Pat Bertram's Blog, page 26

Feeling Old

I had a rather cryptic e-conversation with a therapist friend who recently attended a grief workshop. She mentioned that they stressed things I’ve written about but aren’t commonly known, such as there being no way to do grief wrong (it might be painful, but it isn’t wrong). She said I was ahead, and that this wasn’t the first time.

I responded, “It’s nice to know. But then, I already knew.”

She came back with, “Yes, you did. And I am sorry you had to learn.”

I was about to agree that I was also sorry that I had to learn about grief the hard way, then I realized how remote all those years of grief seem now, so I wrote back, “It’s funny, but it was so long ago, none of it seems to matter anymore, except, of course, for the part about Jeff being dead. That will always matter to me.”

She agreed, “Except, of course, about Jeff, that will always matter. I feel that about many things.” Then we come to the cryptic part. She ended by saying, “Maybe it is age, maybe perspective, but I am feeling many things not felt before.”

I’m not sure what she meant by that final sentence, but it got me thinking about the things I feel now that I have not felt before, and only one thing came to mind: I feel old. That’s sounds so terrible, but it really isn’t. I don’t feel old as in decrepit or sick or helpless, but old as in a different era of my life.

When we were young, the old seemed separate from us, as if they’d never been like us, as if they’d always been old. Most of us were smart enough to know that wasn’t true, but since we’d never seen the elderly when they were young, it seemed true. The other side of that feeling is that we never really thought we ourselves would cross that line from youth to old age. Most young people feel they are different from the elderly, that they will be the exception and will remain forever young. Well, I certainly wasn’t the exception, and now the line has been crossed and I am on the side of the elderly.

Oddly, just as I’d imagined the elderly when I was young, as if they’d always been old, that’s how I feel. As if I’ve always been old. My youth is now as distant and as unimaginable as old age once was. That girl I was, that young woman, that half of a couple, that griever are all lost in the past and no longer seem to have anything to do with the woman I am today.

I don’t think this feeling is a bad thing since it is what it is. It doesn’t feel negative, anyway. It’s just an acknowledgement of a different time of life. The whole maiden, mother, crone trilogy, perhaps. My mother stage sort of came first because as the oldest girl of a rather large family, I so often had to take care of the younger kids. My crone stage came in having to shepherd Jeff and my parents out of this world — a midwife to the dying, so to speak. What’s left is the maiden stage, and that’s not happening. Though in a way, it is. Buying my first house so late in life, starting over in a new place. Just . . . starting. That is all part of the maiden era.

People often talk as if the elderly are simply youngsters in a decaying body, and that might be true for some people, but that isn’t true for me. Despite my facetiousness about going through my “maiden era,” I don’t feel the child in me struggling to escape the burden of age. I feel ageless, or perhaps I feel more as if being my age — the age I am right now —is the right age. And so it was during all the “right now”s of my life. (Meaning that whatever age I was, that was the right age for me at that time.)

The bad part of being old is that the body is wearing down and wearing out. Weird little things happen, such as rolling over in bed and suddenly the knee is out of whack and you can’t walk or your trusty immune system doesn’t work as well or things slide down the wrong tube when swallowing. But even these matters don’t seem so much a part of growing old as of . . . entropy, perhaps.

I might change my mind about all this as I slip from a young elderly age into an older elderly age, but whatever happens, I hope I can continue to see the aging process as just another phase of the adventure we call life. After all, that’s how I tried to deal with grief: accepting it as much as possible as another experience — a rather painful experience (to put it mildly) but no less valid than the pleasant times.

Just as our culture seems to frown on people who admit to feeling grief, as if grief is failing, it seems to frown on people who admit to feeling old, as if that too is a failing. But I didn’t hesitate to admit to feeling sad, so I certainly am not going to hesitate to admit I feel old. It’s just the way life is. And it’s just the way I am.

***

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.

A Special Treat

I had a special treat today.

A friend and I went to a nearby town with more amenities than our town to do some shopping — nothing exciting, just groceries, slip-on shoes for quick trips outside, and a long-handled weed picker for each of us, as well as a new hose for me.

As nice as it was to stock up, to get a new tool, and to spend time with a friend, that wasn’t the “special treat” mentioned above. The treat? You’ll laugh, after all this buildup, at the mundane aspect of the treat. For the first time since this friend and I started going to “the big city,” as we call that town, I didn’t have to hurry up to put the groceries away and, exhausted, get ready for work. Instead, I got to leisurely stow the items I’d purchased, leisurely fix a meal, and leisurely read while eating. Or perhaps I mean leisurely eat while reading. Either way, the emphasis is on leisure.

Now that is a treat!

My work schedule was changed rather abruptly and quite unexpectedly — unexpected to me anyway. I’m sure the change was in the works for at least a couple of weeks. In fact, others in the community learned about the new schedule before I did, and they clued me in before my bosses told me, which was sort of unsettling because I’d taken the “clue” as simply a case of smalltown gossip.

But however I found out, and whatever my initial reactions, the truth is, my new schedule worked to my advantage today. My friend and I have had difficulty finding time to go shopping together since we worked different days, and different hours on those days, so we’ve been having to go in the morning on a day I had to work. Today was the first day we went on an excursion where neither of us had plans for the afternoon.

