Category: Grief

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Students run hotline for grieving pet owners

By WCVB staff

Grieving the loss of a pet? You may be surprised to learn there’s a nationwide hotline that could help.

It’s offered by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

For the last 25 years, the school has been offering a free service for anyone in the country that many have never heard of.

“People sometimes are really at loss to even function, not going to work. They’re tearful all the time, and they’re reaching out for help,” said Eric Richman, a clinical social worker at Tufts.

The hotline is run by students who make it clear they are not trained therapist or counselors. They are looking to practice communication skills and learn about the empathy it takes to be a vet, like fourth-year student Meghan Hanlon.

“I’ve taken calls from people and had people that I’ve talked to multiple times,” Hanlon said.

Richman said they deal a lot with children who’ve lost an animal.

“It’s usually their first experience with loss and death, and if handled correctly it can be really powerful, positive one for them,” he said.

While most of the calls are for dogs and cats, the students hear about all types of animals and those calls have doubled since the pandemic.

“Because of COVID they were even more isolated, and their pet provided that sense of security and connection,” Richman said.

The hotline usually operates during the school year Monday through Friday from 6-9 p.m.

Some pet owners may be uncomfortable admitting to friends and family how much the loss of their companion affects them, but the students at Tufts want everyone to know they’re here to listen.

“You never always know the right thing to say, but people are always so glad to have someone listen to them,” Hanlon said. “And I think that the most important thing is letting them talk and work through grief that they’re dealing with.”

The pet loss support hotline number is 508-839-7966.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to support children through grief and bereavement

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When it comes to casual conversation, death understandably very rarely comes up as a subject that we jump at the chance of openly discussing.

Yet, it appears the coronavirus pandemic has made us all more aware of our own mortality and the mortality of those around us. Research by Dying Matters, a campaign group working to create an open culture around death and dying, found that nearly a quarter of UK adults (24%) say that the pandemic has made them more likely to have casual conversations with family and friends about preferences around their death.

While adults are potentially seeing the pandemic as a way to be more open about death, be that from coronavirus or other illnesses, one group is continually overlooked: children. Figures from Child Bereavement UK show that a child loses a parent every 22 minutes in the UK, equating to around 111 children being bereaved of a parent every single day.

During the pandemic and beyond, children have not just lost parents; they are also having to deal with grandparents, family friends, teachers and even siblings dying. Campaign groups and charities are working to help identify bereaved children and offer them the support they need, whether the bereavement is due to coronavirus or any other type of illness or injury. It’s now becoming apparent that we need a shift in public discourse, education systems and possibly even legislation in order to help bereaved children feel acknowledged and safe.

The current situation

The Childhood Bereavement Network analyses data from sources like the Office for National Statistics and uses its own research to estimate that 1 in 29 five to 16-year-olds has been bereaved of a parent or sibling – equating to a child in every average school class. “Unfortunately, there are no official figures on how many children are bereaved of a parent,” says Di Stubbs, a bereavement practitioner for charity Winston’s Wish. “A study has shown that 78% of children in the UK say they have experienced a ‘significant bereavement,’ showing that our children are very aware and affected by the mortality of those around them.”

Charities like Winston’s Wish were seeing many children before the pandemic to help support them through bereavements, alongside working with adults who know bereaved children to offer advice on how to best help young people during periods of grief. While children were facing countless bereavements before coronavirus, the pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated the situation. “COVID emphasised our natural assumptions,” says Di. “The children we work with fall into many different groups. We are dealing with children who have been bereaved due to coronavirus. We are also dealing with children who have experienced a loved one die due to other reasons over lockdown, as the same amount of people are still dying from health conditions like heart attacks and strokes.”

There’s also another group of children that is now finding grief to be an issue. “Children who were bereaved before the pandemic are now finding that the current situation has really highlighted these intense emotions,” explains Di. “Suddenly, everyone is talking about death and bereavement all the time. Even for children who are not grieving, many have been quite suddenly exposed to the fragility of life and are having to respond to a new world.”

children bereavement

Navigating a new world

Coronavirus, and the lockdowns implemented to curb the spread of the disease, have caused confusion for many children around dying. “All of the rituals surrounding death, like funerals, were suddenly not there anymore,” says Di Stubbs. “We saw extremely sad situations, like shielding grandparents trying to comfort children over the death of a parent, whose only option was to do this through a window as no contact was allowed.”

