Coping with loss is difficult and we all struggle at times, that is why I would love more people to become involved with our monthly online meeting. To come out of the grief tunnel we need to learn how to live by ourselves, how to cope with the loneliness, how to find happiness again. So how do we learn? Well I believe there are two ways

Reading and sharing with others. If you like, learning the theory of grief and how to cope with bereavement.
The ‘doing‘. We need to join life again, we need to break out of our grieving shells …read more

The memory that remains so etched on my mind are those final hours, which I can understand. However, as widows and widowers we need to look past the pain so that the painful end to our shared life, doesn’t define our love. When you think about it, you will have been with your partner for years, months, weeks in which we shared laughs and love so intense. Yet we can lose all those happy times because of the pain of their death.
So the easy thing is to say remember the happier times…yet that brings pain too as you ache for …read more

Death has always scared me, as a child I just comprehend what happened. I think when people have died around me the fact that death scares me makes coping with their loss more difficult because I fear for them.
Last night I was watching Desperate Housewives and Edie died. She said something that stayed with me
“Its not hard to die when you know you have lived”
The reason why is that it reminded me of Dad dying. He said on his third to last day when I asked him if he had any regrets
“Why would I ? I have lived the most …read more

Today I went to the door to collect the mail and there it was…a letter for him. It has been over 3 years and it has been a long time since I received a letter so it shuck me to the core. The worse thing is that it was for life insurance!
I sometimes think that life throws these little reminders to see how strong your heart is…..they are like checkmarks to see how your grief is progressing, to see how you are coping with your loss.
To some it was junk mail, to me it was the test of my strength …read more

Coping with grief is hard as we all know. Over the weekend I got a comment from Shine on Do you ever feel tired of fighting grief, so I wanted to try and reach out this fellow widow. Here are some thoughts from me but I would love your thoughts to help this blog reader as well as they say “I feel very depressed right now and overwelmed with taking care of my children with no help. I feel like I go through cycles of this mood. Does anyone else ?”

Understand that the feelings are natural and accept that the …read more

Franklin Roosevelt once said
“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”  
As widows or widowers, we can blame fate….we can be angry at what the world has thrown at us in terms of the grieving process, we can be angry about the death of a loved one. If we stay a prisoner to fate, that stops us from moving on and coping with the loneliness and depression. So how can we break free from being a prisoner of our mind?

Break the chain of thinking that we have been hard done by…death happens, in fact death …read more

Grief is difficult, very difficult for adults but I think often underestimate the impact on children. Children are very resilient and often want to hide their true feelings as they know you are struggling to cope with all the practical issues as well as your emotions. They can often be isolated. I was interested to read at the Journal and Courier Online
“Edward Cleaver, bereavement organizer for the camp, said children dealing with grief often believe others don’t feel the same or can understand them. “We want to reduce the isolation they are feeling,” he said.
Matched with a big-buddy counselor, the …read more

I was at the coast this weekend – I love watching the sea. In many ways grief resembles the sea

It ebbs and flows….somedays better than others
The power of the wave of grief can be crippling
The expanse of the sea mirrors the loneliness of the bereaved  
The different colours illustrates the different moods that you can feel  – from depression to coping.
The tides show that for each death that happens life goes on….one thing is for certain, that for each loss of life, there will be a birth that gives hope.

I love the sea, I find it is relaxing and soothes …read more

My nana is coming up to 100 years old and I fear the call that says that she is no longer with us. She is special to me, she has been part of my life…I love her to bits. I know that she will not be with us forever but no matter how hard I try, I cannot face not having her there.
We all have said “They died of old age” well I have just read this article in the Dallas News   that says that old age is not a cause of death. It states
“ At the federal level, …read more

As I said it would have been Dad’s birthday yesterday, although time heals the pain the sense of loss remains deep inside. I am so proud of mum who has never had much confidence, she has rebuilt her life in a way that Dad would have been proud. You can see in her eyes the pain, on days like yesterday and yet the determination that she will value her life closely, as she knows how much my sister and I love her.
They say time heals, I wonder if heals is the right phrase? Time brings the ability to cope but …read more