Grief Digest V12I03

Grief Digest

Volume 12, Issue #3

HOPE

INFORMATION Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 1

SUPPORT

credits “A picture is worth a thousand words” is more than just a quotation. We are proud to present the illustrations (credited below) which add such beauty and elegance to the wonderful words of our contributors. We are so grateful for the abundant talent that has been given to this magazine, and we know that their amazing gifts will bless and enrich many lives.

Magazine design and layout by Janet Roberts, Centering Corporation.

Reprint Policy: We love it when you like our material well enough to pass it on to others, but we’d really appreciate your letting them know where you found it. There is no charge to reprint material from Grief Digest, but we do require that you include the words, “Reprinted with permission from Grief Digest, Centering Corporation, Omaha, Nebraska, 866-218-0101.” Also, please don’t change anything in the copy you are reprinting. Thank you for your continued support and your cooperation.

Grief Digest is a Centering Corporation Resource The Centering Corporation was founded in 1977 by Joy and Dr. Marvin Johnson, National Presenters.

We started out with nine little coloring books for hospitalized children and a couple of workshops for nurses. Today we have thousands of grief resources for children and adults, My Friends Emotion Dolls, a Memory Bag for children and five videos.

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Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 2

GD Featured Articles Sigh Greg Adams

4-5

What It Takes to Survive

8-10

Raven Dale Miller

11

It’s Not Just a Pregnancy

12-13

Walk beside me and be my friend

14-15

Embracing the Sadness of Grief

17-19

By Elaine E. Stillwell, M.A., M.S., Rockville Centre, NY

Catherine Tomlinson

Nan Zastrow

by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.

Month One After

the loss

of your Spouse

by

21-23

Darcie Theil

How to Grieve with Others Ali Shadle

24-25

How to Live, What to Do

26-27

Jerusha Hull McCormack A Note from the Editor What gives this magazine its heart and soul are the contributions of the people who know the path of pain. Your stories and experiences and insights bring hope and encouragement to others who may be just beginning their journey into the world of grief. We encourage you to write and share. Write from your heart about what you know because you’ve been there! We like to keep the stories about 1200 words (but we are flexible), and we prefer that you use first person (I, me) rather than (“you should…”) etc. Send your contributions via email (preferred) or snail mail (acceptable) to Janet at editor@griefdigestmagazine.com or mail to 7230 Maple St, Omaha, NE 68134. We’ll ask you to read and sign our writers’ guidelines (our permission to print) and we’ll need a recent photo of you and a one- or two-paragraph bio about you. If your material is published, you’ll receive complimentary copies of that issue, and we offer you a full page in that issue to promote whatever resource you’d like to share with our readers. Happy writing! editor@griefdigestmagazine.com

Contributors Alan Wolfelt

Dr. Alan Wolfelt is a respected author and educator on the topic of healing in grief. He serves as Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and is on the faculty at the University of Colorado Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Wolfelt has written many compassionate, bestselling books designed to help people mourn well so they can continue to love and live well, including Understanding Your Grief, The Mourner’s Book of Hope, and The Depression of Grief, from which this article was excerpted. Visit www. centerforloss.com to learn more about the natural and necessary process of grief and mourning and to order Dr. Wolfelt’s books.

Darcy Thiel Darcy Thiel, MA is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in NY State. She earned her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Ms. Thiel is a couple and family therapist in West Seneca, New York and also an adjunct professor at Medaille College in Buffalo.

She is also an accomplished speaker and presenter on various topics throughout the Western NY area. She is the proud author of Bitter and Sweet, A Family’s Journey with Cancer, the prequel to Life After Death, on This Side of Heaven. To learn more about Ms. Thiel, visit her website at www.darcythiel.com or marriageandfamilycounseling.net.

Elaine Stillwell

Wife, mother, grandmother, educator, author and speaker, Elaine E. Stillwell, M.A., M.S., shares her gifts of hope and inspiration with the bereaved, simply telling what she has learned to cope and survive following the deaths of her two eldest children, twenty-oneyear old Denis and nineteen-year old Peggy, in the same 1986 automobile accident. In addition to being Founder (1987) and Chapter Leader of The Compassionate Friends of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York, (along with her husband Joe), she is also a Charter Member of Bereaved Parents/ USA since 1995. Elaine shares her unique gifts of caring and humor with audiences across the United States at workshops and seminars, in radio and television appearances, and through her numerous magazine articles.

Nan Zastrow On April 16, 1993, Chad Zastrow, the son of Nan and Gary died as the result of suicide.

Ten weeks later Chad’s fiancée took her life.

This double tragedy inspired the Zastrows to create a ministry of hope. They formed a non-profit organization called Roots© and Wings. Through workshops, seminars, group presentations and other methods, Nan and Gary create community awareness about grief experiences. Additionally, they host an annual Spring Seminar and Holiday workshop. They also facilitate a Sudden Death Learning Series. Nan is the author of a book, Blessed Are They That Mourn, and over thirty Editor’s Journal Articles in Wings and other publications. The Wings non-profit organization is the recipient of the 2000 Flame of Freedom Award for community volunteerism.

Greg Adams Greg Adams, LCSW, ACSW, CT is a clinical social worker and director of the Center for Good Mourning and PalCare at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The Center for Good Mourning is a grief support and outreach program, and PalCare is a pediatric palliative care program. Greg is the author of Lessons from Lions: Using Children’s Media to Teach about Grief and Mourning, which is a user’s guide and CD-rom using a popular children’s movie to help children learn and talk about death and grief. More information about the Center for Good Mourning and Lessons from Lions can be found at www.goodmourningcenter.org. Greg is married and has two children, a fourteen-year-old daughter and a nine-yearold son. Please feel free to contact Greg by email at adamsjg@ archildrens.org.

Jerusha McCormack Born in America and living in Ireland, after thirty years working in the English Department of University College, Dublin, Jerusha McCormack now teaches as Professor of Cultural Studies in China.

Grieving: a beginner’s guide, was written shortly after the death of her Irish husband to serve as a map for those finding their way through recent bereavement. Her most recent book, Thinking through China (co-authored with John Blair), drawing on more than a decade of living and teaching in China, is due to appear this August, 2015.

Ali Shadle Ali Shadle is a professional life enthusiast and self-taught Product Designer based in Santa Monica, CA. She is constantly seeking different outlets to help make the world a better place. She is currently building an interactive graphic novel for news that can be found on the web at www.urthlabs.com. Her mother was recently diagnosed with Leukeima and she has been lucky enough to have four amazing men at her side watch her for big things to come. You can follow her on twitter @AliShadle.

Dale Miller Engineer and closet poet Dale Miller lost his wife Lisa to cancer in April of 2014. Dale has written poetry all his adult life. His poetry has now become a form of therapy as he heals.

Dale has chosen to reach out through his poetry to try to help others in their battle with grief. His poetry is written from his experiences and heartfelt feelings dealing with his personal loss.

