasn’t so), most people don’t need grief counseling and the vast majority of people are able to function in their daily lives relatively quickly following a death.

The real problem with these books is the conclusions they come to. Just because someone doesn’t go through the 5 stages, or doesn’t need grief counseling, or is functioning in their daily lives, does not mean that they aren’t grieving…and it certainly does not mean they don’t need support.

Despite Ms. Konigsberg’s assertion that those of us in the “grief counseling industry” are preying on the unsuspecting who would be doing just fine if we’d stop telling them how bad grief is, loss of a loved one and the grief that follows is one of the most difficult experiences any of us go through.

Going through it alone is even worse. Though counseling may not be necessary, people who are grieving do need support. They need the gift of compassionate hearts willing to listen and share the pain. If you’ve ever grieved you know this quality is in rather short supply.

In a culture that has largely abdicated its role in offering compassionate care to its fellow citizens, counseling professionals and volunteer group facilitators are the ones filling the gap.

As long as the friends and families of the bereaved continue to turn away in droves (and they do) and continue to say the most ridiculous and hurtful things (they do this too), people who are grieving are going to continue to turn to the people who understand and are willing to walk with them in their grief. Yes, just about anyone can do that but the sad truth is that they don’t.

By reinforcing the idea that grief is easy and short-lived, books like these do a huge disservice to the grieving by adding yet more myth to the general public’s understanding of grief.

In the end that means fewer people reaching out to be supportive, more pressure to “just get over it already”, and more of the bereaved seeking professional support because that’s the only place they can find what they need.

On the Subject of Grief, Academic Researcher and Journalist Are Just Tilting at Windmills is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

I’ve been getting a lot of emails recently about regrets. Honestly I’ve never known anyone not to have some regrets during the grieving process, so I recorded this video addressing some of the most common kinds.

Regrets In the Grieving Process is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Here’s another in the video series on surviving grief. This one’s on the stages of grief. More accurately it’s about how Elisabeth Kübler-Ross got it so horribly wrong, and why we need to stop perpetuating this myth of the 5 stages of grief.

I am posting new videos every day or 2 (at least for now) so you might want to subscribe to Surviving Grief‘s YouTube channel

Stages of grief is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

The Depth of Grief and Healing is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

The first in a video series on grief…

Grief Takes Courage is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

In the last post I wrote about acknowledging and even embracing your grief. I can feel people recoiling as I write that. The biggest argument I hear is “If I give into it, it may never stop.” It can certainly feel that way and yet, the exact opposite is true…when you give into it, the path through your grief actually becomes easier.

Still many don’t enbrace their grief and for any number of good reasons.

First, this is hard, hard stuff to deal with. Losing someone you love and who is an integral part of your life is devastating whether it’s a parent, a child, a spouse, a friend or a sibling. These losses are profound and life changing.

Because they’re so devastating and the path to healing is so full of unmarked trails, potholes and detours, it is virtually impossible to come out the other side of grief without some kind of support. Going it alone is just too hard for most of us. It can be formal or informal support, but support from someone else with the capacity to walk along side is vitally important.

But there’s more to it than just support. Here are the 5 key factors contributing to successfully healing grief.

1. Support
This can be friends who get it, support groups, clergy, counselors. Sometimes family is good support and sometimes not because other family members are likely grieving too and may be in a very different place than you are without any emotional reserves to support you.

2. Education
Grief is pretty much unlike anything else you’ve ever experienced. Even if you’ve experienced less significant losses before, unless they were explained well and you got good support, there’s every chance you learned the wrong lessons about grief.

Let’s face it, none of us like death. We don’t like to talk about it and we all struggle with finding the meaning in it. Every last one of us struggles with this and avoids it for as long as we possibly can. So the chances of just happening upon a good education about death and grief are pretty slim.

3. Trust
Trust in the grieving process is essential, and that is mighty hard to come by. So much of early grief just feels downright crazy and crazy-making that trusting it feels like a mighty foolish thing to do, but trust in it we must.

The wisdom of grief is miraculous but is usually only seen in hindsight. This is why understanding the nature of grief and support from others who have survived is so very important.

4. Courage
It takes courage to follow where your grief leads especially when it’s your first significant loss or you have no one around to reassure you that what you’re experiencing is normal.

5. Time
Healing grief takes time. The death of someone you love, cuts deep to the very core of your being. Recovering is like trying to put a puzzle back together when significant pieces are missing. There is no way this can happen quickly. Sometimes we have to make new pieces or stretch others to fit a new life, and that takes considerable time.

As important as it is to allow yourself time, time alone is rarely enough. But time when combined with support, education, trust and courage, makes healing from grief not only possible but probable.

