A Child's Perspective on Death

It was 1964 and the central Illinois funeral home was packed with people.

They had congregated to honor the life of William Q. Leach, humanitarian, war veteran, public speaker, corporate promotions director extradonaire, and beloved father.

I know, because he was mine and I was there.

On that particular day I was ushered into the funeral home wearing my Sunday best. The problem was, it wasn’t a Sunday. This was one of the first indicators that today was different and that life as I had known it, would never be the same. I was eight years old.

To be honest, I got that message just a few days prior, when my mother picked me up from school. She seemed upset, but I was more concerned with reporting the fun and interesting things that had happened in my classroom that day. Mom listened politely for a bit and then cleared her throat.

“I have something to tell you,” she said, pulling off the road. “Daddy died today.”

I glanced at her, wondering if there was more she had to say, but she sat quietly crying and avoiding my gaze. I didn’t know what to do, so I simply acknowledged that I had heard her words with an “okay” and went on reporting my day’s adventures.

Except it wasn’t okay for me; I just wouldn’t really know that until many years later.

Fast forward to the funeral and the casket containing my father located at the front of the room. My mother chose an open casket so that those paying their last respects could see and talk to body of the man they had known and loved.

I don’t remember the viewing but I do recall wondering “why are all of these people talking to each other so loudly when it is obvious my daddy is taking a nap?”

After the service and a slow, boring drive to the cemetery, the crowd came to my grandmother’s home for food and drink. I got to see cousins I hadn’t played with in awhile and my favorite uncle was there, too. I got lots of hugs and the old people asked me about my school work, wondered about my best friend and suggested a nice vacation for the upcoming summer. But the really good part was that nobody seemed to care if I ate an extra cookie or two or helped myself to the cheese dip and crackers.

I felt like I was in heaven.

Today I have discovered that thousands of people have learned the news of a loved one’s passing in much the same way: a few rushed words of non-conversation to “get it over with” and a quick return to the normal world of friends, food and frivolity.

Many of us fear bringing up mention of the deceased out of concern for the griever’s welfare. We don’t want to cause a meltdown or initiate sadness, and we certainly don’t want to put ourselves in an uncomfortable position.

Until now. Coming very soon is my latest book, Come Out of Your Shell: Questions to Start a Death Conversation When All You'd Rather Do Is Clam Up! Readers will be treated to questions that seek to highlight the good and the bad about your deceased loved one and help ease you into a natural conversation that remembers and honors the deceased. And I offer my thoughts on the reasons these questions deserve to be asked and responded to.

Do you have a young person in your life that is coping with loss? I offer tips on how to support them in this week's issue of In the Flow. You can sign up to receive a copy by visiting http://www.life-preservers.org/ and putting your name and e-mail in the box on the right side of the page.

We've Gone to the Dogs

I don't really know what that statement means, but it got me thinking about pets.

Watching mindless TV one night I saw a show that featured a couple who talked on and on about their kids. The woman couldn't stop talking about how her time had been taken up with making sure the kids had clean towels and plenty of food during a recent storm. She regaled her neighbor with the stories, seeking sympathy for all that a working mother must deal with in the course of a day.

Later in the show you realized her children were not real children at all, but instead her cats that she fondly called her "kids". Yes, she was a little over the top with her attentiveness, but it got me missing my cats, Mick and Molly.

My "kids"-ooohhhh, that doesn't feel right for me! My cats were with me through a couple of moves, my mom's illness and death and the break up of a major relationship. They died within one year of each other, a tough time on top of other tough times, to be sure.

When I sought solace for my loss with friends, I found many who were wonderfully supportive and secretly shared their own feelings of the deaths of their pets through the years. It was if we were now in a secret club together; knowing that the other would not think you "odd" for loving a furry blob with four legs.

So what's up with that? Why are we so afraid to share our love of animals and our sadness over their loss openly? Yes, the woman on TV was a little extreme, but our real life movies often include wonderful scenes with pets that need to be recorded in our memories forever.

