Pat Bertram's Blog, page 11

I’m going to Blog for Peace. Will You?

Tomorrow, November 4th, people all over the world will blog for peace. Blog4Peace was created and founded by Mimi Lenox, who believes that because words are powerful, blogging for peace is important.

Mimi began blogging for peace in November 2006. Fourteen years and thousands of peace bloggers later she — and all those she inspired — are still blogging for peace. On every continent. In 214 countries and territories. In war-torn countries and peaceful villages. Whole families. Babies in utero (yes, really!) Teenagers. Senior citizens. Veterans of war. Poets and singers. Teachers. Classrooms. Authors and artists. Doctors. Lawyers. Cats (many, many cat bloggers). Dogs. Gerbils. Birds. Goats and Bunnies. Scientists. Designers. Researchers. Stay-at-home-parents. Kids. Baby Boomers. From the Netherlands to Kansas. And everywhere in between.

I joined the peace bloggers in 2012. And I still blog for peace. 

This year’s theme is No Freedom, No Peace. As Mimi says, “Can we bring about a liberated world inside of ourselves and let it spill out onto the planet? Yes, we can.” This is a theme I can adopt; in fact, my novel Bob, The Right Hand of God was written with the themes of freedom and peace in mind. Although I do not believe in the possibility of world peace (because war and stressful times are never our personal choice but are fostered by others or foisted on us by circumstances) and freedom is not always a choice, (anyone who flies can attest to that) I do believe in finding peace and what freedom we can within ourselves no matter what happens to provoke us into chaos.

And yes, words are powerful. And yes, this matters.

How To Blog For Peace:

Choose a graphic from the peace globe gallery http://peaceglobegallery.blogspot.com/p/get-your-own-peace-globe.htmlor from the photos on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlogBlastForPeace#!/BlogBlastForPeace/app_153284594738391 Right click and Save. Decorate it and sign it, or leave as is.Send the finished globe to blog4peace@yahoo.comPost it anywhere online November 4 and title your post Dona Nobis Pacem (Latin for Grant us Peace)

Sounds cool, doesn’t it? See you on November 4!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Terrestrial Triumphs

A little more than two years ago, I started to do a daily tarot reading. I wanted to learn the cards effortlessly (that is, without having to actively memorize each of the 78 cards), and though I’m still at it, I have very little retention of what the cards mean, so after all this time, I still have to look up the meaning of each card. Adding to the confusion, each guide included in most decks offers a different interpretation of the cards, though there is a vague thread of similarity between each of those interpretations. Some of the major arcana seem obvious, such as the Wheel of Fortune or Judgment, but the minor arcana all runs together, especially the court cards (the people cards). These generally refer to the people in our lives, but I have very few people and none of court cards ever seem to have anything to do with them or me.

Actually, the readings themselves never seem to have anything to me except shallowly, the way newspaper horoscopes offer shallow advice or ambiguous prophesy. It’s possible that I am not doing the readings correctly, not opening myself to possible meanings, not meditating on the cards or whatever it is I am supposed to be doing since I am not gleaning anything about myself or my life that I don’t already know. It’s also possible that at this stage of my life there isn’t anything more I can know. That’s not to say I know everything about myself, just that I know what I know and can’t intuit what I don’t know, with or without the help of the tarot.

Still, I continue to do a daily reading, choosing a different deck each month. In the hope that by limiting the number of cards I use, I will be able to better learn the meanings, this month I am using the Glass Tarot, a gorgeous deck reminiscent of stained glass, that’s comprised of only the major arcana. (The title of this blog, terrestrial triumphs, is how the major arcana was once known; hence, the term “trumps” as another name for those cards.)

Today’s three-card reading included all cards that I am familiar with, and so my interpretation before looking at what the guide says, is that once I was naïve about certain matters, such as what grief can do to a person (The Fool), but then Jeff died and the world I knew came tumbling down (The Tower), and now I see things from a different perspective (The Hanged Man).

All true, of course, but it doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know. (My question for the reading was “What do I need to know today?) Going by the definitions in this particular guide, the cards mean something else and deviate a bit from how others interpret the cards.

The Fool: Freedom from concern over material matters, extravagances, follies, light-heartedness, incomprehensible or inexplicable actions.

The Tower: Arrogance, pride, presumptuousness, upset equilibrium, danger, exile, collapse of mistaken convictions.

The Hanged Man: Disinterestedness, altruism, repentance, detachment from matter, moment of transition, utopia, art, punishment.

Even reading my cards from a different angle, perhaps that my follies let to arrogance and now I have to repent, doesn’t tell me much, though it is interesting to see how the same cards are subject to two completely different interpretations.

