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Updated May 27, 2008 |
URL is http://www.parlorcity.com/secop/grief.html |
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Book review, Ryan White.
This is not the best web page on this subject, but it may point you to the best.
| Index of my grief pages | |
|---|---|
| Main Grief Page (you are here) |
Erin's House |
| Books and Bookstores page is lost. Just use Google. |
A Memorial to
Mark and Scott |
|
My father and others |
My Grandma Lived In Gooligulch review and art is lost |
|
Meditations |
Index of
Entire Site |
"Bereave: to deprive of a person or thing taken away. Not used in reference to immaterial objects."
This subject is astoundingly well covered here on the internet,
but it took me six months to find that out.
This page can be short for you, and you can get on with finding
peace. The pages I link to are thorough. Please don't take offense
when a site mixes links for pet loss into the other bereavement
issues. Pet loss is a severe problem for some of us, and anything
that improves our mental health, as we grieve the loss of a pet,
benefits the community.
Ryan White, My Own Story,
an autobiography
Image
by Sissi
What
mother can't suffer with Jeanne White when we remember what her
son Ryan went through? I saw them together once, shopping in Union
Station in Indianapolis, and that image is seared on my brain.
Ryan wrote his own autobiography, entitled My Own Story,
with Ann Marie Cunningham. I am always amazed to meet someone who
hasn't read it.
I wonder if people have forgotten Ryan and what he did for A.I.D.S. awareness in the United States. I would drive through his former home town and wonder "which of you shunned Ryan and tried to keep him out of your school." "Which of you stood and screamed at that child." I am more unforgiving than Ryan was. Today, our son is a professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, doing research to prevent the transmission of H.I.V., the virus that can lead to A.I.D.S. He works in Africa and in the United States. He was always with us in the car as we drove through Ryan's home towns.
Read this book for the wondrous experience of knowing a wonderful child, a man before his time, an example to all of humanity. Goodbye, Ryan. You taught all of us to be better people.
The Ryan White Foundation carries on Ryan's work. Amazon Books has this paperback for sale if you haven't bought it already.
ERIN'S HOUSE FOR GRIEVING CHILDREN
This important information is featured on its own page now. Please read about Erin's House. I wanted it to get more attention when I wrote my page about it in 1996. By now there is more information available to help the bereaved, so I took down my own page.
2008 Bereavement Links
- University of Tulsa counseling center has a good web page on this subject.
- A neutral help page meaning it doesn't have any axe to grind; it is not trying to sell you anything or get money from you. That is the only kind of link I would put on here, anyway.
- The Compassionate Friends have over 600 self-help groups meeting around the world. Their annual big conference is in mid-July in 2008.
- Talking To Children About Death is one of the best pages I've seen on the Internet. It is a section of an excellent Hospice website. We are involved with Hospice locally because of our 90-year-old auntie, and I wish everyone knew about hospice services.
- Hospice Services provide palliative care, which means keeping the patient comfortable by any means possible, instead of having operations that would endanger the patient or that would not even be attemptable. They also send in a masseuse, a CNA, an RN, a friendly visitor, a chaplain if desired, and a social worker to follow up on everything regularly, on different schedules, not all on one day! They can access pain medications that nursing homes can never, ever use. Amazing? I thought so too. My cousin, age 57, died in January 2008 with Hospice care. He had cancer is seven organ systems, and he died peacefully, at home, in the arms of his sister. Hospice provided the bed, wheelchair, comforting visitors etc. They came to comfort the family before and at the funeral too. And they can answer so many questions.
- If anyone in the family has been injured in a fire, there is grief and bereavement over the possible losses in that person's future. The most helpful group I have found is The Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors And Their Families, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I imagine they are helpful to you if your loved one did not survive the fire, too. Sure, they can use your donation, but it will work miracles if you do decide to get involved. Burn camps, an international conference, medical workers education, public education, volunteer involvement, etc.
- I learned that people grieve over more things than just
death. We grieve over lost opportunities, over lost
abilities, over many things that most of us never considered
"grievable." Failing eyesight or hearing; arthritic
joints that keep us from well-loved activities, all sorts of
"small deaths" creep up or leap at us. And feelings
aren't bad in themselves, we learn. They are all human.
It's what we do with them that gets us in trouble or helps us
get through the dark days.
Its even said that if we knew another person really well, we would not want to exchange our troubles for theirs. The pain we know is more comfortable than the unknown pain of trying something new, sometimes. But we do go on and we have to keep on, with better days and then bad, terrible hours, and then more bright times. You can do it too.
Outdated links: can you send me their new URLs???
Empty Arms WAS a site for parents who have lost a child. They let
me be an honorary member, to bring this ring information to your
attention. The lettering on this graphic reads "The Empty Arms
Ring, Honorary Member." Well, it used to be but now it is
the URL for women who have given up a baby for adoption.
You just can't visit Brazilian engineer and artist Lincoln
Weinhardt's home page. PAGE NOT AVAILABLE in 2008. But this
is one of his works.
Image by Sissi
- I guess Sissi sold her URL to a gift shop. Some years ago,
though,
Sissi lost her brother 13 years ago and can just now begin
to deal with her grief. This WAS Sissi's page for him. I had
also referenced her
drinking-driving page, now lost. I also write about
drinking
and driving, but not as well as Sissi.
I wonder if Sissi is this Sissi - Here WAS a link I called my bridge over troubled waters, another Zeltser creation. It was a comfort when Pappy was dying. It helps me if I am depressed. It is a 404 noww.
- I've made a memorial to Mark and Scott, two brothers who were an important part of my life. It took a long time before I thought I could do it well enough. And it really isn't good enough. But now I think that you should just do it, make your memorial. You may not feel better, but it might help someone, somehow.
- There was a review on a separate page of mine about the outstanding children's book by Australian artist Graeme Base, My Grandma Lived In Gooligulch. It shares how a child remembers a grandma who loved animals. (Page missing, 2-3-08. I am searching my computers for it.) If I can't find my own pages, I can't complain about other pages vanishing.
Email more links to me, Sandra Weinhardt, at
secop@parlorcity.com
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