- In Good Health

Healing
Thoughts
the
Agnesian HealthCare is Sponsored by
Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes
OCTOBER 2015
From the Office of Bereavement Services
In the month of October ‘s Healing Thoughts for the past few
years I have written about masks in relationship to a method of
disguising our public feelings rather that our true deep down
feelings.
I decided I need to branch out and find another insight and there
it was on line and article by Megan Devine on Halloween and Grief:
When the Nightmare Is Real. I did realize the Halloween may be
difficult for children or parents of children whose child had died,
but had no idea how much other grieving people were affected.
As I read the article I became so aware of what affect the decorations
used had on those individuals whose real life experiences included
what they saw before them. The fake headstones, ghosts, people
hanging from trees and front porches all represented to some
the people grieving a reoccurrence of memories they have
been working hard to remove.
The more thought I gave to this topic the more awareness came
to me about how difficult a day which seems to have turned into
a season can be. It may not be possible to rid the Halloween
season of all the grief related objects but what each of us can
do is to develop an awareness that these objects can be hurtful.
Maybe some alternating plans could be developed by those who
are grieving for whom this time a year is difficult. It would be hard
to escape any semblance of Halloween but to try and find some
way of redirecting thoughts to the happier memories that have
occurred in the past. I don’t claim for a minute this is possible for
all who have experience traumatic grief but for those of us close to
them to be sensitive to them and what they might be experiencing.
I do realize there will be some people who don’t understand
why this should affect grieving people so much. Maybe these
individuals have not experienced a loss of a significant person
in their life. I personally am grateful to have found this article
because it helps me become more sensitive to what someone
may be experiencing. The article Halloween and Grief: When the
Nightmare is Real by Megan Devine can be found online http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../halloween-grief.
Sister Joyann Repp, RN, MSN
Bereavement Coordinator
Agnesian HealthCare Hospice Hope
(920) 907-3927
Love and Grief: In Communion
and Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts
By Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD
“We are all mirrors unto one another. Look into me and you will find
something of yourself as I will of you.” - Walter Rinder
Love is a sacred partnership of communion with another human
being. You take each other in, and even when you are apart, you
are together. Wherever you go, you carry the person inside you.
Yes, you will grieve the person’s absence and need to express your
feelings of grief. You must mourn. You must commune with your
grief and take it into your heart, embracing your many thoughts
and feelings. When you allow yourself to fully mourn, over time and
with the support of others who care about you, you will come to
find that the person you lost does indeed still live inside you.
Communion means the sharing or exchanging of intimate
thoughts and feelings, especially on a spiritual level. When two
people love one another, they are connected. They are entwined.
Love abides in communion - during life and after death. And
mourning is communion, with your grief. With communion comes
understanding, meaning and a life of richness.
The word “communion” comes from the Old French comuner,
which means “to hold in common.” Note that this is different than
“to have in common.” You may have very little in common with
another person yet love them wholeheartedly. Instead, you hold
things in common - that is, you consciously choose to share one
another’s lives, hopes and dreams. You hold her heart, and she
holds yours.
“Accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people
with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”
-Marcus Aurelius
This experience of taking another person inside your heart is
beyond definition and defies analysis. It is part of the mystery of
love. Love has its own way with us. It knocks on our hearts and
invites itself in. It cannot be seen, but we realize it has happened.
It cannot be touched, yet we feel it. When someone we love
dies, then, we feel a gaping hole inside us. I have companioned
hundreds of mourners who have said to me, “When she died, I
felt like part of me died, too.” In what can feel like a very physical
sense, something that was inside us now seems missing. We don’t
mourn those who die from the outside in; we mourn them from the
inside out.
The absence of the person you love wounds your spirit, creates
downward movement in your psyche, and transforms your heart.
Yet, even though you feel there is now a “hole inside you,” you, will
also come to know (if you haven’t already) that those you love live
on in your heart. You remain in communion with those you love
forever and are inextricably connected to them for eternity.
