And Then I Met James

The older we grow as we travel this journey called Life, the more we realize we don't walk alone; many have influenced us. Friends, family, clergy, and others have provided guidance over the years.

After my son died, I filled journals with emotions, questions, woes----basically, lots of pain. Most of the pages were not ones I wished to share with anyone. Even though I felt I was losing my mind, fading from who I used to be, and finding the future scary, writing gave me comfort. Journaing brought clarity, and sometimes even solace. To help me on my rocky journey, I also devoured books about grief from memoirs to tomes on writing. It was in Louise DeSalvo's book that I met James Pennebaker.

Who is James? In a nutshell, he's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin whose studies have shown the value of expressive writing when dealing with turmoil. James' work piqued my interest.

In one six-week study, he had half his class write about trivial things and the other half write about wounds and the more sorrowful parts of life. At the end of the study, those who had written deeply were healthier. Pulse rates, heart rates, etc., were checked before and after the study to prove this.

James writes: “If keeping a secret about a trauma was unhealthy, it made sense that having people reveal the secret should improve health. As a social psychologist, I was concerned with having people talk about their secrets to another person because of the complicated social dynamics that would likely result. Consequently, I decided to have participants write about the most traumatic experience of their lives or, for those in a control condition, write about superficial topics.”

I knew writing worked, but because of James' studies, the value of writing as a tool for healing has become more "scientific" for me. The findings from his work are evidence I can use when I advocate for writing as a means of healing. It's not just me telling others writing works because it worked for me (and continues to do so), but there is research that validates how effective what I call "grief and loss writing" is.

My "After Daniel" journals were safe places to unleash all the feelings bottled in my heart. These tear-stained epistles now sit in my closet in a large canvas bag given to me by Sascha, a twice-bereaved mom, poet, and friend. These journals represent my journey of healing, and are one of the reasons, like James, I believe in the writing-health connection.

Writing through life's traumas is good therapy!

The Writing the Heartache Podcast has made her debut!

Do you remember when I did Blogtalk radio segments? No? That's okay; it was a while ago. I had about 12 episodes where I spoke on grief and the bereavement journey.

Now, after much trepidation, I have joined the podcast world. Writing the Heartache is the theme and has been my push/shove/advice since Daniel died when I realized the wonderful and inexpensive therapy that comes from writing after loss.

My first podcast (Anchor.FM) is short; it will take just over 5 minutes of your day. The topic is: No Grammar or Spelling Worries; Just Get it Out There. I share a few benefits of writing from grief.

You can listen by going to the Anchor.FM page. If you don't have a Spotify account (I don't), you can listen by scrolling down the page and pressing the arrow. Go here.

Broken Faith

The first Christmas without my child was one I wanted to avoid. Yet bereavement is not a journey we get to bypass; bereavement is a journey made to go through, and discover how to live in spite of sorrow.

December 1997

At the strip mall I entered a chain Christian bookstore I’d been to many times before. A Christmas tree with red bows and silver and gold ornaments greeted me. I was aware of the piped-in music because it was one of my favorite carols that played, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. Whoever was singing had a rich, soulful voice, which transported me back to last Christmas.

Last Christmas we had our own decorated tree, expecting to spend Christmas at home with my brother and his girlfriend who had come to visit. But days before the 25th Daniel ended up in the hospital due to some unknown cause. He’d spiked a fever, was delirious, but although numerous tests were done, nothing grew in the Petri dish. Next Christmas will be different, I had thought, as I sat by his bedside reading books to him. Next Christmas he’ll be done with his protocol and we’ll be able to celebrate at home like a normal family.

We were now living next Christmas.

As the music in the bookstore continued, I walked down the aisles. One aisle was stocked with motivational books, books with titles that were all about how to increase your faith and trust Jesus in all things. Book after book. Believe, grow, love, trust!

I made my way toward the door, ready to leave. I'd been crazy to think that I could shop during this season. With a hand on the door, I paused. To my right I saw a table that had a sign on it: Discount.

Discount tables and I have always gotten along. I’ve never met a discount I didn’t like. On the table among plaques, and tree ornaments, a stocking hanger with the manger scene piqued my interest. There in the middle of the decoration was baby Jesus in the cradle with Mary and a lamb to the left of him. Joseph crouched by Mary and the three wisemen with their gifts were together. A donkey relaxed by the foot of the cradle. I picked the item up, turning it over in my hand. I noted the weight of it. It was a heavy piece.

As with anything that’s placed on sale, I want to know why. Peering closely, I saw the tiny star at the top of the hanger had a faint diagonal line underneath that didn't look like it belonged. Two of the points of the star were chipped. The donkey was missing an ear. The item had to have been dropped or hit; the star must have broken away from the rest of those below it. Someone had used glue to seal it back to the roof of the stable. I suppose the donkey's right ear was never found. I ran my fingers over all the edges and figures, over the defects. I had never had a stocking hanger before, but that was not why this decoration continued to stay in my hands. This object connected to me.

It belonged to me.

