Posts Tagged: resilience

A Listening Binge

February 12th, 2014
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For the past several weeks, I have been on a listening binge and it feels healing.
There are a number of family members and friends who are going through various kinds of difficult personal situations and, in trying to be helpful, I have been listening to what they tell me they want to talk about, in particular what it feels like to be in their crisis, what they really wish they could do to solve it and how frustrating it is to have the situation go on and on.
Listening may seem as though it is a passive activity but … Read More

Strength Through Sharing

February 10th, 2014
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Sharing my stories, and those of others, can entertain, offer strength and inspiration and sometimes minimize the isolation that is felt in relationships or personal crisis.  I share to bond, to reach out, to reveal that I am vulnerable just like you. No one knows when someone else’s story will unexpectedly touch a life and help another person gain a new perspective on grief, a subject people they know about but in fact they don’t.  Someone else’s words can bring new understanding to the issues of life and death,  of physical and emotional survival and help you see things differently.… Read More

Ina Garten’s Roasted Eggplant Spread

February 7th, 2014
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I am tired of wearing layers of clothing. Black and grey, grey and black.  Thin T-shirts under sweaters, sweaters over sweaters, vests over sweaters, socks inside socks, scarves over turtlenecks.  I think you are getting the picture of what it takes to stay warm when a polar vortex is happening.  I am more than ready to chuck my winter coat and boots and break out my fun clothes, my jammin’ summer clothes. But the calendar tells me otherwise.  For now, I must go with warmth because snow and ice and brisk winds will still be hanging out in my area… Read More

Kimmy Kirkwood & Will Stacey’s Love Story

February 5th, 2014
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The social media giant, Facebook, marked its tenth anniversary yesterday. Big deal, you say?  It’s just a place for people to go online and post the silly and sometimes significant happenings of their life? Yes.  That’s exactly it. Facebook is the world’s largest social network, connecting 1.23 billion people to each other and Kimmy Kirkwood is especially grateful that on Facebook she can find a priceless record of pictures and status updates she had with the love of her life, a Marine named Will Stacey. Kimmy Kirkwood and Will Stacey Photo Courtesy of Kimmy Kirkwood Here’s a classic Will Stacey… Read More

Peyton Manning

February 3rd, 2014
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I am writing this post while Sunday’s Super Bowl game is being played in East Rutherford, NJ and the Denver Broncos are losing so badly there is hardly any way they can come back from being down so many points.  And then Denver lost.  Badly. Yet Peyton Manning is still a winner to me. This is a guy who gets signed to the Denver Broncos in 2012 after giving his heart and soul to the Indianapolis Colts for years.  The Colts release him because he misses playing during the entire 2011  season because of a neck injury and then undergoes… Read More

Get Lucky!

January 30th, 2014
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I know the Grammys were Sunday night but the music is still rockin’ and rollin’ for me. I’m Up All Night To Get Lucky. . . The Grammys are a blast to watch because everyone is so out there in their creativity and hopefully your favorite singer, song or group wins something.  I think people like to watch it because they imagine themselves standing there before the cameras singing some of the songs they love or in my case I imagine myself up there on the stage dancing the night away. You’re telling me you don’t ever imagine being in… Read More

Pulling Together

January 29th, 2014
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I began writing Cry Laugh Heal in December 2010 to start an online discussion about grief and resilience, in particular to talk about the many ways we process it and how we can arrive at the realization that we can find strength and a different kind of future through our pain. My husband died in 2003 and I found that grief was not a topic most people wanted to talk about.  What a surprise right?  Of course, it was a subject I could go on and on about but in general it really makes people feel very uncomfortable and they… Read More

A New York Lesson

January 28th, 2014
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To have an uninterrupted block of time in which to read is to me a pure, unadulterated luxury. Don’t you just love that word luxury?  It just rolls off your tongue and sounds a bit sinful. Reading for pleasure is healing and similar to putting your foot on the brake of life, stopping your normal crunched up, sometimes scattered daily routine, and allowing your mind to travel elsewhere.  When I find a book that has a compelling story line I am mentally gone and immersed in the characters and their lives and lose all track of the passage of time. … Read More