Catherine Tomlinson Catherine Tomlinson is a full time wife, mother, and teacher of public school. She began writing about miscarriage and loss after suffering her fourth miscarriage. The journey of pregancy is a difficult one, and she felt there was a need and she was being called to reach out to the pregnancy loss community with her writing. It is painful, difficult, rewarding, and humbling to work within the walls of grief surrounded around the men and women who lose the children to soon.Catherine’s writings can be found at www.miscarriagetomotivation.wordpress.com .

N e W f r O m D r . A l A N W O l f e lt

Ot h e r c O m pa S S I O N at e B O O k S B y D r . a l a N W O l f e lt:

the mourner’s book of hope this beautiful little hardcover gift book offers Dr. Wolfelt’s thoughts on hope in grief interspersed with quotes from the world’s greatest hope-filled thinkers.

“The keys to love also unlock healing in grief.

Just as you opened your heart to love, you must open your heart to mourn.”

—Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.

Loving from the outside in, mourning from the inside out

“Your capacity to love requires the

heaLing your grieving heart this flagship title in our 100 Ideas Series offers 100 practical ideas to help you practice self-compassion and teach the principles of grief and mourning.

necessity to mourn,” writes Dr. Wolfelt in this new and deeply compassionate gift book for mourners. In other words, love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not—and cannot—exist without the other.

They are the yin and yang of our lives.

Internationally known grief educator Dr. Alan Wolfelt explores what love and grief have in common and invites the reader to mourn well in order to go

eight CritiCaL questions for mourners...

And the Answers that will Help you Heal this book provides the answers that will help you clarify your experiences and encourage you to make choices that honor the transformational nature of grief and loss.

on to live and love well again.

ISBN: 978-1-617221-47-7 96 pages | hardcover gift book | $15.95

phone: (970) 226-6050

e-mail: books@centerforloss.com

www.centerforloss.com/bookstore Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 5

understanding your grief Dr. Wolfelt’s most comprehensive book, covering the essential lessons that mourners have taught him in his three decades of working with the bereaved.

Sigh Greg Adams,

Program Coordinator, Center for Good Mourning

Sigh Years ago, I took a course about leading adult grief support groups. In the handouts was a list of ways that grief is expressed emotionally, cognitively, physically, etc. In the list for physical aspects of grief, “sighing” was listed, and it stood out to me as, at that time, I would not have thought of increased “sighing” as part of our natural grieving response. In the past month or so since my dad’s unexpected hospitalization and death, I will vouch for sighing as part of grief. It has become one of my body’s favorite pastimes.

Sigh What is this all about—this sighing as part of grief? We sigh for lots of different reasons and in many different situations. There is the contented sigh at the end of the day or when relaxing. The “life is good” sigh. There is the sigh of relief that can come in a few varieties such as “thank goodness that is over” and “thank goodness that (bad thing) didn’t happen.” There is also the sigh that comes with disappointment, frustration or exasperation. The kind of situation where in emails we may actually write, “Heavy sigh,” in response to a particular or general wrongness in the world. Connected to this kind of sigh is the sigh of resignation—this is all there is, the best we’re gonna get, no need asking for more as no more will be provided. Submissive to the realities present, subdued, resigned, beaten. Sighs of sadness, of sorrow, sighs “too deep for words.”

Sigh There is a part of us that resists in life. When trials come, when we are challenged or when something or someone valuable to us is threatened, we resist. We push back and fight. We’re not going gentle into that good night, we’re not going down without swinging, we have not yet begun to fight. This fight response Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 6

is often a good one and we need it. It’s adaptive and helps us to not just survive a crisis but perhaps even thrive afterwards. Advice sometimes given to people with cancer is to not let the cancer take anything that it doesn’t have to take—don’t give it one thing more, unless you choose to let go of something that in the end is not worth the effort. Resistance is, thankfully, everywhere, for without it there would be more pain and suffering in the world and these are already in plenteous supply. Resistance is needed and many, if not most, times adaptive. But what about when resistance is futile?

Sigh We’ve all been there and we will be there again. No one gets out of life alive (dammit) despite our prayers and protests. Death can be delayed but ultimately not avoided, not on this side of the veil, at least. We get that in concept and then we have to also get that in practice.

Sigh There is a point to protest, pushback and resistance. Without it, we don’t know our limits and we may live an unnecessarily small life when there is potential for more, sometimes much more. Yet some realities are just that, all too real and not in the change category, and with only so much energy at our disposal to go around, there are some fights that do us no good in the end. Singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams has a whole song devoted to the idea, “It’s over, but I can’t let it go.” Part of us knows that it’s over, and that part of us sighs. And then we realize it again.

Sigh And if we ever start to forget it…or doubt…or wish…

Sigh Sighing has been recently studied, and the idea found is that sighing works as a reset to our respiration.

Sighing keeps us from getting stuck in a fixed pattern of breathing. It makes us, in an unexpected, perhaps paradoxical way, feel better.

Sigh Perhaps this is true. Doesn’t matter in what way because the body has its own wisdom and a mind, so to speak, of its own. We grieve and we sigh. We hope for more, wish for better, settle for what we have… and sigh. Sighing is part of getting used to what we’d rather not. Part of the wisdom of accepting what we can’t change. Part of living into a new world not of our own choosing. Part of life, especially in grief world.

Heavy, heavy sigh.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 7

Losing a family member or friend is never easy - especially when a child is involved. The Center for Good Mourning at Arkansas Children’s Hospital has created The

Mourning News,

an electronic newsletter with ideas, resources and tips for helping children and families cope with loss and grief.

To receive The

Mourning News visit

www.goodmourningcenter.org

Centers for Good Mourn

Centers for Good Mourn Center for Good Mourning

501-364-7000 goodmourning@archildrens.org

www.goodmourningcenter.org Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 8

EL A INE STI LLW ELL

Wife, mother, grandmother, educator, author and speaker, Elaine E. S9llwell, M.A., M.S., shares her gi=s of hope and inspira9on with the bereaved simply by

In addi9on to being Founder and Chapter Leader of The Compassionate Friends of Rockville Centre, (Long Island) NY, 1987-­‐present, with her

where she trained support group facilitators, maintained a web site lis9ng of area support programs, and chaired the annual bereavement

telling what she has learned following the deaths of her two eldest children, 21-­‐year-­‐old Denis and 19-­‐year-­‐old Peggy, in the same 1986 automobile accident.

husband Joe, Elaine has been wri9ng for Grief Digest since its first issue in July 2003. She was also Bereavement Coordinator for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, 1998-­‐2010, working closely with 134 parishes and local agencies,

conference each spring.

Known for her passion and zeal, Elaine shares her unique gi=s of caring and humor with audiences across the United States at workshops and

Elaine believes “if their song is to con9nue, then we must do the singing.”

The Death of a Child By Elaine Stillwell Reflections for Grieving Parents. Bereaved parents know the excruciating pain of losing a child. Elaine, mother of two children killed in a car accident, offers this collection of life-giving lessons gathered over years of expericence as a grief minister. Includes creating a new normal, bearing the soul, seasons and more.

Code: DECO

Price: $10.95

www.centering.org

Phone: 1-866-218-0101

A Forever Angel by Elaine Stillwell.

Instructions on making angels in honor of your loved one. Healing activities include: Baking a Batch of Angel Cookies, Creating Angel Decorations, s, and more.

