Holidays

Holiday Letters

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I always loved getting holiday letters from friends and family. Often it is the only time I heard from people I cared about each year. Over the years, the numbers of cards have decreased and often the letters are brief and impersonal. I am a big proponent of staying in touch with people I love, but I know I could do better. Ron and I wrote a holiday letter together each year, and my first year without him, I decided to write a letter on my own.  Here is the sharing I put on my Christmas card the year Ron died:

Christmas this year is a time of reflection for me. In a year of deep experiences, I’ve learned so              much.

  • I learned the peace of living only in the moment.
  • I learned the joy of spending all my time with Ron.
  • I learned the love of being surrounded by our Ohana and loving friends and family.
  • I learned the gratitude we have for the perfect care given by Hospice.
  • I learned the beauty of Hawaiian culture in the memorial service for Ron on the Beach.
  •  I learned the strength I didn’t realize I have in looking forward to each new day.This holiday season and next year, I wish you peace, joy, love, gratitude, beauty, and strength.

 

I like what I wrote that year. Reading it again showed me how much I have learned and changed since eight years ago. And It made me realize how much I love the tradition of staying in touch. I keep my holiday card list updated, and I don’t delete addresses of people who don’t keep in touch with me because I still think of them and would love to hear from them too!

I am in the prosses of putting my holiday letter together for this year and am sharing with you a fill in the blanks template as an idea for you to create your own letters. Here you go!

This year has brought me (or us, or our family) ______________________

As I reflect, I realize that:

      • I learned that ____________________________________________________
      • I experienced joy by _______________________________________________
      • I love that ________________________________________________________
      • I saw beauty in ____________________________________________________
      • I accomplished __________________________________________________
      • I found peace by _________________________________________________
      • I am grateful for __________________________________________________
      • I love you because _______________________________________________
      • I will keep in better touch with you by ______________________________

This holiday season and next year, I wish you peace, joy, love, gratitude, beauty, and                                strength.

Feel free to change or add anything you’d like. Have fun with this. I hope you will send letters or cards to at least some of your loved ones, and of course, I would love to get something from you!

Keeping in touch, especially with people who are grieving, can make a huge difference to people you care about.

Happy Holidays!

 

 

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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Dream Builder Life Coach

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Mother’s Day

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Mother’s Day can be a beautiful, magical day, or it can also be sad or hearbreaking.  Or, it could be a combination of both happy and sad. How is your Mother’s Day going to be this year?

Mother’s day was originated by Anna Jarvis in West Virginia in 1908 to honor her mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis who had 8 out of 12 children die. They both volunteered to provide medicine for needy families at a time when Tuberculosis was an issue. 

I always miss my mom on Mother’s Day. She died 30 years ago. Mom always made her famous potato salad for celebrations, so I like to make potato salad.  My family always comments on how they love Grandma’s potato salad, and that helps me remember her fondly. Over the last few years, I have started writing her letters in my journal. I write to her as I would if we were having a conversation, and sometimes I write back to me from her. I love how this makes me feel.

You may know a mother who’s family will not be around to celebrate. Include them in your celebration, take them some flowers from your yard, or bake them some cookies. Maybe you know someone who has been a mother figure to you. If you do, write her a letter thanking her for what she means to you, and maybe take her some cookies or flowers.

 This year, think of someone who could use some love and support for Mother’s day and celebrate them in some way. I’d love to hear about your ideas or ways that you celebrate Mother’s Day!

 

The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

My email is [email protected]

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Remembering Valentines

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Valentine’s Day can be a trigger for people who are grieving.  Growing up I always looked forward to Valentine’s Day.  In our classrooms, we always had an art project where we would create a very large envelope that we decorated and hung on the wall. Then most of the students would put little valentines in each of their classmate’s envelopes.  Some students would get larger, special valentines to give to special friends. Then on Valentine’s Day got to open all our valentines and have fruit punch and cupcakes.  I always looked forward to that day.

In January of 2006 Hallmark card stores had a special sale where if you spent a certain amount in the store, you could get a CD with romantic songs sung by Michael Bublé. My husband Jaques had an amazing singing voice in the style of Frank Sinatra, which is much like Michael Bublé. At that point, Jacques couldn’t drive anymore and he asked me to take him to the Hallmark store without telling me why.

When we got back to the car, he handed me the bag from the store and asked me to open it. I told him if it was my Valentine, I would prefer to wait. He asked me to please open it that day, so I did, and it was the CD.  We played it a lot over the next few days. He died on February 6. I am so glad I opened it when he asked me to. 

On the first Valentine’s Day that Ron and I spent together, we went out for dinner. I had never gone out to dinner on Valentine’s day before, so that was special. After we were seated, he handed me a gift which had a gold heart and a silver heart intertwined. I still treasure that gift.

Ron was on Hospice for only five days, and during those days he made sure to say goodbye to everyone he wanted to. Many people came to the house to visit him, and he Face-Timed everyone else.  One person was a minister he had worked with years before. I had never met him and it was a challenge to track him down, but I was able to and they were grateful for that last conversation.

Five Valentine’s years after Ron died, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. I don’t usually answer those, but I felt like I needed to answer this one.  It was that minister. He was concerned that I might not know who he was, but I assured him that I did because Ron spoke so highly of him. He said he was cleaning off his desk that morning and a piece of scrap paper fell out of a book, and it had my phone number written on it. He said he felt that Ron must be asking him to wish happy Valentine’s Day to me. I am sure that he was.

