Creating a Personal Shrine

While anyone is still in the major throes of the grieving process and even later when one is more at peace with his or her loss, it might be a good idea to create a small personal shrine for that person you had a relationship with. You can pick a spot in your living room (which is more public) or in a room, such as your bedroom, which is more private.  This all depends on what feels comfortable to you and your needs.

You can display photos, objects that somehow have meaning to that person or the relationship you shared. It could be a piece of artwork done by or of that person, mementos from things you did together-such as a pebble picked up walking on a beach, camping, some outing or perhaps a trip or afternoon spent together. Also, it can be a gift from that person. A hat, watch or item of clothing that the person wore can personalize it more.

You can put things that have religious meaning or reflect spirituality of either yours or your loved one's beliefs or practices. You can light candles or use the new LED or electric burning candles to set a mood when you feel a need to be comforted or closer to your lost loved one.

If the "shrine" is in a more prominent spot, it can be an area you use to share or discuss memories about that person or feelings with others.  It can be a way to share or trade memories which bring comfort and help one feel the presence of that person. If you have a private shrine, but feel comfortable sharing it with someone, you can use it to feel closer to that person as well as your lost loved one.

You can change things on it. Rearrange it and keep it fresh. Make it a place that is personal and comfortable to you.  As time goes on, you may feel the need to make it less prominent or to have fewer things there or adjust it somehow as you grow and feel more at peace in your grieving process. You may feel less need to have certain things there. Just go with your feelings.

In the loss of my dad, I feel more of a peace when I go hold or touch something that reminds me of him. I feel the loss and pain too, but it gives me a safe place to go to express my feelings, especially when the rest of the world might not seem to understand. This area can help you too at those times.

If you have made a personal memorial shrine for your loved one or know someone who has, please share some thoughts, insights, or things that you may have done that may help in reading this. Just write in the comments section below.

May this day find you more and more at peace.

Furry Companions can be Extremely Helpful with Grief...

As the title suggests, furry companions can be extremely helpful during the grief process. There are different approaches and aspects to this. Some people may already have a furry companion such as a dog, a cat, a rabbit or something smaller like a gerbil or hamster.   Having a familiar companion can be really helpful. Many animals do seem to have a sense of knowing when helping out their human companions is necessary and they lovingly step up to the task!

They can also provide purpose in the life of a grieving human such as making sure the companion  animal is fed, watered, exercised, clean and whatever the animal needs. It can also help keep the bereaved person grounded with life and earthly things-providing some balance with the shock or withdrawal from everyday life.

Bringing a new life into the life of the grieving person can also be helpful. It is not meant, by any means, to replace the loved one who has passed on, but more to provide a two-way companionship and new relationship to build upon. It is a great way to share some of that great capacity for love that one has demonstrated in his/her loss of a loved one in a positive way with another life. Not only does it help fill, not replace, some of the empty void or space in the bereaved person's life, it can help the person grow through the growing bond between the two and also the hope it helps create in showing that one's life can go on.

Of course one can buy an animal somewhere, but actually going to a rescue or shelter can add another dimension to the whole hope that is offered! It helps empower the bereaved to give hope to another life. In some cases, it is saving a life from being destroyed.  Many shelter or rescue animals are socialized, sweet and loving already and looking for hope as much as the bereaved. They, too, have their loss of a previous home too.

Then, there's the universal benefits of pets (companion animals) of the unconditional love they share with us. They listen and don't complain.  They will provide reassurance when no one else will and in ways others don't or can't.

My rabbits provided love and purpose for me through many different things, including deaths of family members and friends. When my mother and grandmother passed on, I named new bunnies after them. When my father passed away, ten years later, I named one after him. It turned out to be a girl, so she is Jamie, instead of James. It makes people and myself laugh when I explain it. It doesn't dishonor my dad. He would think it was funny.  It gave me a way to show love and honor to him, but Jamie allowed me to look at a small part of my life without my dad in a new way. She gives me new purpose and shows me that I still have more to do here myself on this earth and life is not over. I feel my dad around me too complaining playfully about the rabbit named after him is a girl.

I hope that this article is helpful in some way to you. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment boxes. If you have thoughts you would like to add to this, that would be really great also.  If you have suggestions for the blog or other people reading this, please share. I encourage it greatly.

I wish you peace in your journey today and always.

Anniversaries, Birthdays and Occasions that remind us...

Hello,

With the Holiday Season approaching in the next few months, it is a good time to look at how one might deal with "firsts" and the years that follow. In other words, facing the first birthday, Christmas, wedding anniversary without, the anniversary of the the loss of your loved one or any other significant date can be extremely difficult to say the least. The subsequent years can be difficult also.

