New Year a Time to Search for

‘Ray of Hope’

Be my ray of hope, be my ray of laughter. Be my song to sing that guides me on my way.

Be the arms that hold me. Be the love that enfolds me, be my light,

Be my ray of hope today. …Paul Alexander, songwriter

Snowflakes drift silently to earth. A new year has dawned. The revelry of the old year has quieted and the holiday hustle and bustle has ended As bereaved parents, for many of us, this will be our first full year without our children. For others, the upcoming year will be another thread in the garment of life. A thread connecting the memories of our old life with the hope for “recovery” in our new life. How often our thoughts wander back to another day and time when we were happy and full of the vitality that makes up life—a time when our child made our life complete and worth living. Though three years have passed since becoming a bereaved parent, I still think about my children every day of my life. As I sat watching the ball atop Time Square descend, my thoughts jumped back to a time when my children lay safely in their beds as we brought a new year into existence. Does this new year bring with it a time when we will hurt less—when there will be a new ray of hope? Or does it bring even more heartache because of the sadness and loneliness we find difficult to leave behind? The answers lie deep within each of us. How we approach this new year will make the difference. Can we be kind to ourselves? Just because others place demands on us to do whatever they feel will help us does not mean they are right. They have not walked in our shoes. We can say ‘NO!’ Can we enjoy life again? Though we cannot be physically with our children, they would want us to enjoy living . . . and yes, they would want us to love again! Can we help parents who are more newly bereaved to clear the same hurdles that seemed so

insurmountable to us such a short while ago? By reaching out to others and making their burdens a little lighter, we are helping our own open wounds to heal.

Inside of me are all the answers. Everything I need to know

Lives inside of me. Come behold my miracle, Come and hear my story.

Come and paint a memory with me. . . . P. Alexander

~Wayne Loder

TCF Lakes Area, MI

“Ray of Hope” by Paul Alexander on the CD “The Best of Paul” at www.griefsong.com (Paul wrote LIGHT A CANDLE which has been used at many TCF candle lighting programs). Permission to use excerpts from “Ray of Hope” granted by Paul Alexander.

New Year,

Old Memories Sun going down in the western sky A lonely feeling of dread inside. On this eve of the old year, the new waiting to be I reflect on days past, And ponder the new ones I wait to see. What will they bring, will they be like the old? I wait and wonder for them to unfold. Another year gone, one more mark on time Yet another year gone, but you remain on my mind. I gather the memories of all the days past For I know in this New Year they will still last. Into this year I timidly step Along with the love preciously kept. New Days will come, old ones will pass. But my love for you will forever last.

~Sheila Simmons TCF, Atlanta

In Memory of her son Steven

Meeting Topics & Info January 2 - “Facing the New Year” What we can do to help ourselves in 2014. February 6- “Things My Child Taught Me”

Don’t Forget About Our New Facebook Page

Last month we created a Facebook page for our chapter. Check it out at www.facebook.com/TheCompassionateFriendsofSantaClaritaCa Stay in touch with other chapter members to share in your grief and what’s happening with our group. Just one more way we hope you might find some help in your journey of grief. Also, look for our new web page coming next month.

Holiday Pot Luck Dinner/Meeting

Our annual holiday pot luck dinner was held at our last meeting on December 5. Thank you to all those who attended and brought all the delicious food. It was a nice gathering of Compassionate Friends at a time when we most needed understanding and caring friends who share our pain during the holiday times! Thank you to a group of Compassionate Friends from Lancaster for joining us that night for dinner and supporting us by making luminaries. Diane and I would like to wish all our members a New Year filled with hope, health, and peace!

~Diane Briones, Chapter Leader ~Alice Renolds, Co-Leader

Book Review

“Walks on the

Beach with Angie” by Don Warner

We have just received two copies of this book for our chapter library from the author Don Warner. Check out the review from Amazon.com below to see if you would like to read it for yourself. An excerpt from a review from Kimberly Cheryl - author: Shattered Reality A father's story of undying love for his daughter. The two had weathered everything life threw at them, until life was interrupted by death. At the age of 22, Cystic Fibrosis took the final breaths of Angie Warner. Don Warner does a wonderful job sharing his daughter's life's story and their struggles with overcoming Cystic Fibrosis. Grieving is tough stuff and Don is able to create a wonderful story of self-examination, friendship, love and his daughter's courageous journey to make a difference on this Earth. Don shares his grief with readers through a lifetime's reflections of his daughter, their life together, their family's struggles with cystic fibrosis, his own personal struggles with his loss and his desire to go on. Here is a book that takes raw emotion of a man and makes it an offering to help others who are grieving. The real emotion is evident, and Mr. Warner shares the disbelief, the utter sadness and devastation that we go through when we lose someone so close to us, to help educate others on cystic fibrosis. This is more than a memoir but a meaningful message to those who are struggling with this disease state and its many challenges. It is also a tale of a family coping in their own way, one day at a time and of a young girl who was brave and showed

that life is truly not measured by the years you live but by the

things you do with the time you have.