I purchased the discounted broken item. It was right within my frugal budget; it had been marked down from twenty-five dollars to just seven-ninety-nine. Now it really was mine.

On the way home, I drove past homes with festive lights strung from eaves. Plastic blow-up snowmen and big, happy Santas waved from neighbors’ lawns. Wreaths graced front doors. Inside the windows I saw decorated pine and spruce trees, their twinkling lights bright and warm.

When I got home, I hung my new purchase on the mantle in the family room. I told my husband that the item was the beginning of a collection of Christmas decorations, decorations for the broken.

Next year, maybe it would be easier to breathe during the holiday season. Next year maybe the air would not be thickened with brokenness. But maybe not. There were no promises for an easy life; but there was the promise of Emmanuel always with us.



O little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.

In the Time of Coronavirus - A Time to Soul Search

Panic. Fear. Uncertainty. Disbelief. Sorrow. Control-less.

In this historical era of COVID-19, how are you affected? As you listen to the news reports that change every hour, what have you become?

A few years after my son died (those of you who know me, know that Daniel's death will always be my Ground Zero), I wrote a poem about becoming. I was not who I used to be when he was by my side laughing with me and eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. In bereavement, I was morphing into something new---like that caterpillar when he turns into a butterfly. It didn't feel pretty. There were days of loneliness, wondering who my friends were, how I would make it to the next day. One foot in front of the other was a major task. I cried so much that my eyes stayed puffy and red. I wanted to fist-punch those who said trite things. I hated who I was.

What are you doing during this fearful season of your life?

Some people are hoarding toilet paper. We laugh, but as I stared at the empty shelves where toilet paper has always been at my local Harris-Teeter, I didn't feel like laughing. When the disgust left me, the deeper feeling was a sadness toward humanity. Because to me hoarding toilet paper (of all things!) shows me that people are not only fearful, but trying. They are trying to gain some control of a control-less situation. We are told to stay home, wash our hands, keep away from crowds, and yet, all of that sounds too simple and easy. Can't we do more? We're smart, certainly there's more we can do to make this virus go away or to try to preserve some feeling of security. "I can't hug anyone, I can't go on vacation, I can't go to work (or I've lost my job), but, hey, I can have enough toilet paper. So take that, you nasty Coronavirus."

When Daniel died, I wanted to figure out why. Why had he died? Why hadn't he been miraculously saved? Why him? He had cancer, but other children with neuroblastoma lived. Then we learned from the autopsy that he was cancer-free. It was the first we had heard that news. He'd been through eight months of treatments and we'd never heard cancer-free until the autopsy report. I feared I had missed a cue. He was supposed to have lived and I messed up.

Admitting that I had no control was a long process. When we think that we have boundless control of our lives and those around us, we are living a myth.

Hoarding toilet paper, hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes is a way of trying to gain control in a chaotic era.

So what to do you want to become? How do you want to get out of your cocoon and emerge into a free-floating butterfly?

Bereavement opened the door for me to explore things I had never done much of before. In the midst of pain and suffering, I discovered that I was becoming a woman who shed spiritual platitudes ("God won't give you more than you can handle", etc.) and also someone who dispelled the myth that life is all under my control.

What can you do during this time of uncertainty?

* Write -- a poem, that short story that's been playing around in your mind, that song, that letter to a friend
* Read --- Dust off that copy of To Kill A Mockingbird or A Tale of Two Cities
* Pray --- Ask God to show you how you can love others around you and how you can surrender your life to him (good luck with that one, it is a daily task)
* Nurture friendships --- but be sure to stand at least six-feet apart
* Create --- a garden, a new board game, a speech, a blog post, a recipe
* Donate ---- food or money to a charity

Let this be the season to contribute something YOU into the world besides anxiety and fear.

The virus has affected the globe. It's a vicious thing.

When we get beyond the virus, however long that will take, and are able to resume our more normal lives, what will we have become?

Will you be wiser? More compassionate? Less selfish? Will you be someone who lives out gratitude?

Will you be the person you want to be?

Start now.

Chocolate Fudge from Grandma

The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us. ~ James Carroll

My grandma Stubbs (Dad's mom) brought the chocolate fudge. Arriving at our apartment (when we were in America on furlough in Richmond, Virginia) from Baltimore, Maryland, the fudge traveled with her in a decorative tin. After dinner, dessert followed, and Mom would open the tin. Inside were chocolate squares, all piled like building blocks. The warm sweet sugary aroma filled the dining room. I'd take a piece, but it was almost too sweet and chocolately for me as a small child.

Eating it now, I feel that I've been invited to the big folks' table. It's no longer too sweet; I can hold my own. A cup of coffee and a piece of decadent fudge, I am ready to tackle the world.

In 2013 when I planned to compile my third cookbook of memories, I asked friends and family for special recipes from those no longer with us. The recipes arrived, each with special stories. There are recipes from those who led long, rich lives, and in memory of those who led rich, but much-too short lives. Dad sent one of Grandma's fudge recipes. The memory he's attached to it shares from his own childhood of growing up in the 1930s.