When you love another person, it can feel like one plus one equals
three.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “The whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.” Love is like that. Two people can come together
and form a partnership that enables each person to be “more” in
so many ways.
Here’s another way to think about this idea: Love is like an
orchestra. You may be a clarinet - a strong; fine wind instrument
all by yourself. But when you surround yourself with other
instruments, each of whom do the work of carrying their own parts
and practicing their own music, together, as a group, you can blow
the doors off the place.
I much prefer this expansive concept of love over the long-held
reductionist belief that “two become one.” If two become one, both
participants in the relationship are diminished. Conversely, what
truly feeds the soul of a loving relationship is expansion, mutual nurturance and growth.
AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE | HEALING THOUGHTS | OCTOBER 2015 | 2
Love and Grief, Continued
Without doubt, being part of a synergistic, two-makes-three
relationship requires a conscious commitment. Did your
relationship with the person who died feel enhancing or
diminishing? In synergistic relationships, there has to be space
and encouragement to be real and authentic. Were you empowered
to be your true self or disempowered to be something you were not?
Did your two make three, or did your two make you less than one?
If so, perhaps you are now faced with mourning what you never
had but wished you did. How human is that?
the person you were before the death. You will be greater. Your
experience of love and grief will create a changed you, a you who
has not only survived but who has learned to thrive again in a new
form and in a new way.
If, on the other hand, your relationship with the person who died
made you greater than the some of your parts, what happens now
that one of you is gone? You may feel diminished. You may feel
empty. You may feel “less than.” Your self-identity may even seem
to shrink as you struggle with your changing roles. If you are no
longer a wife (or a mother or a sister or a daughter), what are you?
Yes, love and grief are both greater than the sum of their parts.
The lesson I take from this is that whenever you engage fully and
openly in life, experiencing both the joys and the sorrows head on, you are living the life you were meant to live.
Also, the experience of mourning can feel piecemeal - a cry here,
a burst of anger there; a deep sadness today, a crush of guilt
tomorrow. You might feel a sense of disorientation from the
scattered and ever - changing nature of your grief.
And just as love connects you to others, so should grief. You need
the listening ears and open hearts of others as you express your
thoughts and feelings about the death. You need the support of
others as you mourn.
Reprinted with permission of Grief Digest,
Centering Corporation. Omaha, Nebraska,
(866) 218-0101.
But when you trust in the process of grief and you surrender to
the mystery, you will find that mourning, like love, is also
greater than the sum of its parts. Leaning into your grief
and always erring on the side of expressing rather
than inhibiting or ignoring your thoughts and
feelings - no matter how random and
disjointed they might seem some days will bring you to a place of transformation.
You will not just be different from
AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE | HEALING THOUGHTS | OCTOBER 2015 | 3
Grief through the Eyes of a Child
By Erika Tellefsen
Washington Irving once said, “There is sacredness in tears. They
are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more
eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers
of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and unspeakable love.”
When I was eight, my mother passed away from a rare form of
leukemia. She was diagnosed with the disease just after I was
born and that was the start of a roller coaster filled life for our
family. It was constantly up and down for us. There were good
days where we could go out as a family to the zoo or the park and
just play together, but then there were bad days that involved
emergency room visits or staying in the house because mommy
was in a great deal of pain.
For a child, that is very hard to understand. It was hard to
understand why I could not go outside and play or have my friend
come over. All too often I did not know what I should be doing or
what was happening around me. There were days I did not even
know where my mom was or if I was ever going to see her again
because she was in a section of the hospital that did not allow
children to visit. When she finally passed away, I felt confused
about what happened to her. The concept of death was not clear
to me. The idea that the body is there but no one is inside who
responds is still, to this day, difficult for me to accept.
Losing a family member can be difficult for anyone, especially for
a child. There are so many different thoughts that go through a
person’s head during the grieving process. Grief can be defined
as a multifaceted reply to loss. When a child experiences grief it
might be hard for them to understand fully what is happening
and what is going to happen because there are so many aspects
to their loss. With grief comes a sense of loneliness and being
lost. Some children will have many questions and some will sit
back in the shadows and wonder to themselves what is going to
happen. Once I lost one parent it was clear that I could also lose
the other, so an overwhelming mixture of fear and attachment
defined my relationship with my father.
