Tag: Grief Loss and Bereavement

BEFORE IT IS LOST…😢

We have reached the end of the shortest month that to me feels the longest. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, “How long 3 minutes is depends on what side of the bathroom door you are on.” So many things in our lives can seem like they will last forever, yet are gone in the blink of an eye. I can think of no greater example of that then the people we care about. It may feel like they will always be in our life until one day they are gone forever. In my own life, I have lost 3 relatives in the first 2 months of this year alone. You never know when this may happen,

That brings us to the point of today’s post. Appreciating the elders, and everyone really, in our life. Our elders have a wealth of real-world knowledge that can only be gained through living. You may be tempted to roll your eyes when you hear grandpa tell you the same story, perhaps even more embellished, that you have heard 100 times before. Fight that urge. In addition with his ability to tell a great tale, he is sharing his opinion on what it was like to live in the time he was alive. Listen when old ones give you advice. It may seem crazy at the time, but it is often time that will show you the true wisdom behind what they have told you.

Here is a picture of my beautiful lady and I. Our love is going strong and we fall more in love every day, even 10 years later. One of the secrets to this successful relationship was given to me by my grandfather. The ironic thing is that he passed away many years before I even met this beautiful lady. How did he manage to influence our relationship? He gave me some advice when I was younger that I did fully appreciate until I found myself in love with this wonderful lady. My grandparents were married quite a long time. My grandmother had several health struggles and that, on occasion, stressed her relationship with my grandfather. I often marveled at how he was able to handle her complaints with a knowing grin, shake of the head and keep on smiling. One day I asked him the secret to a lasting relationship. He told me the secret he found was “To bend but don’t break.”

As a young man this advice didn’t really sink in. As an adult, I understood it meant to be willing to compromise on many issues, but stand up for what you really value. In our relationship, Margie and I work to do this. Knowing you will have to work with your partner to keep both of you happy is very important. It is also important to properly communicate values that are important to you to your partner. My grandfather passed this along to me many years ago, but it has gone a long way to helping me grow a beautiful love with a beautiful lady.

How about you? Has there been advice that you have learned from your elders that has made a big difference in your life? Do you find yourself really listening to, and taking in all of the wonderful knowledge and examples that your elders are passing along? This could be advice like my grandfather gave me. It can also be recipes, examples on how to treat others or a million of other different things. Just remember to appreciate them now. When they are gone, it is often too late to learn what we always wanted to know.

A DAY OF CELEBRATION AND MOURNING 🌄

Today is my mother’s birthday. Normally, this would be a post celebrating that fact. It still is, but this year is a little different. A little over a week ago, my cousin who is two years my junior passed away. None of the family even knew she was sick as she wanted to keep that to herself. Today is her funeral. It is a reminder of two very important things. The first is that life is cyclical. We are at once celebrating a birth and mourning a passing. It is the end of life that gives life its precious value.

This Latin phrase translates to “Death is certain, the hour uncertain.” It happens to be one of my lady’s favorite quotes. It is with some irony that her man experienced it first hand. Life can be likened to an hourglass. The sand in the hourglass that is forever running out is the time we have left here. In life, it is as if someone put a cloth on the top part of that hourglass preventing us from knowing how much time we have left. All we know is that the sand is less every second. It could be several years of sand left, or it could run out tomorrow. We are having a funeral for a woman two years younger than me, and celebrating the birth of a woman 17 years older than me. Proof that we never know when our time may be.

What we do with this knowledge is up to us. How much of life will we spend in fear and anger? How much will we spend in love and compassion? What legacy will we leave behind? When are we going to begin to work on it? We only have so many tomorrows left. What we do with today is entirely up to us.

CLIFFSNOTES ARE GREAT, READ THE BOOK (THIS ISN’T ABOUT BOOKS)

As an author, you may be tempted to think this is a ploy to get to you buy more books. Certainly, if you would like to go on Amazon and search ‘Neil Panosian’, feel free to order away. In truth, this post has nothing to do with books at all. It has to do with people. The people in your life. Friends, loved ones and even just the people you enjoy spending time with.

In my own life, I have recently lost two people. My grandmother, who was 96 years old, and my friend Billy Spaulding, who we wrote about last post. These two are not only two entirely different people, they will serve as a great example of what we wish to discuss here today. We often have two types of relationships with people. The book version, or the CliffsNotes version. With Billy I had the book, with my grandmother, the CliffsNotes.

Above you see some very smart people with great taste in books. I hope they had the pleasure of reading the entire thing from cover to cover. When it comes to relationships, do we read from cover to cover? Here is what I mean. When we lose someone, we lose more than just that person’s physical presence in our life. We lose stories we share. We lose jokes that maybe we are the only ones to understand, or find funny. Having these to appreciate takes reading the whole book cover to cover. What is the difference and how do we go about reading these books? Let’s take a look.