I made Grandma's fudge this morning. Although the recipe Dad submitted is for peanut butter morsels to be used (I am sure the one for chocolate has to be somewhere in the dozens of index cards he inherited), I substituted chocolate morsels. (I am known for a bit of substitution.) I didn't just make one batch, I made three batches. Hours later the house still smells of chocolate.

Memories Around the Table holds recipes and remembrances of those we love and cherish. By making these recipes, thoughts of our loved ones spring to life in the kitchen, in the dining room, and swell our hearts with memories that no one can steal.


Memories Around the Table is now on sale and available at Etsy. Free shipping within the USA.

Twenty Years of Keeping On

When Daniel died in 1997, my pain was bigger than God.  People would tell me that with time it would ease, or that they knew how I felt because they had a cat die and how awful that was.

One woman called me every other day to tell me that God needed Daniel.

"Just think," she said as I clutched the receiver, "God needed another flower in his garden and he picked Daniel."

After a few days, when the phone rang and her voice came on the answering machine, I didn’t pick up.

I washed dishes, fed Benjamin apples and bananas, read him stories, and when he was watching Sesame Street, I'd sneak upstairs into Daniel’s room.  I’d breathe in the familiar smells it had accumulated: hospital soap, bandages, iodine.  But the strongest scent of all was my hollow loneliness. It grabbed me in the gut and pulled me to the floor.  Often I would let myself cry.

And that woman would keep calling to offer her words.

But I didn’t return her calls.  I felt that since my pain was so large and consuming and I was six months pregnant that she would understand that I didn’t have the energy to call her back.

Eventually she stopped calling me.

And I became grateful for answering machines because they were like secretaries, weeding out the calls I was unable to take.  Sometimes friends would call and I would stand by the phone and not answer.  I let their voices be recorded and that made me feel that I had some control of my vacant life.  I had a choice—to answer or not to answer. I grew more fond of the not to answer.

There were times I thought I was ready for Butner, the psychiatric facility off of I-85.  I could walk outside and almost smell the sheets.

I went to support group meetings with other people who would just break into tears, unable to finish sentences, people with ragged photos of their children that they shared so that the rest of us could say, "She is beautiful," even though the child had ears that protruded and was cross-eyed and her dress was too short or too long or too pink. It didn’t matter because eventually I knew I belonged with these people.

I belonged to these parents, who introduced me to words I had never been allowed to say.  Angry adults who taught me you can say damn, shit and hell in the same sentence and not be struck down or turned into a pillar of salt.  We sat around tables that were much too small to hold our grief and took turns saying our dead child’s name.

I seemed to go on and on with all the medical procedures about how Daniel had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his neck and how he’d been through chemo and surgeries and radiation and how a staph infection entered his body.  I had had little medical jargon in my vocabulary prior to his diagnosis and death and at these meetings I was using all I had learned.  I had no idea how long or short my turn was supposed to be I just knew that I had to tell my story.  I had to get it out.

Part of me hoped that as I talked, one of the bereaved parents would stop me and see that I had talked my way out of this horrible story and say, "Oh, no, he couldn’t have died from that, that isn’t medically possible.  Go home, your son is surely still alive.  Go home now."

And I’d leave the claustrophobic church basement and drive the 40 minutes down Glenwood Avenue to my home and sure enough, there Daniel would be sitting in front of TV watching The Three Stooges with David. And I’d be so excited and happy that I wouldn’t complain that it was 10 o’clock and that David should have already put Daniel to bed.

But even though I attended those meetings twice a month for two years, Daniel never came back.  No loop hole in his death was discovered. And pretty soon my heart knew what my head did, my son was gone from this earth and I was going to have to live the rest of my life without ever holding his hand again.  

And I would never know why.

I would write poems at the graveside and lift balloons into the air. I'd cry with other parents, speak at conferences, and raise my three other children and never know why Daniel didn’t get to be a hero and pull through the whole ordeal.

And I was going to have to adapt and adjust just like countless parents before me and just like thousands of parents would have to learn to do after me.

I was in this club that no one wanted to be part of, a club with rituals that no one understood except for the people in it, and a club that had no membership expiration date.  Until you die.   I would be thirty-seven, thirty-eight, forty, fifty, fifty-nine, gray, old, still showing dampened photos of a little boy who never grew up.

Sometimes when I’d be driving to the meetings, I’d think, what if I just rammed into the Mayflower truck in the lane ahead of me or just gunned the engine and took a leap off a cliff and died.  What if . . . ?  But then I knew I couldn’t do that to my kids, especially not to the baby because she was brand new and Daniel had told me when she was still in the womb the size of a raisin, and then even larger than that, giving me heartburn and kicking, that I was to take care of her.

So I’d follow the speed limit and take my eyes away from the Mayflower truck and keep going on.

For twenty years I've been keeping on.  Truth be told, it is either to keep going on or to roll up and die.

I choose life.  And I'm glad I did, and glad I do.

