Wikis related to Grief-and-loss

WINNER HAS BEEN CHOSEN: Stacey! Today, guest blogger Allison Gilbert, author of the new book Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children, shares an excerpt from her book about how losing her parents has spurred her on to take a more proactive, less reactive role in her own self-care. Instead of waiting for others to surprise, spoil, wine, dine and fete her, she susses out what she needs and then MAKES IT HAPPEN. I’m inspired. I really am. We’re also giving away a copy of her book. Here’s her book trailer: From Chapter 10:...

by Jake Aryeh Marcus Find Sustainable Mothering on Facebook and Jake on Twitter.Henry Granju died yesterday evening. His mother, Katie Allison Granju, author of Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child has been blogging about Henry and the circumstances that led to his death at her blog, MamaPundit. While I hope to write more about addiction, a condition from which even the most dedicated attachment parent may not be spared, today I want only to express deep sadness that a mother has lost her son.Here is a video by South African musician Johnny Clegg called...

By Laura Grace Weldon         Storm clean-up near us is slow and there’s no word when power will be restored to thousands of homes. Problems in our area are minuscule compared to states on the coast, as well as hard hit countries like Cuba and Haiti. And yet everywhere there’s a crisis, wonderful things are happening. People are freely sharing food, water, and electricity with each other. They are cooking the last of the food from their freezers to offer their neighbors. They’re donating their time to labor on behalf of those they’ve never met. The much-maligned Occupy movement...

By Colleen Lowe Smith   My sister and I were never particularly close.  Thirteen months older, we were always on totally different tracks.  She played with dolls, I played in mud.  She had boyfriends, I had band, plays and ski club.  She got married after high school, I went to college.  I learned with remote interest that she was pregnant, and wasn’t there to witness the bump of her belly or the growth ensued over the next nine months.  I was in at school, six hours away, domesticity a foreign concept.  I was a sophomore when I got the call that she was in labor, and had given birth to...

One month ago today, a baby named Fox Elijah King was born to an awesome & radical couple, my friends April & Morgan.  April had a normal, healthy pregnancy, prioritizing an already-stretched budget to eat whole foods; she labored & delivered Fox naturally even though her birth was hard & fast.  He was lovingly welcomed, breastfed & kept intact.  He had a safe sleeping spot near his mama & was held constantly; embraced with an allegiance that can only come from a mother who was totally thrilled with his existence, a woman who studied motherhood to learn the absolute best way to bring a...

 By Michele Winkler Issue 106 May/June 2001 "What happened to Bambi's mother?" three-year-old Mira asks my husband. "Why can't she be with him anymore?" I have always explained that Bambi's mother was taking a nap, but Mira's dad tells her the truth. "Mom," she wails, running over to me. I glare at my husband and gather her in my arms. "Mom, please don't die. I'll miss you forever." I shift uncomfortably. "Look," I say, "everybody starts out as a baby, and then they grow up. After a long time, people grow to be very old, and then--well, it is just their time to die. Do you...

Accepting the Gift: Grief and Loss His Way By Ginger CarlsonA Web Exclusive There doesn't seem to be anything as clearing as Himalayan air. If you're lucky enough, the clouds part and grant you a moment's glance at Everest's peak. True clarity, the stuff of poetry, settles on your whole being. For a day or so, you look at the whole world like a three-year-old. I smelt it once, that lucidity. With baby on back, we stepped out early one June morning in Nepal to be greeted by this glimpse. On the same day, the entire Royal family was massacred by Nepal's Crown Prince. I witnessed the entire...

By Jill Ann Schwartz Web Exclusive This article is a reflection about my journey, with my son, through the first years of mourning the death of my beloved and my son's father. Each day, I am struck by the profoundness of our loss and the effort required of us to face the future. Primarily, I am a mother striving to create a safe haven of love and trust for my young child who was unprepared for letting go and grieving the death of his father. Simultaneously, I am, now, a woman in mourning, a single parent, and the family breadwinner. Prior, to the homebirth of our son, I trained and then...

