My First Son, a Pure Memory

By DAVID HLAVSA
Published: September 19, 2008

HAVING waited until we were in our 30s to start a family, my wife and I were having trouble conceiving, leading to sperm tests, hormone shots and other extraordinary measures.

Over many months, the process of conception became so technical that when Lisa told me she was at last pregnant, I found it hard to know what to credit. After the first ultrasound, she came home with a black-and-white picture of a tiny curled-up creature. We put it on the refrigerator: my son, the lima bean.

At 20 weeks, we went in together for the second ultrasound. The technician made small talk and popped his gum as he dimmed the lights. Lisa lay back on the table. I shifted in my seat, jammed my hands into my pockets, and stretched out my legs like a teenager settling in to watch a movie. As the technician slid the paddle around on Lisa’s belly, the image on the computer screen wheeled, dipped and blurred.

Finally my son’s image popped into focus. Arms and legs folded, he seemed to be resting on his back, as if lying on the bottom of a pool, waiting to spring to the surface.

I said, “Cool.”

The technician muttered something, hit a button to freeze the image and walked briskly out of the room.

A few minutes later, in walked a small man wearing a rumpled white coat and steel-rimmed glasses, his bow tie askew. He shut the door behind him.

I don’t remember exactly what he said; he looked as if someone had left him out in the rain. What we had taken for a frozen image, he explained, was in fact absolute stillness.

We still refer to the man as Doctor Death, perpetually forlorn, always breaking bad news. They keep him in a closet. (A year later, pregnant with our second son, Benjamin, my wife turned a corner at the hospital and saw him at a nurses’ station; she did an abrupt, involuntary about-face.)

After Doctor Death left, our midwife arrived to explain that we had a decision to make. Did we want to schedule a D and C or induce labor? Her language was very plain, but it took a while for me to understand what she was really asking: Did we want the pregnancy to end in a surgical procedure in the outpatient clinic, or in the maternity ward as a stillbirth? We asked whether there were medical advantages or disadvantages to either choice. She told us it was simply a matter of preference. No hurry. Let us know. More

A Mother's Meditation on Loss

AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION
A Memoir
By Elizabeth McCracken
Little, Brown. 184 pp. $19.99

Some friends and I used to call ourselves "The Dead Babies Club." We would meet for brunch and talk about our losses -- miscarriages, stillbirths, terminations after amnios revealed acute abnormalities. We may have been a grief-stricken lot, but we weren't going to be a silent one: We wanted to be seen, to be acknowledged, to mark these events that didn't exactly make us mothers, but made us . . . something. And so, we were willfully conspicuous, overly loud. Because we knew: No one wants to hear about your dead baby.

Elizabeth McCracken knows that, too. That's why, in her lovely, crystalline meditation on the nature of grief, motherhood, marriage and France -- a memoir occasioned by the stillbirth of her first son -- she opens with a quip: "Once upon a time, before I knew anything about the subject, a woman told me that I should write a book about the lighter side of losing a child." See, she seems to be saying, this won't be so bad. What's more, she reassures us, a healthy infant lies on her lap as she writes.

I hope those signposts are enough to ameliorate readers' aversion to the subject matter, the excuse that the book isn't for them unless they, too, have borne a dead child. After all, you don't have to be an alcoholic to love Caroline Knapp's "Drinking: A Love Story." Nor do you have to have lost your jaw to cancer to appreciate Lucy Grealy's "Autobiography of a Face." The best memoirs transcend their particulars, offer a fresh look at the bumpy terrain of sorrow, love, youthful folly, aged folly, resilience and selfhood. McCracken's is one of those, and it would be a shame to pass it by because it strikes at one's deepest fears.

The dead baby has a name, by the way: He is Pudding, one of those goofy place-holders you give a fetus after seeing its inscrutable shadow on an ultrasound screen. McCracken, author of the wonderfully weird novel "The Giant's House," tells his story, and hers, with heart and wit, but amazingly little self-pity. Like any woman who loses a child -- say, to a random comet that drops from the sky -- she strafes herself with self-blame. Our bodies, ourselves, our fault, right? Eventually, she displaces that recrimination onto the entire country of France, where she and her husband, Edward, led a classic boho writer's life before Pudding's death. Understandably, she swears she'll never go back. I imagine she will even shun French dressing, french fries, French braids. It seems a reasonable and healthy choice. More

Stillborn baby given proper funeral service by area pastor

Stillborn baby given proper funeral service by area pastor
By ANNYSA JOHNSON
Posted: Aug. 19, 2008

The Rev. Debra Trakel of St. James Episcopal Church prayed for his eternal life, and a dozen strangers mourned him.

