“Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge After my mother died, a dear friend gave me a pendant necklace engraved with a tree. No card, just a pale yellow sticky note with the above quote, “Friendship is like a sheltering tree.” I rarely see this friend face-to-face as we … Read More
Pick up any grief book. Or, google grief and loss. Talk to anyone who has buried a loved one, and all will tell you that, when grieving, you should lean on your friends and family. You will read and hear repeatedly that when grieving you should gather the people who love you and accept their … Read More
“When all else fails, take a nap” — unknown (or maybe Mom) In addition to working as a counsellor and writing for Suddenly Single Survival Guide, I’m also an avid photographer. Having learned with a film camera, I have embraced digital photography wholeheartedly. But, as much as I love my camera, it does not work if … Read More
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like … Read More
Regret usually isn’t the first grief emotion we experience. Shock and sadness hit first, but as time passes, a sense of sorrow that we missed doing or saying something becomes regret. I always use the metaphor of pot of stew to describe the emotional aspect of grief. The liquid is the sadness. Sadness washes over … Read More
“You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Imagine yourself as a piece of clay. As your life journey unfolds in front of … Read More
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” – William Shakespeare (Macbeth) I once purchased a book with the title Give Sorrow Words having no idea that this phrase was quoting Shakespeare. I guess I missed that in Macbeth. The phrase, however, is wise counsel. … Read More
“Age teaches resignation; grief teaches itself to be, to just be, because it turns out that it can’t be outrun or forgotten.” — Sharon Butala (Where I Live Now: A Journey through Love and Loss to Healing and Hope) Often after a death or other loss, major decisions have to be made. Should I move? Should I … Read More
Marie continued to cry daily, in spite of the therapeutic work we had done together after her husband’s death. She struggled to understand how her adult children managed to just go on with their lives not long after the funeral. Did they not love their dad? She was still so raw and they appeared to … Read More
As you may have read in my biography on this site, I am a counsellor and thus, in my work, I see grieving clients regularly. Some are grieving a death but other times it is the loss of a relationship or even a job that he or she loved dearly. At some point in their first session, … Read More
“I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin.” ― David Allen (Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity) Grief is paralyzing. You know you need to do something but you are too overwhelmed to do anything more than sit … Read More
“Many grieving people simply suffer alone in the weirdness of grief, wondering if they’ve lost their minds on top of everything else.” — Megan Devine (www.refugeingrief.com) Grief is a full body and brain experience. Nothing feels right. Nothing feels normal. You can’t think. You can’t remember where you put your glasses or that the electricity bill … Read More
