Life After Loss

Option B: A Grief Book Review

Option B has sat on my nightstand for 6 months.  It’s been my “next to read” book for approximately that same amount of time.  I’m just not a huge reader anymore, but I’m really trying to be better about that.  Reading more will (at the very least) make me feel a bit better about my out-of-control TV habit.

I wanted to read Option B to expand my understanding of my grief experience.  While the author lost her husband, not a child, I heard that it was still really relatable from one of my loss mom friends.  What I learned while reading it is that anyone could benefit from reading this book, even if you’re not in the throes of complex grief yourself.  In fact, I’d actually especially recommend it if you aren’t.  My experience has been that a lot of people absolutely do not know how to interact with someone who is experiencing complex grief, and this book is a perfect little toolkit to help folks understand what’s happening and what they should do.

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Brady John · Life After Loss

Happy 1st Birthday, Brady John!

Up until the morning of Sunday, January 14th, I had every intention of celebrating Brady’s first birthday that day.  Though he was born on the 15th, I figured that had he lived to see his first birthday, Sunday would’ve been the day we had people over to celebrate.  I doubt we would have had great turnout for a party on a Monday night.  However, when we woke up that day, we decided we’d rather visit and celebrate on his actual birthday.

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Life After Loss

The Schmitz Family and Other Holiday Phenomena

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and Christmas has come and gone.  It was actually not as bad as I thought it would be.  It seems the anticipation of how bad it was going to be might have surpassed how bad it actually was.  At least I didn’t get myself as worked up about Christmas as I did about Thanksgiving.  That’s not saying it didn’t suck, knowing that we should be celebrating in a totally different way with an adorable little man.  I’ve tried consciously to fixate less on the “shoulds” and instead focus on our reality.  That helped me get through those couple tough days.

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Life After Loss

How to Tell a Loss Mom About a Pregnancy

I’ve written my fair share of “What NOT to do” pieces on this blog.  I’ve often wondered why it seems to be so hard to think before you speak, or to consider your audience.  Pregnancy announcements are an uncomfortable subject to broach when you’re sharing the news with a loss mom.  There are good odds that a loss mom will come away from the conversation thinking it was handled poorly.  Remember, I wrote this gem about sucky pregnancy announcements.

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