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“Mom’s Sweater”
A cozy children’s picture book that tells young readers grief may feel big now, but they’ll grow into it“Mom’s Sweater” is a sensitive story about a young girl who loses her mother to a terminal disease. Through a comfort object, her mother’s favorite sweater, the protagonist is able to better understand grief and find her way to healing. Perkins begins with the hospital scene where the main character and her father say goodbye…
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For-Profit Hospice Pitfalls Exposed
Recent reports and studies spotlight incompetence and fraudMore than two-thirds of U.S. providers that deliver end-of-life care for terminally ill patients are for-profit hospice companies. Hospice care was once only administered by volunteer members of charities or religious organizations. The Medicare Hospice Benefit was later enacted by Congress in 1986, supporting patient access to end-of-life care, while furnishing bottom lines for providers.…
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Our Monthly Tip: Go Fly A Kite!
A colorful way to send messages to your loved oneOur Tip of the Month: Why not fly a kite at your memorial service? Children (or anyone) can attach a special message to the departed and send it up into the heavens. The colorful spectacle can fill the sky, as well as hearts, with color and awe. Kite flying is a great alternative to releasing…
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5 Myths About Arranging Funerals Debunked
What you don’t know can cost youPicture it: a big, fancy funeral in a popular TV show or movie. Late-model hearses transport all of the attendees, who snark about each other while wearing Chanel and sunglasses, to a green cemetery. There, the bereaved say their good-byes to a weighty casket (sometimes in the rain) as a pale-faced preacher reads over a…
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“Your Death”
The poignancy of mundane details on the darkest of daysOn the day that will always belong to you, lunar clockwork had faltered and I was certain. Walking the streets of Manhattan I thought: Remember this day. I felt already like an urn, filling with wine. Upon reading the first line of this poem by Poet Laureate Rita Dove, the reader doesn’t exactly know why the…
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How Does Prolonged Grief Differ From Common Grief? (Interview)
Dr. Bonnie Gorscak discusses how prolonged grief impacts those left behind and how treatment can helpIntense sadness is to be expected after someone experiences the death of someone close to them. Those who are grieving and their friends and family may wonder when the pain will subside. There aren’t any easy answers for how people process loss; however, there are parameters for what typical grief looks like and when mourners…
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Intense Grief Can Harm the Heart, Studies Show
Two recent studies uncovered a greater risk of heart disease in the recently bereavedAnyone who has ever lived through a significant loss knows that grief typically causes great sadness and pain. Colloquially, we may call this phenomenon “heartache” or even “heartbreak” because the ancients thought that the heart – the organ that keeps our blood pumping and our bodies alive – was the physical seat of all emotion.
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“Crying is Like the Rain”
Comforting children’s book reminds us that feelings come and go, like the weatherCrying is Like the Rain: A Story of Mindfulness and Feelings is a sweet, simple look at the manner in which feelings arise and disappear, like clouds, thunderstorms — or even earthquakes and tidal waves. Yet the seemingly inane nature of this message is deceptive. If it was one we’d all internalized as children, would…
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“Candle in the Wind 1997” by Elton John
Musical homage to Princess Diana remains the second best-selling single of all timeElton John performed “Candle in the Wind 1997” at the funeral held for Britain’s Diana, Princess of Wales, on September 6, 1997. The original 1974 version of the song revered the life of Marilyn Monroe. Elton John and lyricist, Bernie Taupin, re-imagined the words after the royal family contacted John to sing at Diana’s funeral.…
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