I plan to listen more fully when someone mentions their beloved pet died. I think that's the best way to honor their feelings and the life of a furry friend that brought love and happiness into their lives.

And So It Begins- the Countdown

Whenever we enter a New Year it's natural to let that passing of time become our marker for other life events: birthdays, graduations, anniversaries and so forth.

My now-deceased mother would do that: each year on my birthday she would call me and say "twenty-two years ago (or twenty-five or twenty-six or whatever age I happened to be that year) I became the happiest mother ever because you were born!" A lovely sentiment, to be sure, but I also loved her next statement: "I hope you have a wonderful year, honey."

It was so much more pleasant to look ahead to that new year of life than to be reminded of all the years that I was less than who I hoped to be or spending time recounting the mistakes I made.

Now, with a few more years of birthdays celebrated, I can see that the lessons learned contributed to the choices I make for my future today.

How about you? What memories of your deceased loved ones, or even your own life experiences, will you allow to propel you forward into this New Year? How will you honor the past while creating a great future?

The choice is yours and I support you in taking bold steps to make those choices your reality!

Life Preservers' Resolutions for Letting go of an Old Year, an Old Love, and/or an Old Dream

Resolve to:

1. Express gratitude for what you've lost. It's true that it isn't so easy when it is a year/person/dream we are more than willing to see flee from our lives, but no matter what, give thanks for the experience/vision you've had. In that case, it brought you the gift of clarity about what you don't want. And when it comes to a year/person/dream we loved, gratitude is the best way to remember the good that was shared.

2. Bask in both the good and bad memories. While you're giving thanks, go ahead and take some time to immerse yourself in your memories. Others may urge you to "get over it" or caution you that "you'll just stay sad if you think about it all the time", but we know that honoring our memories is the best way to find the proper place for them. Go ahead and cry or laugh or scream. It's just part of the process and you'll move through it.

3. Identify the positive qualities of the year/person/dream that you'd like to have more of in your life. Thinking "he had a great sense of humor" can be a clue that more laughter in your life is important. Or "I see that I felt calmer in the summer when we were at the lake" could mean some more weekend trips to water are in your future.

4. Likewise, identify the negative qualities you know you don't want to follow you into the future. "Every time we had a fight she'd leave the room" could be a big red flag that you are ready to attract people with better communication skills into your life. "I thought my dream would make me rich" could suggest that it is time to seek a more viable business option in 2010.

5. Make a symbolic gesture of release. Write a letter to the lost year/person/dream and tell it/him/her "good bye". Once you've done so, tear it up or burn it as a final farewell. This doesn't mean that you'll never remember the experiences/people again, only that you have completed the emotional ride they put you on.

6. Decide on a feeling. How do you want to feel about the year/person/dream who is now gone? Do you choose to stay in the grief or are you willing to feel complete or settled or happy about them? Take a step to decide for you what feelings you want to have; its too easy for others in our lives to want to decide for us and call it "concern".

7. What do you need now? You've done the work of letting go so what now? What do you need in this moment? Perhaps you'd like to share your experience with a trusted friend or schedule a 20 minute walk in nature to sooth your soul. Whatever it is, give yourself this one last holiday gift of the action or the time or the thought. You deserve it.

8. How will this letting go experience serve your future? What do you see for yourself now in 2010? Get a clear picture in your mind of the future you now want to create and see it as if it is happening now.

9. Focus on the New Year of your creation. Make a treasure map of pictures and words that capture what you want. Journal your New Year plans daily. Join a mastermind or prayer group for support. Hire a coach to support you.

10. Celebrate each day of the New Year that lets you get closer to your good. Set up monthly times for acknowledging your progress. Here's to a great New Year of moving forward.

Need some support in living these tips? Visit http://www.life-preservers.org/ for coaching support and other articles to inspire you along the way.

Turning Grief into a Christmas Cookie

I will be making my Grandmother's Christmas sugar cookies this weekend and of course her memory is strong in my mind and heart. I've washed off the cookie cutters and set aside the 3 that my mom used as a girl: the bell, the Santa and a bird. Those are made last, so that she can be part of the festivities in my mind.