P.S. How to Survive Your Grief was written to support and educate. If you are new to the grieving process, or not so new, I hope you will check it out.

The 5 Keys to Healing Grief is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Recent research shows that in acknowledging fears prior to taking an exam, students improved their test scores. Huh? As one local newscaster said, “Most of us think ignoring our fears is the right thing to do.”

And what does this have to do with grief? Everything.

The truth denied, suppressed, repressed, resisted or unacknowledged, has more control over you than the truth made conscious. There is nowhere this is more apparent than in what we often view as ‘negative’ feelings…fear, anger, guilt, sadness…and GRIEF.

The attempt to move on from grief without really acknowledging it fully, is probably the #1 cause of prolonged, complicated and unresolved grief.

I know that’s the last thing many grieving people want to hear, but having witnessed innumerable attempts to do so, I’ve got to say it just doesn’t work. Sooner or later, the grief will get to you.

In my group at Omega, it was not uncommon for people to show up decades after a death because the grief finally caught up with them. There were many reasons for the delay…

On the other side of things, I have witnessed grievers with the courage to embrace their grief. They don’t have an easy time of it. Embracing one’s grief involves more than a bit of struggle, but what I’ve observed is the people who are willing, fare much better over time than the folks who don’t.

This is what I’ve witnessed in this group…

In the report on students taking tests, writing was the method used for acknowledging their fears, and writing is one of the more powerful ways to explore one’s grief.

Though I recommend writing about grief, it doesn’t have to be writing. It could be sharing with friends, going to a support group or talking with a counselor, coach or clergy. Having your grief witnessed and acknowledged by others is powerfully healing too.

The good news is it’s not an either/or. You can write about your grief and share it with others too.

What matters most is that you acknowledge it fully, and not try to put it away too soon.






Source: Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom

On the fear of tests & healing grief is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Lovely story of the first Christmas following the death of a husband and father. What a wonderful idea for all of us to remember, honor and celebrate the life of someone we love who is no longer physically present to us.

This truly has the power to transform that dreaded first Christmas (or second, third etc) into a much more joyous, though bittersweet, celebration.

I dreaded the first Christmas after Bill died. So I asked each of my grown children to write down a memory of a non-monetary gift given them by their dad. After we finished dinner, we read our notes out loud as dessert.

Everyone participated and a few stood out:

Please read Christmas, Lost & Found

My thoughts and prayers are with all who are grieving this holiday season.

Transforming the Dreaded First Christmas is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

by Joan Hitchens of Storybooks for Healing

Are you ready for the holidays?

How often have you heard this question in the past week? The implied reference is “have your bought all the presents for family and friends for Christmas? Have you done the shopping, baked the goodies and decorated the house? You may not even celebrate Christmas and you are faced with this question as a means of casual conversation!

Winter holidays are more than gifts. For most, whether the celebration is Hanukkah or Christmas, even Kwanzaa, the spiritual and cultural meanings are still foremost in the celebration and can be a great source of comfort and tradition. However, once you’ve faced a significant loss, the holidays change, and there is an added stress of recalling memories about your loved one who died. How were they part of the celebrations? What role did he or she take in the meaning and traditions? “Missing” is a big word this time of year.

Starting as early as October, each special day of note – from Halloween to New Year’s – carries unspoken traditions, memories, family activities and pangs of loss. It’s no wonder that by the middle of December the pressure can be immense.

Holidays and “the giving season” may have already been emotionally charged for you. Now add the commotion of gatherings, “good cheer” and seeing others enjoy their families may just underscore that you have a hole in your life. As one young woman, whose mother died a short time ago, remarked, “Sometimes I just want to be alone. I don’t want anyone near. Am I normal?” Yes! And wanting to not be alone can be normal too! By voicing her concern aloud and learning that others have felt this way too, she was reassured. Most importantly, she asked and shared her worries. The changes after loss can wax and wane, and sometimes seasons and holidays bring out new, unexpected memories.
Take One Step at a Time, and Whichever One You Need

Silence is not golden. Reflection on your loss, identifying your fears and pain, and giving voice to memories can help you. Grief comes out in a combination of physical, emotional and behavioral changes. So coping solutions can also be found in all these areas, too.

As busy as you may be taking care of everyone else, be sure to give yourself time and room for your grief. Sometimes all it takes is just a little bit of acknowledgment and a deep breath to take one step farther on the long road toward healing. The first year is the most changed, but no year is ever the same. The holidays, like every week and every month, now become part of your new normal.

Storybooks For Healing extends best wishes to you and your family this holiday season and into the new year.

