Instead of the old kind of New Year’s resolutions we used to make and break, let’s make some this year and really try to keep them.
1.Try not to imagine the future; take one day at a time.
2.Allow yourself time to cry, both alone and with your loved ones.
3.Don’t shut out other family members from your thoughts and feelings. Share these difficult times. You may all become closer for it.
4.Try to be realistic about your expectations of yourself, your spouse, other family members and friends. If each of us is unique and different, how can there be perfect understanding?
5.When a good day comes, relish it. Don’t feel guilty and don’t be discouraged because it doesn’t last. They will come again and multiply.
6.Take care of your health. Even though the mind might not care, a sick body will only compound your troubles. Drink lots of water, take stress-type vitamins, rest (even if you don’t sleep), and get moderate exercise. Help your body to heal as well as your mind.
7.Share your feelings with other compassionate friends and let them share with you. You will find that as you begin caring about the pain of others, you will start to come out of your shell – a very healthy sign.
I know that following these resolutions won’t be easy, but what has been? It is worth a try. There is nothing to lose and perhaps much to gain.
It is the new year. The holidays are behind us. We did with them what we could. Whether they were a time of sorrow, a time of joy, or a combination of both, they are now a part of our memories. In a strange way, as a memory in our hearts and in our minds, our child’s place is there among all the other memories of the season. There is hurt along with the memory, but also a thankfulness for the memory.
Now we look out at the winter landscape. The earth is cold, the land sharply defined. Yet underneath the hard crust, the energy and warmth of our earth is guarding and providing life to all that grows. We may personally know the coldness and hardness of a grief so fresh that we feel numb – a grief so hurtful that our body feels physically hard, our throats tight from tears shed or unshed, our chests banded tightly by our mourning heart.
If we are not now experiencing this, our memories recollect so easily those early days. Yet, as we live these days, like the earth from which we receive our sustenance, we too, in our searchings, find places of warmth and change and love and growth deep within. Let our hearts and minds dwell in these places and be armed and renewed by them, and let us have the courage and love to share them with our loved ones, to talk about even that first dim shape of new hope or of new acceptance or of new understanding or of new love.
These are the new roots, born of our love for our child, that are forming and stirring within, gathering strength so that our lives, at the right time, can blossom once again and be fruitful in a new and deep way.
One of the most enduring traditions of the New Year is the final markdown sales that follow the Thanksgiving to Christmas shopping frenzy. Most of us are familiar with their promises of unbelievable values, unprecedented low prices, and once-a-year opportunities to save. And most of us have been disappointed in what the sales actually delivered.
Some of us bereaved parents and siblings experience this same “is that all there is” disappointment when the New Year begins. We have endured the family holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah, and we may feel that if we can just make it to New Year’s we’ll be all right. But New Year’s eve comes and we’re reminded again of the one who is missing. With the dawn of New Year’s Day, we realize we have not experienced any great relief, no great delivery from pain. We recognize the emptiness of our earlier delusions.
Maybe the best resolution this year is to stop believing that a particular milestone makes everything better, and start believing that only we can “mark down” the pain to a never-to-be-repeated size.
Happy New Year to you all, and best wishes for a great “final markdown.”
Another New Year has slipped into our lives, radically changing some things and leaving other things to evolve naturally. For bereaved parents a new year marks another year on the calendar without their precious children. It is a new year, but not much has changed since the old year. Why is that? Continue Reading »
To the newly bereaved: We wish you patience - patience with
yourselves in the painful weeks, months, even years ahead.
To the bereaved sibling: We wish you and your parents a new
understanding of each other’s needs and the beginnings of good
communication. Continue Reading »
Come and celebrate the life of the precious child in your life that has died far too soon. Join us as we celebrate the international candle lighting ceremony. Our theme this year is “that their light might always shine.”
When: Always the second Sunday in December- December 9th 5:00-6:00p.m.
Where:
Children’s Hospital’s Bradley Lecture Center (Children’s Harbor Building)
1600 Sixth Avenue South | 4th Floor
Across the Street from the Children’s Hospital Emergency Department and Burge King
Free Parking:
Will be available in the Park Place Parking Deck off of 16th Street South between Fourth and Fifth Avenues South (This is 1 block from the Bradley Lecture Center so arrive early) Push the Call Button for access to the Deck.
Question? Call (205) 251-3430
NOTE: We are requiring all families that wish for their children’s pictures to be included for the 2008 National Children’s Memorial Day complete a Blue Form that will be on the chairs at this year’s event. This will ensure that we have appropriate permission to use any pictures that we have, while being sensitive to those not wishing their child’s picture to continue to be included. We will also be capturing contact information so that we can notify you of this change and the event details throughout the year. Mark your calendar for December 14, 2008.
As a United Way of Central Alabama Partner Agency, we would encourage you to support the 2007 Campaign. We receive $80,000+ of our funding from the United Way of Central Alabama and can testify to the life-changing nature of the work they do in our community.
Here is the 2007 United Way of Central Alabama Campaign Video, which features Karen Hauer, a client of The Amelia Center.
A very difficult area of functioning is coming to grips with the knowledge that there is absolutely no way of getting around holidays, despite your best efforts to avoid them.And they are horrendous times for many years.Their pain cannot be minimized.But they still must be faced.Continue Reading »
