A Promise to Those Who Grieve
In 1972 Joe Biden was elected to the Senate and a week later his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. In...
A Promise to Those Who Grieve
TAG: Karen Mulder
Why Does Grief Matter?
Why Does Grief Matter?
We have all known loss. The grief we’ve felt in the midst of our pain has perhaps seemed overwhelming. The most...
I Am Angry!
I Am Angry!
One afternoon, I pushed the button to replay my phone messages and was shocked to hear a young angry voice say, “Shame on you! How can you call yourself a Christian woman and do what you are doing! You should be ashamed at yourself.” I wondered what I had been doing that earned these angry, slanderous words. As he proceeded, I found out. He said, “You talked my mom into getting a divorce. How could you? I’m not going to allow you to put my dad down! I won’t stand for it.”
What To Say When Someone Is Crying
What To Say When Someone Is Crying
Kim Hamer says, "What a person needs when going through a crisis is a witness. They need someone to acknowledge the fact that what they are going through is very difficult. Their life is crappy. They need you to be their witness."
What do you say when someone is crying? You could say:
Help Someone Cry
Help Someone Cry
By Chic Broersma A little girl on an errand for her mother took too long in getting back. “Why?” Mom asked. The...
Caregiving Basic: Respect the Grief Process
Caregiving Basic: Respect the Grief Process
Grief is a normal and natural process by which a person makes a healthy adjustment to any significant loss in his or her life. Any significant loss (the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a broken marriage, deterioration of health, a shattered dream) triggers the process.
Don’t say, “I understand”
Don’t say, “I understand”
I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. When people are talking . . .listen to what they're saying. Care about it. It has taken me a long time to believe in the power of simply saying, "I'm so sorry," when someone is in pain. And meaning it. One of my patients told me that when she tried to tell her story people often interrupted to tell her that they once had something just like than happen to them.
Be There and Listen
Be There and Listen
A story which I heard 11 years ago reminds me of a powerful way to care for people who are hurting. Gregory Richards was a chaplain to terminally ill children in a New York hospital. He tells of one of his experiences in the following story:
