Victoria Noe

Award-winning Author, Speaker, Activist

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grieving

"Ask Amy"

Feb 28, 2011 by Victoria Noe
“Ask Amy” is a syndicated advice column written by Amy Dickinson.  You may be familiar with her delightful memoir, The Mighty Queens of Freeville.In a recent column, a woman wrote about a friend of hers who had died, and was quite lonely at the end.  Long-time friends had abandoned her while she was ill.  The woman writing was distressed by the unnecessary loneliness and isolation her friend experienced.Death is not easy or comfortable or something that our society even finds easy to discuss. We don’t want to talk about it.  We want to avoid the topic as long as possible.  I suppose it’s why we talk in abstract terms of “if something happens to me…”  If???Have you avoided a friend who was dying?  Maybe...

“Why Didn’t You Tell Me?”

Feb 25, 2011 by Victoria Noe
I was going to write about Longtime Companion today, but realized I’d already posted about AIDS this week.  I received an email from a friend the other day.  I’d interviewed her for my book a while back, and she had a painful story about a friend of hers who had died.  They’d lost touch, and when the friend died, she wasn’t notified.  It was months later when she heard the news.Her email was almost unbelievable:  the same thing had happened two more times.  Three friends of hers had died.  Three families had failed to notify her.Now, I haven’t talked to her since I received her email.  She was clearly stunned that it had happened – twice – again.It did, however,...