The Grief and Happiness Alliance

bereavement gifts

Losing a Loved One Before Death

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Mom drove from her house an hour away to be with us on Thanksgiving. We had a pleasant weekend and even went shopping because she wanted to buy an electric blanket. She got so cold at night.  She drove herself home Sunday evening. On Tuesday I got a call from the business I owned that was on the same property as mom’s house. She always played Bridge on Tuesday mornings with the same three friends she had since they were all newlyweds. Her friends had called the company when she didn’t show up for Bridge. My staff checked on her and found her on the floor by her bed. She was alive but had fallen Sunday evening when she was trying to put the blanket on her bed. She was disoriented and dehydrated, so they took her to the hospital.

I drove up to the hospital right away.  The doctors said they didn’t know exactly what was wrong with her, but she needed not to be alone when they discharged her a two days later.  I stayed with her for a couple of weeks while she was seeing her doctor and having tests, then took her home with me. I called the doctor’s office because we had been waiting weeks for results.   The nurse said the doctor had been busy, but I insisted on speaking to him. It turned out he was getting into his car to leave on vacation, but he took my call. He told me she had a brain tumor, it wasn’t cancer, it was inoperable, and he couldn’t talk to her until after his vacation.

My mother watched me on the phone with him and asked what he said, so I told her.  We held each other and cried. After that, I was amazed at what happened.  My dad had died a few years before, and she stopped smiling.  After I told her this news, she started to smile again. She was happy that she didn’t have to live without him anymore. She lived eight more months.

Observing the changes in her mental state was challenging and fascinating at the same time. Sometimes she was there mentally, and sometimes she wasn’t. She ranged from carrying on conversations with me to having conversations out loud with people who had been gone for years, not noticing that I was there. I did have to watch her closely for her safety. We had a swimming pool she was fascinated with, so we had to keep the doors locked. One time she found an unlocked door and went running down the street laughing and seeming happy to be free, but terrifying to me as I chased her.

I was with her when she died. She had stopped eating and had lost so much weight that she was almost unrecognizable. I felt such a peace in the room when she left. Her sister was in the other room. Her sister had planned for me to be the one to manage her affairs if she couldn’t, and not long after this, her sister was diagnosed with the same type of brain tumor, and I got to go through the whole process over again.  Aunt Ila didn’t recognize me and didn’t know where she was, but she did talk about her younger years, so that’s where our conversations took place. I was grateful that she had asked me to help her so that I was prepared when the time came.

What I learned from these experiences is getting frustrated doesn’t help. I always let them both know that they were loved and taken care of. I missed them much before they were no longer physically there. And I learned the grace, comfort, and beauty of loving unconditionally. If you find yourself in a similar situation, be sure to take good care of yourself which is something we tend to forget when we are in the caretaker role.

Sending you much love on your journey–

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

The Truth About Greif

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Mark Nepo says: “Only while telling the truth does the truth lighten us.” Early in my grieving I would say to myself things like: “I will never feel better “I will never love again.” Or “Nobody understands how bad I feel.”  Did you find yourself saying things like that? You may have only said them to yourself, and you may have felt that way at the moment, but were you actually telling the truth?

How would you describe how you were feeling early in your loss?  Did you feel empty, lonely, devastated, inconsolable? Think back to those days.  I barely remember much of what happened because things didn’t seem real.  It didn’t seem possible that my husband would never hold me again, sleep with me, or have a wonderful conversation with me.  All those things were my normal before he died, then he was gone along with all the wonders we had shared.  When I felt the unfamiliar experiences, I believed them to be true. But as time went on, I realized those were temporary feelings, and I didn’t need to stay mired in them. I could start moving forward a little at a time.

I didn’t think I would love again. Jacques and I had been married for 22 years. After he died, I didn’t feel suddenly unmarried. I still said “my husband” when I referred to him. And even after I fell in love with Ron, it took me four years to say yes to his proposal because I didn’t feel unmarried to Jacques.  Fortunately, I finally realized I wasn’t being fair to Ron and to our relationship and I was able to say yes.

When Jacques died, I had a hard time imagining that anyone could understand me. I just knew that anyone who hadn’t had someone very close to them die just wouldn’t get how I felt. I only had one friend who was also a recent widow. She set a good example for me. Through watching her be able to smile again, I realized that people didn’t have to know how I felt, since that isn’t possible, but they could care about me, and I could accept the comfort they offered me.

When dealing with these issues, I realized I wasn’t telling myself the truth. Integrity is important to me, and here I was, telling myself things that weren’t true.  When I finally realized that I was living in a fantasy that I had created, I started to examine the truth of what I was saying. I could see that I was starting to feel better, though it took a while. Discovering that allowed me to see that the truth was, and is, that things change every moment.  I can choose not to live in the depths of despair but chose instead to see what is good and beautiful about my life.