Then Bernie Schroedl, owner of Good Hope Cemetery at S. 46th St. and W. Cold Spring Road, lifted the tiny white box in which Michael’s body lay and placed it in the earth.

Michael Gabriel was born still on July 4 and left unclaimed at a local hospital. As such, he is consigned to a pauper’s grave. But Trakel and the members of two area churches made sure he did not go there alone.

“We come together as a community to claim this child for God,” said Trakel, who has volunteered her prayers at 66 funerals for those abandoned or forgotten in Milwaukee County over the last four years.

Tuesday’s was her first service for a child.

“No one should be buried alone,” she said.

Trakel began her funeral ministry in 2004 after reading a newspaper article about a homeless man who died of exposure in a parked van.

Her own church ministers to the homeless, feeding as many as 300 people a day, she said. But she realized that she’d never pondered the question: What happens to them when they die?
What happens, she said, is that the county arranges for their burial, but no service. In most cases, family or friends come forward to remember their dead. But there are always those who have no one.

It is for them that Trakel gathers, with members of St. James in Milwaukee and Trinity Episcopal Church in Wauwatosa, to pray at the graveside.

They gathered Tuesday around the tiny white box adorned with a single stem of black-eyed Susans. Many of the people wept as Trakel reflected on this life unlived. He had no legal name, but they called him Michael Gabriel, from the Hebrew words for “who is like God” and “man of God.”

“This child, the perfect innocent, is with God,” Trakel said. “Where else could he possibly be?”
Joanne Oliver of Trinity, who buried her own newborn son 27 years ago, struggled through tears to recite the Episcopal Prayer at the burial of a child.

Schroedl lifted the box into the grave and, on his knees, shoveled the dirt inside.

Michael Gabriel’s name will be inscribed in a plaque at St. James Church, 833 W. Wisconsin Ave., along with all the other indigent Milwaukee residents whose funerals Trakel has presided over.
Trakel knows there are people who will judge this child’s mother, but she will not.

“My belief is there is a mother out there who is grieving, who for some reason — whether emotional or financial — couldn’t handle the burial of this child,” Trakel said.

“My hope is that she knows her child was buried well, by people who shed tears for him, people for whom his birth and death mattered.”

My baby was put in a shared grave

Years after losing her son through hospital blunders, Alvina Carrington discovered a new horror
Denis Campbell, health correspondent
Sunday December 2, 2007
The Observer

In late 2004, on a visit to her son's grave, Alvina Carrington was surprised to find fresh flowers. 'I knew I hadn't put them there, so I thought it was odd,' she recalls. But Alvina assumed a friend or member of her family had brought them, and was touched someone had made the journey to Alperton cemetery on the north-west fringes of London to remember Luke, who had been stillborn at seven months.

After his death in October 2003 Alvina's life fell apart. She had lost the first child she desperately wanted and had spent six years trying for. An appalling series of blunders by doctors and midwives meant her pre-eclampsia went unidentified, with fatal consequences. Amid the shock, grief and anger, her relationship broke up. Previously very sociable, the 33-year-old became introverted and virtually housebound. She gave up her job, unable to stop crying every night after she got home. Alvina thought she had reached the lowest point of her life.

But more than a year after that trip to the cemetery, in early 2006, she suffered another heartbreak. In the course of asking what sort of headstone she could put on Luke's grave, Alvina discovered that what she thought was her son's final resting place also contained the bodies of several other babies. The flowers were for one of them, not Luke.

'I'd rung the cemetery, told them Luke was buried there, given them the plot number and asked them what size of headstone I could erect. I'd decided that I was going to have gold lettering saying "Blue: in our hearts always", because that was the nickname I'd given him, and then 'Luke' underneath.

'That would have been the final act. But the cemetery people explained to me that it wasn't my property, that it belonged to Brent Council, that I'd need to get their permission for the headstone and that there were other babies in the grave,' says Alvina. 'I was devastated. I thought it was Luke's grave and only Luke's grave, and that it was my property. I thought the cemetery had got it wrong. But they said to me: "It should have been explained to you that the grave belongs to the council and that other babies are there."

'I wanted to know how many other babies were in there beside Luke, and whether they were on top of each other or side by side. I wanted to know if there was another baby on top of Luke.'

More

The Loss of an Infant -- Universal Grief and Transcultural Education

Updated to include the whole article so you don't have to sign in or register.

