Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Month: October 2026

The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski

October 25, 2026 / / 0 Comments

My daughter and I were shopping at the Good Will Store (one of my favorite places to find lost treasures) and I was pulled to the cart of items to go back on the shelves. Lying on the middle shelf was a book, “The Five Invitations.”  The cover read “discovering what death can teach us about living fully.” I picked it up and put it down. On our way to the cash register, something told me to go back and buy the book.  I’m glad I did.

Frank Ostaseski is the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, whose book is an encouragement to show up and be fully present in this life. This is not a new topic, but Frank has given us a blueprint of how to do that in five invitations which included examples from the people he cared for in hospice.  

The first invitation is about not waiting. Start living now. He writes, “…if we regarded dying as a final stage of growth…that held an unprecedented opportunity for transformation could we turn toward death like a master teacher and ask, “How, then, shall I live?” This invitation includes accepting the notion that death is merely another stage, that we continue as energy, that mindfulness supports fear and anxiety and the importance of forgiving others and our selves.

The second invitation is about welcoming everything, push away nothing. Frank tells us that this idea is the opposite to rejecting. By accepting what comes to us, what we experience is part of the plan to which we should trust. And that acceptance of this attitude is not resignation. “It is an opening to possibility, the basis for a skillful response to life.”

The third invitation Frank invites us to bring our whole self to the experience. It is about being a soul, not a role. How to listen, feel and follow your inner voice. This invitation agrees with how unfair, how difficult this life may be, and it reassures us that bringing all our emotions to the moment is permitted.

The fourth invitation is about finding a place to rest, the importance of slowing down or taking a reprieve. It is about the importance of mindfulness, meditation and how these practices bring awareness. “Awareness itself is the ultimate resting place.”

The fifth, and final invitation is about cultivating a don’t know mind. An interesting idea to be receptive, to meet whatever shows up as it is. It is not to seek ignorance but rather be curious and live in wonder.

I bought this book thinking it might be a good read for my clients, giving me greater insight or learnings of how to support those wishing to live life fully in the face of death. And it did. But it was also good for grief. The invitations align with the tools we use to soothe our pain and to explore connecting to our loved ones in a new way. The invitations can initiate a life of living fully, with those we love here, and with those we love across the realm.

The Building of Intent and Impact

October 18, 2026 / / 0 Comments

This week I was asked to focus on Intent and Impact. For everything one does, there is intention behind why do it, what is the desired impact. Humans are geared to strive for impact; it is what measures our success, our purpose. If we don’t experience or witness impact, then we begin to struggle. Impact keeps us moving forward.

Our intention is the work towards impact and should be structured into stages. My intention in the morning is to start the day calm and organized. The impact will be I am more productive, less reactive. My intention for work is dictated by my task list. The impact is the productive feeling of checking off the boxes. My intention for evening is to relax, unwind. The impact is that I am more available through rest. It seems easy, when intent is clear and desired impact known, it is then that the path seems less chaotic.

Intent is about every aspect of one’s life. The intention to create a home that is supportive and nurturing with the desired impact that your family feels safe and loved. The intention to succeed at work with the expected impact of monetary and intellectual rewards. Intent becomes trickier when we are asked what is your intent for your personal grief.

In the grief community, there is a truth that when your world is blown up with big loss, everything you are, everything you do, comes into scrutiny as to whether you want to continue or change. Intent is shaken. Impact seems impossible.

Grief supports the necessity to take smaller steps. When we live with loss, the main intention is clear; how do we survive daily with such sadness. Our intention is to manage. Our impact is murky. Do we want our impact to be that we just endured the day? Or do we want our impact to be bigger? If we intend to create a life that makes our grief manageable, giving us the ability to feel joy and connection to those we love, the impact becomes clear. Our impact is a (new) life of purpose.

Truly, I believe the main factor in all this is energy. What amount of energy do I have to set intent and recognize impact. There is comfort in the agreement that baby steps are permissible. Encouraged. It can be achieved in the forming of behaviors. Choose one small thing today that could lead you to impact and do only that. Every day. Make it a routine such that it becomes easy. Then add another. And so on…

A word of caution I was also given about impact. Sometimes the best intentions fail. I share that, not to feel defeated to even try but rather to remind ourselves that the only control one has is in setting intention and working it. How impact turns out only the Universe knows. We must find peace in the pursuit.  

Thanks Is Found in Gratitude

October 11, 2026 / / 0 Comments

A fond memory I have is the gathering of friends and family around our table at Thanksgiving. We would each take a turn sharing what we were most grateful for that year. I was always humbled when the kids’ friends would say it was being a part of our crazy family.  How simple were those times, innocent of what our future was to bring to us. This year, I struggled with missing those happier moments, in the continued chaos of what is now.

