Widows Quest » grave

Preparing for Valentines Day Alone

Anna Farmery — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:24:45 +0000

One thing I love about the Widows Quest community is the willingness to share our grief and tips on how to cope with bereavement. Here are quick tips on how to deal with grief and start the recovery during the Valentine’s Day from Louise Zweben, CEO of SympathyTree.com It is only a week away and I hope these tips on coping with grief will help us all. Feel free in the comments to add your own…
Create an online memorial that brings your family and friends together from all over the world to share stories of love and loss, sadness and joy, written in words, photos and video about the person you lost; to help us smile, laugh, cry and embrace our loved one’s life in an effort to make sense of our loss. While allowing you to create a very nice tribute to them on this special day, online memorial also provides the comfort of a close community and allows us to take the first steps needed to move forward.
Collect photographs and watch videos of you with your loved one as a way to remember the times you shared with them. You do not want to just block it out. Moving on starts with looking back.
Invite friends or family over to share a meal or some time together. Time spent with them can be a very cathartic and reflective time and begins the process of putting things in perspective.
Start the process of getting your business matters in order so you can begin to bring some normalcy back in your life. This involves getting in order the tax records, property records, investment records, insurance and retiree benefit records, as well as addressing trivial issues such as getting utility bills, bank accounts and credit cards in your name. Working with close family members or an attorney is the right way to start. Don’t postpone them for too long., start something small on this Valentine’s Day.
Pledge to join a support group, so you can learn to cope with the loss of someone who was a part of what made us what we are. So, what do we do, how do we go on after they are gone and how do we deal with the grief? In addition to family and friends, a support group can help you during this difficult time.
Visit their grave, so you can tell them how much you loved them and miss them. Say things you forgot to say when you were together, as if they are standing right in front of you. You may be carrying burdens of guilt, which unless released, will come in the way of your moving forward. Start unleashing those burdens this Valentine’s Day.

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Happy Birthday to My Auntie

Anna Farmery — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:59:43 +0000

It is my Auntie’s birthday today. She lost her husband to Parkinson’s disease a few years ago and I have to say that I am so proud of how she has coped. She was devastated, in fact inconsolable for weeks or months, yet now she has found a new life.

She visits my uncles grave regularly, she has never forgotten the love that she shared. However, she came to realise that no amount of prayers, or no amount of wishing….could bring him back. She now belongs to community groups, she goes to exercise classes and yoga…all at the age of 77!

She, to me is living proof that it is not what happens to us in our life, it is how we react. She says the guiding light is still there – the love and also the love of her family. She wants to enjoy the time she has left and create memories for those around her that will last forever.

How refreshing, and also how proud I am to have her as my godmother..happy birthday and keep believing

[istockphoto]

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A Lesson from A Cemetery

Anna Farmery — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:41:40 +0000

I can’t remember who said it but someone said something like “The most valuable land in the world is the cemetery, think of all the treasures, the books not written, the ideas laying dormant”

When you think about it, it is true. Our loved ones had dreams, our loved ones talked about doing things that now no longer will be possible….one lesson as widows and widowers we should take from that, is that we should spend our time living that dream before it is too late.

Dreams, ideas are just that, unless we find a way of making them reality. If the death should tell us one thing then we should think about how we can take our dreams and bring them to life, rather than taking them to our grave.

So what are your dreams, what dreams did you have together that you could still do? How can you take these valuable assets that lie dormant in death, and bring them alive?

In our grief, let us not let those dreams drift, let us not let those dreams die…..let us put those dreams at the centre of our life and ensure that the years we have left are years that are meaningful to both us and the world….

[istockphoto]

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My Only Sign From Beyond The Grave Was Fear…

Anna Farmery — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:30:27 +0000

I urge you to read the comment that Jackie left to Grief Brings Loneliness but I am Never Alone, it touched my heart and I will never see a rainbow in the same light.

I so wish that I had received a sign that he is OK. The only emotion that I ever had was returning to the house on the night he died. I was driving and when I pulled into the house, I started to shiver. I felt a fear that was overpowering. It was like a bad ghost was inside the house, I couldn’t go in. I stood there and phoned my best friend, asked her to come round. She arrived within 30 minutes. She held my hand and took me into the house. I asked her to sleep in the same room, I just couldn’t bare to be alone.

The ghostly feeling had gone the next morning. I think that is why I have always been so desperate for a comforting sign, one that feels as though he is looking over me. Maybe one day….for now I will wear his old jumper around the house and let the woolen arms hold me tight….

{iStockphoto}

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Messages on Death From Beyond the Grave

Anna Farmery — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:16:24 +0000

Death brings that separation and often gives that sense of grief of not being able to say final words to the person you love…well, I came across a site called Justincaseidie which says

“For many people, the worst thing about dying is that you’ll never get to see your loved ones again, or eat another steak, or gaze upon another sunrise. For others, however, it’s that you never got to tell your boss he was a prat.

Enter Justincaseidie.com. in just a few clicks, you can save a message that will only be sent to it’s intended recipient if you die. Well…almost. It will actually only be sent if you fail to log back in to the system within the timeframe that you set..”

At first I thought this was a wonderful idea, now I am not sure…what do you think? I kept thinking how weird if the message came out just simply because you haven’t logged back in, or how it would feel to receive such a message? As much as I like the initial idea, I now wonder whether it is a a great..idea but not great in practice..wonder what you think or whether any of you have used the service?

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Support groups

Anna Farmery — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:48:17 +0000

I saw an article at the Daily Times which talks about the difficulty of not just losing your partner how losing a loved one is life-altering. When one loses a spouse, it can seem like losing several people at once: a best friend, a lover, a trusted confidant. I think that was a huge reason for my depression last week – I didn’t feel that I had someone to talk to, not someone who really understood me. The article is a wonderful story of how widows and widowers are finding comfort in each other. I don’t belong to a group but I can really see the strength of this kind of community.

“When you reach this point in life where you lose your spouse, you think that no one in the world understands, nobody knows how bad you’re feeling,” says Ron Thomson, former vice-president of the group. “Then you get together with a group like this and think, ‘Geez, they’re in the same boat I’m in.’ And that empathy, that commonness, makes you realize that you’re not so crazy.”

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A son’s heartache

Anna Farmery — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 14:11:09 +0000

This is an incredible story that someone e-mailed me.

A friend of theirs has just lost his mother. Yesterday, he went to the church and asked if he could dig the grave. Why? He said his mother was with him when he entered the world and he saw it as his role to give her back to God.

I cannot imagine what it was like, the pain the boy was going through, but it shows that we all cope with grief differently. There is no right, there is no wrong…there is only what works for us.

My thoughts go out to anyone who has lost someone and especially this son….

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