Good Grief

How would we cope if our brand new baby could not live beyond a few hours? Most of us cannot imagine that experience but, for others, it is a reality. Beyond a crushing grief and sense that this should not have happened, there is the unfolding of days, learning to live with what seems unbearable. And then, perhaps, something begins to unfold that changes our lives. The impact of a life, no matter...

The obstacles to exercising our own choices at the end of our lives sometimes seem impossible to overcome. We are part of a culture that refuses to accept death, a medical system that reflects that culture and a lack of capable help in navigating an unfamiliar territory. When we add geographic impediments, once travel becomes difficult, a rural death can be particularly isolating. Micheal Fratkin,...

Some losses are losses of things we never had; a safe childhood where we were protected and treasured. Attention to our needs and protection from what hurts. For a person abused as a child, the grief is for what never was and for the impact of that on our lives as adults. But there is the inspiration that comes when we love ourselves through these most terrible losses and find that life can be bea...

How do our losses help us uncover our true purpose? This is the question at the heart of Sonika Marcia Ozdoba's memoir, The Soul with Two Voices. Losing what she thought was most valuable to her, her professional singing voice, she found an even deeper aspect of herself, her true voice. But the road towards our most authentic self is sometimes laced with peril. What can help us to continue our wal...

Tara Shuman had the kind of life you could wish for; rewarding work, a husband and two little kids. She had started a few books, a children's book, a novel, but hadn't ever finished. The cancer came, unwelcome of course, into her life. And she found herself writing to pull herself through it. She shared what she was writing and found it had meaning to other people, that she could help people to un...

How do we move through multiple losses in a short period of time? What helps along the way? When Deborah Allen lost 5 of the most significant people in her life in just a few years, her considerable resiliency was put to the test! Her usual strategies didn't work, and she was submerged in an ocean of pain. Another family member, also coping with the same losses, excused herself every night to watc...

Stephanie Johnson was always a part of theater- behind the scenes. She was comfortable supporting other people's production with her talents as a lighting director. But the arrival of cancer on the stage of her life moved her in a whole new direction. As she began to write down what she was experiencing, she realized these moments were a play in real time, and she was the author. As she faced diag...

Being an advocate for a loved one at the end of their lives is so much more than reading their advance directive documents. The decisions are complex, nuanced and unpredictable. There is no way to predict what will be asked of us and no way to insure that we will be clear what decisions to make. Bart Windrum learned this first hand when his own parents came to the end of their lives, both in the h...

It is only experience that seems to teach us how to heal from heartbreak. Caron Post and Deborah Pardes' experiences led to their deep commitment to help others through their heartbreaks. It also led to the creation of their book, Climbing Out From Under. They kept it short and focused on helping their readers address overwhelm, build their capacity for facing hard feelings, and make peace with lo...

Our life losses can seem overwhelming when it appears the rest of the world is celebrating. But in fact, we are in good company! Holidays are natural times to remember people we've lost and to honor them. But how do we step back from the high intensity, busy shopping and party season to make space for our grief? How can the people in our lives who have died bring deeper meaning and resonance to ou...

Planning for the end of life is something most of us delay and resist. But when we put a plan in order, it is empowering, allowing us to feel a measure of control over this most mysterious time in our lives. But how can we learn what we need? Resources can be scarce and our friends and family may not know where to begin either. Having a well informed and complete guide to facing our ends smooths t...

How does the spouse of a woman with breast cancer cope? Can he find the support he needs and forget about toughing it out? Will people realize that he has also lost his security, his foundation and the person who helps him? Will they know he too needs caring, loving support. Even if treatment is successful and the cancer does not return to an active state, life is never quite the same. How does a...

What does a poet do when she suffers the loss of her father? She writes. Exploring the depths of her relationship with her dad, Naomi Shihab Nye writes with the beauty of love, loss and continuing relationship. Her father wanted them to write a book together, and though this didn't quite happen before his death, he jumps off of every page. His particular viewpoint as an immigrant informs her outlo...

Karen Wyatt worked with hospice patients. In the end, they taught her the lessons of dying, but also the lessons of living. Applying those lessons to her own life, she became a fierce advocate for the spiritual importance of facing death so that we can truly live life! Through her book, What Really Matters: 7 Lessons for Living from the Stories of the Dying, and her widely respected End of Life Un...

In today's world, what have we lost of myth and meaning? Maya and Barry Spector dedicate themselves to exploring the mythic and indigenous practices that once supported us as human being in a community of support and caring. Their writing, poetic offerings and rituals support those they work with to find ways to get back to these ancient traditions and claim our place in the human community. Their...

Grief touches us at the outer reaches of our experience, challenging us to respond to new and unfamiliar terrain in our own souls. Finding rituals and pathways to carry us through the mysterious territory of loss encourages new ways to look at life and at ourselves. When we encounter a seasoned guide to walk with us through the unfamiliar terrain, grief can become a journey full of meaning. Franci...

Throughout the world, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex people continue to experience oppression, including physical attack, psychological torture and rejection by family, friends and communities. In his travels as a journalist, Robin Hammond began to meet people whose very identities are still illegal in their own countries. He set out to interview and photograph them, telling thei...

The musical group Mirabai Ceiba formed after its two members met and fell in love. Their music blends many traditions and sacred songs into a meditative and beautiful form of meditative and inspiring music. Then, when loss came into their lives, they discovered that the music had to go deeper to incorporate the human experience of grief. Their new recording, Sevati (which means both silence and wh...

Lynda Fell's life was full and happy, with family at the center of it all. Then she got the call no one can imagine getting, your daughter has been in an accident. On the way, she was not expecting what she found when she got to the accident site. Her beautiful, talented and amazing 15 year old, Aly, had died. This most terrible of losses propelled her into deep grief and also into dedicating her...

Rudi and Julie fell in love across a great divide. Rudi was born and raised in Germany right after World War II, his father having been a high-ranking Nazi. Julie was a Jew from the Bronx whose father had helped in Germany after the war, managing refugees for the American government. Meeting in Berkeley, against all odds, they fell in love across distances which would have seemed too vast to cross...

Join me as we talk about how the worst time in Amikaeyla's life led to Music As Medicine, programming she developed which successfully helps people in the United States and around the world (including recently in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Sierra Leone) unlock their deepest inner voice. What links her work on national and international t.v., on recording...

The loss of a child is beyond our comprehension and throws parents into an eddy, swirling around trying to find a way to shore. But when 18 month old Sophie died, there was the added pain of traumatic loss. Sophie was killed when she was trapped under a hydraulic massage table, in the same room with her mother and brother. What led these grieving parents to agree to be the subjects for Kath McInty...

When you lose a child, what makes the difference between collapse and reintegration into your life? Often it is a loving person who has been there and supports the process of recovery while recognizing the feelings of loss. When the Richardson's daughter died, they were cast into the world of crushing loss, but came through it determined to help others traveling the road they had been on. So Melin...

As human beings, we wonder what awaits us after this life is over. When death has come to those near us, the question often becomes compelling! In her quest to understand the many ways people think about what comes next, Claire Bidwell Smith investigated and wrote about various beliefs and practices about the time after death. How do each of us imagine or believe it to be? How does this connect or...

How do we continue to weave the stories of the people we love into our lives after they die. What threads keep us connected to them, as they continue to impact our lives and inform our hearts? Lorraine Hedtke teaches people how to keep these stories present and how to mourn, yet continue to feel our relationships with those we have lost. Through teaching, writing and speaking, she helps others to...