The Loss of an Infant -- Universal Grief and Transcultural Education CE
Maureen O'Reilly, RNC, APNP Disclosures

Universal Grief and Cultural Funerals

Nurses who work in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) may believe that dealing with the loss of an infant improved immensely in the late 20th century -- suddenly, parents were encouraged to hold their infant at death, given hair locks to keep, and given pictures to share with family. Remembering that parents in the 18th and 19th centuries dealt with much more frequent infant loss, Marylouise Martin, MSN, RNC, Clinical Nurse Specialist, McLeod Regional Medical Center, Florence, South Carolina, pointed to diaries, letters, and postmortem pictures those long-ago parents used to comfort themselves. Martin's presentation on the "Transcultural Perspective of Perinatal Loss and Bereavement"[1] made it plain: not much in parental grief has changed. NICUs, however, have continued to expand their understanding of how to work with grieving parents of many ethnicities and religions as they express their culture while mourning in the 21st century.

Martin's summary may have begun with history, but her take on the transcultural outlook on dealing with grieving parents was thoroughly modern. Developing cultural proficiency assists nurses in dealing with families of varying ethnocultural and religious backgrounds during their grief, and has 5 elements: (1) knowing your own cultural values, (2) developing cultural knowledge, (3) awareness and acceptance of differences, (4) understanding the dynamics of those differences, and (5) adapting practice to fit the family's cultural background. Callister wrote that, "Support received by professionals is critical in the long-term adjustment of childbearing families coping with perinatal loss."[2] Cultural proficiency forms the basis of such support.

Mourning Rites and Culture
Caregivers need to know basics of cultural traditions -- that Jewish families bury their dead within 24 hours and the Old Amish will not accept photographs of the infant. Beliefs about the afterlife may also affect a family member's actions at this time -- Muslims may see death as a natural stage of life, Native American mourners may see death as another step in life when the spirit must be released, and African Americans may believe death is not the end and have a fervent belief of reunion in Heaven with their lost child.

What is "normal" in funeral rites varies widely also. Asian-Chinese families minimize recognition of a child's death because formalities are reserved for those over 18, as "adults." American Christians may have a full funeral following "anointing of the sick" rites and baptism predeath. Roman Catholics will plan a funeral where the body is on view and eschew cremation in favor of burial. Muslims prefer to have the body washed in running water and wrapped in white cloth, with the body placed in-ground, positioned on its right side and facing Mecca.

The outward expression of grief after the loss of a child is directly tied to the family's cultural backdrop. Martin pointed out that Hispanic/Latino families, especially women, may be vocal in grief, and display "ataque de nervios," with shaking and seizure-like activity accepted as normal within their culture but upsetting to culturally unaware caregivers observing the event. On the other hand, Latino fathers may appear especially stoic, as part of the tradition known as "machismo," and seem uncaring to onlookers, while actually being deeply affected.

African Americans may delay funeral and burial until distant family members arrive, in the belief that all must have the chance to mourn directly, and vocal grief is acceptable, especially during church services and at the graveside. Muslim families accept tears at death, and dignity at interment is highly valued, with the family walking behind the body on its way to the mosque. Amish families prize privacy in their grief and may discuss their loss minimally in public.

Developing Culturally Proficient Caregivers
Most labor and delivery units and NICUs currently offer "remembrances" to families after a perinatal loss, including items such as the identification bracelet, photographs, hair locks, clothing worn by the infant, footprints and handprints, and ultrasound prints. Martin emphasized that, even with well-developed cultural awareness, every family should be asked about the items that may have meaning to them and have their wishes met on an individual basis.

As families acculturate in the United States, it's not uncommon for them to incorporate at least some changes that are acceptable within their own culture. As Davies reported in 2004, traditional perspectives on grief, emphasizing separateness, are being transformed into a new stress on "connectedness" and the mourner's role in the social world.[3] Remembrance items and their restrictions due to family culture may apply in the most general manner, but astute caregivers ask parents to voice their needs -- as Clements and colleagues noted, "Death, grief, and bereavement are very personal experiences."[4]

Nursing units dealing with perinatal loss have several avenues open to them in developing transcultural awareness of grief practices. First, educators may make available brief summaries, such as current articles dealing with common cultural beliefs, for staff to read and use in practice. A more in-depth summary of varied beliefs is available in texts such as Death and Bereavement Across Cultures[5] or Ethnic Variations in Dying, Death, and Grief: Diversity in Universality,[6] which includes facts such as a withdrawal from community life for up to 7 years may be "normal" for the Egyptian mother, following the loss of a child.

