Life Challenges

Looking for an online source of articles, resources, interviews and inspiration as you walk your own path of healing from loss, grief or transition?

I stumbled across Life Challenges: CyberCenter for Living Creatively with Life's Challenges last week, and found a gold mine. A non-profit resource center originated to offer people inspiration, support and hope while they face challenges, crises, change, unexpected events, obstacles and turning points in their lives, the goal of Life Challenges is to provide a nurturing environment to assist during transformational times. Their welcome continues:

Maybe you're feeling lonely, sad or frustrated. Maybe you simply need a new perspective. Maybe you can't talk to a friend, family member or a counselor because it's 3 a.m. Maybe you just don't know what to say or don't feel like talking to anyone, but you still need some help.

Life Challenges is here for you. Our emphasis is on using challenges as opportunities for growth and transformation in healing our minds and bodies. We are a virtual voice that reminds you that you're never really alone, an oasis in the desert that shows you that others have not only survived, but have risen above and beyond a particular challenge in order to find value which benefits their lives and which they can pass on to others.

There are articles, tools, resources and stories to assist, inspire and promote healing and change - the deeper I dug, the more I found.

So, check out Life Challenges.

What tools, resources or stories have you found useful on your journey from loss to healing?

Follow your heart

A friend called last night to tell me his father had died. This friend and I go back a long ways - more than 20 years - and while he lives more than a thousand miles away from me, we try to keep in touch at least few times a year.

But I hadn't heard from him much this year. I've been busy with my own life, so I'm behind in my connections with most of my friends these days. But as soon as I heard his voice on the line, I knew something was up.

It wasn't a surprise to learn of his father's death - he's been in a slow decline for a while - but it's still a major event. Today is the funeral, and my friend was deliberating whether to give a eulogy or not.

His Dad was an incredibly brilliant and accomplished person, completely devoted to his life's work. And while my friend loved his Dad, the relationship was complicated. My friend felt as though he should say something, but was struggling for the right words. Still, although he doesn't relish public speaking, he didn't want to regret not saying something at his Dad's funeral.

My advice to him was to follow his heart. My friend knows he was wonderful and dedicated son to his father, helping him navigate through the last difficult year of his life. He can choose how and when he wants to honor his memories - good and difficult - of his father. There is nothing written that says he must grieve or mourn or eulogize publicly if that isn't his preference.

I don't know what he ultimately decided to do - eulogy or not - but I do hope he is listening to his own heart today.

Mom's cancer

It's due for publication next month, but I can't wait to read "Mom's Cancer".

I know - doesn't sound like the uplifting read, does it?

When his Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, Brian Fies wrote and drew about his family's experience, first as a web comic, awarded an Eisner award in 2005. The collection of his writings and drawings have been collected as a book.

While I've only seen snippets of his work, I'm anxious to see Brian's book in part to compare stories. The story of my Mom's cancer is similar to Brian's Mom in some ways (metastatic lung cancer, a ex-smoker Mom in denial) and different in others (my Mom lived 8 years past her initial diagnosis, while Brian's died this Fall).

But what I'm guessing that I'll find true from both situations is the power and the healing that is possible in sharing your story.
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What's your story? How is sharing it a part of your journey?

Postcards

Although it's nearly three years since my Mom died, barely a week goes by when I don't have some type of experience or memory that reminds me of her.

I'm starting to think of these little thought flashes in my mind as postcards - a lovely photograph with a short note on the other side. Here's a sample from my "collection":

As a child and into my adulthood, people who knew my family would comment on how much I looked like my Dad. Blonde hair, blue eyes, long torso, short legs. But as I grow older, and even more so now that she's gone, friends comment on how much I look like my Mom. I can't always see it in myself, but I know that my one-year old daughter looks like a mini-version of her Grandma Anne. [Reverse side: a photo of me and my daughter together smiling, our eyes barely visible for they've been squeezed down to slits from our apple cheekbones]

I'm now at an age that I can remember my Mom being. When she was 38, I was 11, all full of angles and enthusiasm. [Reverse: photo of me & Mom in 1978]

My son pulled out a book to read the other day that my Mom loved, and would have loved reading to him. I could almost hear her voice in my ear as I read it aloud to him. [Reverse: the cover of the Velveteen Rabbit]

I can pull out these images in my mind whenever I care to, connecting my memories and my present life. Like a postcard collection, I can put them in a scrapbook of memories, pulling them out in my mind to remember the good times, to tell the story of my life's travels.

What helps you remember the good times with your loved one?