Even though the origami angels aren’t really on topic for hankeringforyarn, it felt appropriate to post this tutorial as a response to Anna being in need of some healing energy.

As I have been posting the tutorials for the Origami Angel of Peace and Healing, it struck me again how important it is to remind ourselves of the presence of angels in our lives.

Making angel dolls, especially simple ones like this one, is a good way of doing that.

Angels are everywhere, everywhen. We tend to associate them with Christmas, but every day is angel day…..

May they bless your lives and your hearts! And, may Anna soon be all better!

It’s really nice to have all the links for a project in one place, so I’ve posted them all in one entry:

Here it is : origami-angels-of-peace-and-healing-links

Post from: Widows Quest

I am sending healing thoughts and energy, to all that need it, whether in body, mind or spirit… may Angels of Peace and Healing surround you- now and always. All ways….

And, here is the final installment of the Origami Angel of Peace and Healing: Part 3

Post from: Widows Quest

Since Anna is sick and can’t blog right now, her blogging buddies from b5 are writing guest posts.

They are really poignant and powerful…..

I’ve been really moved by them.

My contribution is to post instructions for making

Origami Angels of Peace and Healing.

As you fold these angels, please fold in as much healing and peace creating thoughts as possible…..

In Part 1 of this tutorial, the preliminary folds were made.

And here is Part 2. You’ll need scissors for this part.

Post from: Widows Quest

She writes beautifully about a difficult topic: Grief and grieving. I have a great deal of empathy for Anna.

My family and I have had an unseemly amount of grief in the last few years, coping with life threatening illnesses, and with the deaths of family members, friends, relations, and animal companions. It’s been a difficult passage for us, and it has taught us a lot about compassion and love and gratitude.

I have found great healing in the fiber arts and in soulful dollmaking. Dollmaking can be profoundly healing. When dollmaking is approached in a contemplative and meditative manner, it is very nurturing and sustaining. I hope that by posting the tutorials for my designs for these origami angels, I will contribute to the healing of hearts that are aching.

Please Note: This is also a great way to take care of the planet…. use paper that has already been used – gift wrap, envelopes, magazine pages, paper bags, etc

Here is part one of the tutorial for Origami Angels of Peace and Healing, by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

Post from: Widows Quest

In February of 2005, I received one of those phone calls no-one every wants to get. My baby brother, 35 years old, had died. Even worse, he had taken his life.

Up until this past spring, I worked with dying people. After working as an RN in many different areas over the years, I was working part-time in a palliative care residence. I helped people in their final days and I helped people who loved those who were dying. Death wasn’t foreign to me; I’d lost beloved pets, I’d lost grandparents, I’d lost more patients and people who I’d come to know and admire, than I can recall. So, I had no idea I would react as I did. I collapsed.

I often wonder about that day. It was just two days after my daughter turned 16 and she was alone in the house with me when I received the phone call. She didn’t know what to do, but she handled things anyway. But I wonder what type of impression it left on her. Parents are the strong ones, we’re the ones who look after our children, but I needed caring for very much at that point.

His death made me wonder how I would react if anything happened to my husband, to whom I’ve been married for 22 years. Would I be able to cope? Would I have to lean on our children? Would that be fair to them since they would have just suffered a tremendous loss of their own? I learned through my brother’s death that no matter how well prepared we think we are – we can’t be completely prepared for that final good-bye.

Marijke Durning
www.helpmyhurt.com

Message to Anna: I’m new at b5media so we’ve not met, but I wish you the best and hope that you return home, safe and sound, soon.

Marijke

Post from: Widows Quest

Three years ago this winter, I came as close as I ever care to come to widowhood, and it has forever changed me. I was 36, and Marshall and I were approaching our second anniversary (and 5th year of being together). In August, I was cutting his hair, which I do every month (like it or not), and a few days after that, he had a small pimple come up on the back of his neck. I noticed it, but it wasn’t until a few days after that that I noticed that it was getting larger and larger. I finally convinced him to go to the doctor when it was getting close to the size of a ping pong ball. Over the next few weeks, he went on a couple of different rounds of antibiotics, and it finally went away.

Somewhere around mid October, he started having back pain. Over the course of a few days, it went from just the normal I-am-40-and-can’t-do-what-I-used-to kind of pain, to excruciating, immobilizing pain. When he started vomiting in the middle of the night, we decided it was time to go to the ER. To make a very long story very short, Marshall’s little ingrown hair was MRSA (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and had infected the epidural space of his spinal column, with abcesses from the top all of the way to the bottom of his spine, and the infection had moved into his blood. His organs were starting to shut down. He spent 14 days in ICU, on a ventilator, in a drug induced coma that we weren’t at all sure he would come out of. I prayed and prayed and prayed and studied about his illness online when I wasn’t able to be by his side, and slept the bare minimum amount of sleep that I had to to function. For a while, the best case scenario we were given was that he would be left a paraplegic. Miraculously, after 31 days of hospitalization, and another year of tender loving care (and super potent antibiotics), he is fully recovered, with only minimal neurological effects remaining.

