Celebrating love

There is no stopping February 14th from rearing its ugly head. When you are grieving it can be difficult to think about anything, much less love. So, even thinking for a moment about a day solely dedicated to love can be nauseating. But, what if we shifted how we view grief, just for the day? […]

New Year. New Grief?

2023 here we come! New Years Resolutions will soon fill your social media feeds. Your friends conversations. New Year! New You! Pressure to be thinner. Smarter. Eat better. Read more. Complain less. You will be encouraged to leave 2022 behind. Those of you living in heavy grief don’t get to leave what happened in 2022 […]

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Holiday Grief

It can be difficult enough to just survive the holiday season, but add in a little or a whole lot of grief and our hearts can easily become two sizes too small. Grieving during the holiday season can be extremely isolating. In all seriousness, getting through our first holiday season, or any holiday season without […]

Integration

Acceptance is allegedly the final stage of grief, but there’s has been so much research done since Elizabeth Kubler Ross came up with the 5 Stages of Grief. While acceptance is a very important part of your grief journey, I am fairly certain that is not where it ends. So, what IS next for you? […]

Love. Love. Love

“The ultimate price of love is grief.” How many of us have heard that while we are grieving? I want to believe that well meaning people tell us things in grief in an attempt to help us. Most of what we hear is true, but when it comes to grief, timing is everything and if […]

Celebration of Life 2022

Flowers Candles Music Kleenex Support Love Why do we choose to celebrate those lives we serve at The Retreat Hospice? Why choose to Celebrate at all? Celebrate and hospice aren’t two words that we put together often. We know there is so much more to end of life care than just taking care of the […]

(Not) Guilty

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion to death.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross End of life decisions are perhaps the most difficult, we look back and question everything. Then we end up questioning why we are questioning our decisions in the first place. It can be exhausting. It is exhausting. Should I have taken them to […]

Conflicting Emotions

How are you feeling today? This can be such a loaded question for those of us who are grieving. One day we can often barely answer that question without breaking down, but the next day could be good, we may even experience happiness and joy. Then, we start to feel guilty for feeling good. This […]

emotions get a name

When we have hard conversations during grief we often get asked, “How are you?” There can be such a struggle when we are trying to answer that question. We feel guilty for putting our grief on others so we will just answer with a simple, “fine” and then continue on with our day. How different […]

Hopes and Dreams

Do you ever sit back and wonder what life would be like if your person was still here? Do you sit in a shared space with others and wonder what you would be talking about if they were still here? Do you ever pick up the phone to call or text them and have the […]