Category Archives: Coping

How to Help A Grieving Friend

Here is another excellent article from Megan Devine on how to help a grieving friend. It speaks for itself, and if you know someone who has recently lost a loved one, you can help in meaningful, concrete ways. You can’t … Continue reading

Posted in Blog, Coping, Friends and Family, Grief, Jake Colman, Support | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

What to Say and What Not to Say

I have written about some of these things before and shared links to other articles. This is one of the best and most concise compendiums of what and what not to say to a bereaved person. After nearly 10 months, … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Friends and Family, Grief, Healing, Support | 2 Comments

Here it Comes. Here it Is. There it Goes.

Last Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Early last week I had it in mind to write a post about the impending holiday, but for reasons described elsewhere, I didn’t. Now that the first of the High Holy … Continue reading

Posted in Ceremony, Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Jake Colman, Sadness | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Tiniest and Most Random Details

We get dozens of catalogs in the mail every week. I was leafing through one of them the other day, the Fall catalog from Sur La Table, an upscale cookware and kitchen supply company. It has the usual Le Creuset … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Memory, Sadness | 5 Comments

Jake’s Birthday

Yesterday was Jake’s 25th birthday. Somehow we made it through without imploding, vaporizing, or disintegrating. We went for juicy pastrami sandwiches dripping with coleslaw on fresh crusty rye for lunch at Langer’s, an old-school deli in downtown LA. Jake would … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Food, Friends and Family, Healing, Honoring Jake, Jake Colman, Jake's Spirit, Memory | 6 Comments

Finding the Words

This is an excellent article appearing in the New Yorker online. Poet Edward Hirsch writes about the loss of his son, Gabriel at age twenty-two. It is a moving and thought-provoking piece. What is uncanny is that some of the … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Grief, Jake's Spirit, Other Media, Poetry, Print Article, Sadness | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Physical Toll of Grief

Yesterday was June 28th. Exactly six months, twenty-six weeks, since our beloved son died. Twenty-six joyless Shabbats. Twenty-six dreaded Saturday mornings. One hundred eighty-two days I have had to live in this world without Jake. It still doesn’t seem possible. … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Progress, Sadness | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

It’s Not Getting Any Easier

This has been a very arduous couple of weeks, full of ups and downs. We have been renovating our guest house, the place where Jake lived on and off for the past few years. Going through his belongings left there … Continue reading

Posted in Ceremony, Coping, Grief, Honoring Jake, Jake Colman, Memory, Sadness | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Twenty-one

It has been twenty-one weeks since I heard those heart-stopping words over my cell phone that bright Saturday afternoon. Nearly five months, and yet, it was at once, but a moment ago, and an aeon ago. Twenty-one Friday nights, twenty-one … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Honoring Jake, Jake Colman, Jake's Spirit, Memory, Sadness | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Please Stand By

I know the past few posts have been re-blogs of other’s people’s writing. I have been going through a bit of a slump this week; my internal landscape seems to be shifting around. Sharing some of the wonderful discourse that is … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Support | Tagged , , | 1 Comment