There are some conversations you never forget. A man at a garage sale was talking about his uncle who said, “I lost my wife to a better man.” That man was Jesus! His aunt had died.
While death may seem like it can destroy you, it could be stepping stone to such a revelation. Your loved one is with Jesus for a glorious reunion. YOU are not broken; your heart is.
It was the worst day ever when dad died, but the best day ever in heaven, finding Jesus. This is from “Firing Squad.” It’s only for a while we must part. Death does not break the bonds of love. What the heart once owned, it shall never lose.--Henry Ward Beecher
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.--William Penn
God is with you during the funeral. He opens heaven and pours His blessings though it may not feel like it at the time when it seems like you have an open wound that won’t ever close. Grief evolves and changes, but can push you to be stronger, better equipped and more present as well as what to do with the remainder of your days.
Loss affects people differently. “Brain” magazine said it can make you could morph into hypervigilance about your own health.
You come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.--Anne Lamott
A segment on the “700 Club” said don’t go down the rabbit hole of what ifs and if onlys. That won’t change anything. There is nothing to be gained by looking back.
That only makes you stumble because you weren’t looking ahead.—“The House on Prytania.” You can hang on to something that happened in your past that you had no control over or you can look forward to something new that may move your forward.
David Jeremiah tells about a widow who says not to linger in sorrow after a golf cart accident killed his wife at church. This man said “to serve Him.”
I have been drawn to little Lucy Morgan's story and the freak badminton accident that caused her death. I watched her funeral. Her mother had the courage to speak. She said: We have not turned from Him. I am angry and wrestling though. I know He is going to win. God has no supervisor. We can’t have hope in a man’s world, a pastor or friends.
If grief takes its toll, God can embrace amid every loss.--Linda Grazulis
Grief is the reminder that love was present and that even if it’s no longer in its original form, that love still exists.--Michelle Maroc
We don’t get to choose many things, but we do get to choose how we live.--The Dash summation
Wonder! Remind yourself of your purpose. Do the best with what you have to attempt a fresh start.
Here’s one way to learn how. A blue Christmas service with four stations. Prayer, scripture and candles represent the different types of loss and grief. Station 1) Personal prayer or talk with the pastor. 2) Write letters to God. 3) Write memories of those you lost and a thankful list. Wrap in a box and take home. 4) Mix water, ashes and smooth stones. Rub ashes on the stones. Then wash off. To end, have prayer in the center of the room.
This could have possibly helped Queen Victoria mourn Albert. She intended to wear black the rest of her life except for some official functions. Helping jolt Victoria back to reality was her eldest son's near fatal illness in 1871 and an attempt to assassinate her a few months later. Both prompted an outpouring of public support, making the queen realize that she owed it to her loyal subjects to engage in the royal spectacle they craved.
In a journal, condense a TV show, article or quote from a friend or an incident to explain. Be grateful that your thoughts matter. Redirect, think and smile without guilt. Grief is like blank pages. This project could bring you back to life and keep you going. Write your way through things, said “Stroke” magazine. Be curious about the way you feel. Incorporate elements of beauty in flowers, candles, books and music. Someone said they sang their son into heaven.
There will be triggers, smells, sounds that bring memories back. Triggers can include the sight of the handwriting of the deceased. A door knob turning. Private memories fill the silence and can startle you. You walk the hallways of a silent house. You catch yourself calling out their name or reaching for their hand. I saw Max Lucado’s description as spring becomes winter, blue turns to gray, birds go silent, the chill of sorrow settles in.
Feelings don’t die with pets either. You might wander around with its collar, favorite toy or spot where he used to snuggle.
“I can’t listen to bagpipes anymore,” a daughter said.
“I was level 2 sad all day,” said a Minneapolis law enforcement officer after a death in the department.
“It was moving so slow, but so fast at the same time,” I heard somewhere.
In a murder situation, someone said grief took a back seat that day. “I needed to find her killer.”
I feel you a different way now, said an Israeli hostage’s mother.
Becoming a motherless child is a difficult task no matter the age.
Grief can be endured because it holds hope’s hand. We can courage up into hard things.—“Luke in the Land”
You can linger in loss or hope for new beginnings. It’s up to you.