"Will I ever want to laugh again?" a young newly-bereaved mom asked me at a conference where I gave a writing workshop.

"Yes," I replied.  "You will be able to laugh again.  Trust me. And keep on.  You can do it. Where there is breath, this is hope."

"My friends don't understand," she said as she blew her nose into a tissue. "One calls me every week to tell me to get on with life."

"Do you have an answering machine?" I asked and then realized that we are in the twenty-first century. Quickly, I said," You don't have to answer your cell phone every time it rings, you know."

She nodded.  "I think I can do that."

But she's doubtful, I can tell by the hollowness in her eyes. I tell her I was there once, just as she is. Wondering, aching, unsure if I wanted to live or ram into the Mayflower truck.

She hugs me and we wipe our eyes.

I think she'll make it.

Many of us have.

 

Dear Santa, just get me through the season!

It's that season again, the one where we are supposed to feel joyful. Excited, as the commercials on TV tell us that new cars and diamonds bring happiness. Festive, as recipes for desserts circle social media. In love with our extended families, even though we haven't spoken to them since last Christmas.

But what if you just feel blah?

The problem with feeling like Scrooge is that we think we're alone. That's because few are brave enough to step up and admit, "I hate this season." "I want to sleep it away." "I don't care about any of it."

My psychiatrists friends are busy this season, not with baking pies and going to parties, but with clients who ask for help. "Just get me through Thanksgiving and Christmas," one of my friend's patients said.

When the season presents itself as a huge undertaking and there is no energy for it, sometimes that's all we ask: Just get me through it.

Forget the shopping, the sales, the glitter, the fun.

I remember feeling like that for the first Christmases after Daniel died. Take a dirty rag, wipe the sky and everything around me with it, and that was how I felt. To avoid the usual Christmas tradition, which Daniel would no longer be part of, we left Durham. Our first Christmas was in Greensboro at an Embassy Suites. The next was in the Outer Banks, the third without him was at a beach in Virginia. We left the house where Daniel had celebrated four Christmases and did something different.

And we lived through those early agonizing holidays without him.

Those experiences help me to see that others also find Christmas to be hard. You don't have to have had a death of a precious child to feel distraught during the season. You might be going through other calamities----the loss of a marriage, a job, declining health, or the loss of even hope.

Perhaps deciding not to believe the myth that everybody else has great plans or is happy will help as you make your way through December and into the new year. Perhaps journaling will benefit you as you pour your frustrations and fears onto paper. A meditative walk might give you new focus.

Others might suggest reaching out to those who are less fortunate is the answer. But when you're trying to hold your life together, you may not have any ability to reach out to anyone. Praying might even be more of a wrestling match than a time of solace and mercy. You might just want to put on a slow song, set the timer and give yourself permission to cry for five good long minutes.

This season could be just plodding through one day at a time. I'm no psychiatrist, but from my own sorrow, I would say: Allow yourself to plod. Not feeling joyous at Christmas is not a punishable crime. Besides, to be honest, no one is experiencing every day of the month with bright smiles and sugary bliss, even those who appear to be.

The season will end, and at the end, you can say that you survived. It might not seem like a big feat, but deep down, you will know that it's a big accomplishment. The skills you discover might come in handy for other times when life is tough.

After all, life is all about adjusting and adapting. To live is to struggle. Don't believe anyone who tells you that life is meant to be a bowl of happiness.

Even the son of God, whose birh we celebrate at Christmas, came into a suffering world to suffer. He knows just how dismal being human can be. And He reaches out to all, offering peace, love, and hope.

~
Struggling with getting out of bed in the morning? This little devotional might help.

The Sound of Memory

Wind chimes provide a wonderful aura to any garden or patio. The soothing sound of their music---provided by a breeze, wood, and copper tubes-----is a beautiful thing. And it's even more fun when you get to choose what you want written on the "flapper".

Our wind chimes can hold the carved name of a loved one who is no longer here. Or they can have a word or two that has significant meaning. Either way, you can be sure that no one will have a wind chime identical to yours. Yep, these are one of a kind!

Our first run of ordered wind chimes were eight in total. Each one was tailor-made and skillfully put together by Carl who has a knack for these kinds of things. Three kinds of wood were used as well as copper tubing, sturdy cord, hooks, and wood screws. When it came time to get the wind chimes ready for shipping, I helped with the packaging part---plenty of bubble wrap and tape.

The carved buttefly "flapper" catches the wind and sets the rest of the wind chime in motion.

Minus the cobwebs, aren't these shiny tubes beautiful against the backdrop of green leaves on trees?

Check out more about how these wind chimes are made at this link to our Carved By Heart shop.

Love After Death

I love you to the moon and back.

I love you beyond tomorrow.

Love. Love for kids. Love for our kids.

Who knows how deep it is?

Who knows better than a bereaved mother?

With the births of my first three children, I loved them in all their red-faced fuzziness. By the time my fourth child was born, I knew I loved her more than ever.

Did I love her more?

No, but I knew of the depth of my capacity to love.