Code: FOAC Price: $4.47

What It Takes to Survive

By Elaine E. Stillwell, M.A., M.S., Rockville Centre, NY People often ask me how I survived the death of two children four days apart and prepared two separate funerals in one week.

My 19 year old daughter Peggy was killed instantly in a freak car accident and my 21 year old son Denis died four days later from his injuries, the day after we had just buried Peggy. When the last funeral guest went home the evening of the second funeral, leaving my husband and me all alone after being pampered and waited on for a whole week, I can remember thinking, “How do we get up tomorrow?� Let me share with you a few simple things that carried me through those dark, early days.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 10

Meeting the Challenge I chose to live, promising myself to keep my tiny family of three intact, to keep Peggy and Denis remembered, to not waste that special love I had for them, and to make them proud of me.

It was an unreal situation, since my remaining daughter was planning to leave three weeks later to be a freshman in college 250 miles away. All the excitement of living her dreams was put on hold as we all tried to realize the new world we were living in now without Peggy and Denis.

We actually had to dig deep for strength to go shopping, the last thing we wanted to do, but had to finish gathering all the things Annie needed to take away to college. Then, we had to find the energy to pack it all up and deliver it with her to college. It did give us a few moments of distraction, time to focus on something else rather than our heartache, but it was hard because we were exhausted from the trauma we had endured.

Many people thought we should “protect” Annie and not let her go away to school, but I was not about to put a butterfly net over her and dash all her dreams of attending Loyola College of Maryland. As tired as I was in those months, I wrote to my daughter every night to make sure she had something in her mailbox each morning (this was life before we had the joy of email).

Finding Our Way Basically, saying goodbye to three children, all college students, in a span of three weeks, makes a house very quiet, no teasing, no phone ringing, no loud music, no arguments, no late nights waiting for them to come home. My husband and I turned to each other for consolation and hope and the determination to have a meaningful life again. We were only married for two years at the time, still on the honeymoon so to speak. The family joke was that “our honeymoon” would really begin when all three children would be away at college.

That joke wasn’t funny anymore. Returning to work three weeks later, in addition to grieving, took every ounce of energy we had. Luckily, our home was our nest and we found peace there.

Doing simple chores and working in the garden offered us some respite, but I think our love of music soothed our weary souls and helped us relax and have quiet, healing moments together. We didn’t have to say anything, just being there for each other, holding hands or sharing a hug, made things seem better.

Leaning on Love I felt Joe got cheated out of having a bubbling bride. Every day when I got home from teaching my little third graders, I dropped into my comfy recliner and cried, no longer able to hold back the tears. Joe gave me that sacred time and space, then dried my tears an hour later as he asked, “What’s for dinner?” bringing us back to reality. I lovingly referred to him as “my blotter.” Although he was not their biological father, he loved my children and me with his whole heart. Yes, we grieved differently, but as new as we were to grieving, we were able to hold each other up by talking, loving and doing sweet things for each other. At night, whether laying in each other’s arms or making love, we renewed each other’s energy by clinging to each other like gorilla glue, becoming each other’s lifeline. We were a formidable team determined to make our children proud as we carved out our “New Normal.”

Discovering the Power of Words

I read everything I could get my hands on about grief, dying to know how to survive and believe me, there wasn’t much out there in 1986. Joe did not read the grief books but he listened to all the helpful suggestions I gathered from them. He never made fun of anything I shared as we walked the long grief road together. Reading, talking, sharing and loving became the four leaf clover of our existence.

Responding to Doggie Therapy The key to the whole family’s survival was the gentle therapy provided by our black Lab, Mickey, who not only got us up in the morning, directed us

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 11

to the refrigerator, walked us around the block, insisted on being by our side on the sofa, bed or car, but radiantly proclaimed with those big brown eyes, “I’m here for you.” He ministered to all of us making us smile and laugh with his antics; dragged us out of the house and guided us to notice trees and flowers again, bringing us back to life. He was the “jump-start” in our survival, especially for Annie, now an only child, who desperately missed her sister and brother.

Learning We Did Not Have to Walk Alone Fourteen months after our children died, Joe and I founded a chapter of The Compassionate Friends (a national support group for bereaved parents) in our hometown. As Chapter Leaders we were truly the “blind leading the blind,” since we knew as little as everybody else about grieving. But we all learned together as we listened to audio tapes on a boom box, and I, professional teacher that I am, led the discussion of each grief topic we explored. Being surrounded by other bereaved parents shouted a great message to us, “We were not alone.”

Instantly bonding, we gave each other strength and courage through mutual support, dividing our grief and reaping the many rewards of reaching out to others, which I call the “boomerang effect.” Without knowing it at the time, that group was like the Marines coming to our rescue, bringing us the gift of lifelong friends who “walked with us” and best of all, understood our pain.

Realizing the Magic Link Leaving the church on the way to the cemetery following the second funeral, I remember the lady running next to the limo shouting at us, “Your faith, it’s got to be your faith that’s holding you up!” As I look back all these years later, I guess my faith had a larger part than I realized at the time, like imbedded in my DNA. Instinctively I turned to God and His Blessed Mother, begging for help, and found comfort believing that my children were together, safe and sound, received into God’s Loving Arms, as much as I wanted them to be here with me, and that we would be reunited one day. Praying to Peggy and Denis, which was simply talking to them each day, also eased the burden in my heart. At Mass each Sunday, I felt very close to them, feeling their happy presence, more so than when I visited the cemetery. But unbeknownst to me in those early days, the simple ritual of praying with my husband, kneeling side by side, week after week, as we took time to thank God for all our blessings and the time we had with Peggy and Denis, was the magic, healing ingredient. It linked us together with God’s Love, empowering us into action, doing many things in memory of our children, insuring that they will never be forgotten, while making the world a better place.

Isn’t that what survival is all about?

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 12

Raven Dale Miller

Today I saw a raven As it quietly flew by.

It landed in a tree That stood nearby.

I watched it for a moment Wondering if it’s here for me.

To take me away To set my spirit free.

Or maybe it was you Sent from above Checking in on me Sending all your love.

Then without a whisper That black bird flew away And I started to cry Knowing I must stay.

I’ve been looking for you In everything I see Everywhere I go Anywhere you may be.

I want to hear so badly Your voice that sounds so sweet To hear the words “I love you” My heart would skip a beat.

To have you here beside me To talk with you again.

To have you gone forever This wasn’t part of the plan.

We were to be together Till we both were gone.

But now I’m here without you You’ve been gone so long.

My life is changing so much From where it was before.

And I am changing with it Maybe even more.

It’s entirely unfair I can’t be with you right now.

But some day when it’s my turn I will find you there somehow.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 13

It’s Not Just a Pregnancy Catherine Tomlinson It’s called the Miracle of Life for a reason. The journey through pregnancy and child birth is astounding when you think of how scientific the body actually works. Cells multiply and divide at tremendous rates and the female body adapts and creates the perfect host for its parasitic growth. When the time for birth comes, the body automatically reacts. It instinctively knows that the baby needs to be evicted. The perfect birth is textbook, wonderful and ends with the birth of a newborn baby.