Roseleen Cowie, regional lead at charity Child Bereavement UK, echoes this sentiment. “The effects of the pandemic have caused further pain for children going through a bereavement,” she says. “Without the usual rituals, children cannot say goodbye when someone dies, which has added to the difficulty. This is superimposed on the grieving, resulting in an additional loss and some people expressing their grief more deeply than may have been expected.”

Shelley Gilbert MBE, founder of specialist bereavement service Grief Encounter, stresses the importance of supporting bereaved people during and after the pandemic. “COVID has stolen things away from most of us, some bigger than others,” she says. “If someone special dies for young people, they are gone forever, and we need to think about how we support children throughout this period.”

Understanding children’s grief

Children grieve in a similar way to adults, but with some noticeable differences. According to the experts, ‘puddle jumping’ is to be expected. “Puddle jumping is the process by which children move in and out of their grief,” explains Roseleen Cowie. “A child may be very upset one moment and perfectly alright the next. Being aware of that is really helpful for people, especially in schools, as you can then appreciate that this is the way that children grieve.”

Puddle jumping tends to be different to how adults experience dealing with grief. “Adults tend to wade through grief, but children do this much faster; cycling in and out of grief and oscillating much faster than adults,” Di Stubbs explains. However, in many ways, the features of grief in children and adults are very similar, if not the same. “We can’t expect children to grieve differently to adults,” says Di. “All that anyone can do when they are bereaved is experience whatever intense emotions they are feeling. Eventually, we all grow around grief, allowing ourselves to experience new adventures and have fun.”

children bereavement

Talking to children about death

Undoubtedly, the consensus from experts is that children need to talk about death. “We recommend people use words like ‘dying,’ ‘dead’ and ‘death’ around children so that they have a clear understanding of what this is, as they won’t understand euphemisms,” explains Roseleen Cowie. Di Stubbs notes that language is particularly important, as phrases like ‘heart attack’ won’t make sense to some children, who may instead become distressed at the thought of a loved one being attacked, rather than understanding this to be a medical term.

Another expert who stresses the importance of using the right language is Nima Patel. A qualified primary school teacher and conscious parenting coach, she began her business, Mindful Champs, to encourage the practice of mindfulness between parents and children. Her latest project, a grief journal for children, encourages them to express themselves in whatever ways they can after a bereavement. “In 2017, my father suddenly died,” Nima discloses. “Seeing people lose loved ones during the pandemic, I wanted to create a toolkit for children and young people that I never had,” she says.

Nima realised the importance of having honest and open dialogues with children around death by using language that they can understand. “Children will have so many questions around death, but adults often don’t know how to answer these,” she explains. “My aim is to help children develop language to express themselves, and encourage adults and children to voice their feelings. If emotions aren’t spoken about in the home on a daily basis, a lot of children don’t have the language needed for emotional events, like a bereavement.”

Many children may find they need professional support when they are bereaved, and adults and schools are able to refer children to charities like Child Bereavement UK, Grief Encounter and Winston’s Wish or to NHS services. The way in these organisations can support grieving children or adults who are concerned about bereaved children can take a multitude of forms, from offering helplines to one-on-one counselling sessions.

If you know a bereaved child, in addition to talking to them about their grief and emotions, another good way to help them express grief is through creativity. “Sometimes words are not enough to express our grief and this is where creativity comes in,” explains Shelley Gilbert MBE. “Being bereaved often means you haven’t the words to describe what you’re thinking or feeling. Old words have no meaning or take on new meanings and you’re learning words you’ve never heard before. Following the loss of someone special, we need a new language of grief.”

Creativity can come in many forms when expressing grief. Winston’s Wish encourages children to make memory jars or emotional first-aid kits, while there are also resources out there made specifically for grieving children, like Nima Patel’s Mindful Champs Grieving Journal. “We encourage activities like memory jars, flower releasing ceremonies and memorial trees in the journal to help children express their grief however they wish, be that verbal or non-verbal,” says Nima. Di Stubbs also recommends that books can be a great resource for children, including I Miss You: A First Look at Death and Goodbye Mousie to explain death to young children and Straight Talk about Death for Teenagers: How to Cope with Losing Someone You Love for teenagers. A further reading list is available at Winston’s Wish.

children bereavement

Assisting children with learning disabilities

For any child, dealing with grief can be tough, frightening and confusing. For children with learning disabilities, who may have acute difficulties expressing themselves, this can be a particularly hard time, especially during the pandemic. “We can’t emphasise enough the huge impact that the pandemic has had on children with learning disabilities,” says Tracey Hartley-Smith, a learning disability nurse and clinical lead at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. “Coronavirus has impacted children’s opportunities for developing their social and communication skills hugely. We’ve seen through our work and heard from parents, carers and colleagues that children with learning disabilities have experienced heightened anxiety during this time.”

