I recently read an article written by The New York Times columnist Jane Brody1 regarding the loss of a spouse and the healing that takes place. It was titled Recovery Varies After a Spouse Dies. The early research maintained that “the vast majority of surviving spouses adjust well.”2 New research suggests, however, that a more…
A GLIMPSE OF BEHAVIOR I gave the following Grand Rounds speech to doctors and medical students at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in April 2016. My husband Ed suggested I post it on my blog Unexpectedlives.com. I agreed. I thought about what I would say in the days before the speech and A Medical Problem…
Robert—our daughter Stacy’s husband—and I were standing quietly outside the double doors that led to the medical center’s intensive care unit (ICU). It was early in the morning and Stacy was inside the unit on a respirator. The doors were closed. We had been asked to leave while the nurses took care of the patients….
Donnie Moorin died on Monday, February 20, 2012. He was 79 years old. Donnie, his younger sister Carole, and their parents lived two houses away from my family on Charles Street in Bridgeport, CT. Carole and I have been close friends since babyhood. Donnie’s death shattered the peace of our Florida vacation — my husband…
Last April, I heard about a memorial service held jointly by The Valerie Fund Children’s Centers* at Overlook and Morristown Hospitals. This special memorial for children who had lost their struggle to cancer or blood disorders takes place yearly in the Morristown Hospital’s Malcolm Forbes auditorium. The idea was so natural and loving that I wondered why…
I attended the August 3rd Vet2Vet meeting at the invitation of my husband Ed, a committed volunteer consultant at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). The veterans peer counseling program, based at UMDNJ’s University Behavioral HealthCare Center (UBHC), was, for several weeks, our unceasing topic of conversation and I had jumped…
I was not quite ten years old when my mother died. She was forty-two, and her death stole almost all of my childhood memories: the knowledge of her as a mother and individual, my past experiences as her daughter, and my relationships with the family during those young years. Only two solitary sparks remain. There’s nothing else to grab onto, nothing to build…
My mother died in 1945, stricken by a massive cerebral hemorrhage. It was an unacceptably vague diagnosis by today’s standards but the only one given to me at the time. I was not quite ten years old. She was forty-two, and her absence poked a hole in my life that has never been filled. Day…
When my older brother Stan died in a automobile accident, I lost my best friend. He was twenty-six. Unwilling to accept the fact of his passing, I simply rejected the idea of it. I had just turned twenty-one, old enough to know better, but as I’d walk down Bridgeport’s main streets, from one store to another, I’d…
Jeff Weber, a well-informed writer and editor, writes about health and health-related issues and events for the Courier News, The Home News Tribune, and MyCentralJersey.com. On February 9, his column, Healthwise, published my story, People Handle Grief in their Own Way. I received many responses including the one below. I sent this particular response on to Jeff…