To plan the perfect birth, most start by doing what I call “pregnancy math.” Planning a pregnancy is not as simple as “I want to have my first child by _____ (insert year here.). In order to determine the “best” date or the “best” year, one starts by subtracting back 9 months from when one would hope they would deliver. Add a two month window for “trying.” You are automatically at 11 months between the time you try to conceive a child to the time a child will be born. You may factor in things like the weather when the child will be born, or in what months you don’t want to be pregnant. Maybe your brother is going to be married, so you make decisions…do you want to be pregnant or do you want to be bringing two kids, the pack and play, and be breastfeeding while they both say “I do.”

Pregnancy math is a handy little tool.

Miscarriage is the divisor in pregnancy math. Miscarriage takes your final calculation and cuts everything in half.

Once you’ve found out that you’ve conceived, you immediately begin to plan out your year because of the math. You look at the due date and what commitments could interfere. You calculate prenatal care appointments and clothing options. Days of your life are planned for the next year, and are cut short the minute the miscarriage occurs. An entire year becomes empty, free and isolating.

You see, most people who haven’t experienced loss do not understand that the pain of miscarriage follows the person throughout the entire year after. Because of the precise planning, the emptiness of days that were suppose to be consumed with swollen ankles and maternity clothes are now nothing but fat pants and sweatshirts. Time that was suppose to be spent caring for a child, that was calculated and accounted for, are now days that you will work.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 14

There is no extra time. Miscarriage does a very good job of dividing it all.

And then there is the final piece of time. It’s haunting. After pregnancy math has been well and accounted for, there is another math that replaces it. Math so complicated, I don’t think I can even name it. The minute you become pregnant, the minute you begin to plan out your future, you now have a child in the picture. You talk about future events, and it will not just be the two of you, or three of you, or four of you. You add another person to the mix.

“The car won’t fit everyone next year for Christmas, maybe we should start planning to purchase another.”

“We should start moving everything around to create the nursery. If it’s another girl, they can share a room.”

“What if it’s twins?”

The future now includes the child that has begun to take shape within you. You begin to wonder who he or she will be. Who he or she will look like? How will his or her sibling react? How will you travel? Do daycare? The questions are endless and the planning is constant. When the loss occurs, everything disappears. There is no child.

He or she has been taken. And, because scientifically you know that only that egg and that sperm created that child, there will be no child like the one you lost. The next child will be completely different.

Women who have lost a child have not just lost a pregnancy. It is so much more. Miscarriage initially robs women of the first year after the loss, and then it robs them of a lifetime of memories. Forever in their hearts will be the silent wondering of where the child they lost would be. What would they be doing if they had been born? How might life be different?

Herein lies the unspoken pain of pregnancy. The pain that drives women to suffer in silence, even to the point of wanting to take their own life. A miscarriage is the loss of a child. Scientifically, one can tell a grieving mother about it being simply tissue, or better because of chromosomal abnormalities. All of those words, all of the science, is simply the scientific building block for the child a woman carries. The “clump” of cells that was “evicted” from the uterus, that was a lifetime.

When women share this, the world can turn on them in an instant. Women who share their loss become “attention seekers.” They really need to just “move on.” It was “just cells” and they’re “better off because something was probably wrong with it.” In fact, they should be really happy for the child they do have. Continuously, I read and find women in support groups with nowhere to turn except for strangers who have been through the same experience. They share stories of people who tear them apart for sharing their story of miscarriage and loss. They are torn so far apart, that they become silent in the public world about the child they will never give birth too, take to the park or watch graduate. Their children become shadows in their lives.

If you haven’t had a loss, I honestly don’t want you to be able to fully understand. I really don’t. When I hear of someone who has suffered a loss now, my entire body reacts. The phrase “gut-wrenching pain” is probably the closest I can describe. My stomach becomes sick. My world turns upside down, and I’m beyond sadden for the woman I’ve learned has suffered loss. I would never wish the feeling on my worst enemy. It’s suffocating.

So, since not everyone can understand, and since I don’t want everyone to understand (for your sake), I simply ask this. Please, please, regardless of how you feel, or what you know, or how you believe, please know that many of us feel we lost a child for a lifetime. Please know that when we talk about pregnancy, birth, children and siblings with others a little part in many of us cries inside. Please know that when we plan vacations, events and our future we feel like someone is missing. Please know that in our families are holes that should be filled by children who never came.

We miss them.

We wish they were here.

We love our unborn miracles.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 15

By Nan Zastrow Wausau, Wisconsin “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.”

Charles Caleb Colton My life changed gradually after the death of my son, Chad, on April 16, 1993—and so did many of my friends. Recently, I met a co-worker whose empathy in my early stage of grief was unconditional. I hadn’t seen him in nine years.

We hugged and talked about our lives since then.

I was reminded of his warmth and support; and it still glowed. Then it hit me! What was different about Steve that made him a loyal, comforting friend when so many others during the same period of time disappeared from my life?

Grief has a way of sorting out those who remain “true” friends and those who “ride off into the sunset.” I was puzzled by this enigma. And as I’ve been doing with other aspects of my life, I decided to reflect on that very thought. Did my relationship with friends and acquaintances change because of my profound grief that was uncomfortable for them or was it something more than that?

Inevitably, in our Understanding Grief Learning Series, a participant will bring up their sadness regarding the breakdown or ending of a friendship since the death of their loved one. I share my story with them about friends of ours. For many years, my co-worker and friend enjoyed social activities that included our spouses. When Chad died, this couple came to the funeral, but I didn’t hear from them for over a year afterwards. One day my friend called and apologized for ignoring me. She asked if the four of us could get together for dinner. Halfway through the meal, they started talking about their son’s activities. I said, “I remember when Chad played sports. It seemed we were always ...” The sudden silence that came over the table was deafening.

The evening ended abruptly, and we haven’t seen them socially since. My feelings were shattered by this encounter.

On my journey through grief, I’ve learned not everyone who was your friend before your loved one’s death will be your friend during and after your grief and mourning. I surmised that my friends changed because they didn’t know how to deal with their own feelings about grief and loss; and additionally, they didn’t know how to deal with the emotions I was then expressing. I felt confident that this was all there was too it. . . until now.

Now, I know above and beyond these valid assumptions there was something more. An even greater reason for the disintegration of relationships was the fact that as I changed—I grew! And, I grew in a different direction—away from them.

This isn’t a “bad” thing. But I was struck by the significance of my initial reaction that my friends didn’t know how to be part of my grief—how to be my friend when I needed them most. I felt betrayed. Through an unstated mutual agreement, we casually drifted apart. They were no longer able to meet my personal needs, and I was destined to “grow” from my experience.

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Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 16

A friend keeps in touch and spends time with you for as long as it takes.

A friend in grief is there when others walk away.

