YES MOM, THERE ARE BUNNY RABBITS IN HEAVENBy Donna Dutchess We were up at our hunting camp for the weekend. 120 miles from home, in an old potato farmhouse that was 75 years old with 7 bedrooms, we brought up…
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I don’t think anyone can really understand the thought of suicide until you’ve been there. With the gun, razor, pills. Anything. The blood rushing threw your veins just feeling worthless. To watch your life feel worthless. About a year ago…
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Understanding grief is a difficult thing to comprehend for both the grieving, and the supporters. For the grieving, especially for the first time, it is difficult because the person is not quite sure “why” they are having certain feelings. All…
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I think anyone that has lost someone they love to cancer or illness is given the opportunity to appreciate life. Witnessing the dying process of my brother Chris Johnson, showed me how much I had taken for granted during the…
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Thank you for coming today, to join us in saying goodbye to Mother. We didn’t expect to be back here so soon, because Mom comes from a long line of people who live forever. I guess we were sort of…
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Little children are very much aware of the absence of a beloved family member and will ask for them and even look for them as if they were hiding. This can be very heart breaking for us adults to watch,…
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Our church is small so when someone dies the impact is felt by all. As a ministry, overseer & close friend of the family, I was asked to give the encouraging words to the family. Their precious daughter had died…
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I am the second youngest of 10 children, and our mother just died early January 2009; four years after my father died. My parents had a revocable trust, which transferred to an irrevocable trust upon death – leaving two of…
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When you lose a child, experiencing grief without dignity is a myth. The description of myth as it is described by Webster is as follows: “A traditional story serving to explain some phenomenon, custom, etc; any fictitious story, person, or…
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I will speak to this with the understanding that the grief is following a death of a loved one. As it stands today. Most of society has experienced the model of the grieving family going to the funeral home within…
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If one is concerned about the decisions she/he has made regarding end of life, these need to recorded in an Advance Care document (also known as a Living Will). This document asks various questions regarding end of life and include…
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I have vivid memories from my childhood of meeting a funeral procession coming toward me. I was first aware that the procession moved extremely slowly and that cars facing the procession all pulled off to the side of the road…
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No one or nothing can prepare us for the loss of a loved one. I recently loss my mother two weeks ago, the same day my husband was deployed to Iraq. It was Monday Feb 2, 2009 I was coming…
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Emotions are the life force that drives humanity. They can help us through a crisis, or intensify it. When trauma occurs, whether it is pysical or mental, our emotions take on a new pattern, a life of it’s own. I…
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There comes a time for all of us when our life here on earth is over. It can be a sad and emotional time for our families and friends. Nobody is ever prepared for the end even when we’ve been…
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As times have changed, the basic etiquette or how to behave at a funeral really has not changed very much. First, let us break this down into two different times you can attend when someone dies. For the most part,…
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I am a senior citizen, or so “they” say and I did not say good-bye to my mom a couple of weeks ago, but it’s okay, I don’t remember her saying good-bye when she left my brother and I over…
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Memories That Last When my beloved Grandmother, Rosalie Raley, passed away following her husband of over fifty years, I remember thinking “Well, that’s it, then. Grandmother and Papa are both gone. End of chapter, close the book.” Right? Then I…
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Funerals are rites of passage. The rituals are designed to flow along quite nicely without clever input from the living guests. The immediate family of the deceased is under extreme, painful stress, somewhere between shock/denial and anger/depression/bargaining, possibly in the…
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One of the most painful things we have to endure in life is the loss of a loved one, and sadly, many people are uncomfortable talking about it. They feel that grief is personal and should be experienced alone. They…
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I’m clawing at the darkness, my heart pounding out of my chest. Terror fills my body and I begin to scream, something or someone is trying to kill me. My scream awakens me and my eyes begin to focus. I…
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I Can’t…. How do I describe the loss of the will to keep going? Waking up one morning and looking at the wreckage surrounding me and feeling empty. Feeling lost. No fear, not even pain so to speak. Just a…
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When my dad died last year I was devastated. He was my technically my step-father, but he raised my brother and I as if we were his own. He taught us that we need to be who we are and…
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Here they are in a nutshell; the three facts of life. You are born; you live; and then you die. The Beginning: Being born has absolutely nothing to do with you personally. You didn’t ask for it or demand it;…
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My experience here might be a little different from the norm because in this case the grief I am feeling is not for a close blood family member. I should start with the history of the recent events leading to…
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The death of a life is a profound loss. A loved one is gone and the surviving family members and friends are left behind to learn how to carry on without their lost loved one. The death of a life…
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Suicide, I even hate writing the word. My husband took his own life one day and left me a young widow of thirty five, with four children three of them still in school. He shot himself in our bedroom one…
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When sending a sympathy card, it’s often difficult to know exactly what to write inside. The words already printed in the cards offer many poetic ways to express our sympathy to the one who is grieving. Still, we often want…
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People that have experienced thoughts of suicide are the only ones who understand them. Family, friends and others only see what is on the outside.When you are thinking about ending your life, you are feeling so lonely, desperate and helpless….
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We thought it was suicide when our son was found dead in our home. Hours later we learned of a dangerous game that 500-1000 kids each year are dying from the choking game which took our son’s life. The two…
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