I learned a lot about MRSA during his hospitalization and recovery, and I learned even more about people. I learned that I have the kind of love for my husband that lasts a lifetime, that marrying him was the absolute right thing to do. I learned that indeed you do have fair-weather friends (and relatives!) – and it is good to know who those people are who really are there for you when times get tough – be sure and honor those people – they are few and far between. I learned how fleeting life is. Marshall was the strongest person I had ever known, in mind, body and soul – and to see a man like him taken down by a microscopic bacteria was incredibly eye opening. And I learned a lot about myself. I am stronger than I thought I was, and more vulnerable than I ever thought possible.

The effects of going through that illness with my husband were lifelong lessons, that looking back, were very good to learn. I have gained useful knowledge and experience that few of my other friends have, and I hope it will make me a better friend and person. I can no longer watch horror movies (which used to be my favorite!) – the potential horrors that real life has to offer are scary enough for me. This holiday, and every day, I am truely so thankful for my husband and my terrific family, my health, their health, and our happiness. My heart goes out to all of those who have experienced these losses in life, and I always pray that those who are left on Earth can find the strength to go on. I honestly don’t know how they do it sometimes.

Best wishes to Anna, my prayers are with her to have a speedy and full recovery. She is a very valued member of b5media, and we love and appreciate her so very much.

Christina Jones

Tags: mrsa, Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, antibiotics, intensive care, critical care, near death

Post from: Widows Quest

Church Candles on Christmas Eve

I had a secret over the holidays.

I was in mourning over Christmas and I didn’t want my children to know.

While my husband and I took our children to attend a Nativity celebration on Christmas Eve in Germany, my brother and sister were taking care of other obligations in Canada.

The email to summon us had landed in my email box the day before. It put me in shock, but there was no way for me to respond except to pass along the information. My siblings and I have always been close. Being separated from them is often difficult, but this was the hardest time of all.

A relative from whom we’d been long estranged was dying. For almost twenty-five years the three of us have known the call to the deathbed would come. I never imagined that I would be so far away. I never imagined that the visit would unfold on Christmas Eve.

While my brother and sister attended the bedside for a brief visit, I was with my children who were full of joy appropriate for the night before Christmas. They lit votive candles and sang with me:

Oh Lord our God
Thine children call
Grant us thine peace
and bless us all

It made me want to sob, but I couldn’t.

I took three candles, for the three players in a family drama, and stole a quiet moment alone to send prayers for peace and love that were different than the ones I have made on other Christmases. Maybe there was something desperate to my prayers that clung to the emergence of light and hope was everywhere on Christmas Eve. Maybe the ambiance of joy and anticipation made it easier to accept that I would play no role in the resolution of our own family conflict. It was easy to believe amid the candlelight and carolsong, the souls I was praying for would not be infected by uncertainty and the unresolved, but by the joy and promise of the everlasting.

Earlier that day, I’d read an article about another person’s experience of resolution unachieved and although the circumstances of the author and his relationship were very different from my own, it comforted me with a framework for dealing with the loss of life combined with loss of potential.

There were many fitting gifts of perspective.

The next day, while the world celebrated the birth of a King, news came that another life had ended. I lit another candle. I said another prayer. And the light filled the dark room. You have to let it. No matter what time of year it happens.

Submitted by Anonymous

Tags: grief, loss, death, death of a loved one at Christmas, coping

Post from: Widows Quest

You see, Anna has fallen ill and is currently under the weather and under doctors care so she won’t be posting for a few days, perhaps a little longer – but I promise, she will be back soon.

If you’d like to leave a special message for her, please do so in the comment section of this post. I’ll see that she gets those, at least. As for the rest of the goods around here, well, she’s under strict orders by me, to not worry about a thing.

In the meantime, Anna wanted me to pass on word that she’s thinking of you and hopes you are coping with the holiday season.

Post from: Widows Quest

Are you a widow or widower with the experience and passion to write Widows Quest? Leave a comment here or email Hsien Lei, the b5media Family and Relationships Editor.

Update: Thanks to all those who contacted me. We’ve hired a new blogger–Anna Farmery–who will begin soon.

Post from: Widows Quest

She wrote me this today, and gave me permission to reprint it. She has a wonderful and tangible way to comfort yourself when grief is present in your life.

The Tribe of Healer Star Dolls

~for healing grief~

After my Dad died,
we were driving home from the celebration of his life.
I was thinking about my Dad,
and looked up.

There in the night sky, was a very very bright star.
I was washed over with a wave of comfort.
I felt like it was my Dad, saying,
‘All’s well………’

I told my Mom about this experience,
and she said that she has been watching the same star,
feeling the same comfort!

Then, my best friend sent me a beautiful card.
It said that an Innuit legend
assures us that the night stars are really
our loved ones who have gone on,
and they are smiling back at us,
saying:
‘All’s well……..’

Every evening I take a moment to step outside,
and catch a glimpse of that particularly comforting star,
and I know:
‘All’s well’.

If you or someone that you know
needs to be comforted
then please tell them this story.

I have had found a lot of healing in making the Star dolls.
I hope that they will be the source of comfort and joy
for other people…..

Star Dolls for Comfort

I hope they bring you joy.

hugs and blessings,

Noreen

Update: More from the talented Noreen Crone-Findlay at sister b5media blog – Sacred Dolls and Bears.

Post from: Widows Quest