A friend in grief will encourage you to reach out and explore your feelings and eventually create new dreams. Next to my husband, my sister, Sally, has been my true friend these past ten years. She admitted often that she couldn’t imagine what I was going through. Initially, like others, she believed my pain would heal best if I put my loss behind me, moved on, and forgot about my pain. After a period of time, she realized it wasn’t that easy. Once, I told her my story about two eagles flying over our country home on the anniversary of Chad and Jenny’s death. (Jenny was Chad’s fianceé and she completed suicide ten weeks after Chad died.) I was sure it was a symbolic message, and it gave me peace. This fall she told me, “Today, I saw two eagles soaring together. I thought of Chad and Jenny.” Now that’s a friend that was in tune to my needs, listened to my grief, and grew with me!

Those friendships lost during grief or gained during grief were critical to my personal spiritual growth. People come into our lives for different reasons. . . (for a reason, a season, or a lifetime!) Savor every friendship for what it means to you at the time; and you’ll be able to accept the few that abandon you when you felt you needed them the most. When a friendship changes, allow yourself to let go of that relationship. You are not responsible for its disintegration. There’s a new friend waiting to step into your life.

In my early days of grief, I found a poster that hung in my office and it still applies today.

Being a companion in grief is a learned experience for some.

It requires taking cues from the bereaved who need to hear the name of their loved one, tell their story, and talk about their experience. We encourage our group participants to establish their personal criteria for relationships with friends that will grow with them through their grief. Here is the criteria I found important for me.

Who knows the joys that lie ahead The secret smiles I’ll find, The friends I’ll meet The memories sweet, The cares I’ll leave behind.

Who knows the beauty of the days, I’ve never seen before.

A friend in grief is someone you can confide in and trust with your most sensitive feelings and thoughts and in return, expect confidentiality.

My only wish for life is this The courage to explore.

Author Unknown

A friend is not judgmental and allows you to say what you need to say without trying to alter your expression of anger, fear, disappointment, or sadness. These are necessary emotions of grief that help you work through your loss.

My husband, my sister, and my friend Steve were genuine friends during grief who met all the criteria. They were willing to walk beside me during the darkest moments and encourage me to find the meaning in my grief experience. Looking back now, I’m grateful for all my friends—those who walked with me and those who walked away. In each circumstance, they gave me the freedom to grow!

A friend is willing to listen, sometimes just sharing the silence with you, and accepting your quiet space and your open tears.

A friend in grief encourages you to share your memories and talk about events in the life of your loved one.

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Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 18

Embracing the Sadness of Grief

by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.

“In every heart there is an inner room, where we can hold our greatest treasures and our deepest pain.”

— Marianne Williamson

Sadness is a hallmark symptom of grief, which in turn is the consequence of losing something we care about. In this way you could say that sadness and love are inextricably linked.

Yes, when you are grieving, it is normal to feel sad. I would even argue that it is necessary to feel sad.

But why is it necessary? Why does the emotion we call sadness have to exist at all? Couldn’t we just move from loss to shock to acceptance without all that pain in the middle?

The answer is that sadness plays an essential role. It forces us to regroup—physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. When we are sad, we instinctively turn inward. We withdraw.

We slow down. It’s as if our soul presses the pause button and says, “Whoa, whoa, whoaaa. Time out.

I need to acknowledge what’s happened here and really consider what I want to do next.”

This very ability to consider our own existence is, in fact, what defines us as human beings. Unlike other animals, we are self-aware. And to be self-aware is to feel sadness but also joy and timeless love.

I sometimes call the necessary sadness of grief “sitting in your wound.” When you sit in the wound of your grief, you surrender to it. You acquiesce to the instinct to slow down and turn inward.

You allow yourself to appropriately wallow in the pain. You shut the world out for a time so that, eventually, you have created space to let the world back in.

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The dark night of the soul While grief affects all aspects of your life—your physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual selves, it is fundamentally a spiritual journey. In grief, your understanding of who you are, why you are here, and whether or not life is worth living is challenged.

A significant loss plunges you into what C.S. Lewis, Eckhart Tolle, and various Christian mystics have called “the dark night of the soul.”

Life suddenly seems meaningless. Nothing makes sense.

Everything you believed and held dear has been turned upside-down. The structure of your world collapses.

The dark night of the soul can be a long and very black night indeed. If you are struggling with depression after a loss, you are probably inhabiting that long, dark night. It is uncomfortable and scary. The pain of that place can seem intolerable, and yet the only way to emerge into the light of a new morning is to experience the night. As a wise person once observed, “Darkness is the chair upon which light sits.”

The necessity of stillness Many of the messages that people in grief are given contradict the need for stillness: “Carry on;” “Keep busy;” “I have someone for you to meet.” Yet, the paradox for many grievers is that as they try to frantically move forward, they often lose their way.

Times of stillness are not anchored in a psychological need but in a spiritual necessity. A lack of stillness hastens confusion and disorientation and results in a waning of the spirit. If you do not rest in stillness for a time, you cannot and will not find your way out of the wilderness of grief.

Stillness allows for the transition from “soul work” to “spirit work.” According to the groundbreaking thinking of psychologist Carl Jung, “soul work” is the downward movement of the psyche. It is the willingness to connect with what is dark, deep, and not necessarily pleasant. “Spirit work,” on the other hand, involves the upward, ascending movement of the psyche. It is during spirit work that you find renewed meaning and joy in life.

Soul work comes before spirit work. Soul work lays the ground for spirit work. The spirit cannot ascend until the soul first descends. The withdrawal, slowing down, and stillness of sadness create the conditions necessary for soul work.

Liminal space Sadness lives in liminal space. “Limina” is the Latin word for threshold, the space betwixt and between.

When you are in liminal space, you are not busily and unthinkingly going about your daily life. Neither are you living from a place of assuredness about your relationships and beliefs. Instead, you are unsettled.

Both your mindless daily routine and your core beliefs have been shaken, forcing you to reconsider who you are, why you’re here, and what life means.

It’s uncomfortable being in liminal space, but that’s where sadness takes you. Without sadness, you wouldn’t go there. But it is only in liminal space that you can reconstruct your shattered worldview and reemerge as the transformed you that is ready to live and love fully again.

Sadness and empathy Another evolutionary and still relevant reason for sadness is that it alerts others to the thoughts and feelings that are inside you. We all know what someone who is sad looks like. His posture is slumped. He moves slowly. His eyes and mouth droop. Being able to read others’ sadness is useful because it gives us a chance to reach out and support them. In centuries past we intentionally made our sadness more evident as a signal for others to support us. We wore black for a year, and we donned black armbands. We literally wore our hearts on our sleeves.

Sadness elicits empathy—which is a close cousin to love. Empathy and love are the glue of human connection. And human connection is what makes life worth living.

Receiving and accepting support from others is an essential need of mourning—one we’ll talk more about later in this book. If you try to deny or hide your sadness, you are closing a door that leads to healing.

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Your divine spark Your spiritual self is who you are deep inside—your innermost essence, stripped of all the external trappings of your life. It is who you were before you took on your earthly form, and it is who you will continue to be after you leave it.

It is your soul, or “divine spark”—what Meister Eckhart described as “that which gives depth and purpose to our living.” It is the still, small voice inside of you.

When you are grieving, your divine spark struggles like a candle in the wind. Many hundreds of people in grief have said to me variations on, “I feel so hopeless” or “I am not sure I can go on living.” Like yours, the losses that have touched their lives have naturally muted, if not extinguished, their divine sparks.