Focusing on what I am grateful for, on what I can enjoy, I began to see the truth and focus on that.  When I would start to tell myself that I couldn’t be happy, I would stop and say, “Is that true?”  Focusing on what I knew in my heart to be true allowed me to start on my path of staying in the moment and discovering the truth in my life.

If something starts to bring you down, ask yourself if whatever it is can really be true. Chances are you will discover that there is a more positive way to look at things, and a much more positive way to move forward for you.

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Are Your Journaling?

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What good is a journal when you just write random things in it that no one else will ever see? My answer is: a journal is a lot of good!  The things that I hear most often from people who are grieving or dealing with loss is that they miss their loved one or they are lonely or both. A journal can help with that.

When Ron was still here, we sat on our lanai (Hawaiian for deck/porch) and had long conversations every day. We would talk about anything that popped into our minds, from how to help out someone we knew, to how we felt about something going on politically, to what to have for dinner, to when we would have our next party.  After he was gone, none of those things seemed important, and I felt very much alone.

After a while, I realized that I didn’t want to live in a state of sadness, yet I was struggling to think of anything that I could be positive about. I turned to my journal.  At that time, I I wasn’t even thinking in complete sentences, so I started writing lists. I would write a list of things that would make me happy. I wasn’t eating much and was losing weight, so I wrote lists of food I would enjoy if I ate it. I wrote a list of people I would love to hear from. And I wrote lists about anything I thought of.

At first my list making was just helping me to pass time, then I realized that I was starting to pay attention to what I was writing. I said I loved to walk on the beach, so I did that. I wrote that I would love to have some Cherry Garcia ice cream, so I did.  I wanted to hear from my friend, so I wrote to her. I didn’t have to do everything I wrote down. I was grateful to have an idea of what to do, of what could make me happy.

These small successes helped me to start waking up, so I started writing more in my journal. What came to me was to have a conversation with Ron.  I would write to him in great detail.   I had so much I wanted to tell him. I wrote to him about all I was doing to report the bad effects of the peritoneal dialysis her was doing to help the doctors to know that these things happened so they could monitor their patients for them and get them help. I wrote to him how I felt about our life together. The more I wrote, the more I had to write.

With this writing, the heaviness of the grief I was experiencing began to lift. I was able to breathe more easily.  I felt like I could start to talk to others again. I started to look toward my future. I explored ideas in my writing, and my writing comforted me. Then I started to write others to send them love and support for whatever challenges they were dealing with.

The more I wrote, more came to me. I started realizing I had more to do. And I would plan out my future in my journal. My journal became my invaluable friend. Now I can go back and read what I wrote in those early times, and I am grateful for the strength I gained by writing just for myself. Now I am grateful to write to others to help provide comfort and support.

You will be amazed how writing in your journal can support you on your journey. Just write out all you are feeling and allow it to help you move forward.

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Freedom From Problems

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Often when grieving and dealing with loss, we feel like life in general is one big problem. We spend our days navigating from one problem to the next. We think if only I could go visit with friends, if only I could keep my home clean, if only I had something constructive to do, if only I could get into an exercise routine, and on and on and on.

You think that once all these problems are solved, you can be happy, you can relax, you won’t have any more problems, but is that true? Not really.  I lived a lot of my life in the “if only” zone. If only I had a degree. If only I had more money. If only I had a wonderful relationship. If only I had another degree. If only I had my own theatre and school of arts.  Each time I accomplished one of these things, the next one was there waiting.

Does this sound familiar to you? You may be living in the “if only” zone too. I hear you saying, but I really want all those things I am saying “if only” about. And I am not saying you can’t have them. When you focus on something, when you give all your attention to it, the result of this is for it to take more and more of your energy, and you have less and less energy to devote to everything else in your life.  The key here is balance.

When I decided to get a master’s degree, it consumed more and more of my energy until I wasn’t focusing on anything else. I spent less and less time with my family, I cooked less, I didn’t participate in organizations I loved, I was lost in books, writing, and studying. While I ultimately reached my goal, the process was grueling, and I was kind of miserable which affected those I loved most.   Reflecting, I see how I could have taken more time to get my degree which would have allowed me more time for what I loved and was missing out on.

Here is how I handled a situation now where there was something I wanted. In dealing with my grief after Ron died, I did a lot of writing, and out of that writing, I was inspired to write a book. My intention was to provide comfort, love, and support to those dealing with loss. I completed the book, then without any effort, I discovered who my agent was supposed to be. We discussed the kind of publisher we wanted, and we started researching. Instead of spending lots of time on getting a publisher, I set my intention to have the perfect publisher for my book.  In the meantime, I found other ways to offer comfort, love, and support to grievers. And I spent my time enjoying my life; I even travelled to Bali pre-Covid. In due time, my agent and I found the perfect publisher and my book is published and available at a time when there is unprecedented grief and loss in so many ways.

Now I choose to focus my energy on what I want. I use my energy positively to create the life I desire to live. Knowing that my energy will expand where I focus, I focus on solutions instead of problems. The result?  I’m not dealing with problems. And life is good!

