Grief

In the world of infertility you often feel as though you should be "game" for anything - you know that you are going through all of this to have a child and you can sometimes be made to feel selfish or unenlightened if you have a desire to have a biological child. If you want to be pregnant, you often have this niggling thought in the back of your mind that pregnancy should not be a goal - a baby should - and that means that you are always cautious when you talk about conceiving. I always made sure I talked about wanting a baby instead of saying "I want to be pregnant" for fear that I would be judged as… [more]

I remember dates pretty well. Not necessarily years, but that month and day stick in my mind. Although I do remember the year that I graduated high school and the year I met Chris. I'm good at birthdays, except for my best friend Joe's which I can never remember if it is on the 10th or the 12th. But he forgives me on my off years. Thank goodness he really isn't a birthday kind of guy. Yesterday was my friend Jayme's birthday. I have known her birthday since I could remember dates. And it is a happy day to know that she was born into this world. And it will still be happy after yesterday, but I'll start to remember the date as… [more]

Yesterday, after my post, I kept thinking about lockets and how they have come into my life. And here is a biggie. My dad decided that he wanted to be cremated. His ashes were to be put into an urn while each one of us kids were able to have some ashes as well. The funeral home that we used had a selection of urns that we could order, or we could find our own. They also had a collection of jewelry urns that we could order as well. The jewelry urns are advertised as "lockets" and I believe that this was because the jewelry has an opening to put the ashes into. Two of my sisters decided to order from the company, and I really wish… [more]

Celebrity Depression, Spiritual Lessons by Therese J. Borchard I was finally reading the above article this morning after I have been saving it for about a week. It is about how blog author, Therese Borchard handles hearing about celebrity depression while handling depression herself. Here is what she had to say: When it comes to depression, I search everywhere for guides--people who can teach me how to live with it, or at least how to give it meaning. And when a celebrity--some Hollywood type or important politician--joins the crusade to end discrimination against the mentally ill, I take copious notes on how she has managed to stay both sane and successful. As I was reading this, I thought to myself that I do the same thing with infertility. It… [more]

My second book that I am going to jump ship on is titled, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time written by Rob Sheffield. In typical Karianne form, I picked this up because of the title and of the cover. I was intrigued. Then when I saw that it was a memoir, it was another plus to pick it up. Mix tapes are from my recent past and I was wanting a stroll down some old tunes and to compare my early 90s experiences with his. I wanted to see which songs were picked for the tapes, if I agreed and I really wanted to see what their break up tapes were. Well, there are no break… [more]

I have recently encountered an unexpected benefit from sharing my grief. On a random encounter with a misdelivered newspaper, I discovered that a close friend of mine back in junior high had lost her father to cancer over the holidays. Not being able to mentally deal with another funeral, I sent a card to her via the funeral home along with my contact information. Well, yesterday I got an email from her thanking me for the card and wanting to catch up with our lives. We are both mothers to two children. We have both recently lost our fathers to a devastating illness. We still have quite a lot in common. Mostly in the email she had questions about emotions that she is experiencing right now… [more]

Once again, as I was reading through the comments on my blog, I looked up and saw an interesting ad that I just had to check out. I love to write, love to journal, and since grief is foremost on my mind lately, Grief Journal by Linda Lodge Abelson Andreozzi. Linda's unexpected loss of her husband caused her to begin journaling. As she continued to write through the years, she would use her journals to see how they helped her heal through the trauma. Published by Good Ground Press, Grief Journal helps people write their own grief story. "Instead of telling people how they should grieve, I tell my story and, even though the reader is invisible to me, I ask them to tell me their story." Andreozzi knows all… [more]

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had ordered the Healing Grief Cd from healingjourneys.com. As I was researching which CD to order, I searched the archives and found a letter about grief that I felt Belleruth answered with the utmost caring and wisdom. I will be posting a little more about the actual CD later on and my experience with it. I felt that everyone dealing with grief could benefit from reading the letter. Here it is: Most of the trite sayings about loss are true, so if I sound sickeningly prosaic, please bear with me. First of all, if you can identify all these feelings of disbelief, sadness, anger, guilt and relief, you are way ahead of the curve and doing extremely well in… [more]

The last few weeks I have been having troubles sleeping and troubles with controlling my grief about my dad. I had a counselor tell me once that with each new grief, we relive past grief as well. In mourning now, with legal battles unresolved about estate issues, I feel mired in loss. With more hurt and sadness than I ever thought possible from people that my dad trusted and loved. I was at my wit's end on what else to do to try to work through this. And then I remembered Belleruth. Belleruth Naparstek has a website called www.healthjourneys.com. She offers a variety of products, but is well known for her guided imagery. I have bought so many of her cds for myself and… [more]

I am currently reading Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. "Stories about Life, Death and Overcoming the Loss of a Loved One." This book typically is not the sort of thing that I read, but I've been grieving a lot lately and was looking for anything that might help while browsing the stacks at my local library. What I have enjoyed the most are the quotes leading into certain stories. Here are the ones that I have liked reading. Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. ~Inspired by an Eskimo Legend Death is the end of a… [more]