Articles Worth Reading

[MartyT]

This must be the day for finding outstanding articles for us! Here is yet another one not to be missed:

When Bad Things Happen to Good Women: Advice for Moving Forward, by Carole Brody Fleet

It was the day after my late husband’s funeral. Two years after Lou Gehrig’s Disease invaded and eventually took the life of a one-time robust, hard-working, fun-loving husband and father, I was newly widowed and sitting alone in the living room; staring off into Nowhere-in-Particular Land with the blinds drawn tightly shut.

Permit me to share exactly what was going through my mind at that horrible moment in time:

It’s all over.

The doctors and the hospitals and the insurance companies and the commotion and the constantparades of people (well-meaning and otherwise).

The exercise in survival into which a heinous illness turned a once-happy home.

Over. 

And now?

Quiet.

But not a peaceful quiet.

The quiet that emptiness brings.

The same question frenetically whirled in my mind: “Is this reallyIT?”

And at that moment in time…it was.

This is now my life.

No bright future. No laughter. No shining light in the darkness.

This is what everyone keeps referring to as my “New Normal”.

I hate that phrase.

No one ever uses that phrase when they are talking about something happy or positive.

Read on here >>>

[kayc]

Very inspirational!  Someone I want to be like, what a mentor!

[enna]

I found this article to be good ~ about helping one another.

http://www.opentohope.com/dark-world-community/ 

[enna]

There is NO timeline when grieving.

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/myth-grief-timeline/ 

[enna]

Volunteering ~ 

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/giving-back-grief/ 

[enna]

What Really Hurts. . .

http://thegrieftoolbox.com/artwork/what-really-hurts 

[enna]

Sadness

http://www.refugeingrief.com/specific-sadness/  

[MartyT]

From Grief Digest Magazine, a wonderful essay about time:

 

MY ANALOG DISSONANCE

byIlissa Ducoat

 

. . . Take away the timepiece, and it is one of the most relative, subjective, undetermined, personal experiences a person shall have, especially in terms of death.

There’s little time left, her time is up, his time ran out, their time has expired, time heals all wounds, give it time, take your time, all things in time, and each moment we have left defies the fundamental laws of precision. Each moment after recording the time of death, it’s an open-ended fog of waiting for the second hand to move. Sometimes we wait for hours for one tick, and sometimes an hour has gone by and we don’t know where we’ve driven or what we’ve done . . . Read more here >>>

[enna]

This article was written last year but I think it has some good thoughts. 

http://anniewrightpsychotherapy.com/2015/05/two-things-about-mothers-day-that-no-one-else-is-talking-about/ 

[enna]

Taking a break from grief. It is healthy to do so.

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/avoidance-coping-vs-taking-break-hollywood-kept-sane/  

[enna]

Grief Overload...

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/cumulative-grief-aka-grief-overload/  

[enna]

Handling the Loneliness of Grief...

http://thegrieftoolbox.com/article/handling-loneliness-grief?utm_content=buffer585b4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer 

 

[enna]

I found this article by Dr. Sanjay Gupta How Grief Can Make You Sick to be informative as well as the other links on the page. I don't think we are aware that our health can suffer when we lose a loved one. I have learned to care for both my physical as well as my mental health after being DX with heart failure. I keep appointments with my doctors, I watch my mental state by meditating, exercising, and finding other avenues of relaxation. Our bodies are wonderful machines and in most cases we have the ability to actually heal ourselves. 

http://www.everydayhealth.com/news/how-grief-can-make-you-sick/ 

[enna]

I have come to love what Barbara Karnes, RN has to say. Her advice is always so solid. Usually, she talks about end-of-life issues and her dedicated work to her hospice patients but this article is a sensitive talk about a young person dealing with a chronic illness. I do not know whose picture this belongs to. 

https://www.bkbooks.com/blog/tired-fighting?utm_source=BkBooks+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c909d5cf61-43_Tired_of_Fighting&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9ffb5b18f-c909d5cf61-111941201&ct=t(43_Tired_of_Fighting)&mc_cid=c909d5cf61&mc_eid=4b8ccb5030

[MartyT]

Wise words from our friend Maria Kubitz:

Basic Truths That Can Help You Through Grief

by Maria Kubitz | May 18, 2016

Grief is universal.

Just as you cannot avoid death, you also cannot avoid grief.

 

Sooner or later, it will find you. In fact, it may find you so many times, you could start feeling that life is just a series of grief-filled losses.

