Grief Poem 124 Dayenu: It Would Have Been Enough by R.L. Nona If we had been given one more year to watch the sun set on the far mountains, float on our backs in salt ponds shaded by ancient willows that protest the weight of their leaves, and hold each other close as the seasons […] The post It Would Have Been Enough appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

“The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.” — Norman Cousins Today loneliness is a crisis that cuts across cultures, continents, and classes. Britain has added a Minister for Loneliness to its federal government. In the United States, thirty-five percent of adults over the age of 45 report feeling lonely. […] The post A Look at Loneliness by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

“If you live each day as it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” — Steve Jobs For quite a few decades now, our culture has put on a pretty convincing show of whistling past the graveyard. Americans have long had high levels of assumed invulnerability. We pretended death didn’t exist. Starting in […] The post How Death Makes Life Better by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

Living through the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. But the ways in which we experience and deal with the pain can largely differ. What Experts Say: Psychotherapists say that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a process to be lived through, in whatever form it may take. How to Help: Experiencing […] The post Coping With Grief and Loss: The New York Times offers these links appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

by Melissa Calvert A ritual is a ceremony of meaning, a continued observance of ceremonies which are repeated routinely are known as rituals. Rituals can either be done in an isolated manner or by gathering lots of people; it varies from person to person. Rituals are held to mark important events in one’s life, for […] The post Power Of Rituals And Memorialization In The Grieving Process appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

When people talk about managing grief, often this involves grieving for someone who’s already passed. However, there are times when a loved one may be approaching the end of their life, perhaps due to an illness or age. In this situation, some find that they have already begun experiencing aspects of grief. This can be […] The post Strategies for Preparing and Coping with Imminent Loss appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

By Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD I received a call this past week from a long-term friend and funeral director. His father had just died the week prior to our conversation. He said, “I have always tried to help families I have served understand the value of visitation and spending time with the body. I now […] The post Affirming the Value of Elements of Meaningful Funerals appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

A Grief Observed From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, the power and pain of Black mourning. BY MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH June 22, 2017 Mamie Till-Mobley wrote her memoir, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America, in 2003, the same year she died of heart failure, and 47 years after the lynching of her son, […] The post African-Americans and Grief: A Grief Observed appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

A Bronzeville Mother Loiters In Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon – Poem by Gwendolyn Brooks The murder of Emmett Till in 1955, and the subsequent acquittal of his murderers and public viewings of Till’s mutilated body, stirred the American consciousness and provoked outrage across the country. In 1960, Gwendolyn Brooks published her own […] The post Black History Month Grief Poem by Gwendolyn Brooks appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more

  Larry: My first wife, Vanessa, and I married young and were unable to have children so throughout our 24 years together it was just us. We never missed going out for a special Valentine’s Day dinner together.  I took care in selecting a Valentine’s Day card that best expressed to Vanessa how much I […] The post The Grieving Process: Dealing with Valentine’s Day appeared first on AfterTalk ..read more