Tracey and her colleague, Dr. Jacqui Wood, a clinical psychologist at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, have continued working with children with learning disabilities throughout the pandemic, including supporting them through grief and bereavement. “We encourage everyone interacting with a bereaved child to use the same, simple phrases when talking about death, as repetition is so important for consistency,” says Jacqui. “Visual aids, such as pictures or symbols, can often be helpful for sharing information with non-verbal young people, and helping them to express themselves,” she explains. Tracey adds that, as well as using the right language, “children with learning disabilities need to feel safe and loved, in whatever type of communication they use for this reassurance.”

Jacqui has recently published a guide specifically tailored for parents or carers of children with learning disabilities, which is accessible here. “Keep routines and boundaries, as they help establish predictability and security for children,” she advises. “Try to find opportunities to involve children in arrangements like funerals, to help develop their understanding of what has happened. Children with learning disabilities may also benefit from multi-sensory memory items, such as a piece of clothing from their loved one to touch and smell. This can help them learn to manage their expectations over time, so they adapt to remembering their loved one rather than physically seeing them,” she explains.

Jacqui also advises encouraging emotional regulation activities, be these for fun or relaxation. “Help children have fun during this difficult period by encouraging movement, whether that’s running around in the park or splashing about in the bath,” she says. “For calming sensory experiences, try dimming the lighting in your home, making a den to establish ‘quiet time’ or just comforting your child with regular hugs.”

children bereavement

Acknowledging and making memories

Above all, acknowledging that a child or teenager is grieving is incredibly important. Research by Dying Matters shows that 72% of those bereaved in the last five years would rather friends and colleagues said the wrong thing than nothing at all, and 62% say that being happy to listen was one of the top three most useful things someone did after they were bereaved.

“Above all, we should remember that love never dies,” says Shelley Gilbert MBE. “Lots of our work focuses on remembrance in difference ways, including remembering our loved ones as they were in the past and thinking about them in the present and future. When we make new memories, it can help to remember that our dead loved ones are with us in some way.”

When adults grieve, there is trauma and then a long road to acceptance. And, we should not assume that children and teenagers are any different. As Roseleen Cowie says: “When helping bereaved families, our ethos is that grief is a normal part of life: you can’t get over it or make it better, but you can learn to live with it.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Planning Death Has Gone Digital

— Inside the Apps That Prepare You for Loss

Since the start of the pandemic, more people are downloading apps that help users process grief.

By

Lucy Clay, 26, was at work when her phone buzzed with a message from her mother. Her dad was seriously ill, and doctors had raised the possibility of discontinuing treatment. Lucy was thrown into a cycle of anticipatory grief – and she turned to technology to help her with the waves of anxiety that she was experiencing, and to prepare herself for the next stage of her father’s palliative care. 

“It’s been incredibly comforting to know that there is a resource that you can access anytime you need it, day or night,” she told Observer. “When things are really bad, I can’t bear the thought of having to explain what is happening. There’s no substitute for having a human sit with you in the horror, but sometimes the silence of technology is a welcome alternative to the well-intentioned friend.”

For Lucy, who is herself a funeral director, the idea of death is a part of everyday life. Yet her career could never prepare her for the reality of caring for a terminally ill parent. After all, losing a loved one is an overwhelming experience. Family members and friends are often expected to deal with the vast administrative burdens that come with death at a time when they desperately need to grieve. And although death eventually comes for all of us, a surprising number of people have no real plan in place for when the end of their life approaches. Data suggests that although 90% of Americans think that talking to their loved ones about end-of-life logistics is important, only 27% have actually done so.