When you are depressed, you no longer feel the warm glow of your divine spark inside you. Instead, everything feels dark and cold. The way to relight your divine spark is to turn inward and give your pain the attention it needs and deserves.

Honoring your pain From my own experiences with loss as well as those of thousands of grieving people I have companioned over the years, I have learned that you cannot go around the pain of your grief. Instead, you must open to the pain.

You must acknowledge the inevitability of the pain. You must gently embrace the pain. You must honor the pain.

“What?” you naturally protest. “Honor the pain?” As crazy as it may sound, your pain is the key that opens your heart and ushers you on your way to healing.

Honoring means recognizing the value of and respecting. It is not instinctive to see grief and the need to openly mourn as something to honor; yet the capacity to love requires the necessity to mourn. To honor your grief is not self-destructive or harmful, it is self-sustaining and life-giving.

Yet you have probably been taught that pain and sadness are indications that something is wrong and that you should find ways to alleviate the pain. In our

culture, pain and feelings of loss are experiences most people try to avoid. Why? Because the role of pain and suffering is misunderstood. Normal thoughts and feelings after a loss are often seen as unnecessary and inappropriate.

Unfortunately, our culture has an unwritten rule that says while physical illness is usually beyond your control, emotional distress is your fault. In other words, some people think you should be able to “control” or subdue your feelings of sadness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your sadness is a symptom of your wound. Just as physical wounds require attention, so do emotional wounds.

Paradoxically, the only way to lessen your pain is to move toward it, not away from it. Moving toward your sadness is not easy to do. Every time you admit to feeling sad, people around you may say things like, “Oh, don’t be sad” or “Get a hold of yourself,” or “Just think about what you have to be thankful for.” Comments like these hinder, not help, your healing. If your heart and soul are prevented from feeling the sadness, odds are your body may be harmed in the process. Your grief is the result of an injury to your spirit. Now you must attend to your injury.

You will learn over time that the pain of your grief will keep trying to get your attention until you have the courage to gently, and in small doses, open to its presence. The alternative—denying or suppressing your pain—is in fact more painful. I have learned that the pain that surrounds the closed heart of grief is the pain of living against yourself, the pain of denying how the loss changes you, the pain of feeling alone and isolated—unable to openly mourn, unable to love and be loved by those around you.

Yes, the sadness, depression, and pain of loss are essential experiences in life. You are reading this article because you are feeling this and are struggling with the depression. Acknowledging that depression in grief is normal and necessary—even if the people and the culture around you are telling you that you don’t have to feel depressed, that there are ways around the pain— is one significant step on the pathway to healing. The next step is understanding if your depression may be what is called “clinical depression” and, if so, having the courage and self-compassion to seek help.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 21

Month One After

the loss

of your Spouse

Darcy Thiel, MA, LMHC, Help for Healing

You just never get over some grief. You learn to live with it by your side. It changes (thank God) and the intensity diminishes with time, but it never goes away completely. Grief is unique to every person.

Some things are universal and considered “normal,” but every personality processes grief differently.

As I’ve gone back to read some of the journal entries I wrote in the first months after my husband Tim died, I was surprised at how dark and sad they were. There was a big difference in my writing while Tim was ill and after he was gone. I find myself wanting to water the entries down, making myself sound less crazy than I really felt, but I have resisted the urge to do so.

I have met so many courageous people, especially those for whom the loss is very new and fresh. I find myself repeating the same things to them. “You are NOT crazy. You are NOT having a nervous breakdown.” Keeping the writing honest and raw is necessary, if it is truly going to help people who are wading their way through their own journey.

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I will give you a short synopsis of our story. Tim and I were married in March of 2001. Tim had three children from a previous marriage and we brought one son into this world together. In April of 2010, Tim began to have some strange sensations in his side. On May 7, we found ourselves facing gallbladder cancer, rather than a simple gallbladder removal as planned. Five months and one week later, my husband died. As you might imagine, those five months were the most difficult and horrifying time of our lives, but it was also an extremely beautiful time for us.

Tim’s original prognosis was one to two years. During his first weeks of treatment, tests gave us every indication that the treatment was going well. After his CAT scan, however, we were devastated to discover that the treatment had not worked and the cancer had spread everywhere. At this time, we made the difficult decision to switch from curative care (chemo) to palliative care (hospice and comfort care). Tim was prescribed steroids and for the next month and a half, we were shocked to see him acting almost completely normal. He worked until two weeks before his death. Tim passed away quietly on October 14, 2010. Here are some of my journal entries during the first month of grief.

October 22:

It has certainly hit me that our journey is far from being over. It has significantly changed and taken a deep, deep turn in the road, but it is still a journey.

I’m all over the place; sometimes ok, then sad, then able to function, then lonely, then angry, then warm with Tim’s presence, then utterly lost, then feel like I’m going to have a heart attack, then feel like I’m moving on, then feel like my heart is aching and it will never stop. Mostly, I just keep swearing that I hear Tim walking in the door or in the room and I just can’t for the life of me wrap my mind around the concept that he won’t ever physically walk through the door again.

In this way, the journey hasn’t changed from the journey of dealing with a terminal illness. I am learning how to tolerate opposing feelings, just like accepting the diagnosis alongside feeling gifts pouring out on us. I still feel loved and supported and blessed beyond belief, while at the same time saying that every tiny inch of this SUCKS. It all sucks.

I’m still trying to grapple with Tim not returning home to me. One night I was out for a while and almost panicked, feeling like I needed to get home right away because Tim was waiting there for me. I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t shake the anxiety I didn’t want to disappoint him by not being home for him. This falls in the irrational category. Knowing it is irrational doesn’t change the feeling. Understanding on an intellectual level that Tim was not home and no longer needed me to care for him did nothing for the panic I was feeling inside.

Sometimes the distance between your head and your heart is immeasurable.

October 24:

October 26:

October 29:

I’ve decided the answer to the question “How are you all doing?” is “Ok”, provided that everyone knows that the grief process TOTALLY STINKS and you feel empty most of the time. But that is all within the scope of healthy grief, so that is why I say we are “ok.” We’re just going through what we need to go through.

Today was another day of complete chaos and running around and not really accomplishing anything. Will I ever feel ready to go back to work? And yes, if you are detecting a small window of pity-party being opened up, you are correct. I figure I’m entitled though.

My son Frankie (age 8) and I went to a Halloween party last night at Gilda’s Club (a cancer support center).

Frankie was very ambivalent about going but he did just fine. I, however, did not fare so well. We entered a room, and I realized it was the room that Tim and I had been in together. There was the couch we sat on, and I could swear I could see him sitting there, alive as could be, telling the group how he planned to shatter the statistics. It took my breath away. Luckily, I’ve learned to keep anxiety pills in my purse so I didn’t ruin the night for Frankie.

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There are often these kinds of surreal experiences. I knew he couldn’t actually be there, but I could have sworn he was. It’s the times that I am not expecting or anticipating having a difficult time that seem to be the hardest. It’s the shock or surprise of the trigger that gets to me. Walking in that room and having a vivid memory was not something I prepared for. When I think something is going to be awful, often it’s not half as bad as I thought it would be. This particular night, it was definitely the surprise throwing me off.

