death

12 Things I Learned About Love When My Husband Died on Valentine’s Day

Posted: February 13, 2020

To listen to an audio reading of this post, click here or go to bit.ly/12ThingsAudio Heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way. — David Whyte My husband Marty was a healthy 39-year-old runner who developed a sudden illness just after our baby’s first Christmas. A virus ate his heart muscle and sent him to the hospital with shortness of breath on New Year’s Day of 1992. The ugly virus caused massive heart failure a week […]

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Want to Support Your Grieving Friend? 5 Truths About What REALLY Helps

Posted: February 12, 2020

We who grieve are exiled in our society. Exiled by the turning away of a face so that they do not witness my agony. Exiled by the silence left as friends and family drift away. Exiled by the lack of recognition of this universal experience. Soon enough we sit in solitary confinement feeling as if no one else has ever felt what we feel. — Stephanie Ericsson My husband, Marty, died of a sudden illness at age 39. A virus disguised itself as a cardiac cell and lured his white blood cells into feeding on his own heart, cell by cell, […]

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Resilience: A New Grief Myth That Can Hurt You

Posted: February 12, 2020

The antidote to despair is not to be found in the brave attempt to cheer ourselves up with happy abstracts, but in paying profound and courageous attention to the body and the breath. … To see and experience despair fully in our body is to begin to see it as a necessary, seasonal visitation and the first step in letting it have its own life, neither holding it nor moving it on before its time.— David Whyte, Consolations I had a hard time sleeping last week. I jolted awake with my heart pounding two or three times every night. Lying with eyes wide open in the dark, […]

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