Those days remind of the gaping hole that has caused our very essence so much pain and inability to function.  It is so difficult to picture that occasion without the person there in some sense in the case of special days such as birthday. Our loved one most likely had been a big part of it.

Then there's the other side-the anniversary of  that person's death or the event that eventually lead to our loved one's death. For example, on a grander scale, this is like the date of 9/11 to Americans who were alive and old enough to have observed and remember the attacks that happened.  It took away people's security in what one felt was how their world is or was.  Every year there is discussion about remembering those who were lost, the innocence of the people and a country were lost, the pain the event caused and the reminders of it all as the anniversary approaches.  There is also discussion about how the world and a country has changed since that day, how we've coped-everything from the feelings of the people to how we will try to prevent this type of event from ever happening again.  There have been many changes from that self examination. I think most people know what those are and that is not really appropriate to list here.

In both the cases of positive anniversaries such as birthdays and the more negative anniversaries such as the day of the person's death, there are ways to look at things to make things easier.It is important, first of all, to take care of yourself.  Make things simpler! Perhaps if you can spend the day with a different loved one or friend it will make the day go more smoothly.

Keeping things simpler, asking others for help or accepting it if someone offers it, are good things to do. The first Christmas after my mother died, I had my father over to my place so he and the rest of the family wouldn't have to spend the holiday at the place we always spent it with my mother. All the right people were there, but there wasn't the constant reminder that she wasn't there. We talked about her a lot, but there was less pressure. It was very low key but very warm and loving. It gave us the most important part! This was what the holiday was really supposed to be about anyways!  It wasn't about the decorations or the presents, but rather "presence".

My father lost his own dad on Thanksgiving Day, before I was born. It was kind of a tough day on my father every year.  He would often work at work if asked or sit quietly. He would help with the Thanksgiving Dinner, but would often feel sick to his stomach, throw up or have diarrhea on that day. It was a strong trigger for him. Well on December 2nd, 1992 he suffered a stroke. It was a difficult recovery.  He did quite well though in the long run. The point in mentioning that was that on Thanksgiving 1993, he started having symptoms that appeared as if he was having a stroke.  In the long run, it turned out to be a panic attack or similar- perhaps PTSD.  He associated his stroke from the year before with his father's stroke, and being so close in time.  Here is a link to a post in my other blog telling the story of what happened.

As a result of that day, we stopped preparing Thanksgiving at my parent's house and started going out to eat.  It was great. The pressure of cooking was off of my mother and helped make it all much more pleasureable. The cost actually wasn't much more than that of preparing the dinner.  One thing that was a fringe benefit was that it helped set time limits on how long people would spend with us-such as a cousin of my mother's, my dad's friend and my maternal grandmother. It was as easy as picking up and dropping off people, without having to deal with lingering house guests who might wear out their welcome with my dad and his sensitivity involving the holiday.  He would still get some stomach issues, but they generally more at ease.

Something that people could do in dealing with negative or positive anniversaries is to not necessarily change everything you do on that day through the years, but follow your instinct. One can adjust or change certain traditions.  One could start a new tradition that somehow honors the memory of the person not there.



This issue will be addressed more in the future. I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, experiences or perhaps suggestions to be added to this in the comment section!  Please don't be afraid to share!

I hope this day finds you more and more at peace!

Mary Ellen

A Way to Feel Closer to those we have Lost...

In some regards, some people may just do this naturally anyway, but it doesn't hurt to have a reminder of an idea that reflects human nature and being connected to one we have lost.  When the comforting presence of someone we love is not tangible anymore, it can be quite disconcerting. One can feel lost, disoriented, not grounded. It is a very natural part of the grieving process. It is as if something magically made the person disappear and a support, something dependable or a pillar of one's life is just missing-gone. It is like having the rug pulled out from under you.

It is natural to "need" something tangible, just something to hold onto that was part of that person.  It reminds us that we are not "crazy", that this person existed and touched our lives in a special way.  Often people will hold onto a keepsake of the loved one we lost and perhaps carry it, wear it or stow it away somewhere as something to go to feel connected to the person and love that was shared with that lost loved one. This is the point of today's post.

Having something to connect to, to assure us that we had with that person is and was still real, is important.  When my mother died, I asked my dad if I could have a pendant that I had given her for mother's day a year or two before her passing.  It was a symbolic silhouette of a mother holding a child which was shaped into a heart.  It was one gift that I gave to my mother that had a lot of meaning to me to give to her and share my feelings of how important she was to me. I wore it daily for a long time. I would touch it when I missed her or felt uncomfortable about something in my life. It would assure me that the love I felt for and from her were real-still. I felt special having something she wore fairly close to her heart at times and a way that could keep her close to mine. It was tangible and the thought of it brought me warm feelings.  I was able to stop wearing it regularly after a while because at some point, I felt her in my heart and didn't need to hold onto something physical or concrete anymore.