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

The Stories We Tell

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We all tell stories, but are we telling the truth in those stories? When we tell the story of the loss of our loved one, we may only tell part of the story leaving out what we think the person we are telling the story too wouldn’t be able to handle. Or we may share way more than the person we are talking to can handle. Think about stories you tell, and then think about why you are telling them.

Your stories can bring you the support you desire.  For instance, you may tell a story of your desire to spend more time with your friends. In that story, you may say only one or two friends are staying in touch with you. You can bemoan the fact no one else calls you or that you spend so much time alone. Think about how the person you are telling your story to will react to the story you are telling.  They could think “She sounds so sad.  I can’t handle being around that sadness now because I am barely hanging on.” Or they could think “I understand that loneliness, and I will do better at staying in touch.”  How you tell your story will affect what the results you will get will turn out.

When you change your story to something positive, you are more likely to get positive results.  For instance, when you tell your story about how you want to spend more time with your friends, try changing up your story to say something like “I loved before the pandemic how we used to get together to visit over a cup of coffee at our favorite café every Monday at 10 AM. I was thinking, we could still do that now.  Instead of the café, let’s facetime or Zoom at the same time, or even talk on the phone.”  If you heard that story from your friend, wouldn’t you say “Sure.  I would love to do that.  I do miss our time together. This would be a great way to catch up.”

Or you may tell the same story to every new person you come in contact to.  For instance, I could introduce myself as a widow who has had two husbands die. If you met me and I said that to you, what would your reaction be?  Chances are you may be kind yet have no desire to spend more time with someone dealing with so much loss. In this time of a pandemic, you have enough to deal with already.  But if I introduced myself as a person grateful to meet someone new, you would probably be more interested in getting to know me better.

What is your story now?  Are you telling the truth about who you are? Are you a person who loves real conversations? Do you hold back information that could help you share what you really want to? Or maybe you say way more than you meant to? Spend some time thinking now about how you would like others to perceive who you are. What stories can you tell to develop the relationships you would like to have?  What stories to you need to keep for yourself? Telling the stories that support the outcome you desire can go a long way to bring more joy into your life.

Try writing your stories in your journal. Often, writing out a painful story in detail can help you discover the truth in it while releasing the need for it to keep circulating in your mind making you sad or holding you back.  Years after I had a terrible experience, it kept surfacing in my thoughts. After I took the time to actually write it out with all the freighting details, I realized that I was able to let the story go. Nobody else saw what I wrote, and I was able to tear it up and throw it away.  I was amazed that after I got the story down on paper, I released all the feeling that went along with it.

Think about stories you tell, and then think about why you are telling them. How do your stories serve you? Sometimes the stories you tell can drive someone away. Your stories can also bring people closer. Telling your stories can bring you joy when you allow them to. Before you tell your story, ask yourself these questions. Does this story need to be told? And if it does, how can I tell it with love in a way it can bring joy?

Bring love and joy to others, and to you, with the stories you tell.

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

A Fresh Start

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We are all ready for a fresh start!  Actually, we get to have a fresh start every day. I have noticed this to be especially true for those dealing with loss.  And while we may think we are ready, we actually need to take action to make it happen.

Waking up each day after my husband died was always kind of a shock. I would be all ready to cuddle up next to him, then I couldn’t. That still happens some mornings. I had to adjust to this so I wouldn’t stay stuck in that lonely place. I started by realizing that each day was a fresh start, a new opportunity to experience every moment.

Every morning I would journal. I thought about discovering my purpose. What did I want to do? And I explored listing things that would make me happy, bring me joy. I started small by choosing one thing I could do, then I progressed from there.  I would choose something like making a list of people I would like to reconnect with.  I prioritized my list and started writing an email or text to one person on the list each day. Writing instead of calling helped with the anxiety I had that I might break down if I heard their voices. This simple practice started bringing me much needed human connection.  Most people wrote back, and hearing from them felt so good.  The more I wrote these notes, the better I felt, and the longer the list got!

Reaching out was a small step, and doing it boosted my mood and opened my curiosity as to what to do next.  I realized that I was in control of my ability to move forward, to discover what I wanted or needed out of each moment.  If something didn’t turn out the way I imagined it would, I saw that in the next moment, I could try something different.  I didn’t put pressure on myself, and I was grateful for my new experiences.

When 2021 came, I knew this was a big fresh start, yet the start of the year was a little rocky. So now I am declaring for myself that today, 1 20 21 is my new fresh start.  I am making a list of things to focus on and to experience.  At the top of that list is staying positive. I will smile as I go about my day and always actively practice gratitude. I encourage you to recognize your fresh start too!  What will you focus on?

 

This week is the fresh start for my new book, Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief which launches this week. This book is a demonstration of a huge fresh start for me after Ron died. I started writing a little big each day, and that led to this beautiful book that I know will bring comfort and help to all who read it.

 

If you would like to attend the book launch for Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief, please email me at emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and I will send you a Zoom link.

You can preorder the book by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.