____________________________________________________

About the Author

Storybooks For Healing (SFH) is a program of remembrance for overcoming loss using Grief Reflection. SFH is offered by bereavement organizations in an 8 week group writing and discussion course. After the program, participants are prepared to publish a beautiful tribute storybook of their loved one, and are encouraged to join the SFH online community to share, teach and provide support to others in their grief journey.

*Just so you know, if you buy from Storybooks for Healing I do make a commission

Grief Doesn’t Take a Holiday is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Grief is a hot topic these days. Every newspaper and blog seems to have advice on how to get through the holidays. Where are they the rest of the year?

Rather than add to the noise, I’ve scoured the web to share some of the better articles and lists on dealing with grief during the holidays.

What none of them say is that the anticipation of the holiday is almost always worse than the reality. The day itself is a day that can be hard but not nearly as hard as the string of days and weeks leading it up to it.

Good counsel: Grieving during the holidays

Keep things as simple as possible. Limit activities to the ones which are the most meaningful and enjoyable for you and your family.

While keeping some (or all) of your holiday traditions is comforting, you may also want to create new traditions that bring meaning to your life as it is now.

Don’t get caught up in the shoulds. In grief, there are no shoulds. What you should do is what feels best for you — even if it means going away for the holidays.

from Democrat and Chronicle

For the grieving, Christmas is hard work

The purpose and meaning of life events have changed. A new meaning must be born where new practices begin.

We grieve not only the person who has died; we grieve the life we lived with our loved one. There are many fears and much pain as the season approaches.

Fear of preparations such as shopping, the holiday parties, the cooking, the Christmas music, sending out the greeting cards and seeing friends can all be disturbing for the grieving person. If you are the parent of a child who has died, it is difficult but wise to maintain some of the traditions for the siblings, for you and for the grandparents of the child.

from Ottawa Citizen

Plain Talk on Grief – Coping with the Holidays

Memorialize the loss of our loved one. This tangible acknowledgement of their life can be very comforting. There are many ways to do this:
-Donate time or money to a charity in their name.
- Look through photo albums and/or create a scrapbook.
-Plant a tree.
-Prepare their favorite food.
-Visit the cemetery.
-Hang a memorial ornament on your Christmas tree.
-Light a candle.
-Have a prayer service.
-Write a letter to our loved one.
-Gather together family & friends to share stories and memories of our loved one.

Grief: Coping with the holidays

My favorite holiday story is that of a woman who told me she decorated her Christmas tree with her mother’s costume jewelry. That tribute must have been a spectacular and dazzling sight.

Here’s a list of suggestions we offer in the bereavement center.

• Plan ahead.
• Do what you want, not what you feel you should do.
• Surround yourself with those who are supportive and understanding.
• Lower your expectations during the holiday season.
• Allow someone else to do the baking, cooking and decorating this year.
• If you go to an event, take your own car so that you can leave when you choose.
• Shop using catalogs or the Internet or don’t shop at all this year!

I have always encouraged folks to take their own car to events throughout the year so they can make an early departure. Now I add, park in the street so your car doesn’t get blocked in the driveway. There’s nothing like trying making a quick getaway when you have to ask 3 people to move their car!

Winter, Grief and the Dark Night of the Soul

The following are some suggestions for turning in to our pain and finding growth and spiritual union:

• Journal – This act of expression can be powerfully helpful in pushing out the swirling confusion of emotions so that they become workable.
• Engage in meaningful ritual – Light a candle in honor of your loved one, set an extra place at the holiday table, go to your loved one’s resting place, make a donation in your loved one’s name or any other activity that helps guide you toward peace.
• Take care of your health – This time of year, with the added burden of grief, can be extremely stressful, and it is important to attend to our physical health.  Make sure to drink lots of water and eat healthy food.
• Move your body – Take a walk in the fresh crisp air, do yoga or any other physical activity that engages your body and mind.
• Practice mindful walking – notice each step and connect to Mother Earth.  Notice your breath, breathing in peace and nourishment, breathing out stress and pain.  Feel that sense of peace and nourishment and letting go of stress and pain first for yourself, and then for all others (which is everyone!) who are experiencing pain and suffering.
• Give yourself a gift that your loved one wanted for you, whether a material gift or a gift of relaxation, such as a massage.
• Spend time in nature, with compassionate friends, and schedule “dates” with yourself, treating yourself kindly as a friend.

Dealing with grief, loss during holidays

Finally, give yourself permission to be happy. It’s OK to feel good. Feeling good and laughing is your body’s way of letting you relax and let go of stress. This is a normal, healthy reaction. If you enjoy yourself at times, you are not being disrespectful to the memory of your loved one.

