Working Through Grief

Maurice Sendak’s Night Kitchen

May 9th, 2012
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Is there anything more innocent than holding your child in your lap and reading them a book?

The emailed news alert yesterday announcing that Maurice Sendak, 83, had died of a stroke immediately made me think of that cherished time many, many years ago when my wiggly young son would sit in my lap and I would read book after book to him.

Maurice Sendak will forever be known as the author and illustrator of his signature award-winning children’s book, “Where The Wild Things Are,” but in our household we knew Maurice Sendak for his other award-winning book, “In The … Read More

Sleepless in DC

May 8th, 2012
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A deep, restful sleep is truly a gift from Mother Nature.  Uninterrupted sleep recharges your whole system and makes you feel like you can solve anything.  A goodnight’s sleep makes me feel like a million bucks and without one, totally bankrupt. The other night I was reading a book for a long time and wasn’t even starting to feel sleepy.  I knew it was after midnight and I was going to pay the next day for being up so late but I just couldn’t fall asleep.  I’ve felt this way before but it was a long time ago.  The wide-awake… Read More

Joan Rivers Grief Insight

April 24th, 2012
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Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either”― Golda Meir Have you ever laughed so hard you started to cry or cried so hard you started to laugh? For me, I’m usually crying and then it somehow I’m laughing.  I’ve discovered there’s a thin line between the two and no one can tell you where and when one side is going to spill over into the other.  You don’t intend for this to happen but when it does, and it’s happened to most of us, the two emotions melt together… Read More

The Slip Slide of Time

April 19th, 2012
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Time just seems to slip slide away when you find yourself navigating a loss. I’m not talking about how quickly time can seem to go while living our lives.  I’m talking about the strange sensation that where time seem to go back and forth between the past and present while trying to recover from a loss or a trauma.  It seems to slip slide all over the place.  When I feel this happening to me, I take it as a sign that my life needs to slow down a bit and be experienced in smaller increments.  Thinking about the future… Read More

A Postcard From The Beach

April 6th, 2012
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In my purse I carry a post card that my husband sent to one of his oldest friends when we were on one of our annual family vacations at Bethany Beach.  He wrote some silly note about the beach, the kind of message that someone writes when they know everyone at the post office will read it but you don’t care because you’re at the beach!! The wife of my husband’s friend recently gave the postcard back to me after my husband died and for some reason, just having that post card in my purse makes me feel connected to… Read More

The Anger of Losing Someone

March 27th, 2012
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Anger is a normal part of grieving.  It is.  I know people would rather not address this part of grief but it’s there and it’s best to find a way to come to grips with it.  When a loved one dies, many people feel anger first rather than sadness because they feel they are being left behind and also feel very helpless.  Everyone says that life must go and it does but what do you do with the anger you feel? Many people try to push the anger down and ignore it because the intensity of it scares them.  That’s… Read More

Mad Men

March 26th, 2012
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The season premiere of “Mad Men” airs tonight and I can hardly wait.  It is my favorite television show and I am very curious to see where creator Matthew Weiner takes the fabulous characters who work at the New York City ad agency of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Watching “Mad Men” is like opening up a time capsule and immersing yourself in all of the sophistication, controversy and change of the 1960’s. The writing is suberb and from the moment you step in to the offices of Sterling Cooper you know you are in for a great time of it. … Read More

Bobbi Kristina

March 22nd, 2012
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ABC News If there is one thing I have learned during my personal experience with grieving, it is that we all grieve differently. Each of us has our own path that we follow in the healing process and it takes different amounts of time for each of us to work through and find out what we are comfortable doing and saying when we are trying to adjust to the loss of a loved one. I remember asking myself how I was going to live through this pain, how was I going to get over my loss and what the hell… Read More

Paying Respects @WTC

March 14th, 2012
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On a bright and beautiful Sunday morning this past weekend in New York City, I finally had an opportunity to visit the memorial site for the World Trade Center. With my brother, sister-in-law and their 12-year-old daughter, we took a taxi to the 8-acre site in lower Manhattan where the infamous Twin Towers once stood.  The site is deceiving because construction fences surround the area and you can’t see the two black stone squares containing the waterfalls or even hear the waterfalls from the road.  It just looks like a regular construction site. Getting to the memorial site is a… Read More