What had changed?

My second child, Daniel, had died just three months earlier.

And with his death, I realized how great and vast and powerful and consuming a mother's love is for her child. And that once a child is gone, there is a fierceness to love, to love that continues, but has no living-on-earth object of love.

It's been nearly eighteen years since Daniel died from cancer treatments in 1997.

Every single day my love has grown for him and for his siblings.

I know the ache of loss and absence and that both of these bring you to a new understanding. Love goes on after death. On and on. And it is a kind of love that can take your breath away.

I knew I loved my children before Daniel left us, but I wasn't aware of how pulsating and immense this love was.

If you have lost a child to death, you know just what I mean.

If you have not lost a child, you think your love is already great. It is, I will not deny that. It is growing as all living things grow. But you can not know how your love can make you yearn so much for one who is no longer there by your side. You cannot know the extent of longing for one you will no longer see----even if only at Christmas because he lives overseas. This love can only be experienced in this way after you have had to say good-bye.

There is something about the permanency of death that makes us realize how much we can love because once that child is gone from us, we feel the sorrow of life without a living person to give that love to. But it's more than that, we recognize how devastated we are without this person in our lives and now entwined that child is to us. Even in death.

What irony that it takes death to discover this love.

Is it true then? She/He who has lost much, loveth more? Or does she just understand the ocean-like quality of love more completely?

Hug your children.

Cherish the memories.

Love.

A shop of memories

My grandfather Hall had a hardware and lumber shop. As a child, when my family made the trek from Osaka, Japan to Richmond Virginia, we visited his store. The memories I have of it include the loud buzz of a table saw, the fresh scent of red oak, and sawdust everywhere.

Fast forward many, many years to North Carolina. Step into our garage. While not a brick and mortar store with a bell that rings when you open the front door, Carved By Heart is in business. Inside the garage, wooden creations are made---signs, plaques, clocks, bird feeders, pet remembrances, and more.

Plaques in memory of loved ones, custom-made signs, memory pieces. And yes, the aroma of red oak and pine permeates throughout the garage as the saw buzzes to cut the wood.

We love providing handcrated wooden items for our customers.

My son Daniel never met my grandfather Hall. My grandfather died when I was a senior in high school. But the inspiration I hold from the life of my son, who died at at the age of four in 1997, coupled with my grandfathers's love of wood, makes for a lovely tribute.

It is those memories that give our shop the desire and inspiration to create and make items that bring solace and smiles to others.

Find our shop online at Etsy and spend some time there. Let us hear from you! If you can think it, we can carve it! We can be serious, funny, silly or sentimental.

Let us carve some memories for you.

Candid Thoughts on Heavenly Reunions

It was not the first time someone told me this and I suspect it won't be the last.

Talk about bittersweet.

I suppose I should explain. I'm talking about when people hear that your child died and immediately----I mean without even pausing to take in a breath----say, "You will see him again in Heaven."

Is that supposed to make it all okay?

Tell me, what exactly do these kind folks mean when they toss out that line?

If I were to watch a mother or father crying over the loss of an infant that only breathed for a few moments or a son or daughter who lived to be forty, I would never say that line.

It's a cheap shot. My opinion. To me, it makes it seem as though there is no reason for tears. Or makes it seem that if I had real faith, I wouldn't be sad.

Don't get all ruffled up now. It's not that I don't believe. You see, I do believe in Heaven. I wish more was written about it in The Bible. On many days I wish for just a glimpse. When I'm at the ocean and the breeze blows and the waves dance against the shore, I feel I'm closer to Heaven. Or when I go for a walk and the scents and sights of spring fill my vision, I think, "Ah, this is heavenly."

I believe when people die they go to Heaven. The criminal on the cross next to Jesus was promised he would be with Jesus in paradise. Love is perfect there because the Creator of love, God the Father, lives in Heaven. There is no sin, no sorrow, no tears and no human frailty in this place of eternity.

Yet sometimes I wonder if those who tell me not to worry, that I'll be with my son again in Heaven, are not using their God-given mind to think, to ponder.

Do you really think I am going to be serving animal crackers and reading bedtime stories to my Daniel in Heaven?

There will be reunions, yes. But I will never be Daniel's mama on earth again. Gone is the dream every mother holds and that is to watch her little baby grow up. That ended for me with Daniel's death at age four. When he died, so did my need to buy Cocoa Puffs for him.

I was thirty-six then. I'm fifty-two now. That's been a lot of time for me to wonder and pray and think, and oh, yes, bite my tongue. Especially when well-meaning folk try to cast off my pain by quipping, "We'll just think, you'll see him again in Heaven."

"If Heaven is going to be just like earth where I have to take out the trash, worry about paying bills, and discipline my kids, I don't want it," a mother said to me.

Some seem to think Heaven is an extension of earth. That Heaven to many will be a repeat, only without mosquitoes and a place where consuming a pound of milk chocolate won't make one fat. Many act like it's going to be where I can see my Daniel again as he was on earth. Folks, that little body that took a beating to cancer is gone. It is no more. The Bible promises we'll get new bodies, and I imagine that they won't age. In fact we probably will all look the same age----young and flawless, like the women in all those Oil of Olay commercials.