In a further step toward integrating transcultural awareness, Martin has developed a Transcultural Training Program, and she encouraged listeners to consider this in their own practice areas. The program provides basic cultural education and methods for nurses to incorporate cultural assessment and proficiency into their daily work. Capitulo advocated for online grief support groups, where the theme was "shared metamorphosis," allowing transcendence of cultural beliefs and the sharing of remembrance and memories.[7] Although not all family members will have access to the Internet to join such groups, it's clear such methods offer hope and support to geographically or socially isolated mourners and are worth the effort of caregivers to offer to all cultural perspectives.

When loss occurs in a family, the ability to find meaning in the death and involve family members in rituals and mourning offers comfort and support to parents, siblings, and grandparents. Martin offered an overview of specific practices found in a wide array of ethnic and religious backgrounds, with the caveat to always remember the individual's wishes. A culturally proficient caregiver offers respect for the family's beliefs and dignity for the dead.

Link to article

Handle with care

Handle with care
October 6, 2007
Sydney Morning Herald
Kate Benson and Bellinda Kontominas.


Karina Jensen was halfway through delivering her dead baby at Sutherland hospital when a midwife handed her funeral brochures, suggesting she read them between contractions because "we have other people with live babies that are our priority".

After holding her daughter, Amber, for less than two hours, Jensen said farewell on advice from a midwife who wanted her "cooled at the morgue because it's better for the post-mortem" - only to find her dead baby then spent 10 hours alone and uncovered in a corridor of the busy maternity unit.

"It was a horrifying experience," she says. "Amber was right outside my room all night and I didn't know it. My husband, Jack, found her. She had been born at 9pm and he had left to go home about midnight. He saw her in a crib in the hallway and thought she'd be taken to the morgue soon. But the next morning when he came back she was still there in the corridor, with mothers walking past."

Jensen says she spent all night listening to other women in labour and the piercing cries of newborns, before discharging herself the next morning.

"It's such a small thing, but being in the maternity ward that night made a painful process that much more painful. It rubbed salt in my wounds."

A day later Jack Jensen received a phone call from a staff member at the hospital asking him to bring Amber back for a hearing check as they had "rushed off" before it could be done. Stunned, he replied: "Our daughter is in your morgue. If you find out that she can hear anything, you give us a call and we'll come get her."

But their agonising experience does not ring true for all parents.

Fiona van der Plaat's first child, Nicholas, died hours after birth at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1998 and, even though she spent five days on the postnatal ward with mothers and newborns, apologetic staff gave her a room of her own as far from the sound of crying babies as possible.

Van der Plaat and her husband, Paul, were allowed to hold Nicholas for as long as they needed after his death. They were given photos of them as a family, a lock of his fair hair and prints of his tiny hands and feet. For days afterwards, midwives would bring Nicholas back from the morgue so relatives could meet him and find closure.

"He had had a post-mortem but they had dressed him in a knitted cap and a blanket so we couldn't tell and they were very encouraging that we should all hold him," van der Plaat says. "It was an extremely painful experience but we couldn't have been treated any better."

For Michael Grosvenor, those emotionally charged weeks after the stillbirth of his daughter, Amelia, left him with little time to mourn. Funeral arrangements and phone calls had to be made to inform family and friends of the couple's loss, but he says he and his wife, Suzanne, were treated with great sensitivity at Calvary Health Care, formerly Hurstville Private Community Hospital.

"You couldn't fault them. The nursing staff went beyond the call of duty, and one even came back to see us on her day off," he says.

The Grosvenors were given all the time they needed with Amelia. Their family and close friends were allowed to visit at all hours and midwives comforted and supported them. More

National Stillbirth Society News

We have had so many parents ask how they might get their baby's picture retouched that we made it our goal to find an answer. The answer we have come up with is almost too good to be true. Not only have we located a source but the source, one of the largest retouching studios in the country, will retouch a photo of a stillborn baby AT NO CHARGE. THERE IS NO LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF MOTHERS THEY WILL DO THIS FOR. IF YOU WERE TO PAY FOR THE SERVICE IT WOULD COST $49.95 AND UP!

At this moment we're finalizing the details and logistics so that we the Missing Angel website can interface with their website. We hope by October 1st the service will be up and running. It's called "The Angel Pic Project" and when it's ready we will post it on the home page of http://www.missingangel.org/.

