We really never know exactly when our last goodbye will come with anyone. And when our parents become elderly and frail we may get an alert and have a sense of what’s coming…but we still never know for sure. Before a parent is gone, we understand intellectually that they will die some day. But understanding […]

“I wrote this poem 6 days after my sister passed away suddenly. She had survived 2 heart transplants and was in GREAT health when she was taken from us. This poem explains everything I was going through at the time and am still going through now, 3 months later. My sister was an incredible wife, […]

Some people get so angry at the injustice of a death that they wish to destroy the perpetrator if only they could get their hands on them! Believe it or not, that is a normal reaction; it’s what you do with your anger that matters. But anger, a form of energy, can be transformed into […]

During the process of grief, you are bombarded with many stressful situations, feelings and thoughts that continually test your inner strength. You may deal with one matter only to find yourself facing another. Thus, anger can compound as well as seem to spring up anew. It can be frightening. You may be surprised at its […]

It was a valuable lesson: Don’t believe everything you read and hear! But it was a harsh way to learn it. Last week on Thursday the life of my family was thrown into a tailspin when a car hit a thirteen-year-old girl…a girl we happen to know…a close friend to Brody, my same-aged son. Although […]

Grief is a normal and personal response to loss. Grief is powerful. Grief is a process. Grief work takes a lot of energy…and if you put if off it will still be there, waiting. Grieving is like a deep wound that eventually heals and closes…but whose terrible scar remains and still can hurt at times. […]

Having gone through this experience yourself, many of you truly understand what it is like…how tough it is to lose a parent…no matter what the circumstances and personal history. And when you have been the caretaker and have seen your parent find peace, there is a wide array of feelings—sadness mixed with relief (which, if […]

Her father was close to death. “Is it raining?” he asked. “No, Dad, it’s beautiful outside—and it’s even more beautiful where you are going,” she answered as confidently as she could despite the hidden tears behind her eyes and the quiver in her voice…“Be sure to say hello to my sister for me and give […]

Last month I watched the movie The Lovely Bones about a 14-year-old girl who is murdered by a serial killer and how she deals with living in the in-between world caught between wanting to get vengeance for her death and wanting to help her family heal. The movie toys with the idea of: what if […]

At the time my sister (Cindy James) died and her body was found (on this day twenty-one years ago), it seemed that some of my family members weren’t sharing the same sorrow that I felt, or at least they weren’t showing it the same way. But, I now realize, none of us were ever psychologically […]