So before you tell a mother who is sorrowful over the death of her dreams, who is questioning who she is now without her son or daughter, who dreads Christmas because it means one less stocking to fill, who has seen her family diminish in size, and who has a hard time putting one foot in front of the other on most days---even years later----THINK!

There are so many healthy and nurturing ways in which we can comfort each other. Consider them. Instead of giving a pat, "Well, you'll see your child in Heaven," why not sit down, hold a grieving mother's hand, and listen?

You just might cry when you hear her aching heart. Don't you think Jesus would be weeping if He were seated next to her, too?

She knows she'll see her child again in Heaven. Right now she needs more than that reassurance. She has to learn how to live the rest of her life without him. She has to conquer sleepless nights and inappropriate comments, criticism, and push herself to believe that she will get a day free of tears.

Let her know that she is going through the hardest journey a mother ever goes through.

Let love coupled with understanding be how you bring comfort.

~ Alice is the author of five inspirational novels and the new devotional on grief and loss, Getting Out of Bed in the Morning: Reflections of Comfort in Heartache. Read the reviews and order a copy here.

Everybody needs a place to share

People Need a Place to Share and Remember


I wanted to give people an opportunity. People need a place where memories are freely shared and abound.

When I started out with the making of my first memorial cookbook, Slices of Sunlight, I had an urgency to get the book out there. My four-year-old son Daniel had been gone just two years, and as a writer, it was important to me to have his name printed in a book. I knew other parents would welcome the opportunity to tell their son’s or daughter’s story about a food-related experience. Other parents, like me, had to deal with that empty chair at mealtimes—the space their child once occupied, back when life was not filled with sorrow. Why not give them a platform?

I sent out many email messages to bereaved parents’ groups. I told those in my Compassionate Friends chapter that I was putting together a book of favorite recipes and memories and gave them a short tutorial on how to write a food memory.

What was fascinating to me was the feedback I received, and not just the delicious recipes coupled with remembrances. People I had never met found out about the project and wrote to say things like, “Writing the recipe and memory was therapeutic for me.” “I loved having the time to recall. Thank you.” “I remembered and I cried; it brought back many good memories.”

My husband Carl is the one to thank for Memories Around the Table, my third and most recent book. He had not been in my life when the first two came out. I considered another book but wasn’t sure I wanted to dedicate the time or money, and I wasn’t certain that another memorial cookbook was needed.

“Let this one be a book with the recipes and memories of all loved ones, not just those of children,” he suggested. (I have a hunch it’s because he wanted to include a cake recipe he loves to make, known as Mom’s Cake, in the book.)

It was in Atlanta when I was invited to speak at a CURE weekend conference that I announced to a group of bereaved parents that I would do another cookbook. Once I told them about it, I knew I had to be committed to the project. I worked on getting the word out. I created a special email account where folks could send their recipes so I would have an in box dedicated to the “cookbook only” email messages. Which printer to use? Which cover? Should there be art inside? So many decisions.

When you compile a cookbook there are profound blessings along the way. First there are these priceless stories. I cried over many. The gratitude of those who submit recipes and memories are so dear. Then there is that action that many want to run from: editing. Editing to make the prose shine without taking away the essence of what the contributor supplied in the form of a memory and recipe—now that takes time.

The end result is a not just a mere book, but a legacy where love and the love of food live on. A tribute to those who once graced our tables, a reason for a contributor to take the time to write and say, "What a lovely little book. I was quite moved by the memories of loved ones and the way that the sharing of their recipes provided a way to share those memories and honor their lives. You did a very good job with this. I do thank you for doing all the work of putting this together and for including me. It is all so positive and healing."

Memories Around the Table is an invitation to all to come join us at the table, to remember and to continue to tell the stories that shape who we are.

You might want to bring a tissue.


Order your copy of Memories Around the Table (Daniel’s House Publications) by clicking this link.

~ Alice J. Wisler is a freelance writer and the author of five inspirational Southern novels, a grief and loss devotional (Getting Out of Bed in the Morning, a top seller on Kindle), and three independently-published cookbooks. She teaches grief-writing workshops across the country. Learn more at her website: http://www.alicewisler.com

(This article was first and originally posted at Julie Saffrin's blog)

Sometimes . . .

. . . things don't go the way they were planned!

When Dan and Betty Bryl received their cookbooks, I imagined that they were excited to see their daughter's inclusion. But when they opened their copies, they looked at each other and said, "What happened?" Then they emailed me.

"Where's the recipe? We got the memory, but where's the recipe?"

Uh-oh . . . Had there been a recipe, too? My stomach sunk to my knees. Where?

