Losing Cissie, Saving Myself: The Perils of Caring for My Wife Through Her Memory Loss

Peter Barnet's poignant memoir of caring for his wife -- and himself -- as her memory fades is Losing Cissie, Saving Myself: The Perils of Caring for My Wife Through Her Memory Loss.

"If you don’t cry, learn to. If you don’t laugh, learn to. Tears and laughter are the best tools to manage stress and win through”

Green Burials Remind Us Grief is Natural Too

 From Slate: 

Green burial doesn’t have an official definition but generally refers to a range of cemetery practices that limit fossil fuel usage and the amount of human-made materials put into the ground. More broadly, the green burial movement wants to help people approach death with a more natural, and less commercial, outlook.

Green cemeteries substitute exotic hardwood caskets with renewable wood coffins or burial shrouds, and they don’t line graves with concrete. They shun mown lawns for native grasses and trees. Some green cemeteries mark graves with native stone or plant memorial trees; others don’t mark graves at all. They reject embalming as unnatural, unnecessary, and toxic. (Embalming chemicals contribute to high rates of cancer in mortuary workers.) Green cemeteries look more like nature preserves or parks than the orderly cemeteries we’re accustomed to.

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[Jack] Goodnoe started designing conventional cemeteries in the 1980s and began working with green cemetery movement when the movement began in the late ’90s. While Goodnoe supports greening the death industry, he also thinks that green and conventional cemeteries need to learn from each other. The green burial movement has been led by charismatic industry outsiders—academics, environmentalists, spiritual types—with big ideas offset by a lack of knowledge about cemetery management. Goodnoe recommends that “when someone wants to start a green cemetery, they partner with a traditional cemetery that can bring all the legal, grief, record-keeping elements that they’ve learned from decades in the industry.” 

Judith Viorst Remembers Those She Loved Who are Gone - But Very Much Remembered

The incomparable Judith Viorst, author of classic books for children and Necessary Losses for adults, writes in Moment Magazine about the people she loved who are no longer here, and what remembering them means. 

An excerpt:

As I count the dead, my coulda’s and shoulda’s besiege me: I should have sat with Clara and heard her stories. I should have held my baby before he died. I could have been a more welcoming sister to Lois and not been such a meanie when she cried. I could have invited my in-laws to please come inside and stay a whole week instead of a weekend. I could have made more room in my heart—and made more time in my life—for the people who came knocking at my door. I could have mustered more grace and more good humor as I barreled through my kids-career-marriage days. I could have treated my “To-Do” list as something less, far less, than a sacred document. And although I figured out some of this in time to mend my ways, the regrets I have to live with, I’ll have to live with.

Courageous Conversations: Dementia and Dying with Dignity

"He was looking at me with love" -- A Dying Man is Comforted By a Ghost

 From The Washington Post: 

A dying WWII veteran is comforted by a ghost in this touching story from a social worker. The man says that during the war after a terrible loss he saw a ghost at the foot of his bed, looking at him with love.  More than 70 years later, deeply depressed, even suicidal, he says he has seen the ghost again. 

“He’s back,” he whispers, staring out the window. “Saw him last night on the foot of my bed. He spoke this time.”

“What’d he say?”

“He told me he was here with me. He’s going to help me over the hill when it’s time to go.”

Nichole Chung: I Thought I'd Get to See My Mother Again. Then the Pandemic Hit

Nicole Chung writes about mourning her mother in a time of COVID-19.

 

This year on my mother’s birthday, in October, I woke up from one of many dreams I’ve had about her since her death. I’d been sitting with family and friends in my grandmother’s backyard, our lawn chairs scattered across a carpet of sun-dappled grass. We were all talking, sharing memories of my mom. I don’t remember the specific stories, but I know there was joy, more laughter than tears—even though, in my dream, my mom was also gone.

Like so many grieving families in 2020, we haven’t been able to gather or mourn together. My mother died of cancer in May, and my husband, kids and I had to watch the small funeral service via livestream from across the country.  

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Since she died, many people have asked me if I feel a lack of “closure” because of all the moments missed. My father died 2½ years ago, and I was at his funeral, and I still don’t feel anything like closure. It’s an open wound. It always will be.

 

 

I Thought I'd Get to See My Mother Again. Then the Pandemic Hit

5 Reasons Why Grieving the Death of a Parent is Hard