Do you have any special Valentine’s Day memories? Be sure to write about them in your journal and spend some time thinking about all the love of every kind you have shared in your life. Close your eyes and feel the warmth of all that love.

Happy Valentine’s Day

 

The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

My email is [email protected]

Let me know if you’d like to receive my newsletters which have lots of good things!

You can listen to my podcast here.

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance Gatherings which meet weekly on Sundays by clicking here

You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Handbook by clicking here.

You can order The Grief and Happiness Cards by clicking here.

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here.

A Natural High

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I saw a commercial on television where people from a neighborhood had gathered to watch a Christmas movie projected on a garage door. Families all seemed to be smiling and happy while enjoying S’mores they made over open fires. What I didn’t understand was that they were all bundled up and sitting in the snow. I’ve never lived in the snow, so this could be common behavior, so it did look strange to me.

After I thought about this cold scene for a while, I realized how good it feels to be outside. I imagine that people in snowy regions don’t spend much time outside, and I think that would be a challenging way to live. I spend time outside every day sitting on my lanai, going for walks, or working in the garden.

Listening to the birds, watching the white, puffy clouds float by, seeing the kaleidoscope of colors in the sky as the sun raises and sets, and watching the moon and stars in the dark sky all are as important to me as the air that I breathe. And I appreciate that fresh air even when I am in the house because most of the time, I have all the windows open so I can appreciate nice, deep breaths of that fresh air all the time.

Wherever you are, whatever kind of weather you are experiencing, find a way to spend at least a little time outside every day.  Be mindful of the comfort of the natural high you feel while enjoying nature. Self-care like this is essential to both your health and your general well-being. Enjoy!

 

The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

My email is [email protected]

Let me know if you’d like to receive my newsletters which have lots of good things!

You can listen to my podcast here.

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance Gatherings which meet weekly on Sundays by clicking here

You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Handbook by clicking here.

You can order The Grief and Happiness Cards by clicking here.

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here.

 

 

 

 

 

Loving Kindness During the Holidays

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In the holiday season, we tend to rely even more than usual on the service of others. I think most of us have had a variety of service jobs through our lives. I know I have, starting from baby sitting and teaching swimming lessons. I also worked at what we used to call being a waitress. And I was an ambulance attendant and a vocational nurse. I cut grapes in the fields, packed plums, canned tuna, and gleaned corn and peaches.

My first restaurant job came when I came home from high school one day and my father told me that his friend who owned a restaurant had people call in sick for that night and that he really needed help, so my father volunteered me. I had never done that before and felt intimidated when I arrived at 11 PM. I asked Dad’s friend what he wanted me to do. He told me that my parents had taken me out to eat, so I knew how I wanted to be treated by wait staff, so when I served people, I should treat them as I would want to be treated. That was my entire orientation. It was a small 24 hour a day coffee shop, so I had to figure out how to do everything else on my own.

I learned an invaluable lesson that night. I had a good time. I smiled at everyone and treated them like friends. At the end of my shift, I told the owner I would be happy to come back whenever he needed me, so he called me often. I took that smile with me to all those other jobs I had, and I took pride in my work treating each job like it was the most important thing to me at the moment I was working.

What does all this have to do with grief and happiness during the holidays? We come into contact with  many people during the holidays. We shop, we dine out, we go to parties, we go to appointments, we go to work, we go to meetings, we go to classes, and everywhere we go, we interact with people. Chances are you don’t know most of the people you run into, so you don’t know if someone they love is dying or just died. We don’t know if she just had a miscarriage. We don’t know if they lost their home or their job. Even with people we know, we may not know these things about them.

When you think of all these people, remember how my boss oriented me. Treat each person, no matter how well you know or don’t know them, like they are your friend. Smile at them. Notice when they smile back at you or if they may seem to be holding back tears.  Approach them with an open heart. Listen to what they have to say. Be there for them.

During these holidays, see how much loving kindness you can share with a smile.

 

The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

My email is [email protected]

Let me know if you’d like to receive my newsletters which have lots of good things!

You can listen to my podcast here.

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance Gatherings which meet weekly on Sundays by clicking here

You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Handbook by clicking here.

You can order The Grief and Happiness Cards by clicking here.

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here.

Give Thanks

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My son was watching a television show about homes around a lake, and I glanced at the beautiful view one home had. I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place that had a beautiful view. He gave me a funny look and glanced out our large sliding glass doors revealing a spectacular view across the island of Maui seeing the West Maui Mountains and glimpses of both sides of the island. This reminded me of how we don’t always appreciate all we already have.

Often in life we accumulate stuff that we don’t need and that doesn’t serve us. I have started a major project of eliminating stuff from my home. I like the spaciousness that I am uncovering, and it feels great to repurpose things or to gift things to people who are happy to receive them. In the process of doing this, I am taking the time to look closely at pictures I have of people special to me. I also notice gifts people have given me, art that I have collected, and mementoes of my travels. I smile often with sweet memories as I go through this process.

Enjoying these memories, I know how grateful I am for each friend, each family member, each gift, each celebration, and all the traveling I have done. As I sit now on my lanai enjoying that beautiful island view as well as my lovely, bountiful garden, I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

My email is [email protected]

Let me know if you’d like to receive my newsletters which have lots of good things!

You can listen to my podcast here.

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance Gatherings which meet weekly on Sundays by clicking here

You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Handbook by clicking here.

You can order The Grief and Happiness Cards by clicking here.

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here.