A woman, whom I rented a room from when I was in school, had done a similar thing in a bigger way. She had a middle-school age son who had been killed by a drunk driver seven years before I moved in there.   She had kept his room exactly as it was the last time it was the last time he had been in there.  She said I could look, but not touch.  I didn't really go in, but I did peek at it in amazement.  I wouldn't call it a shrine to him, so much as a way for her to hold on to him as long as she could. The room was very neat, with posters of bygone sports figures, pop musicians and the latest pretty and famous females of that time period when he died.  It was like stepping back in time.  While I was still living in that house, her youngest son was about to graduate high school  and although I can't be sure what her exact thoughts or feelings were, it appeared that she had decided she could move on to a different phase.  By that time, the son that she lost would have been on his own or in college. The youngest son was getting ready to leave home within a few months for college and somehow it appeared to be okay to let her "children" move on into a different stage of their lives and what would be a new stage for her too.  It seemed okay to not have to hold onto to the older brother of her youngest son anymore. She could let them both go on. and she could have her empty nest. It was comfortable for her.

An elderly gentleman, whom I brought Meals-on-Wheels to everyday, kept his house decorated for Christmas indoors all year round.  It seemed unusual, but I felt that it was his life.  As time went by, little by little, I would get bits of the story behind it. His wife had died during the Christmas Holiday season suddenly, one year and it was his way of being loyal to her memory.  He expressed that it was the way he felt comfortable and not alone in his home.  He was safe, seemed to be living in reality, but it made him comfortable. 

My father kept my mother's plants going for a long time before I took them from him when he moved out of state. He didn't care about those houseplants before, but she had a green thumb and seemed to have a magic with them that was all hers. It helped keep her by him. I've seen a boy wear his grandfather's special watch, a woman wear a small glass vial pendant with some of a loved one's ashes in them, and a dog sleep in the area of his owner that passed away. There are many ways that people can feel connected to a loved one they've lost during times of the grieving process as we grow and "process" what has happened.

We all can let go of those ways or not have as tight a hold on some of these things, as we adjust and learn that we won't always need something physical to know that the special love that was there existed and still does! We learn that we do and can carry it in our hearts, always.

I wish that each day brings you peace and comfort in your life.

Mary Ellen

The Silver Lining of Grief...

It is said that in every dark cloud there is a silver lining. Grief can feel like a big storm cloud looming over us as we try to go about our daily lives. Like a thunderstorm or tornado, one never knows when that big surge of emotion or pain is going well up and surge out into the surface of the outer being.  When the cloud hangs over constantly it can wear one down waiting for it to come and just be over with. Unfortunately that is part of the process.  It does get better and the clouds clear and the warm sun does come. A bright side of the storm is that once it comes, it can help one feel a bit drained and refreshed at the same.

The most beautiful part of the storm cloud of grief is that there is a silver lining in it at all times, although it might not really feel like it at the same time. Just like there are two sides of a coin, the silver lining is the other side of that same entity in cloud, except it is just a positive side.  One would not feel grief or the pain of it if there wasn't something beautiful there in the first place. There are several things there actually. The greatest is having experienced so much love and something special in one's life shared with that loved one you've lost, that you can feel so much pain in that void or loss.  If there was little there, you wouldn't have had the special gift of the joy of spending time or sharing something special with that person and you wouldn't feel that void now.

Try to remember what was special in the relationship and be thankful for what was so special about it. It was a gift. Not everyone gets to experience it so fully. The pain is just a flip side of a special love and joy which will live on in you and the others that experienced the beauty of being with that.

May you be at peace. With the pain, please remember: This too shall pass!

Growing from Grief can help in other situations (pets and humans involved in this post).

This post is a personal story, hopefully it will help you.
When my father was dying, I felt like taking him off of all the machines he was hooked up to and all of the 13 IVs he was hooked up to was murdering him. It took almost a week to make the decision with my brothers. I still wasn't one hundred percent sure when we did it, but I did know he would be hooked up to some IVs and attached to at least two machines to be kept alive if he did "get better", as we phrased it with the doctors and palliative care team.  That was part of what made me think that removing all the things that were keeping my dad alive was maybe the right choice. 

The moments he was aware of our presence and I was able to communicate with him and get some limited, but appropriate responses from him were usually when his pain meds wore off and he was in tremendous pain. Seeing his extreme discomfort at those moments was interesting and new to me. He was one that wouldn't show his pain. Kind of an old New England puritanical type of thing I believe. I did treasure those lucid moments he was in extreme pain because I could see him in his eyes and communicate briefly with him before I would go get the nurse to inject more pain meds.

