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bereavement
This Year – and Next - in Friend Grief
Dec 27, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that this has been quite a year. I think we all have the tendency to look back in late December, and cringe at the thought of all we’d planned to do but didn’t. I started to do that not long ago, but had to stop myself. I was looking at only one part of my goals for this year, and in that category I definitely came up short: I self-published three books instead of six. Yeah, I know, I was a bit too optimistic. But what surprised me more than anything was what I accomplished that was not on my list. And I’ll tell you right now,...
Friends, Calendars and Facebook
Dec 24, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Happy birthday, MareI used to be very diligent about recording birthdays on my calendar. Every year, I’d get a new datebook and wall calendar, and the first thing I’d do is list birthdays of friends and family. Somehow I got out of that habit. When I was addressing Christmas cards the other day, I paged through my address book (yes, I still have an actual address book). Every time I turned to a new page, I said to myself “he’s dead” or “she’s dead” or “they’re both dead”. I don’t know about you, but I can’t bring myself to get a new address book. That would mean not putting in names of friends and family who are no longer...
Friends and/or Loved Ones
Dec 18, 2013 by Victoria Noe
If you’re like me, you’ve been through your share of wakes and funerals. Although every culture has their own traditions, one is universal: the role of a friend. Family members are typically at the center of the grief universe. They’re the ones notifying the world, making arrangements, dealing with logistics. But I think we can all agree on what most people expect friends of the deceased to do: support the family. Just support the family.I saw a lot of exceptions to this when I worked in the AIDS community. People, whose families had rejected and abandoned them, even as they were dying, relied on their friends for everything. But generally speaking, if a friend of yours dies, you’re relegated...
Evanston's First Death Cafe
Jul 02, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Last fall, I co-hosted the first Death Café in Chicago. Death…what??? A Death Café is an informal, non-therapeutic opportunity for people to come together and discuss topics surrounding death and grief. The objective of this movement is "To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives".Begun in Switzerland, it spread to the UK and the US. Since 2011, over 1,000 people of all ages have attended a Death Café. Our next Death Café will be held Monday, July 15 at Curt’s Café in Evanston, Illinois. It’s open to anyone with questions about death and grief, because no one has all the answers.A Death Café offers you the opportunity to...
Talking About Friend Grief at BEA
Jun 07, 2013 by Victoria Noe
publishingtrendsetter.comI recently attended Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade event in the country. It’s exhausting: roaming dozens of aisles filled with hundreds of publishers. They’re there to promote new books, authors, services. It’s crowded and noisy and severely over-caffeinated (despite the presence of only one Starbucks in the whole Jacob Javits Center. And there are lots of free books and other swag to take home. You need comfortable shoes and a rolling suitcase to survive.I was there mainly to get new and upcoming books to review on BroadwayWorld.com. But I was also there to talk to some of my production partners (Kobo, Amazon, etc.) and check out any relevant new titles for my research.When people asked what I write...
Death Ends a Life, Not a Friendship
May 28, 2013 by Victoria Noe
Delle's was grey & mine was blackIt’s no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I have “heard” from my friend, Delle, many times since she died in 2006.The time that has passed since she died is actually longer than the time we knew each other. But I still find myself talking about her in the present tense.I’m not the only person who feels that way. It’s going on seven years since she died, and I still hear her friends say “I think about her every day.” She had that kind of effect on people.Maybe you have a friend who changed your life, and maybe they’re dead. Does that mean your friendship is over? I’ve learned in many ways...
Running - or Walking - to Remember Your Friend
Apr 30, 2013 by Victoria Noe
On Sunday I participated in the Our House“Run for Hope”. I didn’t actually run; I walked 2.7 miles. Our House is a terrific grief support center in West Los Angeles. Their work with adults and children is important and life-changing. I was glad to support their event, and my friend, Fredda Wasserman, who works for them.Everyone who walked or ran got a t-shirt. When you registered, you had the option of personalizing your shirt so everyone would know who you were honoring. I opted not to: I couldn’t decide on only one person.As I walked the route, I made note of why people were there. “I’m running for…” the backs of their t-shirts read, with a name, relationship...
What Do You Miss the Most?
Jan 18, 2013 by Victoria Noe
When you think about a friend who has died, what do you miss the most? Maybe you went to school together, and you miss passing notes in class.Maybe you worked together, and you miss getting to know each other over shared projects.Maybe you were neighbors, and you miss knowing they were right there next door, a safety net and comforting presence.Maybe you traveled together, and you miss exploring, getting lost and having adventures only the two of you could possibly appreciate.Maybe you only knew them online, and they died before you had the chance to meet them face to face.Maybe you hadn’t seen them in years – decades, even – and wonder now why you didn’t make the effort...
