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Posts tagged with “death”

Because I Lost My Mom: 6 Gifts I Now Appreciate

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“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.” ~Chris Pine

I had a happy, carefree childhood up until a point. I remember lots of giggles, hugs, and playfulness. One summer, as we were sitting in my grandmother’s yard enjoying her homemade cake, my mum’s right hand started trembling.

My worried grandmother encouraged her to eat, but her hand continued to tremble. I remember her troubled look. She must have sensed something was wrong.

Just three months later, she was gone. Acute …

How to Move Forward After Loss: The 3 Phases of Healing

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“Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass. You won’t feel sad forever. At some point, you will feel happy again. You won’t feel anxious forever. In time, you will feel calm again. You don’t have to fight your feelings or feel guilty for having them. You just have to accept them and be good to yourself while you ride this out. Resisting your emotions and shaming yourself will only cause you more pain, and you don’t deserve that. You deserve your own love, acceptance, and compassion.” ~Lori Deschene

To this day, I still remember that call. I had just …

How I’m Navigating My Grief Since Losing My Father

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“Grief is the price we pay for love.” ~Queen Elizabeth II

Losing a loved one is never easy, and when that loved one is a parent, the pain can feel insurmountable.

Last August, I faced one of the most challenging moments of my life: My father, my rock and my confidant, passed away after a brave battle with cancer.

As immigrants, my father and I shared a bond that was uniquely deep; we relied on each other for support, trust, and guidance in a new world. His wisdom shaped my life, and his strength inspired me daily. This is my …

5 Things to Know When an Abusive Parent Dies

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“Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it’s the place where we find the deepest heartache.” ~Iyanla Vanzant

My brother called me at work on a random Tuesday to say that my mother had suddenly died. Powerful emotions of shock and relief ran through my body, like someone rang a gong right next to me. The war was over.

Like most people with an abusive parent, I had previously wondered how I would feel when my mother died. I was not surprised at the relief, nor that I wasn’t sad.

I did not think about what …

How to Comfort the Grieving Without Saying “Sorry for Your Loss”

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“Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” ~Buddha

“I’m sorry for your loss” is a perfectly acceptable response…if I’ve told you I’ve lost my phone. In that instance, I can appreciate the sentiment, empathy, and authenticity of the phrase. It’s my loss and my loss alone. I know you can put yourself in my shoes and internalize what it would feel like to be without this critical device and, as such, the words carry weight.

When I tell you my parents are dead, though? Maybe not …

Embracing Aging: I Want to Be Shiny from the Inside

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“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Yesterday my son called me from college and asked about my day. I told him about my morning, which entailed celebrating my friend’s birthday with her daughter.

My friend passed away almost two years ago. Her daughter reached out to me a couple weeks ago and asked if I would share my morning with her to honor her mom. What a privilege and honor. Hands down YES to that.

The celebration was full of smiles, laughs, tea, stories, tears, yoga mats, birds, fresh …

The Tremendous Pain and Beauty of Letting Things Die

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“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~Joseph Campbell

My husband Jake and I sit in anguish on our beautiful new linen couch, inches away from each other, yet worlds apart. Hours of arguing have left us at another impasse, the stalemate now a decade long.

I look around in despair at the beautiful life we built together, petrified by the decision I know I have to make. My partner, my friends, the country I live in, the ground beneath my feet—all on the brink of collapse.

I stare at the ceiling in heartache. What will …

I Hope You Know You Stayed

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The Art of Bereavement: A Simple Creative Practice for the Grieving

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“When we lose someone we love we must learn not to live without them, but to live with the love they left behind.” ~Unknown

If I look like my best friend just died, that’s because he has. Not the one whom I played with every day growing up and haven’t seen in years, nor the one with whom I went to high school and stayed connected with on social media.

No. I lost my very best friend of nearly four decades. My gay “husband,” who lived with me for fourteen years and helped me raise my two youngest sons, from …

I Won’t Let My Losses Break Me: How I’m Choosing Growth

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Loss is confronting. But I ask you to please walk beside me while I address this most challenging aspect of life.

Losing those we love.

While loss is inevitable, it is something that we always think happens to others.

Until it happens to us.

The last six months I have had a steep learning curve on loss.

The spiral began in May this year.