My grandmother, my dad’s mother, recently passed away at the age of 96. Sadly, I can’t really share much about her as we did not spend a great deal of time together. For several years she even thought my name was Nick. Margie thought the same thing, but that is a different story. I knew her name. Spent a few moments with her and even have a few comical memories of things she did. In other words, the CliffsNotes version. Did I know her favorite flower? No. Did I know what made her laugh? Not at all.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was my friend Billy. We had spent hours discussing life and our place in it. We shared jokes, laughter and quite a few cocktails. Last post goes into this in greater detail. There is even a video of the two of us on our YouTube channel. That is reading the book version of getting to know someone. As I was laying awake unable to sleep thinking of this blog and what I was going to write, another thing occurred to me – technology. It is vital that we share with each other on as many levels as we can.

Cellphones can be linked to the decline of personal communication. They can, however, help us establish the ‘whole book’ way of remembering someone. Above are pictures of my late uncle, my cousin who passed away at the age of 22, Margie’s mom (whose birthday we celebrate today) and I, my great uncle and my grandfather. All of these people are no longer here. Many passed before cell phones were really a thing. Therefore, there is little or no audio and video of them. As I thought about people I would like to still be able to speak with, my grandfather popped into my head. My mind even strained to remember the sound of his voice. It seems unreal that there was never a video made, but you just didn’t think of those things. That is why it is important to get to know each other on the deepest level. When my young cousin passed away in a tragic accident, we were scheduled to get together and shoot a video for my YouTube channel the very next week.

The point of all of this is to create the memories now. Do not settle for surface knowledge of someone. Really get to know them. You never know when it may be your last chance to do so. If it is, do you want to be left with CliffsNotes or do you want to say you have read the whole book?

MY TIPS TO EASE THE GRIEF OF LOSS 😭

One of the traits I have developed through the years is an ability to survive the passing of loved ones better than most. This is not to say that I have been cold and uncaring. Quite the opposite. The sadness and sense of loss is just as great in my heart as the next person. What I have learned to do is give the loss, and in doing so the life of that person, a sense of meaning. A few posts ago I, titled You might be asking the wrong question, I spoke a little more about this process. If you are really struggling, or would like additional thoughts on grief and loss, you might want to read that after you are done with this one.

The earliest example of putting this to use was the passing of my grandmother. In my life, I was very close to both of my grandparents. When my grandmother passed, it was like the ending of an era. The large family gathering began to lose people one by one. Family gathered around the table for a big meal became less and less of an event. When I stopped to finally soaked in everything that was different about my grandmother being gone, I decided the best way to honor her memory was to be what she brought to the world. When my grandfather passed, that was an even bigger blow. It seemed surreal at the time. What it did do was make me appreciate everything my grandfather taught me both by word and example.

Between 2017 and 2018 I gave 5 eulogies. I am a public speaker, but let me tell you, those are some of the most difficult to give. It wasn’t until I turned the focus into serving those who were there also experiencing loss, that it became far easier. The same is true in dealing with my own grief. turning it into serving those in the world who would be missing the traits that those I lost had brought to the world made my grief easier to handle. Those we are filled with sadness due to their loss must have done many things that brought joy to our heart and others. If not, chances are we would not be that filled with grief over their loss. It is identifying those traits and stepping up to be that for others that will not only honor the lives of our loved one, but help us in our own grief.

I am not telling you that being a good listener because your late aunt was, or always blessing people with a little humor because your mother did is going to change the fact that you are filled with grief over missing them. I don’t think we should be focused on trying to remove the grief. Again, I suggest reading the post You might be asking the wrong question. By giving our grief, and therefore their life, some purpose, our heart may find it a little easier to go on. In fact, when we find ourselves doing something that our loved one would have done to make someone smile, it just might do the same for us.

YOU MIGHT BE ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION

This is a very difficult post to write, but one that I feel is so important. The reason that it is difficult to write, is that I want to make sure it comes out correctly. It is also difficult to explain in the small space of a blog, but I will do my best. The reason it is important is because it is a condition that almost everyone finds themselves in, myself included. It is one of the issues that I am asked about most. The answer is not easy and is seldom well received. What is the question? How can I get rid of the pain and sadness inside of my heart? This could stem from many things. It could be the loss of a job you really loved. It could be a heartbreaking separation. Most often, the pain comes from the loss of a loved one.