Some episodes of grief seem a bit easier to rebound from than others. Maybe you got laid off from a job you loved, only to have it open the door to one that is even more fulfilling. Or when a romantic relationship that once seemed like it would last forever devolves into one of irrevocable hurt and disappointment. You can learn from what went wrong and look for a new one that better fits your innermost needs.

Other episodes of grief can be so deep and so painful, they become downright debilitating. Often, they make you rethink and reevaluate everything you thought you once knew about life itself. This level of grief often happens as a result of the death of someone so cherished and integral to your life that you can’t imagine life without them.

And if you’re anything like me… it is certainly one of the deepest forms of grief you will ever feel and one of the hardest you will ever have to work through.

While there is no universal timetable or sequence of how we deal with grief as individuals, there are plenty of common themes and reactions to grief that everyone seems to experience.

There are also some universal truths about grief — and life itself— that have the ability to help anyone work through the pain of grief.

 

Based on my own experience and hearing from countless others who have lost a loved one, here are some of the basic truths that have helped me and many others work through the devastation of debilitating grief.     Read on here >>>

[enna]

The language of loss...

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/grief-is-not-the-wolf-the-language-of-loss/ 

[enna]

We all have grief monsters...

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/grief-monster-grief-support/  

 

[enna]

Grief is Powerful: Here are 6 Lessons Survivors Learn from Tragedy

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/21/8456893/grief-trauma-lessons  

[kayc]

That was all very good.

[enna]

This is not a new article but I found it worth sharing. 

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/the-language-of-grief/ 

[iPraiseHim]

 I thought I coined a new term, "Deathaversary" but just found out Bella in the comment posts already claimed the word.  I am not as "original" as I thought.

[enna]

An emotion we don't think about.

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/relief-after-a-death-the-unspoken-emotion/  

 

[enna]

Accepting your sadness...

Jeff Foster (www.lifewithoutacentre.com)

11 hrs · 

IF YOU ARE FEELING SAD...

If you are feeling sad, you are not in a 'low vibration'. You are not sick or broken or unenlightened or far from healing. You are not 'trapped in your ego' or stuck in the 'separate self'. You are not being negative, and you don't need to be fixed, and sadness is not a mistake, because it's life moving in you, and life can't be a mistake, ever.

You are just feeling sad, that's all.

It's a feeling state playing out on the vibrantly alive movie screen of presence, that's all.

It's not a problem that requires a solution or a band-aid. It's a sacred and precious part of you longing for love, acceptance, embrace, rest.

You've been blessed by sadness today; you've been chosen as her home; don't run away from such a truly precious gift.

- Jeff Foster

[enna]

http://www.refugeingrief.com/what-do-i-do-with-my-crazy-family/ 

[enna]

From Widower's Grief ~ 

Life In a Museum

Posted: 01 Jun 2016 04:33 AM PDT

“your life / It’s a painting hanging in a dark museum” Guillaume Apollinaire

 

After death knocked me out, I woke in a dark room. There was one painting hanging on the wall, lit by a spotlight. It was a portrait of my love who died, and it was all I could see.

 

In a corner of my eye, I noticed a crazy kaleidoscope of images flashing with feelings and jumbled thoughts. But when I tried to look directly at it, it moved to another corner.

 

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw other paintings around me. Some were large canvases with splatters of paint like the shredded emotions of Jackson Pollock. A few were tiny, just two inches wide, in golden frames. Some paintings reminded me of Hopper’s melancholy, the bent reality of Dali, the cubist facial migration of Picasso, or the anguish of Orozco.

 

Wandering into other galleries, I saw the broad strokes of my life on the walls, each gallery a different decade, with experiences that changed the direction of my life. The paintings were like grand landscapes and city scenes by Breughel that looked beautiful from a distance, but when I moved close, I noticed the details of everyday life the filled them —celebrations and dancing going on in the foreground, someone sad sitting on a stoop, people having arguments, and other deaths.

 

There were scenes from Yosemite where the awe of nature helped center my life. A few paintings had heavy shadows like Rembrandt, still full of mystery, even years later.

 

The side galleries wound around the center one, with openings on each side that led into the other galleries like spokes in a wheel circling around an unchanging core that has held me together over the years.

 

Eventually, I reached the gallery under construction labeled “After.” Inside I saw preliminary sketches taped to the walls with Post-It notes that said “Dissolution,” “Persistence of Memory,” “Saudade,” “Unbridled Joy,” and “Tango.”

 

 

I create paintings to explore my journey through grief. The paintings arrive here when I move on to the next stage in life. When I stop creating, I will also come here and take my place. The Memory Museum.