Enter the end-of-life industry. Over the last few years a plethora of apps and services, like those used by Lucy, have sprung up that promise to ease the process of planning for death. Whether it’s noting what healthcare that you’d like to receive, recording memories so that a curated legacy is left behind, or uploading important documents, there are plenty of options on offer. Some target a specific aspect of the death planning process, such as Safe Beyond, which allows users to record messages for the people that they leave behind to access after they pass. Others, such as leading end-of-life planning app Cake, offer a more rounded approach, guiding individuals through everything from writing a will to planning an eco-friendly funeral.   

Lucy now uses a range of apps that provide solace in an incredibly difficult time and help her to understand how best to manage a parent’s end-of-life journey. For her, the timing of technology’s increasing popularity when it comes to grief and end-of-life care was crucial. She describes the experience of looking after an extremely sick parent as feeling forgotten about – services and contact with care teams was limited due to COVID restrictions, and she found herself finding comfort, information and community in digital spaces instead. It’s a pattern that’s been seen across the industry, as online apps and services have seen a boost in their subscriber base over the course of the pandemic.

Liz Eddy launched end-of-life planning app Lantern in 2019 after struggling with the death of several family members. Months later the pandemic hit, and Eddy found that the app was flooded with users, an increase of 450% within two months. 

“It was bizarre timing,” she says. “Obviously, we had absolutely no idea that the pandemic was coming, but within a month of launch we were starting to hear about COVID.”

What surprised Eddy the most about her inflated user base was that most new sign-ups weren’t people approaching the end of their life, or even at an age when individuals usually start to consider making plans for their death (only around 14% of Americans under the age of 30 currently have a will). In fact, the Lantern team found that the majority of new members were between the age of 25-45, a much more significant proportion of their user base than they had seen pre-pandemic.

“People are aware of their mortality and the need for pre-planning, but very few people actually do it,” she explains. “Something like COVID gives people an immediate reason… it’s a reminder of how unpredictable life can be.”

Someone who is finely attuned to how important technology can be when life takes an unpredictable turn is David Kessler. David lost his twenty-one-year-old son suddenly several years ago and found himself embroiled in a logistical nightmare when trying to close his late son’s bank account. He discovered Empathy, an app that claims to streamline end-of-life bureaucracy and promises to automate some of the more complicated aspects of the post-death process. David, who now works as a grief expert, was so impressed by how technology could reconfigure end-of-life planning and processing that he ended up joining the Empathy team, where he now works as the Chief Empathy Officer.

“There’s no denying that COVID has made grief a more prevalent topic,” he says. “Loss has no demographic. It affects everyone at some point in their life… technology can’t promise to take the pain away, but it can hold your hand through the process whilst also offering guidance in the often unknown terrain of grief.”

In a world where much of our lives take place online, it seems only natural that death should find its own digital niche. The pandemic has boosted an already burgeoning industry, causing younger generations to reflect deeply on what they want to leave behind. Mark Taubert, a palliative care doctor who has been working throughout the pandemic told us how apps can prompt his patients to think about preferred places of death or make their wishes known ready for when they are too unwell to communicate. He describes the relationship between technology and end-of-life care as deeply complex, acknowledging that the way that we manage grief is influenced by the people around us, society, and our own experiences – and that the pandemic has been crucial in prompting us to consider how technology might play a part in both life and death.

“Technology can nudge us into asking the right questions about what we’d want towards the end-of-life, but it can’t help us answer those essential questions,” he says. “There are sites, videos, and apps that talk very openly about choices we might face at the end of our lives, and it seems like these are prompting people to take control and actually tell their clinicians what they would and wouldn’t want. I hope that technology pushes us further into that openness and peer-supported patient empowerment.”

For Lucy, who is now living with her parents so that she can play a more active role in her dad’s care, the support of her colleagues and family has been crucial, but she says that without technology she would have felt “a whole lot more lost”.

“Technology and apps help me sit in the waves of anxiety that come with knowing that someone you care about is suffering,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like I’d do anything just for some rest from the distress. In a time when most of my usual relaxation and distractions techniques have failed me, technology has helped me to find solace.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Falling in Love While Navigating Grief

Caitlin Fitzmaurice and Richard Thompson met a few months after Ms. Fitzmaurice’s mother died. Their relationship soon became a reminder that joy can be found amid sorrow.

By Emma Grillo

During their first date, at a gallery in Manhattan in November 2019, Caitlin Wynne Fitzmaurice and Richard Lathen Thompson broached the topic of grief. They had matched on the dating app Hinge a week earlier and at the gallery, Ms. Fitzmaurice mentioned that she was from California. When Mr. Thompson asked if she went back often, she answered honestly — her mother had died from cancer eight weeks earlier, and she had spent the three years before her death going back and forth between New York and California in order to spend time with her.