November 3:

I was driving home wondering why I was so blue and empty inside. I reviewed the day and was grateful that nothing “bad” had happened—no surprises, no bad news, etc. So I was confused as to why I was so terribly blah... it was a huge “aha” moment for me. May sound crazy to you, but I actually had to remind myself that in spite of not having a specific incident to be upset about, I have indeed lost my companion, my spouse, the man who was interwoven throughout my entire life. It was a “DUH” moment—I am in grief! I had to give myself permission to feel crummy, even though I was grateful that the day had been productive.

November 7:

Not a whole lot to report, just a serious case of the blahs. I am feeling empty, numb. I could probably stare at the wall all day but I guess it is good that I have a family to take care of. When you are a “Type A” personality, driven and extremely active, discovering you can sit and “stare at the wall,” is very startling. I didn’t think I was capable of doing such a thing.

There are times when the grief is raw, when it’s as painful as it gets. There is no way to soften it or make it better. You just have to go through it, and going through it is excruciating. But remember what I said at the beginning, it does get better.

(Taken from “Life After Death, On This Side of Heaven”)

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 24

to order: darcythiel.com

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$12.95 U.S

Darcy Thiel, MA, LM HC

Darcy Thiel, MA is a Licensed Mental Hea lth Counselor in NY earned her Master’s State. She Degree in Clinical Psyc hology from Wheato in Wheaton, IL. Ms. n College Thiel has been a coup le and family therapis Seneca, NY since the t in West mid-1990’s. She is also an accomplished spea ker and presenter on various topics thro ughout the Western NY area. She is the prou d author of Bitter and Sweet: A Family’s Jour ney with Cancer, the prequel to Life Afte r Death, On This Side of Heaven. To learn more about Ms. Th iel and other exciting books from Baby Coop Publishing, LLC, visit her website at www . babycooppublishing.c om or darcythiel.co m.

This Side of Heaven

Available in paperback or Ebook formats

Life After Death, On

Life After Death foll ows the journey of the ThielColvin family as they rebuild their lives after losing their husban d and father at an early age.

Written with the sam e spirit as Bitter and Sweet, Ms. Thiel offers a raw and honest acc ount of the path she and her fam ily have taken throug h their grief and loss. From the emotional turmo il, to the practical task s of dea ling with insura nces, this is a must-read han dbook for anyone struggling with moving for wa rd after a devasta ting loss.

– © Baby Coop Publ

ishing – 2014

" -.)$

Bitter and Sweet, A Family’s Journey with Cancer is a true story about Tim, Darcy, and their family. They lived a typical American life until Tim was suddenly diagnosed with stage IV gallbladder cancer at the age of 48. The five months that followed were the most difficult, tender and miraculous months of their lives. Join them on their roller coaster ride through the great spiritual challenge of holding the most bitter and sweet experiences at the same time and witness the triumph of the human spirit.

To see other great books by Baby Coop Publishing check out babycooppublishing.com

Life After Death follows the journey of the Thiel-Colvin family as they rebuild their lives after losing their husband and father at an early age. Written with the same spirit as Bitter and Sweet, Ms. Thiel offers a raw and honest account of the path she and her family have taken through their grief and loss. From the emotional turmoil, to the practical tasks of dealing with insurances, this is a must-read handbook for anyone struggling with moving forward after a devastating loss.

AUTHOR ~ THERAPIST ~ SPEAKER

PATIENT ADVOCACY • CARETAKING • PREPARING FOR END OF LIFE • GRIEF & LOSS darcy.helpforhealing@verizon.net 716-912-8448 SAMPLING OF SEMINAR TOPICS Making Lemonade

What happens when life hands you lemons? You can make a sour face or you can make lemonade.

When Ms. Thiel’s husband was handed a terminal illness diagnosis, she and her family did both. They faced it headon. You can do the same.

Ms. Thiel will give you the inspiration to get started!

Challenging News

Facing an unexpected diagnosis can throw you and your family into a tailspin. How do you handle your life being turned upside down? Even more importantly, is how to handle it emotionally and spiritually. Ms. Thiel uses her story to help people guide their own journey.

Patient Advocacy

It is crucial to be an educated consumer when it comes to your medical needs. Whether you are battling for yourself or a loved one, you must be a strong advocate. Ms. Thiel has lots of practical tips on how to ensure you and your loved ones get the care that you need and deserve.

Living with Paradox

How do you fight for your life and prepare for your death at the same time?

How do you carry two opposing truths such as the glass is half empty and half full? Life is full of these challenges but never so clearly as when faced with a terminal illness. Ms. Thiel talks about these difficult concepts with sensitivity and candor.

Help For Healing

Compassionate Counseling for Couples, Families and Individuals marriageandfamilycounseling.net

716-912-8448

To follow Darcy’s weekly blog, check out helpforhealing.wordpress.com Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 25

How to Grieve With Others

By Ali Shadle

I once heard someone say, “It’s the suffering body that brings us together.” In my case, that’s true. However, for many others it’s the suffering body that tears families apart.

Three months ago, my mother was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. If you don’t know what that is, it is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes abnormal myeloblasts. In normal terms, it means that she has cancer of the blood and it has spread all throughout her body. One day she was hiking up the side of a mountain, and the next she was told that if she didn’t go in for chemo then she would only have two more weeks to live. Through speaking with other Leukemia patients, I’ve learned that this is not an uncommon story. It’s the type of disease that sneaks up on you and when you’re not looking, it ties your shoelaces together causing you to fall flat on your face.

Though these past few months have been a rollercoaster of emotions, the most shocking part hasn’t been how positive and supportive my mom has been to us, but how each member of my family has managed to deal with her illness together.

When you’re walking the halls of a hospital you hear coughs and see sick patients lying in their beds, but what you don’t see is the far reaching impact their disease is having on those around them. As soon as my mom was diagnosed with Leukemia I immediately began this mantra in my head, “No expectation for how others grieve.” I knew that if I didn’t start saying that to myself right away, then I may get frustrated by my own expectations for others. Much like there is no one right way to live your life, there is no one right way to grieve. Everyone is different, and at times you’re more vulnerable and susceptible to selfish thoughts instead of considering how your support is affecting the whole.

I have been extremely blessed to have an amazing Dad, and three equally amazing older brothers at my side. Each one of us has said something stupid to the other and at times each one of us has confronted each other, but the final result remains the same - we are one whole working together to get my mom through this. We love each other and, through the bad, also comes tremendous growth. No matter what your situation is, there is always a positive.

I truly believe that life is just about learning and as soon as you learn your lesson then the universe or God rewards you with your next challenge. The secret is to share what you know with others so hopefully they don’t have to go through the same pain. Below I have outlined seven things I would like you to know about grieving with others:

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 26

No expectation for how others grieve. This is the number one rule. No questions asked. Everyone is different and everyone deserves to be respected for their differences. Who knows, maybe you could learn a better coping mechanism from those around you.

Crying is magical. Don’t hold back your tears. Even if you do it alone. Tears heal and are better shared.