Be well,



P.S. Need help during the holidays…and everyday? It’s not too late to order How to Survive Your Grief When Someone You Love Has Died

Dealing with Grief During the Holidays is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

With the passing of Elizabeth Edwards last week, a part of me has little sympathy for John Edwards. After all he cheated on her when she needed him most. They were on the verge of divorce. He fathered a child with another woman. Hard to have sympathy for that, and yet…

Of all her close survivors, I expect John Edwards will have the hardest time of all. Yes the kids are without a mother, and they are so very young. Having already grieved a sibling with seeming grace, Cate will probably be a support and role model for the younger ones, and that will help.

The real difference, however, is that the kids probably aren’t carrying around a bag full of guilt, remorse and self loathing. Yes, I’m projecting a bit here, but I don’t think John Edwards is without feeling or so self centered, despite his behavior, that he feels justified in the damage he caused his wife, himself, and their marriage.

Maybe she forgave him in the end. For his sake and hers, I hope so. That he was there says something, but even if she did forgive him, John Edwards is going to grieve, and grieve hard.

Why?

It’s always the loss of the most difficult relationships that create the hardest bereavements. Being a snake of a husband made for an impossible marriage and will make for an equally difficult bereavement.

From all reports, they had a deep, deep bond. I suspect his dependence on her and his terror about losing her, actually led to the affair. So you combine the love, the bond and the betrayal, and you have the set up for a very messy grieving process.

He’s not just grieving the actual loss of Elizabeth. He’s grieving the loss of a marriage he can no longer redeem. He’s grieving his own behavior, and I expect he is struggling to forgive himself.

When we’re grieving, everything about the relationship gets tangled up in the grief. Yes, we grieve for what we had and lost, but that’s only part of the story.

We also grieve for the relationship we wanted and never had. We grieve for the relationship we had but didn’t want. We grieve out of anger and guilt. We grieve over what we said or didn’t say. We seek self forgiveness that somehow eludes us, and we seek the even more elusive forgiveness of the person who has died.

You and I have no way of knowing what transpired between John and Elizabeth during those last few days and months. We can hope that both found some measure of peace and forgiveness, but we’ll never know for sure, nor should we. Some things are meant to be private.

A Grieving John Edwards? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Grief support groups are without a doubt the single most effective healing mechanism available to people who are grieving, but how do you evaluate the people running a group? I suspect that many people don’t seek out grief support, because they have no idea how to evaluate the expertise of the facilitators.

As comforting as a list of degrees and licenses may be, the honest truth is they don’t mean much, so here are the criteria I would use in selecting a grief support professional whether as a group facilitator or a grief counselor.

1. Have they experienced grief themselves? In most cases the answer will be “yes”, but a “no” is a red flag

2. How long ago was their loss? Anything more recent than 2 years is a huge red flag. See the post earlier this week Do You Need to Experience Grief to Help the Grieving?

3. Are they still actively grieving? I know that sounds like a very personal question and it is, but you have every right to know where they are in their own grieving process. Bottom line is they should not be working with you to get their own needs met.

4. How long have they been working with the bereaved? As with most counseling there’s a sweet spot, where they have plenty of experience but before they start getting bored. In my experience that is usually somewhere between 5 – 10 years.

If longer than that, have they had any breaks? I know for myself this work keeps spiraling around. Every break has enriched and renewed me, and with each break I experience a renewed call back to do the work.

5. What are their spiritual beliefs? Are they similar to yours? (Good) Are they selling their own? (Bad) Are they open to exploring a variety of possibilities? (The Best)

This is especially important if you’re experiencing any kind of spiritual crisis which is very common. You want someone who will give you the space to explore for yourself what you really believe.

6. How comfortable are they sitting with someone else’s pain? You may not be able to assess this until you spend some time with them but if they keep redirecting you away from your pain, it’s time to move on.

7. Do they meditate? This may not sound like an important criteria, but here’s why I like to use it. Meditation is one of the most effective ways of learning to be present without judgments and agendas, and that makes for really excellent grief support.

8. How do they feel about medication? Medication, whether for depression, anxiety or sleep, should be a last resort. If someone immediately starts talking meds, find someone else. There are plenty of counselors out there who are discriminating in their use of prescription medications so don’t settle for anything less. (Note: this does not mean you shouldn’t use meds if they really are necessary)

9. Do you like and trust them? This is an intuitive criteria but that doesn’t make it any less important. No amount of counseling is going to help if you’re not telling the truth about what’s going on with you. In order to do that you need to feel safe. If you don’t like and trust them, you won’t feel safe enough to open up.

