FacebookTwitter

12 Things You Can Do For A Bereaved Friend At Christmas

By on Dec 10, 2017 |

The second Christmas since my son’s passing  is coming up.  I will be honest, last year’s Christmas was really hard.  It wasn’t because anyone was unkind.  It’s just because 29 of my 57 Christmases were so full of memories that included him. Memories of Christmases past flooded my mind during the entire holiday season.  Remembering the fun of Santa, the year he got the Nintendo 64 he was dying to get, and watching videos of Christmas mornings were so bittersweet.  Also, I am in  the beginning stages of Empty Nest Syndrome so the challenges and changes that come with that are new to me as well. I would like to share some of the ways that a friend can brighten someone’s Christmas who is bereaved.  My definition of bereaved is anyone who has lost a very close loved one regardless of the length of time since the passing.  There is no timetable for grief.  The...

Bullying and It’s Lasting Effects

By on Nov 29, 2017 |

In my last blog post, “Why Did You have to Go?”, I wrote about the effects that bullying had on my son.  I received many comments that made an impact on me. The number of adults now in their 50’s – 70’s who commented shared the stories of their vivid recollection of being bullied as children and adolescents.  One of the examples that really stood out to me was a gentleman, age 69, who feels inferior, even after all of these years, because of the effects of bullying in his life.  After serving as a medic in Vietnam, he went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Nursing.  He obtained a Masters in Health Care Administration and a Doctorate in Nursing Practice.  Even with these outstanding career accomplishments, he still carries the invisible scars of bullying. I read an interesting article, “Psychologist’s studies make sense of...

Why Did You Have To Go?

By on Nov 17, 2017 | 4 comments

 This is a question that I have asked my son at least a hundred of times in the past year.  I will never know the full answer until I get to Heaven and see the Big Picture. I am sure that God has a much bigger answer than I am capable of knowing now. It doesn’t make it any easier for me today.  I am choosing to have faith that God has got this. “Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time. ”  -Oswald Chambers  In the past 13 months I have cried out in my heart, “Why did you have to go?” The answer has been, ” Mom, I did the best that I could with what I knew at the time.”  Now that I have finally come to terms with the reality that I don’t have the answer to everything and that I cannot control everything, his answer has finally sunk in.  He did the best that he could with what he...

It’s Gonna Be Okay

By on Oct 9, 2017 | 2 comments

Last week was a stinker.  It marked the one year anniversary of my son’s death.  He passed on October 1st and the memorial service was on October 8th.  I was in a funk all week.  It was as if I was grieving brand new, every day, all week.  I was so focused inward that I was having a hard time finding God through it all.  I returned to asking, “How and what did we all do to get here?” Yesterday, a Sunday, marked the anniversary of the memorial service.  I woke up feeling as if I might start crying at the drop of a hat.  In fact, I did tear up several times before lunch.  I was trying to be a big girl and trying to move in a more positive direction with my day.  Honestly, I had indulged myself with grieving so much during the week that I was a little sick of myself. My husband and I decided that we needed to get out of the house yesterday afternoon.  We browsed around...