Daily Message from Healing After Loss

[Connie B]

~daily message from Healing After Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman

People in mourning have to come to grips with death before they can live again. Mourning can go on for yrs & yrs. It doesn't end after a yr; that's a

false fantasy. It usually ends when people realize that they can live again. That they can concentrate their energies or their lives as a whole,¬ on their hurt, & guilt,& pain.

~Elisabeth Kubler Ross

No one is asking us to forget,to turn away from all that we loved & cherished in the one we have lost. We couldn't do that even if we wanted to. The task

before us & it can take a very long time-is to incorporate this grief & loss into the rest of our lives, so that it doesn't continue to dominate our lives. It's no longer the first thing we think of when we wake up in the morning, or the last

thing we relinquish before we sleep. A child said to his mother, in regard to the outpouring of kindnesses after his father's death, "There are so many good things. There's just one bad thing. "The

"bad thing" will always be there, but when it begins to take its place among the good things life offers, we're on our way.

[Linda661]

Great thoughts, Connie. Thank you so much -- little do you know you were a part of my faceless "grief support" group today. I went to my first face to face meeting today like I posted about several days ago......and.....

There was no one there!!!!!! (yes, I had the right address, day, time, and such).

Linda

[Connie B]

(((((((((((LINDA))))))))))))) Well, there's really no faces here,(so to speak) but I know we'll listen if you need to talk! I did go to grief support groups and I was so pleased and still am that I did go. I went to three different ones. One after my mom died, one after my sister died, and one after my son died. They were my saving grace!

[Linda661]

Is OK, Connie....I really break into rather hysterical laughter anymore at the obstacles occuring every time I go to make a step forward (over the last 1 1/2 years or so).....I talked with the hospice person who is responsible for the grief groups at around 4:00pm today and she was about 20 minutes late today for the group I was trying to attend (of course, I left by then.. ..); August 21st is the next one.

Last Friday I went to re-title vehicles into my name and the department's first reaction was that it was a conflict of interest to be the executor of my mom's estate and try to rename titles to me (dah....I am the only heir); then today, I find out that investment transfers in my dad's vs. my mom's estates aren't correct by my instructions before mom passed.....a fricken' mess now and there's nothing I can do but deal with it.......at least I'm prone to laughing right now.....this sucks over and above just dealing with the losses! Not fair, but, as I said at least I'm prone to laughing right now.....maybe it's a protective mechanism thing....

Linda