On May 18th, my partner suddenly walked out. I was blindsided. Heartbroken. I would later learn the truth about his duplicity. But that is fodder for a memoir at a later date.

Two weeks …

How I Cherished Every Beautiful Moment of My Daughter’s Short Life

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In the spring of 2012, I heard this word, “rest.” I realized how horrible I was at it. I wasn’t even sure what it was. Was it extra sleep? Was it not working on Sundays? Shortly after I heard this word, my life began changing. For one reason or another, one by one, the things with which I occupied myself were stripped away until I found myself with nothing left to hold.

A year later I was in a panic, wondering how we were going to make ends meet. Everything in me said to do what I had always done: …

Grief Is Very Sneaky

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I Am Sorry for the Loss of Your Person

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How I’ve Been Shaking Out My Pain Since Losing My Daughter

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“Movement has incredible healing power.” ~Alexandra Heather Foss

My ten-year-old daughter, who had been ill for all her life, was dying. She was hooked up to tubes and monitors, and they were always going off. Her numbers were off the charts, and the doctors kept saying, “Your daughter’s numbers aren’t normal, and we would normally have a team coming in here to check on her breathing and to rouse her.”

After the last operation, one doctor said she was surprised that she was still alive when she came into work. We all were. She kept fighting. She would just be …

How I’ve Navigated My Grief and Guilt Since Losing My Narcissistic Father

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“One of the greatest awakenings comes when you realize that not everybody changes.  Some people never change.  And that’s their journey.  It’s not yours to try and fix it for them.” ~Unknown

In 2021 my father died. Cancer of… so many things.

Most of the events during that time are a blur, but the emotions that came with them are vivid and unrelenting.

I was the first in my family to find out.

My mother and sister had gone on an off-grid week-long getaway up the West Coast of South Africa, where there’s nothing …

One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

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“The Phoenix must burn to emerge.” ~Janet Fitch

Many people were shocked when I relapsed after twenty-three years of recovery. After all, I was the model of doing it right. I did everything I was told: went to treatment, followed instructions, prayed for help, and completed the assignments.

After returning home from treatment, I joined a recovery program and went to therapy. Once again, I followed all the suggestions, which worked when it came to staying sober. I had no desire to drink or do drugs—well, at least for a long while.

When I went to treatment, I was …

How I Found Hope in my Father’s Terminal Cancer

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“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty, even in times of greatest distress.” ~Milan Kundera

When my father received a terminal cancer diagnosis, I went through a wave of different emotions. Fear, anger, sadness. It opened a completely new dictionary that I had not had access to before. A realm of experiences, thoughts, and emotions that lie at the very bedrock of human life was suddenly revealed to me.

After the initial horror and dread at hearing the news had subsided, I was surprised to find a new sense of meaning and …

Growing Old Gratefully: How to See Each Year as a Gift

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Growing old gratefully. Yes, you read that right. Gratefully. Why on earth would I be grateful for getting older, less youthful, and more wrinkly with every passing year?? I hear you cry. Let me tell you why I’m trying hard to do just that.

One bright Saturday afternoon some years back, while chatting with my uncle, he reminded me that my fortieth birthday was fast approaching. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes, Uncle, thanks for the reminder.”

He looked at me for a minute and then said, “You know, you should be grateful for every year of life you …

Looking Back: The Silver Linings of the Pandemic and Why I’m Grateful

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“You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in the sad, the gain in your pain, and what makes you grateful, not hateful.” ~Karen Salmansohn

The 2010 decade was difficult for me. Hardly a year went by without someone close to me passing away.

When the tragic decade started, I was in the midst of my residency training and free time was a luxury I did not have. When I graduated and became an attending physician, I was too busy caring for patients on my own to take a break.

In 2018, my world was shattered …

My Big Insight from Meeting the Woman Who Received My Daughter’s Heart

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“I lay my head upon his chest, and I was with my boy again. I spent so long in darkness I never thought the night would end. But somehow Grace has found me…and I had to let him in.” ~From “Just Like That,” Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt’s surprise Grammy win for 2023 Song of the Year was no surprise to me. In “Just Like That” she tells the story of a woman who is unexpectedly visited by the man who got her late son’s heart. It’s a song that can reduce anyone to tears.

I have been that woman—that Donor …