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Giving Grief in America

Grieving is frowned upon in America.  We are expected to buck up, to smile, and continue on with our day even in our deepest despair.  Grief, in America, is marker for a visible weakness and those in active grieving are required to put on a happy face and sing a tuneful song to demonstrate their fortitude and their goodwill for their fellow kind or risk being indelibly labeled as a crybaby:  If you must cry — do it in private behind a locked door and under the covers in the middle of the night and don’t make any sound.

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Thinking About September 11, 2001 & 2002

On September 11 we commemorate the loss of thousands of people to an unnatural disaster. Every year the human race suffers the loss of thousands of people to natural disasters — floods, earthquakes, blizzards, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes — disasters that we have very little chance of avoiding and no one to blame; only Nature.

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Let the Healing Begin

by Nancy McDaniel

I never seem to do things in the right order. I floss my teeth in the morning, not at night. I brush before I floss, not after. I get dressed before I put on my makeup. I quit my job before I had another. I say “I love you” first. You get the picture.

And now I’m trying to figure out how to grieve. Not a death of a person. The death of a relationship. The death of love. It didn’t die for me. It died for him. So I must find a way to put it to rest too and get on with my everyday life.

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My Dad

by Nancy McDaniel

I’ll bet I wrote something with that title when I was a little girl. And I’ll bet it would have been pretty similar to what I’d like to say today about Daddy, or Johnny Mac, as you may have called him. Except now I think I have a few more insights about, though no less love for, this man, whom many of you called your friend. I also called him my friend. One of my favorite Father’s Day gifts to him was a plaque that said, “Happiness is having a father as a best friend.”

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