The Apostolate for Persons with Disabilities-Diocese of Madison will be sponsoring a four-part series starting in September.
Tag: loss
Gains and losses
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I’m thinking out loud as I write today. Maybe it’s just me, but life seems to be a constant cycle of gaining and losing. For every blessing or step forward in our lives, there can be an opposite loss or step backward.
Hypothetically speaking, every career advancement is coupled with an unforeseen home repair bill. Or, every great day spent with friends can be met with a challenging illness in the family.
Sometimes we only focus on the bad things and the losses and accept them as a reflection of our lives — “it’s always something.”Coping with grief and loss
Losing a loved one to death is painful. Many parents say the loss of a child is arguably the most painful of losses.
SSM Health at Home to hold children’s grief camp
MADISON — Camp GLOW (Giving Loved Ones Wings) is a grief support day camp for kids and their parents/guardians who are dealing with the loss of a loved one.
Staffed by SSM Health at Home spiritual and grief counselors and specially trained volunteers, the day camp gives kids the opportunity to share their grief in a safe space.Embracing Christ by loving your cross
Not long ago, dear friends of ours tragically had to lay their tiny precious baby, Maria, to rest.
At her funeral, Maria’s brothers helped carry her small white casket and her sister followed with a bouquet of roses. My friends and their toddler walked behind, supporting each other through tears.
At 32 weeks, Maria had unexpectedly died in the womb. Since then, my friends have been shouldering unimaginable suffering, wondering if they will ever again be free of the incomparable grief of parents who lose a child.
Dealing with grief is different for each individual
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Q A family member passed recently and although it was after a long illness, I am surprised and a little disappointed with the reactions of some relatives.
This was a much loved individual and her loss leaves a great hole in our hearts.
Some relatives want to plan a vacation to “honor” her while others are encouraging her husband to get back out there and begin another relationship; because “that is what she would want.”
Maybe this is really old- fashioned, but I think after something like this happens, the person deserves a time of reflection and respect. Am I wrong?
(From a sister-in-law in Darlington).
A Everyone grieves in their own way. There is no recipe for a healthy method of adjusting to a loss.
Even if you grieve in a way that you feel honors the person, you may revisit those feelings frequently.
The priest: in persona Christi
I met a young priest in Fairfax, Va., last week. Of course “young” is a relative term. Everyone around me gets younger with each passing year.
Father Jaffe had been at the parish for less than a week and was the priest on call for the local hospital. It was 2 a.m. when his pager went off. A couple had lost their eight-year-old son hours before and the mother wouldn’t let go of his body.
All attempts of the staff and hospital chaplain to get her to release her son had failed. She sat rocking him, unresponsive to anyone. The woman wasn’t Catholic, but the staff knew from experience that it was time to call in a priest.
When the newly ordained 26-year-old arrived, he did the only thing that came to mind. He sat with the parents in silence for a moment and said, “It looks like you need some prayer.” He opened his rite book, The Pastoral Care of the Sick to the section with the prayers for the deceased and he began to pray aloud.
Widows contribute much to the Church and family
Losing a beloved spouse to death is one of the most painful human experiences. I saw this pain in my mother, two sisters, and other married women when their spouses died. I have also listened to men, whose wives died, pour out their grief.
The word “widow” comes from a Sanskrit word meaning empty. When a woman loses the husband whom she loves, she often experiences pain, emptiness, and even temporary anger. So does a widower. A good marriage joins the couple as two in one flesh, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. To marry is to open oneself to love and joy, but also to pain.
Treat miscarried babies with the dignity they deserve
As soon as I heard my wife burst out the bathroom door that sunny spring day, I knew she was pregnant. I hadn’t yet opened my eyes but I didn’t need to. Her footsteps told me everything.
My wife didn’t have any particular reason to believe she was pregnant. But after a couple years of praying for a second child, I’d grown accustomed to Laura taking random pregnancy tests — hoping against hope that somehow that second pink line would appear. This time it did.
Joyful days
The days ahead were as joyful as any we’d experienced in our life together. We beamed when friends who knew of our struggle with secondary infertility congratulated us and we devoured all the fetal development materials we could find, eager to mark every last milestone in our baby’s nascent life.
Redemptive suffering is part of being a Christian
It is not easy to block out the multiple cries of pain and suffering that permeate the world. It is almost deafening.
All one has to do is turn on the radio, read the newspaper, watch television, or go online. We are bombarded with news of pain and suffering, almost to the saturation point. I think of the people in Libya, Haiti, Japan, and others affected by war and natural disasters. It gives me an overwhelming feeling.
Good people suffer
A couple of years ago I attended several lectures on the martyrs of El Salvador who were killed during a civil war that took place there in the 1970’s and ’80s. Archbishop Oscar Romero, four women missionaries, and several Jesuits — only to name a few of hundreds of people — were brutally murdered because they spoke out against the intense suffering of the Salvadoran people and a system of government that perpetuated it.