My first grief therapy experience was a disaster – a Freudian approach connecting everything back to sex and my parents that left me feeling more broken and bewildered than when I began. The counseling was shoved in my face about ...
July 12th would have been our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. In the seven years since Rick died, I’ve gone through many different stages of grief, and I’m a different woman than that distraught widow from years ago. Instead of sadness over ...
Tomorrow would have marked the 14th anniversary of a marriage that ended four years ago. Instead of a celebration, it’s a reminder of a chapter that closed painfully. There's a saying that you only fail when you quit, but I’m ...
I miss my husband every minute of every day. When the good things happen, I want to rush home and tell him all about every detail. When I am weary, the day was a let down, and things don’t go ...
Over the years, in various blogs, I have shared that my late husband, Bret, wasn't exactly the easiest person to be around. Oh, sure he could absolutely be the life of the party. But at home, with no one new ...
When you lose your spouse, whether you are a parent or not, there are phrases that you will hear from family, friends and acquaintances. These phrases are spoken out of care and, I believe, an unspoken discomfort in not knowing ...
I’m new to this, yet I’m not. I’m a teacher so I’m used to writing. I’ve been writing most of my life. I mostly write and then eventually throw my writing away, except the journals on my travels. I also ...
Grief is a complex emotion, and it can be particularly challenging for children. As a grandparent, I play a unique and essential role in supporting our grandchildren through the grieving process. When Glenn passed we only had one grand. There ...
The day I learned the term "Executive Dysfunction", I felt seen. Finally, someone said this was an actual thing, and it wasn't just me being lazy and willfully disorganized. Executive dysfunction is when you have problems with your executive function ...
Sharing The Loss So how do you explain to someone new you meet that you are a widow? When do you say it? Do you wait for someone to ask an awkward question that they don’t even realize they ...