Types of Grievers - Part 4
May 19, 2012 by Victoria Noe
Let's face it: everyone has an opinion, not just about other things but about our own behavior. Imagine feeling you're not allowed to grieve honestly. It happens more often than you think, in this fourth and final look at types of grievers.“You need to be strong for...”“You need to move on.”“Why haven’t you cried?”We all grieve in our own way. But the fourth and final type of griever described here is the type no one wants to be. This griever can’t or won’t express their grief the way that feels most natural to them. Generally speaking, in our culture, men are expected to be the strong ones when dealing with grief, and women are expected to willingly express their feelings.Men...
Why I Started Friend Grief
Aug 10, 2011 by Victoria Noe
I started this blog 6 months ago, so I thought it was a good time to look back and take stock.I’ve learned a lot about the technical joys and frustrations of blogging.I’ve learned a lot about the challenges of trying to stick out in an online world of blogs on every conceivable topic. This is what I wrote in my first post on February 1:Welcome to Friend Grief. It's here to raise awareness of a powerful experience in all of our lives: the death of a friend. Millions of people each year suffer the pain of a friend's death, and many of them suffer more because those around them don't respect their grief. The people who are part of Friend Grief...
A Support Group Just for Friends
Jul 26, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Grief support groups are available in most communities. Some are affiliated with hospitals or hospices. Others are programs offered by religious communities or nonprofit organizations.Most offer an open group for anyone who is grieving. Everyone is welcome, even though they may be experiencing different kinds of losses (such as spouse, child, parent, friend or petBut not everyone is comfortable in a general grief support group. They may be the only one mourning a spouse, or they may feel that others in the group don’t understand that their dog was their only companion. People – rightly or wrongly – make comparisons about the level of grief they experience: “mine is worse than yours”. So specialized support groups were formed.There are groups...
What Else I Learned Writing a Book about Friend Grief
Jul 18, 2011 by Victoria Noe
When I posted last week about what I’ve learned in this now almost two-year book project, I had the feeling I was forgetting something. It took a day, but it finally popped into my head:I forgot to tell what I’ve learned about writing.Last week I concentrated on the grief aspect, the subject matter, the people I interviewed (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But this is my first book, and I’m learning by doing. Some things have come easily; some not so easily.I knew why I was writing the book. In its simplest form, I was keeping a promise to my friend, Delle. What was harder was coming to terms with who was writing the book and what it...
Online Resources: Dying Matters
Apr 18, 2011 by Victoria Noe
Despite all the hysteria about ‘death panels’, there is a critical need for each and every one of us to thoughtfully consider end-of-life plans. It’s an uncomfortable subject for most people. But avoiding the subjects of where we want to spend our final days and how, what kind of services we want held, and how we want to be remembered will not make them go away.Dying Matters is a UK-based nonprofit coalition. This is from their website:“In 2009 the National Council for Palliative Care (NCPC) set up the Dying Matters Coalition to promote public awareness of dying, death and bereavement. Our members include organisations from across the NHS, voluntary and independent health and care sectors (including hospices, care homes, charities supporting old people,...
Like a Brother (or Sister) to Me
Feb 16, 2011 by Victoria Noe
When a tragedy occurs – natural disasters, 9/11 – my reaction is to soak up the media coverage. I need to understand what happened – the how and the why. Not everybody feels that way; some people prefer to stay as detached as possible. Some things have become cliché when people are interviewed about those who have died. One we often hear in describing a friend who has died is ‘he was like a brother to me’. Certain groups – like firefighters or police officers – refer to those with whom they work as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’. They work together, have each other’s backs, sometimes live together. They’re more than ‘just’ friends. I’m not sure when it was – probably...
Grieving Online
Feb 09, 2011 by Victoria Noe
The Internet allows people around the world to communicate 24/7, though not always for the better. We are besieged by texts, tweets, posts and comments from people we know and people we don’t want to know. There is no expectation of privacy.How then to account for the use of the internet for expressing something as private and personal as grief?My high school class started a Yahoo group after 9/11, to share information on memorial service plans for our classmate, Carol Demitz. The group lives on, and now shares news of other classmates’ deaths, as well as happy news: births of grandchildren, marriages, plans for social outings. Its initial purpose may have been fulfilled 9 years ago, but the desire to...
Author photo by Alina Oswald
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