Of course I cry for you when I am low. But, it is also in my happiest times when I pause and want to share them with you. And then, I think it was probably you who put them there.--Sara Rian
Pain in grief serves a purpose. It means something is wrong and you need to rest. Loss is a wound and wounds hurt. Adjusting doesn’t just happen. It takes attention, time, effort and devotion. Reevaluate life and what is worth striving for.--TAPS magazine
Things grieving people have done:
Plant a tree with rocks around it.
The drone act on “America’s Got Talent” was in honor of one of their daughters who died. He could let grief consume him or fuel him to do something, he said.
Create a scholarship for a student who wants to be what your spouse was.
Someone put a handkerchief in her Bible on healing passages and mailed them with a card.
One family initialed Guideposts covers. She would pick up her dad’s and feel connected, knowing his hands turned the pages.
Heart of Surfing was developed for families with autism or developmental disabilities in honor of their son who had a seizure.
Someone went back and hiked all the places he and his wife did to help heal after her death.
Hold a lantern release.
A guy restored his late grandmother's pink Mustang, changing the plate to EVAS 68 to UR1 OF1. He drives the car and betters himself--like she is with him even though he never met her.
“I got up off the couch in order that other people can keep smiling, in order that other people can be safe, because our government needs to protect us,” said someone running for representative in Massachusetts. His daughter died in a plane crash.
One man’s son was a victim of sextortion and he ran for the South Carolina legislature and won. He got Gavin’s Law passed which criminalizes digital extortion, gets them 15 years per occurrence and mandates state education on this topic. He said he could sit in a corner and be a basket case, be angry at the world or do something.
Someone who lost their son uses Japanese kintsugi that repairs broken pottery and lacquers it.
A friend saved his deceased friend's voicemails and plays them when he hears a song that reminds him of him, after reading something about friendship, hiking to the cabin they built in Alaska and before his wedding. It's been since 2012. "I carry him every day in my heart," he says. Voicemails capture playfulness, tone or retrieval of a memory.
Ben’s Bells are beautiful, ceramic wind chimes, handmade by the community. By the time one Ben’s Bell is complete, at least 10 people have been involved in its creation. Ben’s Bells are hung randomly in public spaces for people to find and take home as a reminder to practice intentional kindness.
Father Mike Schmidt said L. Frank Baum had four boys. He told them stories. His wife had a niece named Dorothy. When Dorothy died, his wife was broken. He wrote down stories he told the boys and put Dorothy in them.
A man invited a mom and two kids in to learn the piano. Friends didn’t check in and he was rattling around trying to figure out what to do with himself. Food didn’t taste as good. Music didn’t move him like used to. TV wasn’t as entertaining. When he played piano, every feeling poured out--love, grief, anger, awe, fear, calmness, disappointment and joy. God’s grace is a little like middle C—everything flows from it, the story said.
In lieu of flowers, a man donates to pay off the debt of school lunches.
Instead of allowing herself to disappear into the grief abyss, a woman created Widow 411 to offer a variety of useful resources to help make widowhood suck a little less. I've made it my mission to share the no-B.S. version of widowhood, using a candid and unflinchingly honest approach, she said. I share practical advice, hard-earned wisdom and encouraging messages of personal growth so other widows can find strength amidst their pain. You can do hard things.
When his wife had miscarried, a man recalls the women gathering around to console her and share their own stories of miscarriage and loss. The men patted him on the back and helped him stack chairs. That can mean that men oftentimes grieve alone, in silence and on a different timeline than their wives. Red Bird Ministries was born. “It’s like we’re carving the grief Mount Rushmore,” he said.
Make a grief box. You turn it upside down and do a “grief dump,” shake it and open it for a short time, taking out items and sharing. Then you put them back in the box and close the lid.
After nearly three decades, Kathy Sanders’ feelings about April 19, 1995, have become bittersweet. “I enjoy the anniversary. I love the fact that our loved ones are still being honored after all these years. You don’t want your loved ones forgotten, so it’s a good thing that they do,” she told “The Oklahoman.” She likened the pain of losing her grandsons Colton Smith, 2, and Chase Smith, 3, in the bombing to losing one’s sense of sight. “If a person loses their eyesight, do you think there’s ever a day they wake up in the morning and they don’t mourn the fact they can’t see the sun rising? I mean, they have this life that they didn’t choose, and they didn’t want, but it’s the life they have now.”