I think all of us reading this blog have experienced the loss of someone, if not more, that we really care about. You understand that initially the pain will be great. Depending on the individual, we have some arbitrary expectation as to when that grief may start to diminish or fade away all together. When we find ourselves breaking down in tears, months or years later we just can’t understand. How can we just make this pain go away? To me, that is asking the wrong question.

Trying to eliminate the heartache we feel with the loss of a love one, or whatever issue may be causing it, is like trying to change the current of the river because it is not going the direction we want. Often, the more we find ourselves fighting against our pain, the stronger it seems to get. What we should be asking is how to use our pain. One of the best ways it to understand the empathy and credibility that gives us when helping others going through the same situation. We can understand what they are feeling. We will have a far better idea what they need in their moment of grief.

Another thing that many of us fail to consider is that pain can come from some of the greatest blessings. If we feel a great deal of hurt from the passing of a loved one, for example, than there must have been a great deal of love felt before that. When we consider how many people have a true lack of love in their lives, than how blessed are we who, although it may be lost, have felt such deep love. There is the cliche “Better to lost in love than to have never loved at all.” Attributed to one of my favorite authors, Alfred Lord Tennyson I might add.

Lastly, is the gift we can get from the pain. Lost a great relationship from a mistake you made? Maybe love faded away? You are certain not to make the same mistake in the future and do your best to keep the flames of desire alive and burning bright. When we lose someone close to us, often the pain is mixed with regret. We wish we would have told them how we really feel, or went on a trip with them one more time. Feeling this pain can be the best motivation to love those we still have in our lives that much more. To make sure we never miss a chance to tell someone how much we care. We will spend the time to take that trip with them, or maybe just sit and listen. Knowing the pain and regret that comes with losing someone, we do our best to give the best of ourselves to those we are still blessed enough to have with us.

Does any of this make the pain go away? Not at all. Understanding the purpose in pain, and using it to serve us and others can make it a little more bearable. Next time you think about that failed relationship, learn how to do better and use the pain to motivate you to work on yourself. When tears fill both your eyes and heart thinking of the person you loved so much that has left your life, call or message a friend and send them as much love and encouragement as you can. This has helped me deal with pain in my life. I hope it will help you too.

MAKE LIFE BEAUTIFUL 😍

We touched on this theory in the post Live in a loving world. We are going to look at how to make the life we are living a beautiful experience. It is not as difficult as many would like to have you believe. The ‘sky is falling’ or ‘chicken little’ approach taken by many in politics and the media is great for selling, but not necessarily reality. Yes, life is full of challenges, disappoints and loss. It is, however, also full of beauty, opportunity, and abundance. It is really what we choose to focus on. As Tony Robbins says, “What is wrong is always available, but so is what is right.”

I look at this as a challenge of sorts. Can I find the beauty in whatever situation I am going through? I know there is always something beautiful and grateful to be found. In the beginning, the trick is sticking with it long enough to find. What is the payoff for this challenge? Noticing the beauty that is all around us. What is the big deal there? It changes our emotional state. If you stop and think about it, our lives are our emotional states. If you are poor, and are an angry and pissed off person, what is your life? Angry and pissed off. Now if you got money and became a rich angry and pissed off person, what is your reality? It is still angry and pissed off. Therefore, taking charge of our emotional state is taking charge of our life.

The more you can find the beauty that is all around you, the more beautiful your life becomes. Let me use my own current situation as an example. I am writing this in a coffee shop as I so often do. Across from me, a couple is sitting side by side doing their homework together. Rather beautiful. The sun is shining through the windows despite it being a rather chilly October day. This is rather beautiful. Behind me, I hear the sounds of friends laughing together while enjoying a coffee. Laughter is a beautiful sound. The fact that I can enjoy a hot cup of coffee is a beautiful thing. At the turn of the last century, coffee was a rare commodity. Kind of hard to imagine now. Lucky me.

How about your life? What is beautiful in your life? Remember, it doesn‘t have to be perfect to be beautiful. Even the broken can be beautiful. I recall the pain of losing those I loved, and really struggling to find the beauty in that. What I learned was that in order to hurt so greatly, we first have to love so greatly. This is not an opportunity afforded to all. The more loss we feel, the greater we have loved. It also means we are better able to understand and help those who also experience and feel loss. Something we would not be able to do had we not felt the loss ourselves. The beauty in the struggle is the opportunity to feel the victory in overcoming, or even just pushing on. I would love to hear what is beautiful in your life at the moment. The more we stop and look for beauty, the more it will appear. Wouldn’t you like your life to be more beautiful?