Ms. Fitzmaurice wasn’t sure how Mr. Thompson would react, and was surprised when he told her that he had lost his father to cancer. He shared how hard it was for him when his father died, and how sorry he was for her loss.

“He didn’t nod away from it,” Ms. Fitzmaurice, 35, said. “Right away I appreciated that he didn’t change the subject.”

Mr. Thompson, 37, suggested that they continue their date at a restaurant nearby, and over tapas they learned how much they had in common. They both studied French in college and taught English abroad after graduation.

“Pretty early on I was like, Oh, wow, this guy is definitely someone I want to see again,” Ms. Fitzmaurice said.

The next night they both left work early to meet up for drinks in Greenwich Village, and kept in touch when Ms. Fitzmaurice went back to California for a week to spend Thanksgiving with her family. When she returned, Mr. Thompson helped her carry a Christmas tree up to her apartment. A month later, he helped her carry it down to the curb, much to the chagrin of her superintendent, who was not impressed with the amount of dead pine needles they tracked through the lobby.

“The pine needles exploded over everything,” Mr. Thompson said. He helped Ms. Fitzmaurice clean up the elevator and lobby, which only confirmed her suspicion that he was “a good guy.”

In January 2020, Ms. Fitzmaurice was planning to return to California to attend a memorial ceremony for her mother. Even though they had only been dating for about two months, she asked Mr. Thompson to come to the service with her.

“Having gone through this process of grieving with my own father, I just knew that it was really helpful to have the support of someone close to you through this process,” Mr. Thompson said. “Whether or not we were gonna be life partners or just friends, I knew I wanted to be there for her for this difficult moment. It was a huge step, and I’m really glad I did.”

The service was a bonding experience for the couple, and their budding relationship was a welcome source of hope for Ms. Fitzmaurice’s friends and family.

“Nothing would have made my mom happier than for me to have a partner at the service,” Ms. Fitzmaurice said. “To have him at the service was a really hopeful thought for our family and friends, to see that life continues on, and there can be a lot of joy along with sorrow.”

After the ceremony, the couple returned to New York and planned a ski vacation in Salt Lake City in early March 2020, but just as they arrived, ski resorts began to shut down because of the coronavirus. Mr. Thompson suggested they spend a few weeks with his family in Kansas City before returning to New York. Weeks turned into months, and the couple relished the time they got to spend living with Mr. Thompson’s family in his childhood home.

Ms. Fitzmaurice, who is the senior director of culture for ViacomCBS in New York, moved back to New York in August, where she is currently pursing an M.B.A. at Columbia. Mr. Thompson, who is a senior associate for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, returned in September, and moved into Ms. Fitzmaurice’s apartment a few weeks later. In November 2020 he proposed to Ms. Fitzmaurice in front of a socially distanced group of friends and a live jazz band in Central Park.

“She makes me feel really fulfilled through her vulnerability and affection,” Mr. Thompson said about Ms. Fitzmaurice, who plans to take Mr. Thompson’s last name. “She’s got a lot of grace and optimism that I really cherish.”

The couple were married on May 27 at Hamel Family Wines, a winery in Sonoma, Calif., before 12 family members. Dr. Erin Rhae Biller, a minister with the Universal Life Church, a naturopathic doctor and a friend of the family who cared for Ms. Fitzmaurice’s mother when she died, officiated.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Medicalizing My Grief

by

A classmate of mine committed suicide a few weeks ago. Though I’ve heard the harrowing statistics about physician and trainee suicide rates, to be honest, I never expected to personally encounter such a tragedy. The small classes at my medical school allow for a strong sense of community in which we all know each other, celebrate important life milestones, and happily reconnect when we’re together after clinical rotations scatter us throughout the hospital.

In some ways, I can’t help but wonder if the inevitable dispersion during rotations played a role in his distress. We spend much of our preclinical time leaning on our classmates as we collectively attempt to master the intricacies of medicine; oftentimes, they are the first to offer words of encouragement after exams don’t go our way, kindly explain concepts that weren’t clear the first time around, or simply provide companionship over an afternoon cup of coffee. However, during rotations, the medical school experience becomes much more isolating — joining teams often as the lone medical student, left to your own devices to navigate not only clinical challenges, but also the awkward and complicated hierarchies universally found in medical training. When considering the additional isolation that comes with social distancing due to the current pandemic, I can only begin to imagine the suffering my classmate must have been experiencing.

