“Signs” of Respect, by Dr. Monica Williams-Murphy
A “Sign” is defined as an object, quality or event whose presence indicates the probable presence of something else. One day after having read, “Attending the Dying” by my friend Megory Anderson, I...
View Article“Teach us to number our days” that we may discover what matters most, by...
Advance planning is ultimately a spiritual practice. It requires that we face ourselves. It requires that we “number” our days. It is precisely when we number our days, that we may suddenly discover...
View ArticleStanding Not Alone: Notes on Grief by Rea L. Ginsberg, LCSW-C, ACSW, BCD
“The Bereavement,” marble, 2010 Grief is a synonym for intense psychic pain. It is seldom invited and never welcomed. Death is not a gentle teacher. Everyone loses someone they love, and everyone dies...
View ArticleSeeing Death in Nature: Preparing Children for Loss, by Monica...
“The most significant variable of a relatively uncomplicated bereavement period or a prolonged and tragic mourning depends to a great deal on the relationship the child and the parent had, on the old...
View ArticleOne Washcloth: a Tool for Change
Over the past century our society has become distant from both death and the tending to our dead. According to Gary Laderman’s book Rest in Peace: a Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Industry...
View ArticleGrief: Loose Ends by Rea L. Ginsberg, LCSW-C, ACSW, BCD
Change is part of the texture of life itself, But it is often hard to bear — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Everyone grieves in a different way. No way is the right way. No way is the wrong way. No one...
View ArticleNot excited about advance care planning? Here are 8 unorthodox reasons you...
By now you’ve surely heard that Medicare is going to pay doctors and other qualified healthcare providers for advance care planning with patients in 2016. Aren’t you excited?!? Ok, so if you are not...
View ArticleThe ? of “Suffering” by Monica Williams-Murphy, MD
“Oh God!” she groaned, looking upward with tears flooding her cheeks, which were stretched into the shape of agony. Her chest heaved uncontrollably with grief. “I am so very sorry,” I whispered again...
View ArticleFEAR AND THE BEREAVED CAREGIVER by Rea L. Ginsberg, LCSW-C, ACSW, BCD
To ask is to believe that somewhere there is an answer. ~~ Jonathan H. Sacks, PhD Fear of dying is an existential experience for everyone. It is a common denominator in the human condition. All of us...
View ArticleGrief and the Disappearing Self: An Additional Note on Loss in Children, by...
Becoming what might have been Bewildered Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine. ~~ Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Dissertations (1665) An ancestral insight: We Need Others...
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