THEY ARE BOTH AVAILABLE. WHICH ONE WILL YOU CHOOSE?🤔

Here is a point that I have made over and over again. What is right is always available to focus on. Why do more people not do that? Because what is wrong is also available to focus on. I do not have to tell you which one is presented to us more often. That is why both an optimist and a pessimist are equally right when it comes to life. The glass is both half-full as well as half-empty. If this is true, than what does it matter? It matters due to the distinct difference in emotional state that each perception has. Why is emotional state so important? In life, it is the determining factor! It is not money that decides the quality of life. If that were the case, no wealthy people would ever suffer any forms of anxiety or depression. We know that is the case. On the flip side, no poor people would ever be happy. We also know this is not the case.

If it is not finances that determine the quality of life, it must be health right? Having good health plays a big role in our emotional well-being and that is why it is so important to take control of our health and to do what we can to increase the quality of our health. That being said, it is not the determining factor in our emotional well-being. If that were the case, no sick people would ever be happy and no healthy people would ever be sad. In fact, our emotional state can play an important role in our physical healing. When we are in a good emotional place, our immune system is stronger and we are more likely to take actions that will lead to healthier outcomes. Negative emotions, on the other hand, will lower our immune response and can often generate physical ailments in the body. Have you ever worried yourself to a sick stomach? Ever gotten so angry that your blood pressure went through the roof? Imagine what would happen if we continued these emotional states chronically?

We have all heard the saying, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how you react to it.” The secret to our emotional state is focus and meaning. What we choose to focus on, and what we decide it means. Let us take the most difficult situation any of us can face; losing someone we love. We are going to experience the most terrible emotional pain. That is what happens. With great love we suffer great loss. What will we do with that pain? What will we decide that pain means? Does it mean that God does not love us and our life will be filled with pain? If that is what we decide, then yes. If we decide that it is a reminder of how much we can love and how important it is to cherish and create memories with those we love, than yes, that is what it will mean.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not trying to minimize the pain of losing someone you love. Whenever you remember them, there will be feelings of loss and sorrow. It is what we do with those feelings that matter. It can serve as a great reminder to communicate with those who are close to the end or facing some serious medical challenges. It can also be a great reminder to create memories with those who are still with us, as life can change in a second.

Tough times and tough situations are never fun. Just remember, in every life there is plenty of good to focus on. This does not mean being ignorant to that which is less than ideal, but to perhaps reframe it so we can put it to use for us instead of allowing it to use us.

ENJOY THE MOMENT! 🌞

The above picture was taken in fern Gully Jamaica in 2019. Margie and I had met this very nice lady, I think her name was Stephanie, on the tour we were on. It was truly a wonderful vacation where we met a lot of nice people. I often reflect on what a good time we had and miss being somewhere tropical with my love. We are currently planning on taking another trip in February to somewhere warm and sunny. It is tricky not to have my mind back in 2019, or look forward a couple of months to our next adventure. It certainly helps to do that when the temperature was well below freezing and the weatherman was cautioning you to stay inside.

Having these little mental vacations is not only helpful, it is recommended to maintain your sanity. They were only made possible by creating those memories in the moment. In a world where many of us post pictures of every meal we eat, it is just as important to slow down and enjoy the meal as we eat it. What good would it do us to look back at a picture of a mouth-watering meal and not remember what it tastes like? The picture from Jamaica was taken because we really enjoyed this young lady’s hospitality and wanted to remember the good time we had.

Here is another picture from a trip Margie and I went on. This one was to a city about an hour or so from where we live. We did so many fun things while we were there. One of my favorites was discovering a coffee shop that employed people with mental and physical challenges, giving them valuable experience in the workplace and an opportunity to feel how important and valuable they are. I even have a sticker from that coffee shop on the laptop I write on. If I would have stayed focused on how much I enjoyed our Jamaican vacation, I would not have been able to enjoy this one to the fullest. That would have been a shame. Not to mention, I was lucky enough to enjoy both of them with this beautiful lady.

During the holidays, this can be tough advice to follow. Especially, when we lose someone we really care about. Above is a picture of my grandparents. I recall a house full of people. My grandmother, and other relatives, making enough food for at least twice as many people as were present. It seemed the whole family got together. They have long passed away. The family does not seem to gather like it used to. I not only miss them, but those moments. Then I remind myself to do one thing – look around the table. It is very hard not to let our sadness of missing those we love overcome our gratitude for those we still have in our lives. This is brought home every time that I scroll through my friends on social media. I notice how many people, young and old, are no longer with us. It would be a shame to be missing them and not be able to appreciate the long list of those still with us. While our hearts are longing for those who left us, please let us look up and feel a great deal of love and gratitude for those who we are still blessed to have in our lives. Next year the list may be smaller and it would do our hearts good to know that we took the time to appreciate them while they were here. Loss is painful, but it is only made worse by regret.