Crying is magical... until you start feeling sorry for yourself. Then you need to check yourself at the door and ask yourself one simple question, “Are my actions supporting others around me?” If they’re not, then you need to climb outside of yourself and do something for another. Period.

Seven things I would like you to know about grieving with others: How to Grieve With Others No expectation for how others grieve.

You’re not perfect. One day you may feel like you have everything in a good place and the very next day you’re a hot mess. That’s okay. No one is expecting you to be perfect, so don’t expect it from yourself.

You will be attracted to those who have gone through something similar. There is something so comforting talking to someone who has experienced the same or similar illness. They just get it. They understand that there is nothing anyone can say to make you feel better because your only control is to know that you have none.

It’s okay to be happy. Even if you’re going through something horrific, it doesn’t mean you need to act like it.

Life keeps moving and it’s okay to keep moving forward too.

Being productive in your job is just as healing as sitting at someone’s bedside while they’re sick. In fact, during this time you should do anything within your power to make yourself happy. Happiness is infectious and that is an infection everyone is willing to catch.

Crying is magical.

Crying is magical . . . until you start feeling sorry for yourself.

You’re not perfect.

You will be attracted to those who have gone through something similar.

It’s okay to be happy.

Worrying is selfish. You have a responsibility to be there for others. There is no choice in the matter, but if you are only being there for others through worry, then you’re not really there at all. You’re making it about yourself instead of somebody else. Write them a card or buy groceries for those around you. Do anything instead of worry. You’re not helping anyone, especially yourself and those you love.

I truly hope this helps others who are going through something similar. I documented my mom’s journey through leukemia on instagram. Feel free to follow me for updates or just to help shape your day into a better perspective.

By: Ali Shadle Twitter: @AliShadle Instagram: @TheToiletJohn and @AliShadle

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 27

Worrying is selfish.

How to Live, What to Do Jerusha Hull McCormack

My first life ended with a phone call. Hours before anyone said the word, I knew what that phone call meant. My husband had died; suddenly, shockingly, just hours after the surgeon had rung to say he was fine. Stranger still, I knew he would die, even though everyone assured me that it was more or less a routine operation. But even when I knew he would die, I did not believe myself. Nor did I believe, after that phone call, he had actually died. Despite standing beside his body, bringing in the children to say good-bye, arranging the funeral and seeing us all through the burial, almost twenty years later there is still part of me that stubbornly refuses to think of him as dead.

Not because he is alive in the old sense, either. But because his presence is never quite past. Nor is it ever quite the same. At first, when I grieved wildly, I would try to remember him, how he talked, how he moved, the shape of his ears or face. When these began to fade, I would panic; even while feeling that he was, in some other sense, still around. So I began to ask him for things – mostly things I desperately needed. So secure did I feel that he was somehow attending, I was not even surprised when those things came about – although not always in the form I anticipated. As his physical self faded, my sense of him became dispersed, like a different kind of light: one that gave a new weight and intensity to everything around. Something like the last radiance of a long summer’s evening; heavy with knowing it would last no more than minutes.

Light describes it best. After almost twenty years, I think of him now as at peace, radiant with light. It shifts though my life, making that life itself seem shifting, as if without substance. Nothing lasts.

It teaches me to attend to this day, this moment. It will never come again. But it also makes this present Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 28

living seem ineluctably provisional: slight, weightless, and something that one makes up day to day. One has to improvise, relentlessly, because in this new world I can no longer believe in secure plans or safe futures. One simply makes it up as one goes along. And there is a freedom in this.

If only because the first terrible pain has bled out of it, so his death is more like the memory of a wound than the wound itself. A scar, which can suddenly and unexpectedly make itself felt. But I am grateful to be among the walking wounded. Because that death brought me another life, wider and truer than the one I had before. I would not have ever chosen it. It chose me. I had other plans. But in the midst of the wreckage, barely able to eat or sleep or talk, I made one decision. Along with my husband, part of me had died: the hopeful, trusting part. The part that was young. Part of me wished to join him. So I had to choose: to die with him, symbolically completing this death by taking on, as his widow, the life he did not finish. Or choose to live as a self that had not yet been created: a new, untried, newly unmarried self.

It is easy not to choose. A widow’s life is laid out for her. She is supposed to dedicate herself to the dead. Pale, pious, she will assume a kind of secular sainthood as the “relict” – the one left behind. And at the time, I felt I had neither the will nor the energy to begin again. But one sentence kept following me – a saying of Kafka’s: “Even on the scaffold, one has a choice.” Feeling the noose around my neck, I decided I must live. not only because we had children still young. They needed me to see them through this, to launch them into their own lives. But still more because the only true answer to death is not to deaden oneself as well – but to live more truly than before.

That new life would never be the same, could never be the same, after such a happening.

How to live, what to do? To live meant, I decided, opening up to the pain, the mess, the consequences for myself and our sons. In other words, not deadening myself. In practical terms, this meant no medication, unless absolutely necessary. No alcohol, or as little as possible. To stay open to the pain so it would allow me to find out what it could teach me. What I learned was that I did not need to eat or sleep as much as I thought I did. I could cope. I could get through all this. But not alone. I had to learn to lean on

others. In this newly isolated life, independence could be a trap. So I forced myself to reach out.

When I did so, it eased the loneliness. Even when the house was too quiet, the nights too long, and fear gnawing at my small store of security, grieving opened me to another world in which others, too, lived in pain. I began to understand that no one is exempt, although many are very good at hiding.

Somehow, grieving gave me a sixth sense of where the wounds lay. I did not need to ask questions or talk about my own experience. There is a bond of suffering so deep that it draws us together in silent company, even if we chatter with apparent abandon or flit from one topic to another. It wells up, it makes itself felt. It is not to be put by.

Nor should it be. It is what binds us together. It is what makes us human. Once when I went to parties, I would look for my friends – or at least someone I knew. Now when I walk into a room, I try to look around for those on the margins, in the corner; they are the ones to seek out. Not out of pity, but fellowship. I know now what it means, to be on the margins. Suspended between belief and unbelief, I even went back to the church of my youth. Sitting among the old, the sick, the marginalized, I felt at home. At times, I would simply sit and cry. Once, when I apologized, I was told: “This is a good place to cry. Cry all you want.” Since then, going there has little to do with doctrine or creed, but with people and a certain community who made me a part of their lives.

From this grounding, I feel free to explore other spiritual traditions, Buddhism and also Daoism.

For to live means to live more abundantly, to open myself not merely to pain but to that wider human experience which places pain at its centre.

That path has led to a life I could never have imagined twenty years ago. Eventually leaving my job and, for a time, my home, I went to teach in China. This new world, so alien to the one in which I had once lived and moved and had my being, has taught me almost as much about humanity, both its folly and its wisdom, as did raising my children. These have been my best education. Each has made my world bigger, more vivid, more urgent. Each in their own way make me feel that, even as death comes inevitably nearer, opening myself up to that terrible moment almost twenty years ago began a voyage which has transformed my life: into something larger, richer – and more strange.

Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 29

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Grief Digest Magazine, Volume 12, Issue #3 31