We're telling you this now so you have an opportunity to search through your pictures to find the best one. I will tell you I have seen examples of their work and it is incredible the difference. If you have a photo that you may have been uncomfortable showing family and friends get ready. You'll be able to send a scan, if you have one, or you can look up a participating dealer in your area who will scan a photo for you (limit two) and send it in for you. The same dealer will also give you a free 8" x 10" portrait when the scan comes back (in about 2 - 3 weeks).

Just one more way The National Stillbirth Society is working to bring comfort and closure to stillbirth parents and their families.

Richard K. Olsen, Founder
THE NATIONAL STILLBIRTH SOCIETY
www.stillnomore.org
missingangel@cox.net
602-216-6600

Delayed grief

Rachel's Vineyard offers support for people grieving losses in life
by Mary Steichen, 30 Aug 2007

Once a week, I look forward to lending a hand at a crisis pregnancy center. For me, it's a good way to give back to the community that has blessed me so richly. And it helps keep me grounded. I need a reality check once in a while to maintain a spirit of gratitude.

This week, I began thinking about some of the pain and hard times that our volunteer army of dedicated Oklahoma women witness as we strive to help girls in need. Many are frightened or feel alone. Many have had previous abortions or are contemplating one. Some are considering placing their baby for adoption. Often they are struggling with issues such as poverty, rejection, career conflicts, addictions or unhealthy relationships.

Preparing for this column, a question came to mind: "Do women and men continue to grieve these types of issues in their senior years?” Do we mistakenly believe that, as we age, these memories simply fade away? Perhaps many of us buy into the old saying: "Time heals all wounds.” The contrary is true.

Associate Director Susan Lepak of the Office of Family Life in Oklahoma City provided insight on this emotional, often overlooked topic.

"It's quite typical,” she said, "for grieving to surface 20-plus years after an abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth or placing a child for adoption.” This is because women finally reach a time in their lives when they are not so busy raising a family or pursuing a career.

"Menopause contributes, too. They look back at occurrences during their reproductive years, and may experience grief over choices that led to the loss of a child. Sometimes having grandchildren may also trigger grief. More

A balm for grief

Thanks to volunteer photographers, parents have keepsakes to remember babies whose lives ended much too soon

By Barbara Bradley
barbarabradley@commercialappeal.com
July 29, 2007

Photographer Marci Lambert volunteered for an assignment she hoped would never come. But in June she was asked to do a portrait shoot at Methodist North Hospital. The subject was a 3-month-old baby girl who had died of an infection.

"You have to think deep in your heart if you can do this," said Lambert, 43, of East Memphis. That was especially true in this case, which took another devastating turn.

Lambert is one of five photographers in this area who have volunteered to shoot bereavement photos through a nonprofit organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, headquartered in Littleton, Colo., near Denver. It was founded two years ago by Cheryl Haggard, a mother who lost her infant son, and Sandy Puc, the nationally acclaimed photographer who photographed him. It has spread rapidly to every state and to eight other countries.

"Society doesn't know how to deal with the death of a baby," said Haggard of Evergreen, Colo., whose son Maddux lived only six days. "They think you did not get to know this baby. They want you to forget." More

Faith's Lodge

DANBURY, WIS. - Kelly Alvar sat tearfully inside Children's Hospital of Minneapolis, her 6-day-old son in her arms, knowing that his heart would soon stop beating. She and her husband, Nate, wanted their premature baby to have as peaceful a death as possible. When he lay there motionless that day in May, a bundle of soft skin and tufts of dark hair, their grieving officially began.

Friends and family tried to help, but they couldn't really understand, Kelly Alvar said. The couple wanted to get away. But everywhere they went, it seemed, they saw happy families and celebrations.

Now they and others will have a place to go, a retreat thought to be the only one of its kind in the nation. Faith's Lodge opened its gates Saturday in the northern Wisconsin forest to families that are grieving the death of a child or have a child who is seriously ill. The 80 acres, located about two hours from the Twin Cities, are designed with sensitivity to grief. More

MISS Foundation Email

Dear MISS Members,

Elisabeth Kubler Ross, M.D. spent more than five decades devoted to helping the dying and the bereaved. She has helped countless people, and our entire culture, in coping with death, dying, and mourning. Much of her life was devoted to working with dying children and their families. She is a thanatological icon and hero.

Elisabeth was also a friend to the MISS Foundation, a cherished advisor. She was my beloved friend and mentor.

In honor of her upcoming birthday, July 8th, the MISS Foundation would like to offer a "One who soars (tm)" band to our members.