It does show me, too, that a few cards are sticking in memory, so my daily readings are helping me learn the cards, for whatever that’s worth.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Charming Weather

It’s an interesting new experience not spending two to four hours working outside every day. It got to be so much of a habit that I just automatically went out in the morning and stayed until whatever tasks I’d set myself were finished. This autumn, I’d been spending closer to four hours since the weather was so charming. “Charming” is not a word I would have ever thought to use for weather; it just showed up. And no wonder: the weather has been so pleasant and likeable that these days have charmed me. I was glad to have excuses to spend so much time outside — cleaning up gardens in preparation for planting wildflowers this winter, dividing and transplanting the prolific New England asters, and planting a few indulgences such as lily bulbs and a couple of plants.

I tried once before to plant Russian sage, a plant that bees seem to love, but that one died, and it looks as if the one I just planted wants to go the same way. Oh, well, what will be will be. I certainly learned that with my lawn — no matter what I did, the Bermuda grass encroached, and now I have large brown swaths of dormant Bermuda grass edging the bright green. Even worse, no matter what I did, some of my lawn desiccated in the summer. I’ll be interested to see what happens next spring with the grass areas that became heat stressed. Some patches seem to be dead, but in other places, a few green blades are laboriously making their way back.

I blamed myself for the demise of the grass, though I don’t see what I could have done differently. Extensive research finally gave me the answer — when temperatures exceed 95 degrees, cool season grasses go dormant. Over 100 degrees, the grasses die. To keep the grass alive, I should have misted the lawn a couple of hours every afternoon. I’m not sure I’d have done that, but perhaps if the grass comes back, I’ll think of something. The greenest area in my yard gets a lot of shade during the day, so perhaps I’d find a way to shade the areas that are in full sun from morning to night. Maybe umbrellas to shade those areas. Or maybe I’ll just wait to see what happens. It does look as if some wildflower seeds took root, so that might be a solution — just let them take over. As long as the area is mowable and not overrun by the so very aggressive Bermuda grass, I’m not sure I care.

As you can see, even without a lot of outside work to do, I still spend time thinking about my yard and planning for next year.

This “charming” weather will be coming to an end soon, but after the coming cold spell, I’m sure there will be plenty of work to do, such as cleaning up all the leaves that have yet to fall from my neighbors’ trees and clearing out the final garden. That garden still has a few struggling flowers that I am loath to dig up, but I am sure the coming freeze (maybe even snow!) will put an end to any blooms.

Meantime, I’m avoiding garden withdrawal by taking small walks. It’s funny to me that I spent years taking long aimless walks, but now I have a hard time walking just to walk. It seems as if I need a reason, so I’ve been going to the library more often. (Have to fill all those empty hours somehow!)

I hope you’re having lovely weather, too, and that the cold front we’re expecting doesn’t adversely affect you.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Something Scary for Halloween

Real life can be a whole lot scarier than the fictional monsters and situations that are created to entertain us. For example, a scold’s bridle. Admittedly, such torture devices aren’t part of our everyday life unless you’re into the furthest reaches of sado-masochistic games, and since I’m not, I’d never heard of them. Or more probably, I’d forgotten what I knew since that’s not the sort of thing I want to remember.

Anyway, if you don’t know, a scold’s bridle is an iron facemask with a bit for the mouth, often with a spike that rests on the tongue so that any mouth movement causes terrible pain. (Some even had a spike on both the bottom and the top of the mouthpiece, which pierced the tongue.) Theses iron masks were created to tame shrews and to punish “scolds,” women who had a vicious tongue or nagged their husbands or were a general nuisance, especially to authority. The bridles were illegal in many places, but still commonly used for hundreds of years to humiliate and control rebellious women (the last known public punishment using such a device was about 1840). When bridled, the women were often subject to jeering, lewd comments, and even sexual assault, apparently because the perceived immodesty of those women titillated the people they encountered.

Women who rebelled against any of the strictures of their life were subject to laws of a scold and punished by this medieval device, as were woman who spoke out against abuse, religious woman who preached in public, women who wanted a say in their own lives, women accused of witchcraft, and women who didn’t act demurely. Even widows and poverty-stricken women were punished with the scold’s bridle, not because they were unruly or did anything wrong but simply because they weren’t under the control of a man and so were considered a threat.

Yikes. How’s that for scary?