10. What kind of training and experience have they had? Education is good but experience is better and well supervised experience is even better. You want to know if that experience is specifically with grief or do they just have a mental health degree they think qualifies them (in and of itself it does not).

Many group facilitators are volunteers which is fine as long as they have been well trained and continue to be supervised. Find out.

11. How well do they listen? Assessing this may be hard during a phone call or even an initial meeting, but pay attention to whether you feel listened to or not?

12. In group settings, how well do they maintain the safety of the group? Do they let some people monopolize the conversation or are they able to set limits? Are they able to keep everyone on topic or does the conversation deteriorate into unrelated areas?

It may take more than one try to find the right grief support for you. What works for one person may not work for another so give yourself permission to look around.

If you don’t know where to start, you can usually get referrals from your clergy, local hospice or funeral home.

How to Find a Grief Support Group or Grief Counselor? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Depending on where you are in the grieving process, Thanksgiving may have been anything from wonderful to endurable to downright terrible.

Even years following a death the holidays can be a time when grief reemerges, but they can also be a time for sharing our memories of all the people who are no longer physically present to us.

My family Thanksgiving included recipes handed down through the generations of cooks in my family…my mom’s pumpkin chiffon pie, my aunt’s bacon and watermelon rind, another aunt’s creamed onions, my mother’s turkey stuffing, and a family friend’s cheese wafers.

As we made each one, we shared our memories of the food and the person who taught us how to make it. It was such a wonderful way of sharing those memories with each other and sharing with my niece and nephew who never actually knew most of them.

The same will be true with Christmas memories…everything from how long it took to gain consensus on which tree, to the family argument that always erupted as my father put up the tree and got the big bulb stings of lights on safely, to the plate of intricately decorated ginger cookies delivered by a neighbor.

We’ll remember how totally overboard we all went the first Christmas without my mom and how she always stayed up until 4 am trying to finish something she was making and how often those gifts were received all pinned together.

Even the memory of the puppy who spent Christmas Eve in a neighbor’s garage and ate my father’s beautiful new leather wallet will be passed on to the kids who always get a good laugh out of it.

You have those kind of memories too. Remembering the people we have physically lost and sharing those stories with those who do remember and those who don’t, is healing. It’s part of the grieving process and continues far into the future.

Knowing the power of memories and stories, I was delighted when I discovered ‘Storybooks for Healing’, a program for collecting, writing and sharing your memories via a digital storybook tool. (For an additional fee you can also print your storybook as a keepsake).

This program has been done many times through hospice, churches and funeral homes. Now Joan Hitchens is offering an e-book so you can do the program on your own.

If it’s been 6 months or more since your loss (most can’t do something like this right away), I’d encourage you to check it out. The e-book is only $9.95.

Start to Finish Writing Guide to Discover, Publish and Share Your Loved One’s Life Story

P.S. I rarely sell other people’s products because it’s not often that I find one I’m willing to put my name behind. I feel totally comfortable recommending this one, and just so your know, I will make a small commission should you decide to buy.

What are your family memories? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Did you know that 1 in 7 kids will lose someone close before they graduate high school? One in 20 will lose a parent.

To bring awareness to this often invisible group and to let them know we are aware and want to support them.

Find out more about Children’s Grief Awareness Day and while you’re there LIKE them.

Children’s Grief Awareness Day – Thursday November 18 is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

As I was walking on the beach the other day, I got to thinking. It seems so odd that as more and more research emerges about grief, cultural support for people who are grieving seems to be at an all time low.

Grief wasn’t studied much before Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed the 5 stages of grief in the 1960′s, and from a cultural perspective our understanding hasn’t grown far beyond that early research. Though ongoing research has continued to deepen our knowledge, what we’ve learned hasn’t had much impact on our cultural attitudes and behaviors around grief and grieving.

While all of the research and anecdotal evidence suggests people with strong support systems tend to do better than people who don’t, I continue to hear the same complaint from people who are grieving that I’ve been hearing for over 20 years.

It boils down to some version of “the people around me don’t understand what I’m going through and they think I should just get over it.”

Why is that?

Is it simply our profound existential fear of death?

Is it that in our busy lives we forget to be there?

Is it that we don’t know what to say so we practice avoidance?

Is it a general a lack of understanding about the grieving process?

Is it our growing cultural assumption that we’re never supposed to suffer? And if we do, there must be a pill to make us happy again?

Is it because we assume this is a realm where only mental health professionals or clergy dare to tread?

In a world where we are confronted with regular doses of gruesomeness, are we all losing our respect for death and for those who are grieving?

Maybe it’s all of the above. Clearly I don’t have a definitive answer as to why we’re not doing better as a society in honoring people who are grieving, but we need to keep asking the question…how can we better support them?

