Grace Hospice Chicago

12/04/2020

"When death is inevitable,
the way of dying is important."

Amen.

11/25/2020

Holidays can be hardest on those who are grieving and this holiday season nothing is or feels the same. What to do? How do we show up or not at all? What kind of help is actually helpful?

Please join us in conversation with grief and loss leaders Alica Forneret, Chanel Reynolds, Megan Devine, and Rebecca Soffer who share their expert advice and personal experience to help us all better navigate this particularly rough holiday season where so many of us feel, or in fact are, alone. How do we show up for friends or family who are grieving? How does 'celebrate' look when we're far away from friends, family, or our support groups?

This is a FREE event. Register here: https://collective.round.glass/grievers-guide-to-the-holidays

11/23/2020

Let us hold the door for you.

11/21/2020

11/18/2020

WHEN SOMEONE DIES, we don't experience his or her death, we experience our own. Once someone dies, that person is dead, no longer physically available to us. If anything of their spirit remains, we keep it alive. They now live in us. Our memory. Our thoughts. If we experience death as we live, that’s our death. To be alive is to cherish, to celebrate, to hold dear, let go, go on!

-“Bears” Barry Neil Kaufman, C-Founder of the Option Institute® and Author of “No Regrets” and “A Sacred Dying”

[Photo Notation: Excited to be alive and celebrating in an Alpine mountain village cemetery in Switzerland]

11/16/2020

When you say goodbye to a parent...
You are suddenly living in a whole new world.
You are no longer ‘the child’ and regardless of how long you have officially been ‘grown up’ for, you realise you actually never were until this moment. The shock of this adjustment will shake your very core.
When you have finally said goodbye to both your parents, assuming you were lucky enough to have had two. You are an orphan on this earth and that never, ever gets easier to take no matter how old and grey you are yourself and no matter how many children of your own you have.
You see, a part of your body is physically connected to the people that made it and also a part of your soul. When they no longer live, it is as if you are missing something practical that you need – like a finger or an arm. Because really, you are. You are missing your parent and that is something far more necessary than any limb.
And yet the connection is so strong it carries on somehow, no-one knows how exactly. But they are there. In some way, shape or form they are still guiding you if you listen closely enough. You can hear the words they would choose to say to you.
You can feel the warmth of their approval, their smile when a goal is achieved, their all-consuming love filling the air around you when a baby is born they haven’t met.
If you watch your children very closely you will see that they too have a connection with your parents long after they are gone. They will say things that resonate with you because it brings so many memories of the parent you are missing. They will carry on traits, thoughts and sometimes they will even see them in their dreams.
This is not something we can explain.
Love is a very mystical and wondrous entity.
It is far better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all and grief, grief is the price of that love. The deeper the love the stronger the grief.
When you say goodbye to a parent, do not forget to connect with that little girl who still lives inside you somewhere.
Take very good care of her, for she, she will be alone and scared.
When you say goodbye to your parents, you lose an identity, a place in the world. When the people who put you on this earth are no longer here, it changes everything.
Look after yourself the way they looked after you and listen out for them when you need it the most.
They never really leave.

© Donna Ashworth

UPDATE: So sorry, I originally posted the link to my first book. This piece is on my second...
From the book ‘To The Women’
Available now on amazon...
UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08LRGWY74/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabt1_QdISFbJ0VK050
US link: https://www.amazon.com/Women-words-live-Donna-Ashworth/dp/B08LRGWY74/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15HEMUZQAFWME&dchild=1&keywords=to+the+women+donna+ashworth&qid=1605509398&sprefix=To+the+women%2Caps%2C229&sr=8-1

11/14/2020