It’s amazing to me that with all that’s been done to women (as well as to anyone considered inferior), that docility wasn’t bred out of women. Or maybe it’s because of the torture women endured that it wasn’t bred out; perhaps the torture created even more rebellion. I don’t really know. I do know that things like this — the way so-called moral people acted against those they feared (and apparently a woman not under the strict control of a man was someone to be feared greatly) — scare me more than any made-up Halloween monster.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Grassland Adventure

My sisters were here a few days ago, and it was an especially great visit. Besides getting to see them, I also got to go to the national grasslands, an area I’ve been wanting to explore ever since I moved here. I have driven through the grasslands and saw . . . ta da! Yep, you guessed it — grass! Miles and miles of grasses.

In the back country of those grasslands are all sorts of interesting things such as canyons, petroglyphs, dinosaur tracks, and tarantulas. There are hiking trails back there, too, but they are not the easiest, nor are they the easiest to get to — miles of dirt and gravel roads, and I have no interest in shaking my car apart just to satisfy my curiosity. (Do you remember those cartoons where some character is driving a jalopy, the car hits a bump, and the thing falls to pieces? That’s what I always envision when I have to drive a bit on unpaved roads.)

We headed out late in the afternoon, so by the time we got to the grasslands, we were only able to explore and hike for a short time before the sun starting setting. Still, even without seeing petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks, we were able to get a sense of the area.

Huge slabs of sedimentary rock looked like a river in the fading light. It was easy to believe that these slabs once formed the muddy floor of a prehistoric lake.

The sun shining on the canyon wall peeping over the rim made it look as if the canyon were on fire.

Vast swaths of grass gleamed with autumn colors.

It was hard to imagine how the folks traveling the Santa Fe Trail we able to traverse such areas in their primitive vehicles. (Though I’m sure at the time, those wagons were considered modern conveyances.)

But best of all, to my delight (and to my sister’s screeching horror) I finally got to see a tarantula! Ever since I heard of the tarantula migration in this area, I’ve been on the lookout for tarantulas. I even set out at dusk a couple of times to see if I could find any tarantulas on the move, but they’ve proven to be illusive creatures.

There’s still so much to explore out in the grasslands, but I won’t be able to return until I can find someone with a proper vehicle and a sense of adventure to go with me. Although I used to hike alone in remote areas, that was when I was younger. Admittedly, I was only four or five years younger, but back then, I didn’t feel as if I had anything to lose. And too, my knees were in great condition. But that’s not something I want to dwell on. The truth is, I am very grateful to have been able to see (and experience) what I got to see. Such an adventure!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Real Life Beach Read

The term “beach read” started out as an advertising gimmick for books published in the summer for the beach-going crowd. They were non-challenging books, a bit frothy and fun, and could be almost any genre as long as the story was good enough to keep one’s attention but not so serious it would spoil one’s vacation. Nowadays “beach read” seems to be an actual genre, generally a romance or woman’s story that takes place at the beach. In a typical beach story, three sisters who are all at a crossroad in their lives end up at the family’s beach house, often to figure out what to do with house they jointly inherited in the hope that a sale will help solve their various issues. The book ends up with all their problems being resolved as well as the three disparate and far-flung sisters reconnecting and reestablishing their sisterhood.

My sisters recently came to visit, and I couldn’t help thinking I was living in a real life “beach read.” They weren’t here to help resolve the issue of our parents’ house because that had been taken care of eight years before. (Oddly, they just happened to be here on the eighth anniversary of our father’s death, but it was our mother we toasted with her favorite Bailey’s Irish Cream.) And anyway, this house is a done deal — it’s mine and mine alone.

We had no serious issues to resolve, and no true crossroads, though both sisters are dealing with a change in their circumstances, and the visit allowed them a respite from their respective issues. We had reconnected as sisters during our first “three sisters” weekend, but we haven’t all been together in the intervening four-and-a-half years. And rather surprisingly, this was the first time ever the three of us spent the night alone under the same roof.

To be honest, I was a bit nervous about hosting this gathering (three women and one bathroom seemed an untenable equation), and I didn’t know how generous I’d be about sharing my house. But it all worked out well, perhaps because they didn’t stay long, just a couple of nights. It was fun being with people who had known me most of my life (I say “most” because one sister is eight years younger and one is twelve years younger). And it was especially nice solidifying our sisterhood.

Even though I live in a town way out on the prairie, we even managed to spend some time at a beach!

The body of water — a reservoir — is huge, 30 square miles, and is adjacent to a 13,100-acre state park. Obviously, there wasn’t a whole lot of the place we could explore in one afternoon, but we managed to see several beautiful areas and take some stunning photos.