Thinking about these 2 powerful women in my life had me thinking about how grief is like a cookie. Know what I mean?

Well, the memories we have are like the sugar and the vanilla added to the dough-they give a bit of flavoring and make things sweet. Mixing all the ingredients is just like the mix of emotions that hit at odd times, usually when you think you are doing "just fine" with things. And you do have to roll the dough out, just like the best way for coping with grief is to just roll with the waves of sadness and swim to the other side of the shore to find the warmth and gratitude for the relationship, just like the warm cookies fresh from the oven. And when you chew your cookie, you know that grief does bite, but you don't have to let it burn.

It's a tough time for a lot of folks who have lost someone important to them this year. If that's you, give yourself the gift of an hour with a cup of tea or a glass of milk and a couple of cookies. Grief will change and flow-let it.

And know you are important to many people and their support can be the icing on the cookie.

Walking Your Talk

Dr. O. Carl Simonton is dead. He's been dead since late June, but I only now found out.

I was Googling people who have been influential in my life: Joanna Bull, Howard Benjamin, Carl Simonton and others, to see what they are doing now. Carl is not doing much on this earthly plane, but believe me, he is sharing his wisdom in the great byond.

Carl Simonton was an early pioneer in the mind-body movement; convinced that the mind could, and did, effect the body's repsonse to healing and that by visualizing unhealthy cells being overtaken by healthy ones, patients could affect the course of their treatment and ultimately, the disease itself. Carl had a reputation as a kind of freak back in the seventies by the medical community, when he first went public with his ideas.

In the late eighties I brought him in to do a weekend workshop for the cancer patients I was working with at the time. It was a big deal to have someone of his stature in our community, and a real stretch for my organization's budget. But I knew I had to have him come and share.

For three days Carl publicly gave us hope, permission and techniques for healing. He privately provided me with words of wisdom as I would drive him back and forth to the workshop and media appearances. "The body needs a balance between work and play," he would tell me. "I can tell you are working too hard. Take Monday and Tuesday off since you will have worked all weekend." What? That concept was unheard of to me, but Simonton backed it up by informing me that he would be sailing his boat for 2 days, when he got home. He too, would have worked the whole weekend.

Dr. O. Carl Simonton walked his talk and that made an impression on me. He parlayed his thoughts into the ground-breaking book, Getting Well Again, and helped thousands of cancer patients around the world through his presentations and week-long group sessions at the Simonton Cancer Center.

His heart and his work will be long remembered by many.

Laboring On After Labor Day

We're back at work here in the US of A, after a nice long holiday called Labor Day. It was a time for me to truly explore how I want to work between now and the end of the year.

I talked with a friend who has continually manifested a foot problem that insists she sit and put her foot up much of the day. She is frustrated and declared "I don't like this! There is so much I wanted to DO this weekend!" Alas, the message is clear: stop DOing and start BEing.

What would happen if you simply unplugged from the world for a day or two? What ideas would feel welcome or what inspired actions would you be led to take? You won't know until you give yourself the gift of time to just Be.

When I stopped by the grocery store yesterday, the woman behind the cash register told me that she had no problem being at work on a holiday. "I enjoy this work," she said. "People don't believe me, but I really do."

I believe her. I enjoy my work, too. I used to think that everyone did, but I have learned through my years of coaching small business owners that it isn't always the case. These clients are the ones with the most stress, the most drama and the most dissatisfaction. And once they have the realization of the true cause and take steps to shift it, amazing things happen.

Things like no neck pain, lower stress levels and more peace of mind. Things like time for enjoying the simple things and engaging in community projects because they want to, not because it's good p.r. for their business or the boss told them they had to show up.

What's the true work of your heart? Your soul's purpose? Do that and see how you feel. And as you let go of your old paradigm of how work "should" be, there will be no grieving for what was, only an excitement and gratitude for what is to be.