In the weeks since his passing, I’ve found it challenging to grieve. No tears have been shed, nor have I been able to reminisce over the warm memories of his kindness and joviality as we tackled cadaver dissection together. Instead, I’ve found myself wondering about the medical minutiae of his “case” — a word that, despite its omnipresence in our medical lexicon, takes on a cold, reductionist tone as it attempts to distill the life of a friend down to a history of present illness, physical exam, set of lab values, and assessment and plan. How long did it take for someone to find him? Was recovery even a possibility? Were his organs eligible for donation? Did his care team know he was one of their own?

When my thoughts of medicine abate, I’m left with more troubling questions about myself. Why can’t I ignore the medicine and simply grieve his loss? Has my ability to grieve morphed into a numb, medicalized replacement? Is this how I’ll “grieve” the losses of my family or other friends too?

In retrospect, these feelings shouldn’t come as a surprise. In medicine, we’re unconsciously taught to medicalize losses of all kinds as we care for patients. In the trauma bay, for example, I observed “a traumatic aortic injury with unsuccessful repair,” as opposed to a tragic car accident leaving behind a young widow with small children. The octogenarian I met on hospital service was no longer known as the life of the party at Bridge Club; instead, she was the frail elderly woman admitted for a change in mental status who would require skilled nursing placement at discharge and would have to miss her granddaughter’s birthday party. The disheveled gentleman I met in the acute care psychiatric unit wasn’t seen as the neighbor who shoveled snow off everyone else’s driveway, but rather the man with decompensated schizophrenia admitted under civil commitment for stabilization and medication optimization. In none of these instances was the impact of loss a component of the conversation; instead, we focused on the medicine.

To be clear, it is necessary that we view our patients through the lens of medicine; it is our job to address the medical issues that bring them to our doorsteps. However, when we overly medicalize our patients as they experience loss, we create an unnecessary distance, shielding ourselves from some of their grief. Based on my experience, I suspect we suffer from that distance as much as they do. I personally felt out of touch with grief because despite the losses occurring around me throughout my rotations, we seldom took time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Grief is a normal human emotion, so why are we trying so hard to avoid it? What might hospital rounds or office visits look like if we took the time to discuss the losses our patients experience, not just with them but with each other too? How might that change the learning environment, or, more importantly, patient care?

Perhaps my feelings — or lack thereof — are simply a product of my training level that will fade as I become more comfortable with my clinical skills. Instead of worrying about interpreting lab data or performing physical exam maneuvers correctly, I hope someday to work through the medical aspects of care more efficiently, allowing me more time to sit with my patients, experience the weight of their sadness, walk through the pros and cons of difficult choices with them, and extend my condolences to loved ones. In the meantime, I can challenge myself to bring to light the grief experienced by the patients we encounter on rounds or in our outpatient clinics and encourage my peers and preceptors to pause in reverence of this emotion.

I hope as I encounter future losses, my fears about medicalizing grief are never realized, but I suspect that if I continue to acknowledge the presence of grief around me, I can safeguard myself from future hard-heartedness. I hope the same for others too.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Love, loss and pandemic puppies

Stephan Pastis’s tribute to his dog, Edee.

By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp

My daughter got Bella at her dad’s house shortly after the divorce. My ex even called the sweet yellow lab “the divorce dog.” Visits with dad also meant time with Bella, which was great when my daughter was 8 years old, but the teen years brought work, band practice and a social life. Visitation with dad became more sporadic. Then, my ex asked if we would dog sit. Bella was a senior dog by then, and we were all smitten. We asked if we could just keep her. He said yes.

Bella and I bonded in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I worked from home, and she was my constant companion. My daughter grew up and moved to an apartment of her own, but Bella stayed with me.

COVID-19 brought with it a puppy boom as people sought comfort and companionship during quarantine and isolation — but for me, Bella was there. We took walks in the woods and played in the yard with my son. Our circle got smaller as the pandemic began to rage. Schools closed, my husband was furloughed, and then, just as everything shut down, we had to say goodbye to Bella. That stacking of hardships is known as collective — or cumulative — grief, and I wasn’t sure I could take it.