A 7-year-old opened the most recent of 14 years’ worth of Christmas gifts pre-bought by her elderly neighbor before he died of cancer. After the funeral, Ken’s family was surprised to find a sack full of 14 wrapped presents for the girl who was then only two. #BeMoreKen reveals on Twitter Cadi’s gift, encouraging others to be kind and to get to know their neighbors.
There is a Broadway show where the sisters get together to assemble a quilt for their mother—a repository of family history.
Henry Louis Gates got interested in genealogy after being petrified at seeing his grandfather in a casket. He was 9 when he drew his first family tree. His father showed him scrapbooks so he interviewed his parents. You may cry a puddle of tears, so try not to stain your album. Learn to be more like your parents.
Keifer Sutherland said it helped that his dad loved what he did and did what he loved.
People of Tournai, Belgium, bury their own dead. I buried my five children with my own hands, said one. There was no one who wept for the dead, for all awaited death.
Here’s how people describe grief. Hollow. The floor drops out. A blur. Even with a month to brace for it.—Sen. Joe Lieberman’s son
A man said was left dull, monochromatic and without hope. His first marriage ended, his father died, his best man killed himself. One of the core goals of his life is survival; the other is meaning. He found himself looking at a crabapple tree in the backyard. Every sunset, dinner and bedtime story dripped with significance.
Grief seers your mind, can create restlessness, trouble concentrating, avoiding certain places, isolating, moodiness, feeling torn up, strange, overwhelmed, disconnected, untethered, unfocused, unprepared, abandoned, shattered, shattered, abnormal, unhinged, crazy, unfathomable, ripped to pieces. There can be a sense of foreboding and losing your marbles. You ask who am I now, part of you went away, have no timeline, feel like a period in the middle of a sentence, have a surplus of agony,
Nothing feels right, but you can’t shield yourself from death. Death can wreck you, but don’t spend all your time thinking about me, someone advised their offspring. They were told to live their life to the fullest.
Grief is normal. Postposed grief is avoiding the consequences. Even after eight years, someone can’t open a box that belongs to the deceased. Others clean a closet the day after the funeral.
St. Bernard’s grief was revealed in a homily by Father Isaac Slater of Our Lady of the Genesee Abbey. St. Bernard breaks off, too grief-stricken, he says, by the recent loss of his brother, to continue. He writes of how, at first, he tried to hold back and deny his grief. He describes “keeping up a pretense,” “doing violence to himself” and “suppressing” what he felt, disguising his grief behind the vestments and ritual of the funeral ceremony. The suppressed sorrow struck deeper roots within, growing all the more bitter, because it found no outlet.
Bernard’s attempt to bury his grief is a good example of what psychologists call “emotional bypassing--” our tendency to do an end-run around difficult feelings, both our own and those of others. We need to sink down into the muck, not to wallow in it, but to own and accept every facet of ourselves in order to heal.
Avoid a friend that says he will call you back when you quit crying. Be a friend who stays for the cup of coffee.
Never anticipate a tomorrow, Dan Bongino said after his mother died. Winnie the Pooh says bye is hard, but it’s lucky to have something that makes it so.
Enrich and bless those who mourn by your actions. Comfort and solace each other. Death is one of life’s most dreaded experiences. You don’t get a do-over. Set yourself free—based on “Time for Me to Fly.”
Finish a bucket list. Mick Carney was killed by a distracted driver when he was 54. His list was written in 1978, the year his daughter was born. There were 60 tasks; five were done. Do a comedy monologue in a club and see a World Series game. One was marked failed. Pay back my dad $1,000 plus interest. Swim the width of a river. Grow a melon. Correspond with the pope. Be invited to a political convention. Talk with the president. The daughter was 25 and an aspiring writer in NYC. She thought his was an undignified way to die and became an activist for safe driving, writing articles, fundraising, giving talks and interviews. The bucket list helped her work through her pain and reconnect with her dad. She crafted a tentative timeline and put off the pricier items like the Super Bowl and going to Europe. As well as the one that scared her the most--drive a Corvette. The first couple she achieved organically. She had signed up for a marathon herself. She found out Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school and he was president when the dad wrote the list. He wanted to sing at his daughter’s wedding, but she used poetic license. They drank a Cabernet he had left a note on for her wedding day. Well, their bellies were singing. It felt like her dad was with her along the way. She felt like her relationship with him was present. She recorded some songs in a studio. She encourages everyone to live more intentionally and when you are living that way, you feel more of a sense of purpose in your life.
