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May Newsletter - Grief Changes Through the years
We grieve because we love and Love Never Dies. Grief is a lifelong journey. It is not always the same, what you experience in those first early days is not the same as at your first year or your second. Grief continues to change us and we continue to change so that 10 years out or even 20 we are not the same. It changes throughout our lifetime.
This issue is dedicated to those changes and helping you understand what may be before you. Understanding how others have experienced grief throughout their lifetime. To offer you some hope and understanding in your journey. Together we can do this.
~Glen Lord
The Grief Toolbox
Experience the healing power of the sea. A grief retreat like no other. The bereavement Cruise.
My Year of Firsts.....They Never End
By Deb Martin
While the year of firsts are coming to an end, it hit me this week that my "firsts" without Jared are really just beginning. I had my first holidays and birthdays and all that we think about. Yet I have many more firsts to go through. I also have been through my first graduation that Jared should have been a part of and will attend my second tomorrow. I have the first yearbook he should have been in as a senior, but he is remember on a memory page. I still have to go through lots of first. The first baby will be born this fall into the family that will never know Jared, only through pictures and stories will the child come to know him. The first funeral since Jared's. I pray that doesn't happen anytime soon. The first new car. The first vacation without him. We have done that one. We actually did that during t he week of Easter, our wedding anniversary, and what would have been Jared's 18th birthday. Our first puppy that never met Jared. I have done that one too. First new job since he passed, first trip home, first friend getting married, first friend having a baby, first, first, first. They simply will never stop.
What I've learned
By SusanKelley
The last couple of years have not been easy.
My daughter died of breast cancer in 2014 at the age of 31, and left behind three small children. When we suffer such a great loss, the people in our lives want desperately to help out. Sometimes the things they say or do with good intentions, end up hurting more than helping. I decided to sit down and write some of the things I have discovered over the last two years. Some have to do with the grieving process, some with just life in general.
I am sure there are many more that could be added, but these were the most significant things that I have learned:
Moving On Does Not Mean Forgetting
By jmmalloch
Kimberly has been gone for seven years.This year seems to be more difficult than the last few. I didn’t know how to put into words why or how it was so much more difficult. I kept thinking the reason it was so hard was that it seemed as if my family has forgotten Kimberly. I now realize that was only a small part of the problem. The real problem was I felt I was moving on which equaled forgetting Kimberly. This is not the case, I am happy and I am living, but I will NEVER forget my beautiful daughter Kimberly or move on without her. This came to me on Kimberly’s Angel date, while I was at her gravesite talking with her as I do each year on her Angel date.
Our lives are nothing like we envisioned they would be. We never looked at the future and saw us living without our child.
After losing Kimberly, I had to learn to live again. For me, this means:
10 years ...how we stand,or fall
By Lisa McCarthy
February 24.-10 whole years ago on this day I was making my phone calls to place you in rehab number 18 while Daddy waited to drive you.Furious,stressed out and resigned,he brought you and you two had quite the laugh over a drunk man in the lobby area.While I prepared for another "mini vacation"I did my usual...cleaned your entire room,ridding it of baggies,needles, reminders of what was and what should never be.
Twenty Years and Still Grieving
By Larry M. Barber
I cannot believe that 20 years have passed. And I cannot believe still that they actually died. Along the way the time often has seemed like an eternity. At other times during the grief journey is felt to me like the losses had just taken place. That is the strange, warped time perception that exists in grief.
Our Newsletter
Thank you for reading this edition of our newsletter. It is our goal to make it a regular publication and to use it to keep you in touch with topics dealing with grief and loss. When it comes to dealing with grief, it can be a challenge to find the resources we need to educate ourselves and our loved ones on what is happening and how to best keep going forward. We will try to keep future issues as informative and interesting as we can. We encourage all of our readers to contact us with thoughts, comments, suggestions or contributions. We would love to hear from you!
We here at The Grief Toolbox understand that needs change as we go from the raw encompassing pain of the first year to the stark reality of the second year, and then to the growth and reinventing ourselves of the middle years to the acceptance and blessing that now coexists with the pain and love that will always be a part of our life. We cannot make your pain go away, nor can we provide answers for you. What we can do is help you to find the tools that you need to work through your grief journey.
