The holidays are usually a time for remembering—remembering your childhood and the excitement you felt during the holidays, remembering favorite traditions like baking cookies, or remembering little gestures of kindness from others that made past holidays special. Many of us look forward to the holidays as a time to gather family and loved ones together [...]
After a loss, family members often deal with their grief in different ways. Grief can draw families closer together. Sometimes, it can pull them apart. No one can adequately prepare you to handle your grief, let alone a spouse's or a child's grief. Learning about grief and how it affects your family can help you [...]
There are many things you can do to assist a bereaved person. These include: Sending cards or flowers Preparing food Providing child care Mowing the lawn Contributing to a cause which is meaningful to the family Offering transportation You may also consider the following when providing for the bereaved: Be available. Sometimes, grieving persons do [...]
You expect to grieve when a loved one dies, but grief also can occur following a divorce, a move from a beloved family home, being downsized from your job or any other loss that makes a major impact on the quality of your life and happiness. Whatever the nature of your loss, active grieving can [...]
The death of a loved one is difficult for anyone. But for children, such a loss can be devastating. Many parents wait until a death occurs to work with their children on dealing with the idea of death. But that can be especially difficult if the parents are dealing with grief themselves. Taking time to [...]
Grief is a natural human response to the loss of a loved one. It can manifest itself in many ways. Grief moves in and out of stages from disbelief and denial, to anger and guilt, to finding a source of comfort, to eventually adjusting to the loss. It is normal for both the dying person [...]
A living will tells others how you want to be treated when it comes to life-sustaining measures. It is used when a person becomes terminally ill or unable to communicate or make decisions, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) says. Such a will doesn't always tell doctors to withhold or end treatment. In fact, it can [...]
Our co-workers are very much like an extended family. We spend most of our waking hours with them, forging special bonds of trust and friendship that are unlike our other relationships. As a result, it's not surprising that a co-worker's death can be difficult to deal with—especially if you were close to the person or [...]
When tragedy strikes with the death of a loved one, a serious illness or a job loss, some people fall apart, while others adapt to such life-changing events more easily. Being resilient is what makes the difference. "Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy or significant stress—it means [...]