Thoughts? I’d love to hear them below.

P.S. If you’re struggling with how to offer support to someone who is grieving, 5 Ways to Help When Someone You Know is Grieving is a good starting point.

So where’s the cultural support for grief? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

I promise this is my last post on pet loss, and before anyone jumps all over me for raising these questions, let me state emphatically that grief rituals are for the comfort of the grieving. Whatever path you choose for yourself, your family or your pets, it is about doing what feels supportive and right for you and your family.

So back to the original question about pet funeral homes…

Although there are similarities in different kinds of losses, I still feel uncomfortable, queasy actually, with formalized death rituals for pets though I have created informal ones for all of mine and most of them have been buried in the backyard with tears and a prayer.

Here are some of the questions the whole idea raises for me…

• Are pet funeral homes meeting a real need or are they trying to create a need that isn’t really there? Are they helping or are they just taking advantage of people?

• Pet loss is a hot topic on the internet. Is that because it’s a disenfranchised loss that needs attention? Or is the grief over a pet displaced grief from other losses?

• Culturally, pets do seem to be taking up more of our emotional energy than they ever have before. Is this healthy? What is it about our personal relationships that is elevating the relationship with our pets in this way? Or is there even a connection?

• Would we be better off if our human funeral rituals were less formal and more personalized? Though many of our rituals are very helpful, could they be more helpful if we did them differently? Or maybe it’s that I’d really prefer to grieve my family as I do my pets…privately, naturally and at home.

Maybe pet funeral homes feel creepy to me because I’ve considered things I ultimately rejected because they just didn’t feel right. Pet cemeteries, crematoriums and even taxidermy just felt wrong, so very wrong for me and my pets.

Besides, had I gone the formal route, I never would have seen Jesse (Golden Retriever) lay down her beloved Kong as a gift to the recently deceased Toni Cat.

Thots? Feel free to share below.

Are funeral homes for pets over the top? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Is the grief over a pet easier? Not necessarily, but there’s one characteristic in our relationship with our pets that would support that hypothesis.

Our relationship with our pets is generally much less complicated than our relationships with our human family members. Though this may see counterintuitive at first, the more difficult the relationship with the person who died, the harder the bereavement.

When someone dies we grieve the actual death but we also grieve anything that wasn’t the way we would have liked in the relationship. We grieve when we didn’t say something we really wanted to say. Our grief becomes more difficult when our last words were said in anger. We grieve for all the things we hoped for in a relationship that we never got, and we grieve for all the things we got that we didn’t particularly want. From the minor spat to full blown abuse, these things factor in to make grief more difficult. All of that on top of the actual death.

With pets it’s usually easier because they don’t disappoint in the same way. They aren’t absent parents. They aren’t spouses who work too much. They don’t think we’re bad parents even when we are. Usually they’re just there for us without a lot of complications, and that lack of complication makes grief easier.

I don’t know that many human relationship that free of complication. Do you?

Is the Grief Over a Pet Easier? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

I recently commented elsewhere on how I thought funeral homes for pets was going a bit far. Not everyone agreed, but I still think the loss of a pet is qualitatively different from the death of a parent, a spouse, a sibling or a child.

Now before I start hearing from the animal lovers out there, I am too. I am absolutely crazy in love with all of my pets. The companionship of my Golden Retriever, Heidi, is more consistent and reliable than many of the people in my life.

She’s turning 10 in a few months, suffers from arthritis and has already had a bout with cancer. I will be devastated when she dies, but I knew that when I got her as a puppy. I made that choice. I’ve already grieved the loss of 9 other cats and dogs in my lifetime so I am no stranger to losing a pet. It comes with the territory.

Does the loss of a pet need to be grieved? Of course it does, and for each individual it will be different just as each human loss is different. Allowing the grief to lead you in the direction of healing is still the way to go whether the loss is animal or human.

Even though it’s all grief and there may be many similarities, I believe it’s disrespectful to equate the death of any pet no matter how beloved, to the death of a human being.

So this is the first, and the next few posts will probably be the last time, I will talk about the death of a pet. I’m doing it now because it came up elsewhere and maybe we can learn a thing or two by looking at some of the similarities and differences.

Just for the record, I also don’t talk here about the grief of divorce, infertility, and miscarriages…all of which can be devastatingly painful. Neither do I talk about the grief of addicts giving up their drug of choice. Nor do I talk about the grief of growing old. The list is endless.

Is there grief involved in all of those situations? Absolutely! Is it the same kind of grief? Usually not, and even it was, it doesn’t feel that way to a person grieving the death of someone they love. Death makes it different. Long term relationship makes it different. That it’s a human to human loss, makes it different.