Unlike the characters in a beach read, I don’t suppose any of our lives were changed by the visit, but it definitely was a special time for all of us.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

The Rush of Time

I have never felt the rush of time as I do this autumn. Last winter, time seemed to freeze — it just sat there, segueing from one dark cold day to another, week after week after week. In summer, time seemed torpid from the heat, slogging from one meltingly hot day to another for months on end. In spring, the high, almost constant winds made time feel as if it were whirling in place.

But this autumn? Each day feels significantly colder, darker, and shorter than the previous one, as if time isn’t so much marching on, but is running flat out. Even though winter doesn’t show up on the calendar for another two months or so, it feels as if autumn can hardly wait to get rid of the heavy responsibility of being the intermediary between two harsh seasons, and is hurrying to shrug off the burden. I can’t imagine how I will feel in ten days when daylight savings time ends — perhaps as if in its haste, autumn fell off the cliff into darkness. Afterward, I’m sure, autumn will pick itself up and limp slowly toward winter, but until then? Time will continue to rush along, pulling me with it, and sooner or later, winter will come.

I have a hunch one of the reasons time seems to be moving so fast is that I am not ready for winter. I have done most of what I can to get my garden ready for winter, though without any moisture falling from the intermittent clouds, I’ll be out there shivering as I water the lawn occasionally. There are also a few patches of garden still to clear out as well as a plant or two to bury (well, bury the roots) so they can survive the coming freeze, but otherwise, I’m pretty much ready. What I am not ready for are the months of cold and darkness, though I’m sure I’ll get used to them as I always do. During those months, I console myself that at least it’s not the sweltering summer. (In the summer, I deal with the heat by telling myself that at least it’s not the frigid winter.)

Another reason, of course, that autumn seems to pass so quickly is that summer heat encroaches on the beginning of the season, and winter chill encroaches on the end, so it feels like a short season, with a few weeks of temperate weather squeezed between months of extremes. It does show me, though, how important it is to appreciate each day for what it is, and especially to appreciate the longer evenings that we still have before daylight savings ends and early night crashes down on us.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

I’m Doing Well

If you’re one of those who has been worried about my virtual disappearance, worry no more. I’m doing well. I haven’t disappeared in real life, just online life. I still manage to blog once or twice a week, but I don’t go through the rigmarole of posting the link on Facebook. It got to be too much, not just writing every day, but reblogging to another blog as well as posting the photo on a third blog and reblogging that to the reblogged blog just so I can bypass FB’s unfairly punitive ways to post my blog link on the site.

I feel good about not blogging every day, and I feel even better about boycotting FB, though I do feel bad about not keeping up with grief friends, both online and off. I just can’t handle secondhand grief anymore. (A friend recently died, and I dread seeing her husband, also a friend, when he returns to this country. It’s not exactly kind or generous or sensitive, but it’s the truth of me right now.)

I’ve also been doing well with my yard — the leaves from my neighbors’ trees will start falling any day (perhaps even later today because of the high winds we’re dealing with), but until it’s time to rake those leaves or to water the grass again, there’s nothing for me to do outside. What a change! Admittedly, I earned the change. I’ve been spending three or four hours every day digging up Bermuda grass, weeds, and dead annuals in preparation for winter wildflower sowing. I also spent several of those days digging up, hacking apart, and replanting the New England aster. If even half of them survive the winter, I’ll be having to deal with maybe a hundred plants next fall. But that’s not for another year.

I’ve also been doing well with cleaning house — everything is as spotless as I can get it, so there’s no inside chore niggling at me, either.

So, with nothing to do today except read and relax and fix a couple of meals, I’m doing really well!

And speaking of “well,” Here’s a well of a different sort. It’s funny, but I wished for a wishing well, and look! I got my wish! I had to fix the roof that was falling apart, and I shingled it with leftover shingles, and now — oh, what a beauty!

I threw wishes into the well for your wellbeing, so I hope it works and that you’re doing well, too.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Midnight Drama

In the light of day, the goings on of last night seem rather silly and insignificant, but in the dark, after being jerked out of a deep sleep, it was drama enough — and trauma enough — for me. What makes it so much worse, is that it’s my own fault.

I’ve been trying to keep to a schedule to change the batteries in my smoke alarms every year, but this year, I let the date pass, though I thought about doing the job every day, and even wrote a note reminding myself to change the batteries in the smoke alarms, but still I procrastinated. It’s a difficult task for me — getting out the ladder, climbing a few rungs, and then trying to get to the old batteries to change them. It’s also ridiculous because there are so many smoke alarms in this very small house. One in each bedroom, one outside the kitchen, one in the hallway, as per code, but that makes four smoke alarms within just a few feet of each other. A fifth smoke alarm is on the ceiling of the enclosed porch. That’s a lot of ladder climbing for an older woman with bum knees!