Having had lunch with a close friend this week, as I walked back to my car, I thought of how grateful I am for our lunches. A tradition that has been going on for over ten years. Each time includes wine with a shared salad, and conversation that makes me laugh and gives me energy. I thought of my other friends, those who I have shared life with for decades, those who I share the path of grief with, those who I see occasionally and yet it feels like just yesterday. I am grateful for friendships.

It has been a tough year so I would be remiss to say how grateful I am for my qualified therapist who has shed light on many dark closets of my psyche and whose couch I look forward to sitting on each time to gain perspective, accepting challenges of how to move forward. I am grateful for her.

I am grateful that my daughter could make not one but two trips this year that were on her bucket list.  That she enjoyed far away lands and came home with a feeling of peace and beautiful pictures. I relished in short jaunts to Canmore and to Mameo that filled my spirit and gave my fear of long-distance travel a reprieve. I am grateful for mini vacations.

For most of the year, I enjoyed the company and traditions of family and friends gathering at our local pubs for conversation and insight and support of our daily dramas. I got to know some superb staff at Earls and Cactus Club with one of my very favorite people. I am grateful for happy hour.

Amongst the commotion and the heartache this year has brought, I have enjoyed dreaming and planning new adventures. I have taken courses to expand my horizons and solo walks to soothe my grief and landed on a couple ideas that I anticipate will be a new direction of joy. I am grateful for hope.

Autumn is a time of reflection. Watching the leaves fall and aligning each one descending with something to let go of. Watching the rabbits fur change from brown to a creamy white, reminding us that change does happen. But it isn’t always ugly, just necessary. Feeling the air turn crisp, whispering it is time to go inwards and brew something nurturing. Fall is a beautiful season, a reminder of self-care.  I am grateful for this season and all that it gives, all that it allows.

May this thanksgiving be filled with the soft colors of the season and the anticipation of gatherings with those you love. May these moments comfort your grief. And may your loved ones from the other side, come to be a part of all that you celebrate. I am grateful for each of you.

Mama Bear is Hurt

October 4, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I have no energy to keep up with the everyday tasks that are expected of me. I have no desire to do anything I used to enjoy. I find myself standing in my kitchen while I wait for the kettle to boil. But I forgot to turn it on. My grief has seemingly overtaken me.

I am consumed by the choices and actions of my family, none to which I have any control of. I found myself trying to explain to my therapist that this is what a mother does.  She worries, she frets, she uses her power to ensure that all factors are aligned to the best interest of her family. To which my therapist gently asked, “where do you fit in?” I don’t.

Apparently, what I want for everyone, including me does not fit with the reality of our family dynamics. I am torn between do I bring everyone together for a huge pow-wow. Do I take each one aside to scream WTF? Or do I just ask myself what I want and move toward those answers. I might get a gold star in therapy if the latter is the path I choose. So, why can’t I? That is my assigned homework.

I left my therapists office to go sit in a park. Instead, I drove by it. I thought I’d wash my car. I drove into the bay and drove out without washing it. I ended up just driving on the highway thinking and did not miss the irony that I was behaving like Zane did when he needed to clear his head. I chuckled.

The problem is in my need that only when all my family is ok, am I ok. So, when I analyzed each member, most of them are fine.  The members who are experiencing hardship, their battles are self-inflicted. They have made choices that they rushed into or that they had hoped would have an outcome to which did not happen.  Their choices, not mine, and nothing I can fix.

When Zane was killed our family was blown up and left with the task to put a billion tiny broken pieces back together. I knew it would never be the same. What I have strived for was a mosaic of the love, the memories, the beauty of all that each of us had with him. To create a unified family of blood and friendship that honored and remembered Zane collectively.

What I am angry about is the apparent blindness to the consequence that certain actions have changed our family dynamics to a point of no return. The selfishness, the inability to look past one’s own needs, not giving any thought to if this will affect all of us. And it has. BIG time.

Grief gives us the freedom to try different means of coping, of surviving. And it gives us the grace to make mistakes as we move forward with our loss. What it doesn’t give us is a one plan fits all. As each of my family manoeuvres in their own grief, there was bound to be misunderstandings, confusion and disagreeable choices. I had never envisioned the depth of this possibility.  Or the outcomes such may cause. I find myself at ground zero with the desire to run away and hibernate.

What I tried to do eight years ago, was recreate ‘la familia’ for all the right reasons. It is what I needed for my grief. It was what everyone needed then. I rested naively in the thought it would always be this way. I am now faced with the cutting truth that it is changing. Through this painful awareness, I have discovered the reason for my new and immobilizing anguish. I am grieving the family I had, that I will never have. Again.

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