Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Category: Good Readings (Page 5 of 5)

Suggested readings to support your grief

How to talk to the dead

March 21, 2021 /

The hardest part of grief is the thought that we will never be able to see or speak to our loved one again. This is the unacceptable truth we face and thus we look for ways to disprove it or to lessen the pain with such practices like finding signs that we believe are from our loved ones. 

In Mary Bertun’s book, “The 21 Day Doorway Across the Veil”, she shares with the reader how to connect with your loved one who is on another realm.  Guided by her son Chas, through stories and tips, each day is an exercise in communication and reflection with space in the book to journal your experience.

I truly enjoyed this book.  With the daily practices, I found meditations and reflections more meaningful.  Her suggested focus of thoughts brought back flashes of childhood memories I had forgotten and gave me a deeper insight to my own being.  I did find a connection to Zane, receiving messages from him through these meditations.  An example was day 8. The thought focus was about joy, which on this particular day I was in tears. During my mediation (with my eyes closed), my computer made a sound that surprised me.  I opened my eyes to glance over and a Pinterest photo had popped up that said, “Let’s visit Banff.” Banff is a favorite of Zane’s and mine. It is a place that brings both of us joy.

 Some days it was a visible sign, like that and some days it was a thought that came into my head like a knowing I did not think of but rather someone just said it to me.  I will choose to believe it was Zane on this day, because the words were as he would have said.  He knew the mountains bring me joy. The message of how to change my tears to joy was crystal clear.

The practices taught in this book brought me both clarification and comfort. We are told our loved ones are always with us so why not seek ways to practice new ways to reach them?  What is there to lose?  Thank you Mary.

Daily Grief Reading

January 10, 2021 /

I like to choose a book at the beginning of each year that will bring hope in a daily reading format. Last year I chose “Grief Day by Day” by Jan Warner. The simple practices and daily guidance for living with loss (as the front cover says) broke the year into weeks, each with a theme that was relative and insightful. 

It begins with what are the stages of grief and covers topics from emotions to coping strategies to reflections of where do we go from here.

I looked to each morning with anticipation, reading about common feelings and ideas to support my grief. The quotes from different people reminded me of the community that I am a part of.  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, quoted on Day one, “The reality is that you will grieve forever.” Ouch. Her quote continues to say, “You will heal and you will rebuild…” which offers hope that we will someday be able to live with our grief. 

Some of the days I laughed at the relevance. Patton Oswalt (week 33) tells us “It is not a ‘healing journey. It’s a ‘numb slog’…if they call it a ‘healing journey,’ it’s just a day of you eating Wheat Thins for breakfast in your underwear, you’re like ‘I guess I’m f-king up my healing journey.’ But if they would say you’re going to have a ‘numb slog,’ you could say ‘oh, I’m nailing it.”

This book gets us. Each week ends with an exercise on ‘becoming a grief whisperer’. One of my favorite exercises was from week 36, “Crazy things Grievers Do”, which gave me permission to buy Zane presents. With that in mind, this year I filled his Christmas stocking, to which I gave out the items I bought to family members.  Among the items was a book of a favorite poet I gave to his dad, a gift certificate to a favorite watering hole given to his sister and a candle that sits in his room. I enjoyed doing it.  It made it feel less lonely somehow to see his stocking filled, rather than empty, and hanging next to the other stockings.  The joy felt by the sharing of some things that Zane loved was good mourning.

In the epilogue of this book, Jan writes;

“When someone you love dies, you are left to do all your own stunts.  Where once you had love and support, now you have absence and longing.  Grief work is finding the ways in which love and support still exist.  Eternal missing is eternal love.”

Jan considers herself a fellow grief warrior and believes “that love triumphs over death, if we let it.”

This was a great resource over the last 52 weeks and one that is worth reading over again.

November 23, 2020 /

Besides casseroles, squares and flowers, the number one ‘gift’ we received was books. I now have a growing library of books related to grief.  Who would have guessed?  I am an avid reader, mostly non-fiction, related to my work or self growth.  And so I guess my books about grief fall into the self growth category.

My first read I wanted something comforting.  From my pile, I chose “Tear Soup”, a beautifully illustrated story affirming the bereaved.  Written by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck Deklyen, and illustrated by Taylor Bills, it’s comparison of grief to the making of soup are relatable for any age. I cried, actually I sobbed, when reading this. My grief was very new and I related to Grandy. I shared her pain. I read it over and over. It contains hope, it contains tips and it contains resources to find help with your own grief.   It also makes a great gift to give with your own jar of homemade soup to someone you know who is grieving.  

You can buy this book at your local book store, Indigos or on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/TEAR-SOUP-Recipe-healing-after/dp/B001AX76OO

Grief 101: Beliefs are not made of Stone

August 23, 2020 /

I’m not sure what your beliefs are.  I do know that when great loss is experienced, whatever your beliefs are comes into question.  I always believed there is a reason for everything.  I believed in a higher power to which I prayed to daily and raised my children to believe you must ‘trust the plan’.  And then 2018 arrived and I can’t believe there is any sort of magical plan to justify what has happened. 

So when my girlfriend dropped off several books on stories shared by various popular mediums, I placed the pile on my shelf and pondered is this for me?   I believed in angels.  I believed in after life and perhaps that made it easier to think there are spirits able to visit us.  Or maybe it is just a sheer desire to connect with Zane again. When you are grieving, all you have is hope that your loved one is nearby still.   And I believe in love, God, vibration energy…things I can’t see or explain so it wasn’t a far stretch for me to believe in the spirit world.

The first book from this pile was “Unfinished Business” by James Van Praagh, a world-famous medium with over 25 years experience speaking to the other side.

This book was about those who no longer live on earth, what they can teach us about life. It contains many stories of readings he has given and how loved ones from across the veil have brought powerful and healing messages.

Some chapters resonated with me, others gave me hope.  One chapter (on karma) scared the crap out of me.  Overall a great read containing lessons that all of us can practice while we are here on earth.

Every belief I had, I have now questioned. Some beliefs I have a new understanding with. Others, the jury is still out. And my grief has given me new beliefs, among them that anything is possible.

Grief One Day at a Time

June 28, 2020 /

Every one of us that knows grief knows of Dr. Wolfelt.  He has written several books and has spoken to thousands of people about the possibility of healing after loss. His book “Grief One Day at a Time” is a daily meditation I continue to read each morning.  When this book first arrived I could not open it.  It was too soon.  It was August when Zane was killed and the first day I had the strength to open up this book the daily meditation in that month was about life being chaotic but still beautiful and that “I was doing ok”. 

I threw the book against the wall. It stayed unopened until January.  The meditation on the first day of the New Year was different.  Maybe it was because I was now 4 months into my grief journey. Perhaps the message was more hopeful.  It was about remembering our loved one.  “This year I will remember and I will love” the good Doctor suggests to us. I could do this.  I want to do this.  This was good mourning.

Maybe the book was written with a New Year in mind, grief beginning at January, regardless of the month your loved one passed over. Regardless, it is a book every grief warrior should have on their shelf.  The meditations are easy to read and each includes a quote, a message and a meditation.

Thank you Dr. Wolfelt, you are the rope to which keeps so many of us from falling of the edge.

More about Dr Wolfelt and the work he does can be found at https://www.centerforloss.com

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