Life is precious to me. The quality of someone's life or of any creature's life is precious to me.  I love my companion animals as well.  Just a few days ago, I lost an elderly companion animal, a ten year old beautiful black rabbit, named Salem, who had a large inoperable cancerous tumor. Through all her years, she showed an endurance and strength that I rarely saw in other rabbits, never mind many humans or other creatures.  She was a fighter also. I could tell she was uncomfortable just by the way she would position her self and struggle. I couldn't bring myself to have her put to sleep like the vet recommended.  I did obtain pain meds from the vet though. 

The pain meds did seem to, at moments, give Salem some wherewithal to go after bits of fresh hay, greens and oatmeal we would leave for her at different times.  She always loved to eat and would nibble at those moments of feeling good from the meds.  She didn't have the stamina to do it for long though. I was very happy to see her enjoying some last few times of enjoying some of her favorite treats. She was comfortable. She wasn't the most affectionate rabbit, but was always appreciative of her food! She let us share with her some of those moments. She lasted a few days-longer than we or the vet thought. She showed me it was all the right decision with both. She was always that fighter. Like my dad.

My dad helped show what to do with Salem in the journey of the last days of her life.  Salem showed me that I helped my dad die a death of dignity, living his few last days with his family near, instead of potentially living hooked up to machines without the quality of life that would have meant something to the stubborn, ornery, puritanical wanting-to-be independent man that was my father.  He would have hated that life on machines, but he also needed to die on his own and his way-he took his last breaths on his own and was made extremely comfortable by the hospital staff. We were able to say "good-bye" and let him know we loved him. He was able to hear us and breathe on his own for his last breaths-nautrally.  He looked like my dad and not a creature hooked up to all kinds of gizmos (like in an experiment). It was loving and peaceful.

Having my dad on those machines and IV meds for the brief time he was gave us the beautiful gift of being able to say good-bye.  Keeping him on them would be a different story.  Salem and my dad passed from this earth on their own terms and peacefully, knowing they were loved.  Salem helped reassure me of their peace, while my dad helped reassure me of what was right for Salem and us.

I will miss them both, but they both had dignity.  I am finding that in my own personal grieving process that I am growing.  I still feel pain, but I am growing.

I thought that sharing this may be helpful for someone some time in their grief journey.
Thank you for joining me.
May you find peace in your journey.

P.S. As a little bonus I am adding a link to an article that may be helpful to someone who is losing their pet/companion animal. I didn't do everything it said, but I found comfort in some of the things it said.
Helping a dying animal.
Remember everyone's grieving and experience in this journey of life are individual and must be treated like that for ourselves and others.

Saying "No" is Taking Care of Yourself...

Hello,
Over the past few days, I have been feeling down. I got started on an important post, but it was getting too painful to finish it. It was reminding me too much of different issues with the death of my father, which took place in May.  Too many painful feelings were rising to the top. I felt like bawling and was very grouchy to my husband, brother and other people during the day. I have a lot going on in my mind.

Maybe the numbness is starting to wear off. I felt like crying several times.  I kept pushing myself to write the darn post and couldn't. Well I tried to continue on it. I was becoming unsure of the content. It didn't flow out. Then I decided that if I didn't take care of myself, that post was not going to be good for anyone else. It wasn't timely and there was no major rush to get that particular topic covered. I decided to say "no" and take the day to feel what I needed to feel.  I need to process this, but not let it seep into things in my life and hurt them. So, I gave myself a break.

Presently, I am still feeling these feelings, but "This too shall pass".  I am able to write this though and to let you know that not only is it okay to take a breather in some way, it is important and necessary.  It is a good time to perhaps let someone do something nice for you, invite them to, or perhaps even do something nice for someone else. Just let it be something that is not going to distract you or hurt you (or someone else) in a negative way. Sometimes we can't pinpoint, but just trust your gut instincts.

Or perhaps you need to be by yourself.  Perhaps you can take a walk or a drive somewhere that is conducive to thinking or letting your mind wander. Perhaps going to a place you used to spend time with your loved one may be a way to help process the feelings.

Perhaps you  can spend time with a mutual friend of your loved one that you lost, who may be dealing with the grief process also. Go out and do something together. You don't necessarily have to focus on the lost loved one or if it's comforting, then do talk about the person. It could be helpful either way in the whole process.

What is important and healthy is that you give yourself permission to do this. The pain or feelings will fester and will gnaw at you otherwise and you will get stuck. It is important to go through the process so that you can move on and grow in life. It will help you to not only help yourself, but others.

May you find and be at peace.