Eventually we figured it out. The first email Dan sent had two attachments---one for the recipe and one for the memory--but the corrected email only held the memory because that was all they had needed to correct. I got the email message that said it was the final one and didn't feel that I needed to read the first two. I ran with the one that said it was the corrected version. It only held the memory atttachment and I thought that was all she wrote. I deleted the other two so as not to confuse myself and sent the corrected one to where I stored the material for Memories Around the Table. And that, my friends is why only the memory ended up in the cookbook.

These things happen.

Well, I knew there was a way to remedy this. Here it is! Below is the recipe that goes with the memory for Jell-O. Jessica, I sure hope your parents will love me again!


Seven-Layer Jell-O

Not an easy recipe but worth the effort!

1 small box of each: cherry, orange, lemon, and lime Jell-O
2 packages plain Knox gelatin
1 pint sour cream
2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Dissolve each Jell-O package in 1 cup HOT water then add 1/2 cup cold water (keep each flavor separate).

Bring to BOIL in sauce pan the milk and sugar, stirring constantly. Dissolve 2 packages of Knox in 1/2 cup COLD water, then add to milk mixture. Cool slightly (off burner), then add sour cream and vanilla. Blend with electric mixer at low speed.

In 13 X 9 glass pan, pour in first layer of Jell-O. When this is set, pour 1 1/2 cups of milk mixture on top very slowly so as not to break layer. Continue process, making sure each layer is set. If you put in the refrigerator, it takes at least 45 minutes for first layer to become set.

TIP 1: Chill glass pan before pouring first layer. Each layer will go a bit faster because of the chill. You can speed up by putting in the reezer, but you have to be very careful not to FREEZE! You must watch and pull before ice crystals form. Then put in fridge to finish chill. Be very careful!

TIP 2: You can make all the Jell-O at once and leave at room temperature. The milk mixture should be kept in a pan of hot water so it won’t thicken, but make sure to cool some before pouring layer. Pour first layer to chill before making milk mixture, but be sure to cool some before pouring on set Jell-O layer.

TIP 3: Layer for the Holidays. We put cherry and lime as top two layers for Christmas, and orange for Halloween. You can try other flavors, but we have found that these were the most complementary to each other.

Need a copy of Memories Around the Table so that you can read the memory that goes with this recipe as well as dozens of other recipes and memories? Order from here.

Memories Around the Table: Order print or e-book today!

Memories Around the Table is selling like hotcakes! Here's what others are saying:

"Oh, Alice ... you warm my heart and make me cry. This month - 18 years since I've seen my oldest son alive, and yet these memories/recipes bring him right here with me! Thank you!" ~ Jan Lehman

"Alice J. Wisler has compiled a book of recipes and memories in a beautiful and heart-warming cookbook. If you've ever had my mother-in-law's lemon chess pie, here's your chance to get the recipe." ~ Angie Arndt

"Love, love, love it! Thanks so much for doing this project." ~ Karen Bowles

"On one of these recent rainy afternoons, I picked up your book, Memories Around the Table, and began reading the recipes and comments. What a lovely little book. I was quite moved by the memories of loved ones and the way that the sharing of their recipes provided a way to share those memories and honor their lives. You did a very good job with this. I do thank you for doing all the work of putting this together and for including me. It is all so positive and healing. Thanks again." ~ Diane Prosser

"How wonderful to find our daughter Paula's favorite eggplant parmigiana recipe and her cheesy popcorn recipe in your new cookbook. I like the ringed format, makes it easy to use in the kitchen. They will make wonderful gifts for many of our friends. Beautifully done, thanks for the memories around the table!" ~ Pam Bennett-Santoro

"Loved the book. Great cover, interesting recipes. Tried the Biscuits and Gravy, nice story, yummy breakfast." ~ Dan Bryl

"Your book is lovely with super recipes and great graphics and cover. Thanks for all the work." ~ Caroline Raby


Order a print copy by following the directions below (order via Paypal or check). Or order on Kindle.

Click here to order the e-book on Kindle.

Memories Around the Table

COSTS FOR PRINT ORDERS:
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2 books, $29.98 plus $4.00 S/H for a total of $33.98
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Our New Venture

My husband and I have a new venture. Carved Remembrances is a special way of remembering those you love. The red oak plaque here can sit on your table or hang on the wall. There's room for a picture of your loved one as well as his/her name and the birth and death dates. We're expanding our selections to suit your needs. And we're excited about providing our public with wonderfully-crafted items to bring you solace.

Visit our webpage.

Email info@alicewisler to ask for an order form today!

Pamper yourself this summer!

Last year I took a leap of faith and hosted two all-day grief writing workshops in North Carolina. I've taught my "Writing the Heartache" Workshops at other people's seminars, but never on my own where I was responsible for locating the venue, serving lunch, advertising, etc.

I'm happy to announce that this summer I will offer another all-day workshop in Raleigh, NC. "Gateway Through Life's Losses" will be held at the Raleigh-Cary, NC Hampton Inn and Suites' Capital~Piedmont Room on July 30th from 8:30 AM to 4:15 PM.

This is a workshop for anyone who wants to write from any kind of loss (divorce, death of a loved one, financial, etc.) or from broken relationships. The grief/loss scope is wide.

