Love Sorrow, a poem by Mary Oliver

Love Sorrow on Prezi

Love,
Kim

Youth Novels About Loss

I will be adding to this post over time, I have to get it started.

Youth often find direct communication about death and loss overwhelming for many, many reasons. Direct conversations are good, but sprinkle in stories and other kinds of content to help children experience a range of expressiveness. Here is a beginning list of youth titles, I will be adding child titles as well over time. If you know of any child or youth fiction that you would like to see added, please leave a comment or email me. Thanks!

Youth Fiction:

• After by Francis Chalifour Fifteen-year-old Francis struggles to come to terms with his father's suicide.
• The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.
• Under the Wolf, Under the Dog by Adam Rapp Sixteen-year-old Steve struggles to make sense of his mother's terminal breast cancer and his brother's suicide.
• No Right Turn by Terry Trueman After three years of wanting only to be invisible, sixteen-year-old Jordan begins to recover from his father's suicide and start living again when a neighbor's vintage Corvette Stingray opens up new possibilities for him. 
• Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume Resettled in the "Bomb City" with her mother and brother, Davey Wexler recovers from the shock of her father's death during a holdup of his 7-Eleven store in Atlantic City.
• Eagle Kite by Paula Fox Liam's father has AIDS, and his family cannot talk about it until Liam reveals a secret that he has tried to deny ever since he saw his father embracing another man at the beach.
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parents’ death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their society.
• Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause  Only Simon, the young vampire who comes to her house in the middle of the night, can help Zoe overcome her brooding thoughts of her dying mother and her own loneliness.
• Girl Death Left Behind by Lurlene McDaniel  Numb with grief when an accident kills her entire family, fourteen-year-old Beth suddenly finds herself living with her spoiled cousin Terri and trying to make friends at a new school.
• Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoto Mori  After her mother's suicide when she is twelve years old, Yuki spends years living with her distant father and his resentful new wife, cut off from her mother's family, and relying on her own inner strength to cope with the tragedy.
• Missing May by Cynthia Rylant After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living.

Love,
Kim

Today's Reflections

Today is a hard day - but in response to being marginalized and being made invisible (literally), I decided to try and reach out farther instead of obeying the instinct to roll up like a rolly polly.

One thing about having your soul mate die - is that the person that saw you no matter what ever else was going on is no longer physically here. I think he sees me still. Call me crazy or whatever. But I do think he sees me. It is just that a safe place is gone. So when I my very existence was made obsolete today, I only had myself and my breathing. And my cat. (Thank God for cats!)

So instead of rolling away, I am walking straight toward whoever will accept my presence. I have opened a new facebook group. It is called Grief and Healing Community. I have a co-admin for the site who is quite a fun Brit. And I hope that it can be a place where people are embraced and are not made invisible.

Easter resurrection is needed. I am reaching out for it.

Love,

Today's Reflections

Today, on my mediation walk:

The unique things about you are what you have to offer to this world... the normal things... well, there are enough of those out there.

Love,

Today's Reflections

Death by Wind

As for those who face their death by wind
and call it by the weird name of forgiveness
they alone have the right to marry birds,
and those who stopped themselves from falling down
by holding the wall up or the sink in place
they can go without much shame for they
have lived enough and they can go click, click
if they want to, they can go tok, tok
and they can marry anything, even hummingbirds.

Gerald Stern

Love,

Today's Reflections

An easy thing, O Power Divine,

To thank Thee for these gifts of Thine,

For summer's sunshine, winter's snow,

For hearts that kindle, thoughts that glow;

But when shall I attain to this -

To thank Thee for the things I miss?

-Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Today's Reflections

The Rights Of The Dying

The right to be treated as a living human being.

The right to maintain a sense of hopefulness, however changing its focus may be.

The right to be cared for by those who can maintain a sense of hopefulness, however changing this may be.

The right to express feelings and emotions about death in one’s own way.

The right to participate in all decisions concerning one’s care.

The right to be cared for by compassionate, sensitive, knowledgeable people who will attempt to understand one’s needs.

The right to expect continuing medical care, even though the goals may change from “cure” to “comfort” goals.

The right to have all questions answered honestly and fully.

The right to seek spirituality.

The right to be free of physical pain.

The right to express feelings and emotions about pain in one’s own way.

The right of children to participate in death.

The right to understand the process of death.

The right to die.

The right to die in peace and dignity.

The right not to die alone.

The right to expect that the sanctity of the body will be respected after death.

www.grief.com

Today's Reflections

The moment I die, I will try to come back to you
as quickly as possible. I promise it will not take long.
Isn't it true I am already with you, as I die each moment?
I come back to you in every moment. Just look, feel my presence.
If you want to cry, please cry. And know that I will cry with you.
The tears you shed will heal us both.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Today's Reflections

Image Credit: Zachary Brown

Rise up, rise up,
I say, out of
your grave,
I refuse to
have you buried there.
These five & a half years
should be separation only, never
a complete farewell,
& all we’ve learned & thought of
for each other, all we discovered by the terms of
this distance forced upon us
all that we stored up to tell,
to give each other, these words clamoring
between us
all that relief of touching, holding
hands, embraces & half-broken
laughter instead of weeping,
all that is
promised for us still:
how we would
fall upon each other
to make sure
the other’s flesh is there for
touching, what a wealth,
a cornucopia
of pleasure awaits us!
5 & ½ years
of walls between us—& all that blankness
turned upside down!

- - Hilda Morley

Today's Reflections

"To be able to make someone laugh years after I am gone - that is all the immortality I could ask for." - Kate Braestrup

Today's Reflections

Image Credit: Andres Amador

It was only one hour ago
It was all so different then
Nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did
This flesh and bone
It's just the way that we are tied in
But there's no one home

I grieve for you
You leave me

So hard to move on
Still loving what's gone
Said life carries on
And on,and on

The news that truly shocks
Is the empty,empty page
While the final rattle rocks
It's empty,empty cage
And i can't handle this

I grieve for you
You leave me

Let it out and move on
Missing what's gone
Said life carries on
And on,and on

Life carries on in the people i meet
In everyone that's out in the street
In all the dogs and cats
In the flies and the rats
In the rod and the rust
In the ashes and the dust

Just the car that we ride in
The home we reside in
The face that we hide in
The way we are tied in

Did I dream this belief
Or did i believe this dream
How will i find relief
I grieve

- Peter Gabriel

Today's Reflections

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
- W.S. Merwin


I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
- Robert Frost


Dying is a wild night and a new road.
- Emily Dickinson