For me that means respecting the difference, and talking about these different kinds of losses in different forums.

I’d love to hear what you think. Feel free to comment below.

Grief is grief…or is it? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Many years ago I learned from a hospice chaplain that in it’s broadest sense, spirituality is about finding meaning.

When someone we love dies and we’re facing an abysmal future without them, the meaning can be almost impossible to find.

Though there are many factors making sudden, unexpected and violent deaths more difficult for those left behind, one of the big ones is the meaninglessness of it all. No matter how hard we try, these deaths make no sense. In trying to make sense out of them the grieving process generally becomes more complicated and prolonged.

Sometimes it is up to us to make meaning out of catastrophe. These two 9/11 widows are stellar examples of making meaning out of the senseless acts of violence that so profoundly touched their lives.

Making meaning out of an untimely death by serving others is not for everyone. There are no shoulds here, but there are countless examples of others surviving their grief by taking action in service to others.

The founders of MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) are one example. Jack Walsh of America’s Most Wanted is another that comes to mind.

Though these are enormous causes, it doesn’t have to be a huge thing or even a formal one. My father who always left such things to my mom, stepped up by reaching out to others who were grieving. After her death, he made a point of calling and writing anyone he knew who was grieving. It was healing for him as well as for them.

There are many ways to serve, and there are many ways to make meaning where none exists. This is the story of 2 women who turned a personal and national tragedy into something meaningful by dedicating themselves to making a difference.

The Healers of 9/11

In the shattering aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Ms. Retik bonded with another woman, Patti Quigley, whose husband had also died in the attack. They lived near each other, and both were pregnant with babies who would never see their fathers.

Devastated themselves, they realized that there were more than half a million widows in Afghanistan — and then, with war, there would be even more. Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley also saw that Afghan widows could be a stabilizing force in that country.

So at a time when the American government reacted to the horror of 9/11 mostly with missiles and bombs, detentions and waterboardings, Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley turned to education and poverty-alleviation projects — in the very country that had incubated a plot that had pulverized their lives.

___________________________________
A Footnote

This story has a personal connection for me. Though I never knew her personally, one of these widows lived in my neighborhood. I remember walking by her house every day wondering how she was doing, and how she was ever going to recover from such devastation. She never knew I was saying a prayer for her and her children every time I passed. Now I know how she survived and I’m in awe.

Finding the Meaning in the Tragic Loss of a Loved One is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Last week, I shared a recent study on grief that reported acceptance of a death is high, higher than expected, soon after the death has occurred.

That report of higher than expected acceptance, gave me pause. As I thought about it though, I realized that acceptance of a death and a death becoming real aren’t exactly the same thing.

I would agree that most people accept a death has occurred, and that most will tell you they accept that it’s occurred.

That’s different from the unconscious forgetfulness that’s such a characteristic of the first few months of grief. When I talk about a death becoming real, I am talking about the experience all grieving people report, almost without exception, of picking up the phone to call the person or coming home expecting them to be there. Throughout the first few months there are these split second experiences of forgetfulness followed rapidly by reality hitting yet again.

It’s not a full blown denial that a death has occurred that might be called lack of acceptance, but there is clearly a period of time that’s needed for the psyche to catch up with reality.

So I think both are true…levels of acceptance are high following a death (especially for anticipated deaths which is what was studied here) AND it takes a few months for the full reality and the implications of that reality to hit home completely.

Acceptance vs Reality in the Grieving Process is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

If you’ve followed me at all you know I detest the whole idea of stages of grief. As far as I’m concerned the whole idea has become a cultural cliché which deserves to be debunked. This study is a good step in that direction.

I find this study affirming of what I’ve observed in people who are grieving, and though I don’t hear people use the word yearning, and I don’t myself, it fits what I have heard described repeatedly in grief support groups. It’s that constant nagging desire for one last word, one last touch, or one last sight of the person who has died. Yeah, “yearning” describes it well.

It’s also interesting that all negatively identified responses peaked between 4-6 months which is when most, but not all, people report having the hardest time following a death.

My observation has been that somewhere between 3-6 months the full reality of the death hits, and with it the full impact of the loss. I think the full reality hitting is different than acceptance which was reported as being very high soon after a death has occurred.

CBC News Account

Abstract of the study

Stages of Grief? Yearning the #1 Response to Grief, Not Denial is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

I’m continuing to rummage through my archives. This is a disturbing article from 2007, but I expect it’s still going on.

Seems that in a study of the prescribing habits of physicians there was an unexpected finding. Physicians are prescribing large amounts of addictive drugs like Xanax (an anti-anxiety medication) for bereavement.

