When you are in the throes of grief you think you will never be happy again. Your world is a narrow, dark tunnel. You do not see any light, yet glimmers exist, and they are signs of healing. Watch for these signs, for they give you the courage to move forward with life.
Healing begins when you feel a real smile.
I did not smile after four loved ones died in the span of nine months. In fact, I forgot what a smile felt like. Then one day, I smiled a tentative smile, and it felt good. Bob Deits writes about recovering in his book, “Life After Loss.” He thinks “the first step on the path to renewed joy and vitality after a major loss is the most difficult of all.” Smiling was my first step and it may be yours.
Healing begins with the first laugh.
There was nothing to laugh about, so I did not laugh for months. I used to be known for my sense of humor and one day I laughed spontaneously. Though it was a rusty laugh, it told me healing had begun. Laughter heals. Do not be afraid to laugh when you are grieving.
Healing begins when you forget about loss.
Grief was all I thought about. I could not escape it. Judy Tatelbaum details the grief process in “The Courage to Grieve.” “We can see we are moving closer to recovery from grief when the deceased is no longer our primary focus,” she writes. It takes longer to recover from multiple losses. Still, I continued to do my grief and do the things I loved — writing, reading, cooking. These activities gave me a break from grief. Be glad when you forget about loss for a moment. You are healing.
Healing begins when you start to see hope.
Multiple losses robbed me of a future. I could not imagine life without my loved ones. Because I had grieved before, read about grief, and written about it, I knew I had to watch for signs of hope. I found hope in a robin’s song, a baby’s laugh, buds on apple trees, and smiles on my grandchildren’s faces. Look for hope and you will find it.
Healing begins when you plan a new life.
After a loved one dies you have two options, give up on life or live it. I chose the second option and planned a new life. Planning this life took more than a year. Alan Wolfelt, PhD, writes about planning in his article, “Reconciliation.” The article lists reconciliation criteria. One criteria is “the capacity to organize and plan one’s life toward the future.”
Healing begins when you act on your life plan.
I am living my new life now. Does it contain any joy? The answer is a heartfelt yes. Keep doing your grief work and you will create a new life, too. Grief is work and so is life. Artist Grandma Moses described life in a few words, “Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” This is your truth, this is your healing.
Copyright 2009 by Harriet Hodgson
Harriet Hodgson has been an independent journalist for 30 years. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Association of Health Care Journalists, and the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Her 24th book, “Smiling Through Your Tears: Anticipating Grief,” written with Lois Krahn, MD, is available from Amazon.
Centering Corporation in Omaha, Nebraska has published her 26th book, “Writing to Recover: The Journey from Loss and Grief to a New Life.” The company has also published a companion resource, the “Writing to Recover Journal,” which contains 100 writing prompts.
Please visit Harriet’s Website and learn more about this busy author and grandmother.
Dealing with dementia symptoms in your own parent can stretch the limits of your sanity. Sometimes you may not even notice the first symptoms of dementia — the slow decline of your aging parent’s memory. The symptoms of dementia may continue until your aging parent starts exhibiting signs of other mental disorders, such as paranoia or delusions, which frequently piggyback on the effects of senile dementia. These symptoms may keep reappearing, until you can’t ignore them and you’re forced to take action like I was. Hopefully, this article will help you identify dementia and other mental problems in your aging parents and help you deal with the problem by getting their condition assessed by a professional.
Keep a list of current medications and current medical history in your bag. When you are flustered in an emergency situation, you can easily forget to mention an important piece of information about your child, especially if your child is on chemotherapy or other intermittent medication. Write it down.
Time to celebrate the women who have made our lives so much easier! Raising children means that mothers serve not only as moms, but as nurses, teachers, mentors, homemakers, chauffeurs, coaches, chief cooks and bottlewashers, working professionals, and so much more. At Assured Healthcare, we count many mothers among our ranks, and wish each of them and mothers everywhere a day of peace and ease to celebrate all the things they do for us.
At one of my networking group meetings, someone recently asked what I considered to be the four most important advances in healthcare technology over the past twenty or thirty years. Considering the huge leaps in knowledge, daily bio-medical discoveries and amazing technology breakthroughs, that would be a very time consuming task. But, off the top of my head, I did come up with a list of four personal favorites:
Publically accessible defibrillators. It may take a while for them to be in common use before we fully realize the value of these devices, but that day is coming. With the growth of an aging and highly mobile population, the number of lives saved by defibrillators can only increase. The technology of these devices has been streamlined and simplified to walk the person providing aid through the process, further increasing the odds of survival for someone stricken with a cardiac-event while in a public or private venue.
As the nation’s population ages, more Americans are being confronted with the need to seek assistance with in-home care of elderly or sick parents, or extended family. Couple that fact with the ever increasing trend toward same-day, out-patient surgical procedures, and assessing the qualifications of private duty home care for recovering patients of any age takes on an even greater urgency.