What should it been the Biggest Celebration has turned into moments of nervousness, anxiety, despair, sadness, but joyful too. My son will turn 2 this Friday, September 16, 2011. I also feel guilty, as a bad mother for not having that excitement in me for my son. He has already lost so much that it is so unfair for him for me to feel this way. My husband loved my son so very, very, much. Last…

While we're alive, our lives are a lesson to be learned.

When we lose someone very close to us,

the real learning begins........

I will always keep a #2 pencil handy!

grief [griːf]

4 months have passed since I lost the love of my life, and my best friend. I did very well the first couple of months...tried very hard to just embrace the grieving process...to use it as an opportunity perhaps for growth and deeper reliance on God... but the past month or 2 I have been ignoring it all... I have been trying to forget all of the pain by living like I'm someone else... ignoring who I truly am. I have numbed myself to my unhealthy behaviors because I tell myself it doesn't…

Today I met a group of Mark's friends and we put up a cross at the site where his accident happened. I thought it would do something...make it real, bring me some peace...anything. But I just felt numb. Then something very strange happened. I left there and drove to pick up my son at a friend's house where he had spent the night. I had never met this boy's mother before. As I walked up to the house, I noticed a stone in the landscaping that said something about treasured memories of those we…

I am new to this and have yet to develop a page.  I am not even sure what a blog post is. 

I am 34 years old and was married to my husband, Chris...age 35.  He was in Denver on business when I called him because our 3 year old wanted to talk to him.  A nurse picked up his phone and asked who I was.  I told her and she said she was getting a Dr.  The Dr said they couldn't get a heartbeat.  My husband died suddenly of a heart attack while driving.  This was 6 week ago.  We have…

There are a lot of people that believe that it is now time for me to "get over" my mothers death. She passed away when I was very young. I know it was such a long time ago. But for the longest time I just ran. I did not reflect. I did not live. I just ran deeper and deeper inside of myself. I wrote endless short stories and novels. I just buried my world into fantasy. I wasn't able to come out of that…

I lost my gradfather this week and I'm supposed to feel grief over that. I loved my pap dearly and yet all I feel is anger over the fact that he had 88 years of life and my Mark had only 38. I just can't mourn 88. Or maybe I just have no greiving left inside me. I sat at the service and cried for Mark.

I joined this group and then stopped visiting for a while. I think I hit a denial stage where I just wanted to avoid anything that made it real. I lost my boyfriend on July 14 in a motorcycle accident. The weeks since have been a journey I wouldn't wish on anyone. I mourn for him, but selfishly I feel I mourn for what we should have had but never got the chance. I should have had years with him and I didn't get it. I'm almost 40 and, finally, had found the love of my life and he was taken…

Going out for a burger today, just after the Butterfly shadow incident.  Rollin' down the road looking for a bite to eat!

Then the grief wave hits, I was THINKING about being alone, FEELING alone,  even though I have my child to myself....must FEEL sorry for myself, that's selfish.  I shouldn't THINK this way, do I really FEEL this way?  It's making me FEEL not so good...THINKING this way.  I miss my wife and mom, FEELINGS of much sadness engulf me....I am living a life without…

It's amazing that I don't think I am going crazy.  Saw a butterfly shadow today on the pavement of the parking lot when walking to my car to go to lunch from work. It was about a minute later, after looking around 6-10 different times for the butterfly that I finally spotted a monarch butterfly just when I didn't expect to ever see more than the shadow.

It was just weird in a fun kind of way!  My wife Jami was a lot like that.  That just never happened to me before.

The shadow…

I remember Grandpa Ellis:

Hearing his chocolate voice echo through the phone. His advice peppered with a tar heel tone; Sometimes his words were hard to swallow.

I remember Grandpa Ellis:

An oak of a man with a forest green points and a tan top. I give him i a gift a trembling like a leaf. Soon I join him on the navy blue love seat and I am at…

My boyfriend and I managed a hotel, now that he has passed away the owners, have fired me. So along with me grief over his traumatic loss, which I was there to personal witness his death by robberies, I also have to deal with no job. Just how much can I handle?

I am just so tired!!

A friend had mentioned this, but I hadn't realized how true it was until today. My friend came out to visit a couple weeks ago, and commented on how most places we went I seemed to have some association with Ariel.  She said it'd probably do me some good to get away, to re-set my connections with the world around me.  I didn't think much of it at the time.  It hadn't seemed to affect me all that much before.  Today, however, I took my new camera to a park to test it out some more.  It's a…

Grieving response is about coming to terms with, and possibly learning from, the brokenness and sorrow that come over us. Grieving response is about relearning how to be ourselves and to live meaningfully again, carrying the pain of missing those we mourn, returning to what still works from life as it used to be, and stretching into the necessarily new shapes of our daily lives and futures. It is also often about personal growth, living in fuller appreciation of what we previously took for…

Life is the classroom

Grief is the final exam

How we turn out depends on what we've learned

- Michael Ballard

I finally fly home to celebrate my birthday with my mom and sister. And also, to bring them to the house that they haven't seen since Dad died and I had to move them into a home.  I'm dreading this and have been so stressed out for months about this.  I pray it all goes well because if it does, it lets me bring them home for all these holidays that are coming soon. thanksgiving, christmas, birthday.  All the holidays that meant so much to Dad that his family be together and that he could…

"If grief was as easy as pie, then life would be a piece of cake."

 --   M Ballard

"I want people to understand that life is everlasting.  Everything that happens in your life has a purpose.  There is no one you are close to who ever dies.  Everyone just goes on to another stage of life that runs parallel to this one.  Be at peace with yourself and fulfill your mission, knowing that your stay here is temporary, and that your are doing something here to fulfill your spiritual purpose.  Tune in more to yourself  and understand more within yourself so that you can find your…