One way to ease the burden of loss is to know that we lived, laughed and loved with those who meant the most to us. It will not only help us ease the feelings of loss we have for those who have already gone, but help that same feelings of those we will tragically lose in the future. Love who you have as much as you can and your life will be full of joy and peace.

WHEN WE LOSE SOMEONE, LET US NOT COMPOUND IT🙏

Here is the first of two ideas that were brought to my attention at work on Saturday. The ironic thing is that I do not normally work on Saturday, so these two conversations were a great twist of fate. The first one is courtesy of a wonderful lady named Linda. She happens to stop into the post office when I am working in the morning. Through the course of time we have got to know each other a little. Tragically, Linda’s son passed away. She told me something that I think reflects on the kind of person she is. While healing from her own grief, she had the thought that she wanted to keep both her son’s friend and girlfriend in her life. This is something that I think is a great benefit to both parties.

All too often, when someone dear to us passes away, we lose touch with those that were connected to us through them. Whether that is because it is too painful of a reminder to see them, or because our paths no longer cross. This is a loss on top of a loss. It may be painful at first to see those who shared life with your loved one, but you are going to think of them regardless. It would be helpful to have someone in your life who is sharing the pain of losing that same person. It is also helpful to have someone to share happy and funny memories with. What a great way to keep your loved one alive in your heart! You may even learn new and wonderful things from each other about the person you are both missing.

As an added bonus, I think this helps those you decide to keep in your life realize that they matter as people. That they were not just important to you because they were connected to the loved one you both lost. In that way, you are helping each other and, in my humble opinion, would make those who have passed on very happy.

You might be wondering how you can keep these people in your life without it being awkward? I am going to share with you how Linda did it, because I think it was truly genius. First, her son’s good friend and fishing buddy. She knew his birthday was coming out and reached out to him. She asked if he could take him out to lunch. I am sure that will be both a tough and healing moment for both of them. Sharing memories, tears, laughter but helping each other heal as well. Then, her son’s girlfriend. To lose someone and still be included in their mother’s life is something that must be so special. Linda is sharing my books with her. They are reading and talking about them with each other. Not only are they filled with ideas to both handle grief, but add joy to your life as well. Reading them is great, sharing them with someone else and talking about them only makes them more powerful.

Linda taught me a great lesson that day. It is so important to keep people in your life. Even, and especially, after a loss. The ironic thing about this conversation is that she normally does not come into the post office on Saturday, and I do not normally work on Saturday. Yet, here we both were to offer healing and enlightenment to each other. If you would like to get one of my books and share them with a friend or loved one in your life, feel free to check them out at the link below.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR COPY OF ONE OR MORE OF MY BOOKS AND BEGIN SHARING THEM WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE ❤️

EVERY END IS A BEGINNING

WHAT A GREAT QUOTE FROM MITCH ALBOM, ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS. AS 2021 DRAWS TO A CLOSE WE ARE ALL EXCITED FOR THE NEW YEAR AND ALL THE POSSIBILITIES IT BRINGS. AS WELL WE SHOULD. NOBODY IS SAYING, “IT IS SO SAD THE OLD YEAR IS ENDING.”

I AM WONDERING, WHY DO WE NOT DO THE SAME IN OTHER AREAS OF OUR LIVES. SURE, SOME ARE FAR MORE DIFFICULT, BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT WE STILL HAVE THE OPTION ON WHERE WE PLACE OUR FOCUS. WE CAN MOURN THE END, OR GET EXCITED FOR WHAT IS NEXT. WE CAN FOCUS ON WHAT WE HAVE LOST, OR WHAT WE COULD POSSIBLY GAIN IN THE FUTURE.

MANY OF YOU WILL SAY THIS STILL DOES NOT CHANGE THE REALITY OF THE SITUATION. IN SOME WAYS, THIS IS CORRECT. IT DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT SOMETHING ENDED AND SOMETHING IS BEGINNING. WHAT IT DOES CHANGE IS HOW WE FEEL ABOUT IT, HOW WE FEEL ABOUT OURSELVES AND HOW WE FEEL ABOUT LIFE IN GENERAL. I WOULD ARGUE IMPROVING OUR FEELINGS ON ALL OF THOSE CATEGORIES WOULD GO A LONG WAY TO IMPROVING THE FACTS OF THE FUTURE.

THIS COMING YEAR, LET US ALL BE MORE RESOLUTE IN FOCUSING ON THE POSITIVE POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE, THAN THE NEGATIVE OR LOSS OF THE PAST AND POSSIBLY THE PRESENT.