If you’ve read How to Survive Your Grief, you know I’m not totally adverse to the occasional and very short term use of medications, but I am adamantly opposed to dosing up on medication to avoid feeling the grief.

Here’s why. Medication gets in the way of grief recovery. Grief is what heals us following a loss. If we avoid the grief, we can’t heal and we prolong the pain. The fastest and most complete way through grief is to experience it as fully and completely as we can. That’s not to say you don’t need a break from time to time, but large amounts of addictive drugs or alcohol just don’t help.

The most effective thing anyone can do following the death of someone they love is to join a support group. It’s even better than buying the book though I recommend that too.

To read the whole article, go to:
For Some Bereaved, Pain Pills Without End

Take good care,

Does Medicating Grief Get in the Way of Grief Recovery? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

In Western culture, death and grieving are often seen as something to be avoided at all costs. We’re certainly not supposed to fall apart. Wrong!

Sometimes we just need to fall apart and it doesn’t need to be “treated”. Throughout the grieving process what most need more than anything else, is to have their grief witnessed and acknowledged.

I recently rediscovered this article that tells the story of one woman’s loss and how it got “treated”.

Read Falling Apart

Though I acknowledge in the book that short term use of medication can be helpful in certain situations, this article makes the case for why it is not a long term solution.

Be well,

Death and Grieving – Is it Okay to Fall Apart? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Is grief counseling bad for you?

The short answer is absolutely not. I hear this question more often than I would like. So here’s my take on it…

Without question, the most effective support for grief and loss is a grief support group. Period!

I should also say that plenty of people get through their grief without anything more than their family and friends, and I know many who have grieved quite alone and come out the other side just fine.

That said, one on one counseling can often help especially in situations where there are complicating factors like (but not limited to) multiple losses in close succession, loss of a child, violent and sudden deaths, difficult relationships, prior mental health issues and just plain old unfinished business (almost everyone has some of that).

So yes one on one grief counseling can be useful but much depends on the mental health professional you see. In the hands of someone who does not understand grief, counseling may not help because they have no idea how to differentiate grief from other issues like depression and anxiety, thus have no idea how to be helpful.

Normal grief is not a mental disorder. It is not depression though it may look like it at times. Nor is it anxiety which it can also mimic. Nor in the vast majority of cases, is it PTSD. Grief is a normal and natural response to loss.

So before you head off for grief counseling, here’s my primer on how to find the right counselor for you.

There’s a whole lot of bad therapy going on out there. Just because someone has a degree and a license does not guarantee any kind of expertise. The problem is even worse when it comes to grief counseling. Many mental health professionals believe they are prepared to deal with grief issues because of their mental health background, and it’s just not so.

Grief is a specialized field so you need to make sure you have a counselor with experience and expertise in grief and loss. Ask about their experience and even interview several counselors before you decide. Yes, you’ll probably have to pay for those sessions but it’s well worth doing to find someone who can really help you.

In addition to expertise, another reason to interview 2 or 3 before you decide, is you want to be working with someone you like and can trust. This is something you feel in your gut and has nothing whatever to do with the diplomas on the wall.

In study after study, the effectiveness of therapy and counseling is shown to be the quality of the relationship rather than the kind of therapy or therapeutic techniques used. So pay close attention to the quality of the relationship. Being in a therapeutic relationship with someone you don’t like, don’t trust, or otherwise makes you uncomfortable, is counterproductive.

To Recap:
1. Trust yourself. You are the expert on your own process.
2. Find an expert in grief.
3. Like and trust the person you’re seeing

Unless there are extenuating circumstances, my recommendation is to first find a support group because it may very well be enough.

If you still want counseling, interview several people before you decide. Keep looking until you find the right professional.

You might also find How to Survive Your Grief When Someone You Love Has Died helpful. There’s lots of information about when to get help and how to find the best help for your own situation.

I’ve even had quite a few readers take it with them to their counseling sessions. Great idea!

Hope this helps,

Grief Counseling, Bad for You? is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief

Grief and loss often get confused by people who are grieving. They think what they’re experiencing in their grief is something to be gotten over mistakenly believing it’s the grief that’s the problem. It’s not.

If there’s an enemy here, it’s the loss itself not the grief that follows it. Grief is the means by which we heal. When we trust it, it shatters us and makes us whole again…all in it’s own time.

Yes, grief is painful, but it’s so much more painful not to grieve. The key to surviving a loss and the grief that follows is to go wherever the grief leads because it is the pathway back into life and it knows the way.

Grief and Loss – Grief Is Not The Enemy is a post from: How to Survive Your Grief