As Valentine’s Day approaches, thoughts often turn to memories of love

and the emotions reminding us of loves lost. Left in the wake of a vibrant experience of love, loss leaves intense loneliness. In facing these lonely days, it is imperative to both understand the source of the feelings and to have some proven strategies for managing them.

Loneliness is a powerful emotion but it is not the inevitable result of being alone. Even though humans need companionship and community, some solitary, quiet time is actually important for our emotional well-being. This is the process of being alone without feeling lonely. Here are some of the ways people cope with aloneness in order to limit their feelings of loneliness.

Go ahead and remember. Many grieving people run from memories, pushing them aside as if remembering hurts more than forgetting. Take time to remember

the person whose loss you are grieving and write in your journal about the experience of loving him or her. After one of my personal losses, I made a list of about 25 particularly poignant memories from our life together. I included holidays, special vacations and several characteristics of this person’s life. Then over the next few weeks, I wrote a page in my journal about each of those “journal starters” I had initially listed. I even added a few more along the way.

Do something nice for yourself. Give yourself flowers, get a massage, manicure or pedicure or buy that special book, artwork or outfit. Look at old Valentine cards if you have kept them and put a special one on display.

Catch up on your reading. You may not consider yourself an avid reader but alone time can provide rich opportunities to enhance this

important habit of mental growth. Research clearly demonstrates that an expanding, active mind is vital to preventing and postponing disease. You can start with reading books about the grief experience, learning through biographies about important people who have shaped history, and discovering in-depth contemporary perspectives on world issues of interest to you.

Find someone to serve. If being alone is

February 2016

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of

another person is essential to your own.” ~ Robert Heinlein

beingalone

with loss

Continued...

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particularly challenging for you, make a regular habit of serving someone or some group. Volunteer for hospice or a local nursing home, answer the phone one afternoon per week for a non-profit organization, or volunteer for Meals on Wheels. Most communities have far more volunteer opportunities than there are people to fill them. Find a cause you believe in and invest your life there.

Connect with an understanding group. Even when family and well-meaning friends do not understand your grief, you can connect with a bereavement support group. This collection of potential friends will understand the experiences of loss and the ups and downs of grief better than people who have not walked your pathway. Staff at the funeral home, hospice or faith community will know of groups in your community and can help you find just the right match.

...continued from front

William G. Hoy is a counselor and educator with more than 25 years experience working with people in grief and the professionals who care for them. In addition to his oversight of a large hospice bereavement program, Dr. Hoy teaches on the faculties of Baylor University and Marian University.

{Bill Hoy • griefresources@msn.com

Created and owned by Madsen Ink, Co. • Copyright 2016

madsenink@comcast.net

Content and book review provided by Bill Hoy where indicated. Other content is from various sources and experts.

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lighterside

“Now I know you’re allergic to chocolateso I ate them first.”

Some readers will recognize Meagan

O’Rourke’s name as a prolific contemporary author of poetry and short essays whose work has appeared in New Yorker and The Nation. So while there is no shortage of new books in what I call “my grief story” genre, a volume by such a writer deserves a look. O’Rourke’s The Long Goodbye: A Memoir (Riverhead Books, 2011) is just such a volume.

With great poignancy and self-reflective insight, O’Rourke plumbs the depths of her own experiences during her mother’s diagnosis, treatment and experience of dying from cancer. She honors her mother’s life in the telling of the story and many readers will nod knowingly as the tale unfolds: the anxious days of waiting for test results, the exhausting trips for treatment and the debilitating nausea that followed, and the difficulty O’Rourke confesses in facing early bereavement with no rituals.

The last of these descriptions touched me particularly: “After my mother’s death, she writes, “I felt the lack of rituals to shape and support my loss. I was not prepared for how hard I would find it to reenter the slipstream of contemporary life, the sphere of constant connectivity, a world ill suited to reflection and daydreaming. I found myself envying my Jewish friends’ practice of saying Kaddish, with its ceremonious designation of time each day devoted to remembering the lost person. As I drifted through the hours, I wondered: What does it mean to grieve when we have so few rituals for observing and externalizing loss? (p. 13)

This is a poignant, compelling story that at times is difficult to read. The rawness of experience, the ending of O’Rourke’s own marriage in the midst of her loss, and the difficulty with which she and her family grappled with her mother’s care and death is not easy reading. However, through her tale, you may catch glimpses of your own. And through her eloquent writing, you might find the inspiration to write out your own story or simply sit quietly in reflection as you honor the life of the one to whom you have said a long—or perhaps, a short—goodbye.

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“I need something mushy and incursive that sounds nothing like me.”