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Lisa and I just returned from the annual meeting of ADEC, the Association for Death Education and Counseling. This was our first time, and we were enormously impressed. ADEC is an international, professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence and recognizing diversity in death education, care of the dying, grief counseling and research in thanatology. Based on quality research, […]
Continue ReadingGrief is a very painful emotion and can cause great distress. For older people it can even be especially difficult to experience. Grief if prolonged can lead to depression and even physical illness. Grief from the death of a loved one is a response to the loss of that person’s presence in our lives. The […]
Continue ReadingIn case you are tired of hearing from me about grieving during the upcoming holidays , I found some other voices you might want to listen to. Jamie Greenbaum writes most eloquently about her husband’s death from cancer. This article appears in the Huffington Post’s website and discusses her first Thanksgiving after her husband’s death. […]
Continue ReadingMANAGING YOUR OWN GRIEF DURING THE HOLIDAYS – THIS IS ANOTHER RE-RUN OF AN EARLIER POST IN ANTICIPATION OF THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS My co-Founder Lisa suggested this. So nobody you know took my advice and called to include you in their holiday plans. Sorry that didn’t work out.. And you were too reluctant to reach […]
Continue ReadingThis is a modified rerun of a post I did last December. It’s about the helping the grieving during the holidays. I did several them, and over the next few days will republish them as we approach two holidays, Easter and Passover, that are observed by the entire family, and are therefore especially problematic for […]
Continue ReadingI know I’m more than half right about this, so please bear with me. In mathematics there’s a concept called proportionality. Directly portortional means that if you travel faster, you’ll go farther. Inversely proportional means that the more people you have digging a ditch, the sooner it will be done. Grief is, for most of […]
Continue ReadingIt was cold in the graveyard on January 31st, 2010, and there was a lot of traffic in the hearse, because we were in Long Island. After the funeral, everyone went directly to my Uncle’s house, where a feast of bagels and pickles awaited us. Shiva is the word for the seven-day mourning period that […]
Continue ReadingYesterday would have been Zack’s 40th birthday. He took his own life last year after a twenty year struggle with schizophrenia. I loved Zack, the son of a first cousin who has been like a brother to me. Zack and I first met at his bris, the Jewish circumcision ritual, when he was only a couple […]
Continue ReadingMy first wife died of cancer. From initial diagnosis to death was five years. It wasn’t downhill all the way. After an initial six months of chemotherapy we had a full and healthy four years, toward the end of which we dared to use the word ‘cured.’ Then it came back with a vengeance, and […]
Continue ReadingI was planning to write this a couple of weeks ago; then my mother passed away last week and my viewpoint changed from author to recipient, so I’d like to capture in this essay how notes register with the family members. I published three pieces about my experiences while dealing with my mother’s death from […]
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