You can wear this in honor of your beloved child, and to recognize the legacy of Dr. Kubler-Ross' work.

Please send a SASE with two stamps to:

MISS Foundation
EKR Legacy
PO Box 5333
Peoria, Az 85385

May your Memorial Day weekend be filled with loving thoughts of your children. We also recognize those young men and women who have lost their lives in service.

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people
do not just happen."

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
July 8, 1926 to August 24, 2004

Let us never forget the gifts she left this world

Very Sincerely,
Joanne Cacciatore, PhD Cand, MSW, FT

Globe and Mail: Burying the unborn

CAROLYN ABRAHAM
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
May 26, 2007 at 2:24 AM EDT


On the afternoon of Feb. 3, 25 people gathered in the chapel of Smiths Funeral Home in Sarnia, Ont., to honour the passing of Angel Lynzey Burden.

The community sent flowers and cards of condolence. Angel's ashes sat on a table up front, in a decorative urn half the size of a coffee cup. (continue)



Note: This article will only be available online for a few more days, possibly a week. If you are not able to access it via the link provided, please contact us so we can email electronic copy to you.

When Mother's Day Feels Empty

There are no words to completely describe what a mother feels when her child has died. She feels lost, abandoned, afraid, lonely, forgotten, and most of all empty. The emptiness is like none other because it is an emptiness of the heart. When a child dies, part of a mother's heart also dies.

Mother's Day is a traditional holiday that has grown bigger and bigger throughout the years. We are bombarded with advertisements to take out mothers for a special dinner or buy Mother's Day flowers. For more than a month before Mother's Day, reminders are placed everywhere. It's impossible to pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, or turn on the television without some kind of reminder of Mother's Day.

There are Mother's Day banquets, Mother's Day baby dedications at church, and special family gatherings to honor mothers. All of this is wonderful except for the mother that is grieving the loss of her child. For the grieving mother, every reminder of Mother's Day is like another
wound to the heart. The hole in her heart caused by grief grows larger and larger with each reminder, and the emptiness feels darker and colder than she ever imagined possible. What is a grieving mother to do when there are so many reminders of the precious child she has lost?

Mother's Day is the only holiday that specifically uses the word mother, so there is no real way of avoiding this day. A grieving mother can, however, prepare for Mother's Day well in advance so that she knows how to avoid placing additional pain in her life.

Remember that Mother's Day is not a holiday that has to be celebrated. If a grieving mother does not want to attend a banquet, or watch baby dedications at church, or see special family gatherings at restaurants, then she has the right to choose not to participate in these events without feeling guilty. Many mothers choose to stay home and do nothing special at all on Mother's Day, and that is fine. Grief follows no rules and there is no right or wrong way to grieve.

Explain to others that this day is painful. Giving yourself permission to grieve in your own way is very healing and helpful, especially during such a difficult day as Mother's Day.

Do what feels right for you. Maybe that means taking a mini trip away where nobody knows you. Maybe it is staying at home. Perhaps a walk in the woods or a walk along the sandy beach would help you during this empty time. Journal your thoughts. Release a balloon. Or, maybe you want to avoid Mother's Day altogether. You know what feels best for your heart, and giving yourself permission to do what is right for you can be the most healing thing of all.

Lastly, remind yourself often that you will not always feel this empty. With each passing day new hope will enter your empty heart until one day you will wake up to realize that the empty hole is beginning to fill with some joy. Mother's Day is only one day. With a little bit of preparation you can make it through, and you will have walked one more step in your journey of healing!

by Clara Hinton, Silent Grief

Friday blog roundup coming soon, but in the meantime...

It's a half an hour until Saturday and I haven't been around all day to write the Friday blog roundup. I will (it'll just be a day late, and I'm truly so sorry for the delay) but in the meantime, I thought we could all ponder something together...

Healing is different for everyone who grieves. The process I mean, and what you do to help yourself find the comfort, support, and validation you need to take those tiny steps forward into your new life as a grieving parent. Some people join support groups, some read books on loss, some seek counseling, some rely on friends, some volunteer, others write, knit, sing and craft their pain into something tangible that can be touched, heard or seen.

What did you do? What do you do? What has helped you find solace, peace or the strength you need to get out of bed each morning and function in a world that's so new, so difficult and sometimes so very sad?

Reading about the way you have chosen to confront and live with your pain may be just what another mother or father desperately needs to hear. So if you can, please tell us what has helped you survive your loss. If you have website or book references please include those too.

There really is strength in numbers.