Finding Your Community

September 23rd, 2016
Posted By:

colorful-fingers

 

 

You’re in the mood to go out.  Maybe go see a movie.  Maybe get a drink.

But as a suddenly single, widowed or recently divorced person you might find that your usual go-to friends are busy and you aren’t enthusiastic about going out by yourself.

It’s not that you can’t do it because you’ve done it before.  You’ve done it because you hate to think that you won’t do something just because you don’t have anyone to do it with.

You went out by yourself to prove that you could and it was okay but not great.  It … Read More

Songbird – Eva Cassidy

December 14th, 2015
Posted By:

Eva Cassidy Singing At Washington, D.C.’s jazz club, Blues Alley Good Morning Friends! If your weekend was as busy as mine, then I bet you are ready to go ever so gently into this Monday by listening to some healing music. Songbird is a popular song recorded and written by Christine McVie.  You may know it from Fleetwood Mac’s infamous platinum awarding winning album Rumours. This beautiful song was brought back to me when The Washington Post ran a story about her last week and then a good friend of mine posted Eva’s cover of Songbird on her Facebook page… Read More

Beyond His Clutter

February 21st, 2014
Posted By:

Oh my goodness I can so identify with the story that I am sharing with you today. It’s a story titled, 54 Drawers, and it’s about a daughter who thoughtfully and lovingly is going through the drawers and drawers of file cabinets containing huge amounts of paper her recently deceased father stored in the office of his house. In my case it was and still is the papers that my late husband left in his office.  Over the years, I have made a lot of progress and thrown out lots and lots of boxes containing everything from old bills, old… Read More

When In Doubt

January 20th, 2014
Posted By:

If you have ever have doubts about talking to someone you hardly know about a recent loss in their life, please think twice about ignoring the subject. You may think you are doing the person a favor by not mentioning their loss or the name of the loved one that died, but it doesn’t really work that way. Acknowledging is important and helpful to you, and more importantly, to the person experiencing the loss.  It’s extending sympathy or compassion and even though it may be hard to do, it’s something that needs to be done.  So take a deep breath,… Read More

Developing A Grief Pill

December 9th, 2013
Posted By:

I just read that the pharmaceutical industry is researching the development an anti-depressant pill for people who are grieving. Hmmmmm…. My gut feeling when I first read this story about the availability of a so-called grief pill in The Washington Post was that it seemed rather predatory of the pharmaceutical industry to be focusing its scientific expertise and vast financial resources on people when they are at the most vulnerable and sometimes lowest points in their lives. I vividly remember the competing emotions I felt after my husband died.  Raw pain and numbness.  Exhaustion and adrenaline.  On top of all… Read More

Changes At Arlington Cemetery

October 3rd, 2013
Posted By:

A cemetery is an intimate place. For me, it is a place where I let down my guard and become vulnerable to my feelings.  Sometimes I raise my arms to the sky as if saying that I am ready to let it all wash over me but other times I sit silently and close my eyes and try to center my thoughts. In the summertime when I visit my husband’s grave, I sometimes love to lay in the grass that covers where he is buried.  As I lay on my back looking up at the sky, I love to let… Read More

The Uncertain Path of Newtown’s Mourning Parents

June 10th, 2013
Posted By:

It is rare for a national newspaper to begin a story on its Sunday front page that continues to run for five pages of with lots of pictures and is dedicated to the subject of grief. But that is just what The Washington Post did yesterday and Eli Saslow, who wrote and reported the devastating story, and Linda Davidson, who photographed the compelling pictures for the story, deserve a standing ovation for bringing much needed attention to what life is now like for the Barden family of Newtown, Connecticut, a family in the throes of raw, searingly painful grief as… Read More

That’s What Friends Are For

April 26th, 2013
Posted By:

This is a beautiful and moving story about a husband and wife and their love and respect for one another. Sadly, the time recently arrived for one of them to say good-bye to the other. In the following column by The Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy, he writes of the spirit of the union between Washington Post reporter Lynne Duke and Washington Post editor Phillip Dixon in the essential phrase “sometimes yin and yang, sometimes nitro and glycerin.” Milloy is an awesome friend, doing what friends do best, offering emotional support and condolences to Phillip Dixon, and at the same time… Read More