So last night, I wasn’t surprised — just adrenaline-rush startled — to be awakened by an insanely loud metallic chirp. I lay there for a minute hoping somehow I’d dreamed the noise, but nope. There it was again. A brief screech from the smoke alarm in my bedroom.

Not wanting to go out to the detached garage to get the six-foot ladder, I got my stepstool and climbed on to the top rung, thinking all the while how idiotic that was. I mean, there I was, half asleep, heart pounding, and rather past my prime for such shenanigans. Still, I managed to change the batteries. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the intermittent screech. I closed the bedroom door, put in earplugs, and went to sleep on my daybed, but I was too adrenalized to be able to fall asleep. Besides, muted as it was, I was still aware of the chirp.

Knowing I wouldn’t sleep (and knowing I desperately needed to sleep off a cold that was inching its way into my system), I got out of bed and went online to see what the problem could be. Apparently, after taking out the batteries and before putting in the new ones, I was supposed to push the “test” button for fifteen seconds to clear the charge.

Sighing to myself, I went outside, unlocked the garage, got the ladder (I wasn’t about to try balancing again on the top rung of the stepstool), got a second set of new batteries (just in case I’d put the old ones back in the alarm), and then followed directions. And the thing still chirped.

But just once. Whew!

As I said, the midnight drama (actually it was closer to 1:30 if I want to be accurate) doesn’t seem that bad now, but it sure was a problem last night. Obviously, it was less of a problem than it would have been if the alarm had sounded because of a fire (for which I am grateful), but it certainly wasn’t fun, that’s for sure.

Now I’m off to change the other batteries, though I really don’t want to.

Hmmm. Perhaps I could put it off for another day or two . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Filling My Life

I can see why I had such a hard time trying to find topics when I was blogging every day — there are no great emotions in my life as when I was dealing with grief, no great adventures as when I was hiking or road tripping, no wonderful new experiences as when I bought my house. There’s just me going about what has become my normal life, which mostly entails spending two or three hours working on my yard and the rest of the time reading or relaxing and trying to recuperate from the labor.

To be honest, I’m not sure this is a fulfilling life, but to be even more honest, I’m not sure I care. It takes a lot of energy to search for ways of being fulfilled and then to follow through, and I have never been a high-energy person. I do have a part-time job looking after an older woman, so that’s something anyone would consider worthwhile. Outside of that job, however, my only responsibility is looking after myself, and that should be at least as worthwhile as looking after someone else, right? I’m not sure why, but we seldom think we are as important as others. When we’re coupled, it’s easy to feel as if we’re leading a worthwhile and fulfilling life because of its “we” centeredness. Being “me” centered is considered selfish, but when “me” is all there is, then by definition, we have to give ourselves as much validity as when we were a “we.”

Now that I think of it, I spend more time looking after my yard than I spend looking after myself. I’m pretty easy to care for — make sure I have plenty of books, fix relatively healthy meals, try to put myself to bed at a reasonable hour. My yard, on the other hand, is rather demanding. Because of the lack of natural moisture in the area (due to a curse put on this land by the survivors of the Sand Creek massacre, I’ve been told, and even a subsequent blessing ceremony by more current members of that tribe couldn’t remove the curse) I have to spend time watering my grass and plants. I gave up weeding my gardens in the summer because it was impossible to keep on top of the growth (the weeds around here thrive even without much moisture), so I am having to do now what I didn’t do then. I’m also extending my garden, bit by bit. (There is still a swath of my backyard that has never been cleared; the weeds and weedy grasses are so dense it takes an hour just to clear a few feet.)

Although such work might not be compelling to others, it is to me, especially this time of year when the cleared gardens stay cleared, and the fall flowers bring intense color to the yard. It’s also fulfilling work in a creative sort of way, with the yard as a canvas I paint with plants. Although the heat-stressed grass hasn’t yet greened up, at least, with the cooler temperatures, I don’t have to worry about additional damage the sun can do, and there’s always hope for the spring.

Actually, hope isn’t just for spring. When there aren’t big emotions, big adventures, big experiences to fill my life, there’s always hope for something — a chance visit with a friend, a few words that make me think, a new flower to plant or to enjoy, a book that keeps me interested. Even without hope of . . . something . . . there’s still today and my gratitude that even though there might not be a lot to bring drama to my life or heighten my emotions (and hence give me blog topics), there’s nothing to torment me, either.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.