Tag Archives: grief

Death, Grief and Business—Part Two

I wrote earlier this morning about ways to approach trying to run our home businesses while dealing with grief and death issues, but that is not the only way that death and grief can affect our business. Chances are, at some point or another, we will have a customer, client, colleague, or vendor who is experiencing a terminal illness, or has experienced the death of a loved one and is working through the stages and grief. It takes caring, sensitivity and compassion on our part and those don’t always seem to be words and emotions one thinks of when one … Continue reading →

Death, Grief, and Business—Part One

If it can be downright impossible to keep business and a personal life separate when we are running our own home business, we have to accept that human realities will find their way into our business relationships and operations. This means that there will be times when our business is affected by grief and death. In this two-part article, I want to talk about how we can work and be dealing with our own grief issues AND what to do when customers, clients, vendors, etc. are dealing with death and grief issues… Years ago, I had a consulting business with … Continue reading →

When a Best Friend Moves

We live in a mobile society. It is rather rare for a child to be born and grow up in the same house in the same neighborhood. This means that one of the realities our children often face is either when they have to move away from friends, or when one of their best friends moves away from them. Either way, it can be a very sad, mournful time and parents need to be attentive to help a child grieve and adjust. It is helpful if you child can know in advance that a friend is moving. While this may … Continue reading →

Deal With Your Own Feelings First

If you have ever traveled on an airplane, you know that you are told that should an emergency arise, you should put on your own oxygen mask first, before attending to your child. For many of us parents, this seems counter-intuitive. Aren’t we trained and conditioned to meet our child’s needs first and then look after our own? The point, of course, it that unless we are healthy and stable, we will not be able to look after our child’s needs. When a major crisis, event or difficult time occurs in a family, a parent needs to figure out and … Continue reading →

Working to Heal Old Wounds

Separation, divorce, and single parenting are just some of the ways that our families can experience pain and suffering—other changes like death, illness, a move, etc. can all be ordinary life situations that bring about grief and pain. While we may think we do a pretty decent job of dealing with them at the time, it is quite common for old wounds to come up again and again—especially for our children. There may be things that they are not developmentally able to cope with at the time that resurface and need to be healed at a later date. As single … Continue reading →

Processing Tragic News as a Family

Newspapers, radio and television–as much as we parents try to control what sort of news and information gets to our children, it eventually becomes necessary for us to process tragic news–a fatal accident, a community tragedy, or the death of someone in our close circle are just some of the hard realities that we may need to cope with within our families. Being available for our children, and helping them to understand and process the inconceivable can be a huge parental challenge. There have been times over the years when I haven’t even known that my children were wrestling with … Continue reading →

The Healer of a Broken Heart

Posted on by

“Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I am weak; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled; but You, O LORD—how long? … I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears… For the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping. The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer.” (Psalm 6: 2-3, 6, 8-9) Have you ever found yourself feeling like David has in the Psalms? I sure have. Unfortunately, during our times of brokenness we may be reluctant to take the … Continue reading →

Speaking Ill of the Dead

Posted on by

When I wrote my two recent blogs on suicide expressing my sadness that there are people who still believe that those who commit suicide are selfish, I waited for more of the same. I did not have to wait long. It was initially heartwarming to see that there were two very intelligent and compassionate comments on the dilemma of suicide. You can read them here. Unfortunately, the next comment on this blog reiterates the ignorance surrounding the issue of suicide. This is what this person wrote, and I quote: I do think it’s selfish. People don’t commit suicide because the … Continue reading →

Suicide: My Thoughts on One Case

Posted on by

In Suicide: What Do You Think about It? I talked about the varied reactions of people to the phenomenon of suicide. Today I want to talk about a recent example of a typical reaction to suicide, one that I experienced just prior to Christmas, that season of love, family, and pronounced spikes in the annual rate of suicide. The woman in question who took her own life left no note, so the family had no concrete explanation for why she decided to take her own life. Naturally they were upset. I did not know the woman involved but I knew … Continue reading →

Suicide: What Do You Think about It?

Posted on by

Since we have just passed through Christmas, the highest suicide period of the year, I thought it was time to address this taboo, yet all-too-common, topic. What do you think about people who commit suicide? This is an interesting question and one that produces a variety of responses. Some people go through their entire lives untouched by the specter of suicide; others have been exposed to it through the deaths of friends or family members. Others still have attempted suicide and have lived to tell the tale. And then there are those who think about it, yet do not take … Continue reading →