To get to a different place in life, you have to take a different road. And the road we choose to travel is different for all of us. On our journey we each take differing amounts of time along the way for the things we need to do. (We all make different stops along the […]

For three days in October 1989 I took a Stress Management Workshop offered to me through my workplace, from the Training and Development branch. I jumped at the chance even though I knew some of my co-workers and my boss’s boss would be taking it as well! At first I was nervous with the idea […]

A Facebook friend, Amy, recently touched my heart: “Hey, Melanie. I was in the old neighborhood today paying tribute to the passing of my wonderful old friend (yup, one in the same from the story I told you about from when we were 13, unfortunately). Anyways, as I was memorializing him in all our old […]

A testament to survival: “I don’t think, in our deepest heart, we accept the death until we see the body. When we viewed the body of our daughter, who drowned, I remember to this day the comment that my wife said to me. She said, ‘Oh, Tom, it’s her. It’s really her.’ And we’d already […]

“Tell me about it…what happened?” Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend Read an excerpt now TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Have you heard the following simplistic concept?: “You must bloom where you are planted.” (In other words, grow a life.) What does that mean to you, when you think about your grief journey? Does it mean “grow and become all that you can be, no matter where you find yourself on life’s journey?” And in […]

A few days ago my eleven-year-old son decided to learn how to juggle. He was a bit nervous and overwhelmed but determined to use his apprehension to energize himself. He didn’t worry about if he could do it or not, and he didn’t worry about how long it would take…he just dove in because he […]

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed or how much our life has changed, when anniversary dates of a loved one’s death roll around it’s natural that we remember, we mourn, and we feel: Today my thoughts are on —–. He went missing [in September] 35 years ago and then on the 27th [of […]

It really happened quite by accident… Over dinner the conversation turned to a discussion about their father who had died years ago. All of the participants were now parents themselves. The conversation went on for hours as each person recited a story…one after the other. Later, they recalled how much fun that evening of sharing […]

Melissa sits in her one-room cabin and mourns the loss of her only son, Jack, who was killed three and a half years ago.She grieves for him every day.And she’s having trouble accepting the fact that Torrance, the man who killed her son, gets out of jail today…he just finished serving a two-year sentence for […]