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Widows Speak Up
We widows and other bereaved folks who cannot get past our losses fear being unhappy the rest of our lives.
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Perspective
Last week, I accompanied my son to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he’ll experience what’s known as “plebe summer,” an intense and grueling introduction to military life that precedes the academic year. We walked across the still campus together at 6:00 a.m., for he had been ordered to report for his…
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Tribulation is Treasure
Like many others who have lost children, I changed most in my thinking about what matters.
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Resolved to Heal?
The word ‘heal’ comes from the Old English word hælan, to make hale, whole, or free from infirmity. Among traditional therapists and counselors, it is a favorite word that means next to nothing when applied to the aftermath of losing one’s beloved.
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The First Year
For the first month after my daughter died, every day I woke up feeling heaviness and chest pain. Tears dithered behind my eyes constantly.
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Breakdown
What person could possibly handle all this, and such a fragile child, with limited help, and not scream at some point?
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Acting Weird is Not a Symptom
I came to hate the hospital. I feared the bureaucracy of the hospital, the faceless paternalism and control of my child and my family; control of the body and, seemingly, the soul. We were trapped in its giant maw.
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Lamentations
“That was and still is the great disaster of my life–that lovely, lovely little boy […] There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.” (U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the death of his first son at age three).
The Third Eve 