Grief is different for all of us, but so similar too, that

sharing with another can only be helpful in some way. This book is an intense tale of some of the lessons we must learn on life's

journey. You learn that life is fragile and unpredictable, thank you

Don for "sharing your daughter with me" through this book.

Winter Grief

"When we scattered the ashes, the land was bare and brown and dry and cold. And we ourselves felt bare and cold. We were feeling the death in us, Rebecca and I, and hoping for spring to come, hoping for spring in us, hoping for something to be reborn." - Loving Grief Does your grief have a different color in winter? Does winter seem more in tune with your grief than spring does? Winter landscapes here in the middle Atlantic states are rarely white. They're mostly just bare, dominated by grays and browns. Cold rain is more common than snow. Is that what your grief feels like? Does winter seem to you to be a time when grief is invited to huddle in front of a fire and look inward? And if you accept that invitation, what you find in there? What is it that you're keeping warm within you? In winter we feel vulnerable to the weather; we need to wrap ourselves in blankets or clothing to stay warm. But still, we can look to nature for different models of how to respond to winter. Some animals struggle to survive the winter, search continually for enough scarce food. Others hibernate, cut back to the bare minimum of bodily functioning. And some animals retreat to dens or nests and give birth. What kind of winter grief do you have? Is it a struggle for survival, hoping for an early spring? Is it a retreat from activity, slowing down, a long winter sleep till warmer times and brighter days rouse you? Or maybe it is a fertile withdrawal from which something new will be born? To some extent, the shape of our winter grief is given to us by the timing of our loss, by the tide of our own emotions, by our personal memories and associations with winter. And to some extent the shape of our winter grief is up to us. We can choose to rail against the unfairness of our loved one's death, or to blame ourselves for what we did and what we failed to do. And we have another choice: we can choose to accept that our life with the person we lost was exactly what it was. We can choose to mourn the person we love, to suffer over their loss ... or to celebrate their life. However you choose to grieve in wintertime, let it be a grief that will nurture you. Are you noticing what will be nourishing to you this winter? No one knows better than you what your grief needs; but

unless you pay attention, you won't notice what you need. Will it serve you to huddle in front of a fire? Or to take an adventurous ski vacation? Will it serve you to keep your routines in place? Or to experiment with new foods, new places, new ways of living your life? Whether you're struggling to survive, hibernating till spring, or giving birth to something new, you can allow your winter grief to be exactly what it is, and you can nurture yourself by noticing what you need, right now.

Lovingly lifted from Opentohope.com Reprinted by permission from author

~ Paul Bennett Author of the book “Loving Grief”

2013 Annual Candle Lighting

Touches Many

Over 150 braved the cold winter’s night to gather together to share the love for their children, siblings, and grandchildren. I believe it was the coldest temps we have ever had, but that didn’t stop us. We came together joined by the love for our children, to light a candle, hear some songs and poems that helped remind us of our loved ones. We lit our candles, and as it warmed our hands we watched as their faces floated across the screen. Yes, there were tears, but hopefully in your heart you knew your love one could see your light! We hope that this program lifted you out of the darkness and that you felt the warmth of their memories and were given some small measure of peace for the holidays. Thank you to all those who purchased luminaries. We had 50 of

them l in ing the walkway. What a magnificent site to see and special tribute to your children. Thank you to the steering committee for all your

help in putting this event on! If you weren’t able to attend, we hope that you were able to light a candle from home, so that …”their light may always shine”.

~Alice Renolds

Were Received From:

Shelly & Gary Carter

In Loving Memory of her daughter:

Sarah Noelle Carter 12/27 - 1/26

Mona Gonzalez

In Loving Memory of her daughter:

Cyrena Darlene Becerra 6/11 - 9/5

Ida Hahlbeck

In Loving Memory of her son:

Vincent Lizarr 9/6 - 10/5

Fran McPhie

In Loving Memory of her son:

Sean Christopher McPhie 8/2 - 3/9

I miss him so much!