Whatcom Hospice 2800 Douglas Ave. Bellingham, WA 98225 Phone: (360) 733-5877 Fax: (360) 756-6884 Hospice Bereavement Letter Winter-2011 A Service of Whatcom Hospice Bereavement Support Program The ideas and opinions in this newsletter are offered for your reflection only. We do not promote any particular philosophical or religious perspective. Finding the Positive in Our Grief When someone close to us dies we may feel immense loss and emptiness. We grieve the most for those we love the most and have lost. Grieving takes us to the very heart of life itself. Love and loss are intimately connected in that way. In grief there can be sad times and dark times, and even “crazy” feeling times. In the midst of each grief journey – it is a journey and not a destination – healing is occurring. The journey into our healing asks us to weave our losses into the fabric of our lives. My encounters with death have taught me this: that we will die and those we love will die. That thorny fact remains; it gives meaning to our endeavors and it renders our endeavors meaningless. In the meantime, we must get on with what are both the simplest and the most awesome of tasks: we must dare to live. (anonymous author) It is generally said that individuals grieve in their own unique way. And those around the griever ought to allow and honor each unique expression of grief. How we begin to accept the reality of our loss and how we gradually, eventually begin to reweave our lives without that special person is the positive, though sometimes painful, process of healing. Alan Wolfelt, author, speaker and grief work trainer, is committed to just this: helping people mourn well so they can live and love well: The capacity to love requires the necessity to grieve when someone loved dies. You cannot heal unless you openly express your grief. Denying your grief will only make it become more confusing and overwhelming. Embrace your grief and heal. Deborah Morris Coryell, author of Good Grief: Healing Through the Shadow of Loss, describes the grief journey this way: First, we don’t get past the pain. We must go through it. We can’t go around it or over it or under it either. The path of healing (continued on reverse) Trees I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go. ~ May Sarton Weekly Grief Support Groups Free, ongoing support groups for anyone who has recently experienced the death of a loved one. Come join others in a caring supportive setting with a trained bereavement specialist. Every Tuesday Evening 7:00-8:30 PM Health Education Center 3333 Squalicum Parkway Bellingham Every Wednesday Afternoon 2:00-3:30 PM Health Education Center 3333 Squalicum Parkway Bellingham through loss requires that we incorporate our pain. We get to that place where joy and grief can live together. We are changed in the process. The goal is not to be the “way we were” once again, the goal is to be more than we were before, to include more of life. Ultimately the goal is to include loss in our love and trust of life. Positive grief transforms us. We find our own unique way to include our feelings and memories for our past loved one in our changed life. This may be celebrating special events and anniversaries once shared or creating new activities or ceremonies that honor our loved one and provide special meaning in our life. Slowly our grief becomes less an obstacle and more a sad/sweet thread in our life. There are sad days, but it’s easier to remember the good times and other special events that we shared. I don’t dwell on the sad unhappy events anymore – these I just put away. I’ll always remember them, though, but on the positive side rather than the more negative. (anonymous) Once we’ve journeyed through our grief and understand that the pain of loss is something to reconcile and not something to get over, we then know we can “live and love well.” I wouldn’t have chosen to lose my husband, but I feel enriched by the experiences that I’ve had as a result of his death and the depth of sharing and intimacy I’ve experienced with others in the course of my healing journey. (anonymous) Related resources for this article: Alan Wolfelt, Ph. D., Director of Center for Loss and Life Transition www.centerforloss.com Deborah Morris Coryell and The Siva Foundation www.goodgrief.org Grief Relief A structured women’s grief support group is now forming. The group’s six to ten women will meet once a week for six weeks. Each session will focus on a specific grief topic, with homework, aimed at moving the participants closer to understanding their grief and discovering new possibilities. Each woman will become familiar with her own unique grief process, develop new skills as they discover new directions, obtain valuable resource materials, and interact more effectively with others inside and outside of the group. The next group will begin February 24th. For more information about this no cost group and to arrange a pre-registration phone interview, please contact Whatcom Hospice 360-7335877, or email the Bereavement Coordinator, John Robinson jrobinson2@peacehealth.org Night and Your Stars Night and Your stars Spread out over me, The air cold and clear, The smell of woodsmoke, Somewhere people are sitting around a fire And I am out here alone, Once I’d have worried that idea like A dog with a bone Till I was overcome with sadness. Now so many waves of yearning have already washed over me, I’m unmoved, I have suffered so many losses, There are few to fear, So many matters I used to agonize over Don’t matter anymore, Getting ahead, being invited, Fitting in, winning. It’s too late for all that now, Too late to do much more Than be out here under the stars Talking to You, Friendly and peaceful. By Elise Maclay in Green Winter As read at the Nov. 15th Celebration of Light service If you have comments, suggestions, or would like to submit a poem or article, please contact Bereavement Coordinator, John Robinson, at Whatcom Hospice 360-733-5877 or E-mail: jrobinson2@peacehealth.org