One day in April, I woke up to find that Bella couldn’t even raise her head from her bed. Something was seriously wrong. I debated on rushing her to an emergency veterinarian but knew, due to COVID, I would have to watch her disappear into the building and not return. I knew this was her end. I made her comfortable and placed a video call to my daughter so she could say her goodbyes.

Every time we welcome a pet into our lives, we also welcome the inevitable heartbreak. We know how it ends, and yet we still open our homes and our hearts to four-footed companions.

Bella died at home in her bed while I sang her lullabies.

Anticipatory grief is the price we pay for unconditional love. Pets have seen us at our worst and our most embarrassing. They bear witness to everything in our lives without judgment. “That’s unprecedented emotional intimacy,” says Rachael Nolan Ph.D., MPH, CPH, public health educator and grief recovery specialist. Sure, pets can be moody sometimes (I’m looking at you, George the cat) but for the most part, their behavior is pretty predictable, which also provides us a source of stability. Nolan says stability is “one of the most important things in life for humans, particularly in regards to emotions.”

Isolation and quarantine during the pandemic deepened bonds and strengthened connections to our pets. Then, to have to say goodbye … it’s just devastating.

I began applying to adopt senior dogs. I’d fall in love with an online profile, only to be upset when the dog found a home with someone else. Pet adoptions soared last summer, making the high demand and the long wait heart wrenching. On one particular hot mess of a day, I sobbed over another dog I’d never met. I really missed my Bella. Adopting another dog wouldn’t fill that void. I withdrew my application from the local stray adoption program and gave myself time.

Then, one September day, my friend texted me about a litter of puppies needing homes. “I could pick up two and bring you one,” she wrote.

I said yes. She wasn’t an old Labrador like Bella — she was a mutt puppy who licked my face and chased my son while he squealed with delight. We named her Hamilton. I know I’ll have to say goodbye in a few years, but I’m grateful she’s here now, and I’m here for all the belly rubs she can handle.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The mourner’s Kaddish

— A prayer for the living

By Moshe Meirovich

In the words of Ben Sira, the second century B.C.E. Jewish apocryphal sage: “We are all destined to die. We share it with all who have ever lived and all who will ever be.”

This is a fact of life. Yet, with each death we enter a mourning period that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004) has so eloquently described as five stages of grief:

  • Denial;
  • Anger;
  • Bargaining;
  • Depression;
  • Acceptance.

Likewise, rabbinic scholars centuries ago comprehended the need to ‘concretize the abstract’ by embracing the grieving process even while standing at the grave of a loved one.

At the very moment when the heart is broken, Judaism mandates the public recitation of the Kaddish prayer thereby aiding the mourner to begin to move beyond denial by confronting death head-on.

The Kaddish, at this time of emotional upheaval, ever so slowly addresses the grieving process by encouraging the mourner to begin to accept a new reality with the ubiquitous reminder: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and helps those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:19)

In the ancient Aramaic prayer, the Kaddish asserts: “Yitgadal V’yitkadash Shmei Rabbah.” Magnified and sanctified be the great name of God throughout the world created according to the divine will.

These words underscore the words of the prophet Isaiah: “For My plans are not your plans, nor are My ways your ways declares the Lord. But, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways high above your ways and My plans above your plans.” (Isaiah 55: 8-9)

Poignantly, the psalmist reminds us that even though we may not comprehend God’s inscrutable will, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm for Thou art with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Hence, with the recitation of the Kaddish, the mourner publicly declares there is indeed hope and redemption beyond this moment of unbearable pain. Step by step, the Kaddish provides the mourner with a ritual to traverse the stages of grief that will surely follow while embraced by a community of family and friends who provide comfort in the house of Shiva (seven days) where Kaddish will be recited, thereby sustaining the mourners in their quest for healing.

Moreover, in the words of an anonymous author, we discover an additional purpose in reciting Kaddish: “… if there is one thing I beg you to take to heart, it is this: Say Kaddish after me, but not for me. Kaddish is the unique Jewish link that binds the generations of Israel. The grave hears not the Kaddish, but the speaker does, and the words will echo in your heart …” (“Jewish Reflections on Death” by Rabbi Jack Riemer)

Thus, the Kaddish not only connects one generation to another; it also ‘jump-starts’ the grieving process in the midst of a caring and loving community, so that the mourner can again begin to experience a measure of hope, even in moments of despair.

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