When Joseph died people brought flowers, plants, trees, food, drink, music, and themselves. We do not know how we would have survived without the help of our family, friends and our community. Even now, when I am feeling particularly down it is great to get a phone call asking how I am doing. I am still not doing great, but it is good for me to know that once I start talking to people I get out of my dark place and can interact and be interested in others.
Some people came with gifts of grief books for us. We found these ones to be particularly helpful:
a. I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye Surviving coping and healing after the sudden death of a loved one - Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair;
b. A Broken Heart Still Beats - Anne McCracken and Mary Semel;
c. When Bad Things Happen to Good People - Harold Kushner;
d. Healing After Loss Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief - Martha Whitmore Hickman;
e. The Bible.
Reading novels has been particularly difficult because so many novels deal with sudden death of young people; and the effect it has on the family.
Ruth Rendell - End in Tears:
" Wexford was glad to leave this unhappy man whose sorrow evoked in him a pity that almost brought tears to his own eyes. What had happened to Marshall he had seen happening to bereaved parents again and again. Following the initial terrible shock they seem to adjust to resign themselves and to come to terms with their loss. But after a while, a week or even months realization of the full extent of what they had suffered reached out and enveloped them. A sorrowful depression, dull indifferent bitter and beyond hope of relief took them in its relentless grip, a hold from which some of them never unloosed themselves their whole life long. People who hadn't cried since they were children broke done in tears at the mention of the lost one's name."
And I used to read Ruth Rendell for the pure escapism.
Greenburgh Town Pool won the overall meet this year - which is a great achievement. Congrats to the team!
