Priya Soni is a new friend and fellow caregiver. Like me, Priya has a background in theatre as well as a natural love for storytelling. Like me, she seeks meaning in her caregiving experience and wants to help others do the same. I encourage you …
Continue readingTag: grief
THE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: THE WEIGHT OF LOVE IN DEMENTIA CAREGIVING
Recently I had the immense pleasure of reading every poignant and fascinating word in a literary magazine called The Sun. The January, 2016 edition is on the subject of care. I highly recommend this magazine (and particularly this edition) to car…
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: David Suzuki: Healing humanity’s grief in the face of climate change
David Suzuki suggests that the discourse on global warming should recognized the “intense feelings” and “grief” caused by climate change. He says: “Today’s social and environmental leaders need to understand the psychological implications of a world …
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: A Remarkable Story of Banishing Grief After Loss
KarolinaJonderko is a Polish photographer who nursed her beloved mother throughout a frightful journey to end with cancer. After her mother died, Jonderko realized that she’d forgotten all the happy memories of family life before cancer. So she took a remarkable decision. Jonderko decided to photograph herself wearing her mother’s
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: Caregiving With Strength – A Guidebook for Grieving Caregivers
Eleanor Silverberg understands grief. She is a child of holocaust survivors who often witnessed her mother silently weeping. An unspoken sorrow infused the Silverberg family home…..grief seeped into their furniture, their walls and of course their hearts. Eleanor Silverberg’s book Caregiving With Strength: Raising Self Care to New Heights by
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: I Bloom Where I am Planted: A Story of Family Caregiving
November is National Family Caregiver Month. Here in the Caregivers’ Living Room, we are celebrating by publishing your stories. If you have a story to share, please send it to me at donna4walls@gmail.com. Let’s celebrate our lived experience by storytelling! My name is Susan Buro Hamm. Included in my
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: I’m Thinking, “This is Going to Hurt!”: On ‘How Not to Deal with Grief’
From my friend Betty Ann on her Facebook page: “This article deeply moved me…as I suspect it will for any of you who have been impacted by the kind of grief associated with multiple loss, deaths due to overdose and or HIV/AIDS. Rather than just clicking on “like”, can you
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: R.I.P. Emma
(From 04-04-2014) Following a “massive stroke” my beautiful friend of almost exactly fifteen years has left me. Emma (short for Emerald, the colour of her eyes) dropped to one side, sprawled on the floor, and let out a yell worthy of her Siamese ancestors. Now my breaths draw up sobs
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: R.I.P. Emma
(From 04-04-2014) Following a “massive stroke” my beautiful friend of almost exactly fifteen years has left me. Emma (short for Emerald, the colour of her eyes) dropped to one side, sprawled on the floor, and let out a yell worthy of her Siamese ancestors. Now my breaths draw up sobs
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Weeping in Public Places
Forgive me, I have been crying. Today I wept while driving, when I saw an old couple hug on the sidewalk. I wiped my cheeks as I watched the post office clerk weigh my letter and add up the international postage for my letter of condolence to an old and
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Early morning, April 25, 2007
A prompt this week to write about something in a health-care context brought out this story which, despite having been told over and over in my head, had heretofore not made it down in writing. It wasn’t quite 5:30 am and Janice was already waiting for me on the main
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Fathers, Sons and the In-Between Spaces of Grief
I tell our family story to anyone who will listen. I hope that our story will shift readers’ embedded thoughts and ideas about what it means to be different and to care for a loved one over time. For me, the most gratifying aspect of writing a book is that
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: Canadians Put Politics Aside for Suicide Prevention Day
by Amelia Wood Whether you identify yourself as a conservative, liberal or something in between, there’s no denying the fact that you or someone you know has likely been affected by the tragic epidemic that is suicide. Recognized as one of the biggest issues plaguing modern Canada today, suicide is
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Five Years Since a Critical Day One
It was an early night to bed on Tuesday, June 19, 2007. I had absolutely no more drinking to do and decided that the last day of this particular spring was a bitterly appropriate day to reach out for sobriety. Ruminations of suicide the past few days signalled to me
Continue readingMother’s Day
Mother’s Day was mostly just another day. My mother never let me attempt breakfast in bed. Chances are, she cooked breakfast for me. Mom’s right arm was never the same after the cancer, and her tendency to swing hot pans close to my head became a nervous running joke. Mom
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Craig`s timing
When Craig died five years ago today he could not have ordained that his memory would loom large during this week each year as the award in his name is presented at today`s Convocation ceremonies of United Theological College. He would not have chosen, for Mom`s sake at least, to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Nurses Grieve Too
An underexplored or ignored aspect of nursing professional life: how nurses working in a Labour and Delivery unit grieve over the loss of their patients, and how this grief affects care and support of survivors. What is really striking about the film is the culture of mutual support and respect
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Plan ahead – before it kills you
h/t to my friend BA! Today, April 16th, is National Advanced Care Planning Day in Canada…have you started the conversation? Here’s a link for more information and a 3 ½ minute video produced by the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association. Please forward this video, share on your Facebook page, tweet
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: No sentence could undo the harms caused by Graham James
I join the outcry today over the sentencing of convicted serial pedophile Graham James to two years in prison for the sexual abuse of Theo Fleury and Todd Holt. Counter-intuitively (because I knew it would just get me stirred up) I watched the news coverage of the lawyers’ statements and victims’
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