After losing my mother I realized that we are all going to die
eventually. When I understood that at such a young age it was
hard to leave my father’s side. He called me his “shadow”
because I was either right next to him or right behind him to
make sure he was still alive. Going back to school was especially
hard because my dad and my big brother could not be with me.
From the moment I left in the morning to the moment I returned
after school, I worried about whether I would find anyone alive at
home. While I was at school I kept to myself and my friendships
deteriorated because neither my friends nor I knew how to act
around each other.
Going back to school is hard for young children because they
cannot make sense of what happened nor express the breadth
of their feelings to those around them. Children look to their
remaining parent when they grieve. They have the feeling of
distress and extreme loss because someone in their family that
they loved dearly is now gone forever. Since younger children
have a limited vocabulary, they usually express their grief
through behavior, bodily expressions, and play. This means
that they might go through a period of time where they have
behavioral problems (acting out or not cooperating).
Children suffering from grief need to an outlet, a person with
whom they can talk without fear of being judged. They might
have family and friends, but it is also good to have the teachers
involved because they can observe how the child is doing during
the day. It is important that all adults who have regular contact
with a grieving child reach out to him or her because there is a
very high likelihood that the child is feeling alone, very alone.
Joseph Conrad, the British novelist who explored the depth of
human experience said, “Who knows what true loneliness is
not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely
themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs
some memory or some illusion.”
Reprinted with permission of Grief Digest, Centering Corporation,
Omaha, Nebraska, (866) 218-0101.
AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE | HEALING THOUGHTS | OCTOBER 2015 | 4
Whimsical Characters
By Barbara Ronning
Whimsical characters parade down streets,
Sweeping a path through vibrant colored leaves;
And their pleading eyes are begging for treats.
You will see clowns, pirates, witches and thieves.
Cheerful parents follow their little brood
Past carved out faces, a glowing festoon.
While guarding bowls of mouth-watering food,
Jack-o’-lanterns will compete with the moon.
When it’s time to leave and count the booty,
Tired little beggars sweep a path back home
Where they’ll devour treats, tasty and gooey.
While they are asleep in dreams, they will roam.
Children look forward to Halloween night
Because they can wear costumes and recite:
Trick or Treat!
© 2009 by Barbara Ronning.
Used with permission of the author.
AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE | HEALING THOUGHTS | OCTOBER 2015 | 5
BEREAVEMENT CENTER
& GRIEF RELIEF
Journey
Through Grief
A DAY OF GRIEF EDUCATION
& SPIRITUAL HEALING
Saturday, October 24, 2015
8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes Convent
320 County Road K, Fond du Lac
Single $15 • Two family members $25
(fee includes lunch and refreshments)
For more information, call Agnesian Bereavement
Center & Grief Relief at (920) 907-3940.
Sponsored by: Agnesian HealthCare, Hospice Hope,
Parish Nurses, Agnesian HealthCare Foundation
Join Author, Speaker and Life Coach Tom Zuba for an
enlightening, informative and uplifting workshop as he
introduces you to a new way to do grief. Tom is an author,
speaker and life coach who teaches a new way to do grief
based on his own 20-plus year journey. Tom is the author of
Permission to Mourn: A New Way to do Grief.”
BEREAVEMENT CENTER
& GRIEF RELIEF
Grieving the death
of someone close?
October 20 to November 24, 2015
6 to 8 p.m.
Waupun Public Library
123 S. Forest Street, Waupun
We can help you manage your grief; learn
new ways of coping in a supportive and
confidential environment of your peers.
Offering a six-week grief education and
support group where you can speak freely,
share stories and feelings. All this while
learning healthy ways of coping
with your grief.