Writing therapy is a wonderful gift you can give to yourself this summer! One of the participants from last year said that she had taken care of so many, now it was time to take care of herself and pamper herself with the workshop.

I've created a page on my website with all the details.

Please spread the word to all your friends and family in this area who could benefit from a day of healing, health, and hope.

Interview on building self-esteem after the death of a child

When a child dies, our self-image suffers. Join me and Gloria and Heidi Horsley on Open to Hope Radio as we discuss how to build self-esteem and confidence after the death of a child.

The show has been recorded and will air on May 13 at noon (EST),
9AM Pacific time.

This link will take you to where you can listen to the program via your
computer speakers. It'll only take 18 minutes of your time.

I Went to Your Grave Today

Here's a poem I wrote in 1998 in memory of Daniel. I placed it
in my first cookbook, Slices of Sunlight.

I went to your grave today,
taking daisies and roses.
I ate lemon poppy seed bread
and felt the warmth of the sun
As I sat on a yellow cloth
watching the children run.

I went to your grave today
and felt the soft wind whistle
and felt the grass tickle my bare feet
and heard the baby cry,
the older ones laugh---
and then I listened for you.

I could not see your face
with its bright blue eyes
Or feel your head on my shoulder.
I could not touch your hands,
for that body is no longer you,
covered in the grave.

It was the brilliance of your soul
that flooded my senses---
it was the radiance of knowing what you are,
And what you have become
That energized my heart
when I went to your grave today.

~ Alice J. Wisler

Memories of a smile

There's a pull on my heart today---the kind that won't let go even though I'm enjoying a day that's all about spoiling me---my birthday. The wrapped presents on the kitchen table embrace mystery, and a magnificent chocolate cake made by my son Ben awaits. My two daughters whisper in the next room, and once my husband comes home, the five of us will go out to eat dinner at an Italian restaurant.

Yet, through moments of this day, the bittersweet mixture of pain and joy is evident. There's no denying that this ache stems from years ago when I sat in a hospital room with a little boy. He was the patient, but it was my birthday. The nurses brought in a cake with candles for me. The boy smiled, and wiggled with excitement as the nurses sang. Later he ate two pieces of cake.

Much later, he threw up. Seems chemo and birthday cake do not go well together.

Less than a month after my birthday, I cradled his breathless, bloated body in my arms and wondered how I'd ever live to see tomorrow.

I was not planning to have to live his August birthday without him. Nor mine.

Now, thirteen years later, I'm wrinkled. I might even have gray hair; I don't really know because I color it at least once a month. But the little boy is still four.

Each year on my birthday, his smile warms my heart as I recall the way he sat on his hospital bed, happy because his mommy was being treated to a cake with candles.

Each year I wish I could see that smile for real, and not just in my bin of recycled memories. When my birthday cake is sliced, I want to offer him at least two pieces.

Sweet Daniel, perhaps there's cake in Heaven. Perhaps the angels sing. Once I've wiped the tears from my eyes, I'll listen for your voice among them.

Entering the new year with old memories

Christmas has ended, and the living room still has that unwrapped look. With the festivities now part of future memories, I anticipate the next hurdle----the new year. The TV commercials romanticize champagne toasts illuminated by glowing candles. People start to make resolutions, hopeful that this brand-new unblemished year will be the one that fuels their successes.

For the parent who has lost a child to death, a new year can be daunting. The first New Years' after my son Daniel's death was scary. I wanted to hold onto 1997. Although it was the year he'd lost his battle with cancer and died, it was also the year he'd lived. 1998 would mark the first calendar year without him.

For some reason, the image of an old-fashioned wooden bucket came to me. With this item I heard the word carry. That's it, my newly-bereaved mind said. The key with a new year is to carry the old into it.

So here we are, on the brink of another year, a new decade, with fresh hopes and dreams. A clean slate. There are many things about 2009 I wish to forgive and forget, but I don't want to ever forget my son.

Each year marks a year further from when I last held him, heard his voice, and saw his smile. I yearn to hug him, tell him how much he's grown, and ask him what he'd like for dinner. My heart feels that distinct hollowness and sorrow that belongs to a mother without her child.

But the bucket I have isn't hollow. It is brimming with memories and fondness, warmed with love and laughter; I hold it tightly.

Just as I carried Daniel's four-year-old memories into 1998, now---thirteen years later---I will continue to carry them. And I will do more than just hold them, I'll let them trickle out, forming their own glow, as I share this special boy with my world. "Wasn't it funny when Daniel called adults redults? Do you remember how he gave stickers away in the hospital, and once when bored made a collage out of baby lotion and glitter?"

Daniel lived, he loved, and I believe he continues to live in Heaven.

So, get yourself a sturdy bucket and carry. Boldly carry the memories into the new year. Along the way, give yourself permission to forgive. Let the memories you recall be the brightest ones.

Listen. There is nothing to fear. Listen. Your child's voice can be heard in your heart.