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Time is Measurable, Love and Grief are Not In March, Julie openly wrote about her grief hero, comedian Patton Oswalt, and how his honest and ‘unpretty’ truth gave her hope.  His candid and very public grief journey continued recently when he announced his engagement to actress, Meredith Salenger, “only” 15 months after his wife died. As usual, some people had strong opinions about this news. And, boy oh boy, some of those nasty opinions pretty much blew up the widow-verse. The prickles came when reading venomous remarks condemning Oswalt’s engagement–everything from “Nope, too soon” to suggesting his grief wasn’t genuine.  After all, he’d just taken his wedding ring off a few weeks prior to his engagement announcement. Now consider this: Imagine Patton is a widowed woman living in Victorian times.  If she adhered to full rather than half mourning, she would wear a black mourning dress for twelve months.  This mourning dress, the visible expression of her grief, would be shed at the end of that year and she would be expected to remarry.  Despite what she may feel inside, the visible mourning period dictated at that time would be over.  Done.  No controversy. But today we have prickles and condemnation. Enter the Widow-verse. Erica Roman, a widowed writer, eloquently schooled those who think they know how love works after being widowed.  Her defense of Patton’s new love caught his attention and Erica’s blog went viral.  I highly suggest reading her post.  It obviously resonates with many widows, but it also serves as education for those seeking insight on supporting someone who has lost a spouse.   https://ericaroman.me/2017/07/07/a-widows-rage-defense-of-patton-oswalts-engagement/ In my mind, the naysayers were not aware of two widowhood concepts.

• Time has no effect on love and grief, and
• Widows have the capacity and ability to love both their

Our prayers of support go out to the families and friends of the Humboldt Broncos Junior A Hockey team As a ministry/company we exist to help those who are grieving so at this time we want to offer our support in any way we can,  if you are someone who has been affected by this tragic loss please just give us a call and we will get you whatever you may need from our company.   Sincerely Grieving Together

Grief Diaries is an amazing series of books which delve into the experiences of those who’ve suffered a loss. The series contains a number of book specific to various types of loss, such as Loss of a Spouse, Loss of a Child, Loss of a Parent, Loss by Suicide and many more. The books provide incredible insight to the grief journey from a first-hand perspective. A box of Kleenex is highly recommended when reading these books, as the stories are incredibly personal and touching. The books are a highly valuable bereavement tool as not only do they offer comfort and hope, but they are an all-important reminder that we do not walk this journey alone. A full list of the book titles can be found at www.griefdiaries.com. Many of the titles are also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. Simply search under ‘grief diaries” and the list will come up. Julie Mjelve, co-founder of Grieving together,  has been blessed and honored to be a contributor to three of the books, Loss of a Spouse, Loss by Suicide and How to Help the Newly Bereaved. Whatever loss you have experienced in your life, all the Grief Diaries books aim to come alongside you and hold you up through your own personal journey.

“What is in your heart?” she asks.…

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear”. C.S Lewis

Lately, I’ve been trying to be more of an observer of the never ending grief dance I’ve been forced to attend.   I’ve labelled this particular dance Hotel California – you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.  Sometimes I have just one partner, the strongest emotion prevails a while, but mostly it’s a group dance, more like a mosh pit.  I’m being thrashed around by emotions and partners I’m not always acquainted with but they just happened to see the Dancing Here signs on the door.  Bitterness has been a recurring partner for quite some time. He was invited by Hypocrisy, but new words and feelings have started to show up as well.  Late comers and wall flowers until now, Understanding and Forgiveness have been cutting in, backing Bitterness into a corner to wait patiently for another song. I used to use the word hypocrisy when referring to some people.  I would get so ticked off when they would say things like you have to keep his memory alive, cherish the good times you had with him.  These people were always well meaning, but in my mind, their well-intentioned responses became robotic clichés spoken only to make themselves feel better.  The hypocrisy thoughts came later when the same people would say you need to move on, you’re not “getting over” him, you need to stop talking about him so much and get on with your life.  Excuse me?  How do you fuse those contradictory thoughts?  I thought you can’t have it both ways, people.  You can’t tell me to keep his memory alive AND to stop talking about him because talking about him IS keeping his memory alive.  I thought that would be common sense, yet I would almost lose my ever-loving-mind when intelligent people