By Lisa Shattuck I didn't lie this time. Sometimes in my struggle to answer my kids in an age appropriate manner, I might lie: if I want to shelter them from another depressing situation or someone's violent urge. But since our home city was in ruins all around us, it seemed foolish to hide anything. We were discussing plans for Christmas—we'd come back to New Orleans just in time for the holidays. I explained that what I preferred to celebrate was the blessing of being together with family. "But its Jesus' birthday, mom?" my five year old daughter, Aja, exclaimed. This mention of Jesus...

When A Child Dies: Living With Loss, Healing With Hope By Terra Trevor Sept 28, 2011 Following my 15-year-old son’s death, my plans for parenthood sat like scenery on an empty stage. I needed to come up with a new life for myself. But how could I choose a destiny when I couldn’t even buy a new sweater without exchanging it twice before deciding on a color and the right fit. I was starting my life over from scratch, and I was terrified of making decisions, even little ones. I didn’t think I would ever care about anything ever again. My mind felt glued shut, and my heart was beginning to...

May 26, 2010 By Robbie Davis-Floyd My daughter was born through a window in my uterus, and she died through the windshield of her car. I don't know what to make of this beginning that became an ending. There are easy parallels: cesarean birth is a rapid transition in which you are suddenly taken from one reality to another. Certainly Peyton's death was like that. But she worked to get born, just as I worked to birth her, for 26 hours before the cesarean was performed. In the end we were both rescued from our mutual travail--I by the epidural and the c-section, she by the doctor's hands...

Robbie Davis-Floyd’s Suggestions for Coping with Loss and PainBegun in January 2002, completed for the moment June 2005My daughter Peyton Elizabeth Floyd died as the result of a car accident in September 2000, four days before her 21st birthday. These are some of the things I learned from the experience of coping with this devastating loss. They begin with suggestions for the immediate period after a loved one’s death, and move on to the different coping methods I found useful over the long-term. At the end I include suggestions for what to say (and not to say) to those who are bereaved....

By Suzanne Leigh   Last night we were watching a video of my two daughters rollicking in a hotel swimming pool. It was taken days after a scan had showed evidence of recurrent brain tumor following a hiatus of 31 months of “tumor free-dom" for my 10-year-old elder daughter.   I was struck by two things: the images of Natasha that were wildly out of whack with the results of the scan – she is loud, laughing and ebullient, running around the rim of the pool, long strong limbs flying, stopping only to ham it up for the camera. The only tell-tale sign that something is amiss is the...

About two years ago our infant son passed away. My two older children were clearly affected. My son has autism and found his brother in the crib already gone. My daughter has since been paranoid about not having me around. At first, that meant coming downstairs every five minutes to make sure we were still there. It then spilled over to checking on us even from another room. Lately though, I was wondering why she is still doing this. We had another baby who is now four-months-old. Our son, Daniel, died at six-months-old. Things are clearly stressful in the house right now. My daughter never...

How do I live with the deep regret of having our son circumcised? He is almost 10-months-old now, and I am still struggling with this. Sadly, I did not find out the facts until it was too late.Of all the questions I'm asked, this one is the most difficult for me to answer because I have three circumcised sons. I believed the doctor who told me circumcision didn't hurt, only took a minute, and would protect my babies from terrible things that would befall them if they weren't circumcised. Many years later, as a nursing student, I witnessed a circumcision, which literally changed the course...

At 10 weeks, the day after Christmas, I found out that my baby had died at 8 weeks. I cannot believe how sad I feel. I have withdrawn from all family and friends except for my husband and children. I do not know how to deal with this grief. I don't know if it is worse because the pregnancy was not planned, and my husband did not want another baby. Despite the surprise he was coming around to accepting the baby. I was really happy to be pregnant and felt this baby would complete our family. Now I feel sad and hopeless because I know my husband won't try again. In fact he admitted that part...

By Kelly KilmerWeb Exclusive "Mama, my Grammy died." There is a brief pause. "Now she can't play with me anymore." My three-year-old daughter, Emma, looks up at me through thick eyelashes. "Are you crying, Mama?" I nod as I gather Emma in my arms and hold her tightly, trying to stem the flow of tears. "Honey, the doctors tried to make her better, but they couldn't. You know that Grammy will always be in your heart, though. Let's try to think of some fun things that you and Grammy used to do." As we sit on the couch and reminisce, my tears slowly dry, and we even laugh a bit. But my heart...