Registration is required:
agnesian.com/grief-education
(920) 907-3940
agnesian.com
AgnesiAn HeAltHCAre is sponsored by tHe CongregAtion of sisters of st. Agnes
AgnesiAn HeAltHCAre is sponsored by tHeCongregAtion of sisters of st. Agnes
AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE | HEALING THOUGHTS | OCTOBER 2015 | 6
BEREAVEMENT CENTER & GRIEF RELIEF
2015-2016 Bereavement Support Groups
For any group offered at Agnesian Bereavement Center & Grief Relief, the address is 1161 W. Johnson Street, Fond du Lac.
For more information about any of the Grief Support Groups listed, contact the Bereavement Center at (920) 907-3940.
Monthly Grief Support Groups
Child Loss Support Group
Second Tuesday of each month • 1 p.m.
Ripon Medical Center • Ripon Room
First and third Thursday of each month • 6 p.m.
(Loss of a child at any age)
Agnesian HealthCare Bereavement Center & Grief Relief
Great Room
Third Tuesday of each month • 12 p.m.
Agnesian HealthCare Bereavement Center & Grief Relief
Golden Room
Third Tuesday of each month • 6:30 p.m.
(18 to 25 years of age)
Marian University • Campus Ministry House
761 E. Division Street • Fond du Lac
Fourth Wednesday of each month • 2:30 p.m.
Wautoma Public Library • 410 W. Main Street, Wautoma
Spouse/Partner Loss Grief
Support Groups
First Wednesday of each month • 1 p.m.
Agnesian HealthCare Bereavement Center & Grief Relief
Golden Room
Second & fourth Wednesday of each month • 6 p.m.
Agnesian HealthCare Bereavement Center & Grief Relief
Great Room
Third Wednesday of each month • 11:30 a.m.
La Clare Farms Dining Room • W2994 County HH, Malone
Resolve Through Sharing
(Miscarriage, stillbirths or neonatal death)
For more information on dates and times call (920) 907-3940.
Grief Education & Support Classes
Six–Week Grief Education & Support Group
(Offered in the following communities)
Waupun, Ripon and Mayville
Register on-line or call for upcoming dates
(920) 907-3940
Eight-Week Support after Suicide Education and Support group
(Registration Required)
Register on-line or call for more information
(920) 907-3928.
Grief Relief (Peer Support for Grieving
Children & Families)
For more information about Grief Relief peer support for grieving
children and family groups, call (920) 907-3940 or e-mail
[email protected].
For more information on Grief Relief support in area schools,
call (920) 907-3938.
agnesian.com
AgnesiAn HeAltHCAre is sponsored by tHe CongregAtion of sisters of st. Agnes
AGN-14376_06/15
Agnesian HealthCare
Bereavement Center & Grief Relief
1161 W. Johnson Street
Fond du Lac, WI 54937
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Did you know we offer Healing
Thoughts in an electronic version?
You can read the monthly newsletter on-line at
agnesian.com/bereavement.
We would be happy to send you a personal copy by
e-mail instead of mail delivery. To sign up for this
option visit agnesian.com/healing-thoughts.
BEREAVEMENT CENTER & GRIEF RELIEF
Grieving During the Holidays
Is your grief stressing you out?
Learn how to manage your grief during the holidays. Learn new ways to cope
and manage your stress. Attend one of our Grieving During the Holidays programs.
Please register by Thursday, October 29.
For more information, call (920) 907-3940 or e-mail [email protected].
Fond du Lac Public Library
Thursday, November 5 • 6 to 7:30 p.m.
32 Sheboygan Street, Fond du Lac
Ripon Medical Center
Wednesday, November 11 • 6 to 7:30 p.m.
845 Parkside Street, Ripon
Wautoma Public Library
Tuesday, November 10 • 6 to 7:30 p.m.
410 W. Main Street, Wautoma
Waupun Public Library
Thursday, November 12 • 6 to 7:30 p.m.
123 S. Forest Street, Waupun
agnesian.com/grief-education
AgnesiAn HeAltHCAre is sponsored by tHe CongregAtion of sisters of st. Agnes
VISIT AGNESIAN.COM/BEREAVEMENT.