So nice! And yes, a special treat.

Come to think of it, the new schedule is also a special treat. Fewer hours, of course, but even better, fewer days. I like having more days off than I work, which hasn’t been the case the past months, and I’d been getting burned out. And if not burned out, then at least a bit charred.

It’s funny how when a person is used to working a certain day, and that day suddenly becomes a free day, it feels even freer, even like a . . . you guessed it! Like a special treat.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Ah, Procrastination!

Sometimes procrastination is a good thing. In this part of the country, gardeners are cautioned not to plant before May fifth because that is traditionally the last freeze. This year, I’ve been watching the forecast, and the low temperatures for the coming day were nowhere freezing, so I’d been planning to start sowing seeds in my garden and perhaps even setting out some bedding plants. But I procrastinated. With all the wind we’ve been having, I didn’t feel like spending any more time outside than I had to.

My procrastination turned out to be a good thing because tonight it will be getting below thirty. I doubt it will remain that low for very long, so perhaps the plants that are coming up will be okay. Luckily, I didn’t spend time and money on plants that have no chance to make it through this freeze. By the time I have a chance to do the planting I want to do, we should be long past the chance of a frosty night.

One thing I did put off that maybe I shouldn’t have, was mowing my lawn. A neighbor wanted my grass clippings, and since he was supposed to come this past Saturday to mow the lawn to get the clippings, I let the grass grow a little longer. When the grass is that long, it cuts unevenly because the lawnmower tires mat down the grass as it moves along, and the grass doesn’t immediately spring back as it does when it is shorter.

Anyway, he never showed up, not to mow and not to tell me he changed his mind. So I did it myself. That poor lawn! It looks as if it has a Mohawk haircut in spots. So now I know — I have to mow every week without procrastination.

Another time procrastination turned out to be a good thing was when it came to weeding. I have a hard time telling the difference between larkspur and the wild mustard weed when the seedlings are small, so I’ve been letting the mustard get a bit taller than I would like. Good thing. Some of what I thought was mustard turns out, with a bit of online research, to be the California poppy seeds I strewed around last fall.

Continuing the procrastination theme: a few days ago, was gifted with a gardening journal. The journal begins with January, and since this is already May, starting it now doesn’t feel right. But I’m not sure I want to wait until next January to start, either. I did come up with a solution — I’ve talked about gardening enough on this blog during the first four months of the year, that I can copy some of those blog entries into the journal.

Deciding to do the first months retroactively is one thing. Actually doing them is another. On the other hand, if I procrastinate long enough, January will be here, and I can simply start fresh next year. Is this a case of procrastination being a good thing? Who knows.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Turning a Spotlight on Spotlight

I came online a while back to post a blog, but the faint thunder and lightning with a few raindrops suddenly turned into a massive storm. It soon passed by, due, I’m sure, to the high winds we’ve been having lately, but I don’t feel comfortable being on the computer in a lightning storm, especially since there’s been problems neither my go-to tech person nor I have been able to solve.

The problems are minor and have nothing to do with how the computer runs, but the effects of entropy (or whatever it’s called when an electronic system slowly builds up errors) niggle at me.

One of the problems is only indirectly involved with my computer. A couple of months ago, I stopped getting notifications on my phone when I get an email from an account I reserve for family matters, and since the app on my computer stopped, too, I missed an email that needed a fairly quick response.

We tried various things on the phone, trying to get the notifications to show, but had no luck. Next we tried to fix the email app on the computer, which always shows that I have two new emails even when I get a new one and even when all are read. Somewhere along the line I got lazy and stopped manually checking that email, presuming erroneously that I’d be notified. We couldn’t find a way to fix the app, either, but it’s not a problem since I don’t like the app anyway. I prefer going directly to the email to check it. (When I remember, of course.) I removed the app from my tool bar and startup, and that’s all I’m going to do. I always see that “2” on my lock screen when I start my computer, but I can ignore it.

That lock screen is the other problem. The Spotlight locked and so I always saw the same picture. I didn’t mind the image, but since I thought the “2” and the lock screen were somehow connected, we tried to fix the spotlight problem, following the very detailed instructions we found on a tech website. But the spotlight still didn’t work. More research told us that it’s a bug in the Windows 10 system, and after a while, almost everyone deals with the same problem. The only way to fix it is to reinstall Windows.

Um . . . no. That’s not going to happen.

This computer is already three-and-a-half-years old, so chances are the machine has reached its half-life. In another three-and-a-half years, I’ll probably need to get a new computer anyway.

Besides, I never did like Spotlight, even though I got used to it. So now I use one of my own photos for the screen, and when I get bored looking at it, I’ll change it. The photo below is today’s screen. I always did like the image of leaves and shadows, so now I’ll get to enjoy it for a few days until I get bored with it.

In a strange quirk, today I started getting notifications on my phone again from the family email account.

Electronics. Hmmph. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Not Everyone Loves a Parade

There was a parade in town yesterday. I hadn’t planned on going because I am not a fan of parades, maybe because most of the parades I’ve seen as an adult are small town affairs that are best appreciated by those who know the folks participating in the parade. I am especially not a fan of this town’s parade. I saw it soon after I arrived in town, and I found it amusing that the town is so small, the parade consisted of mostly official vehicles from the sheriff’s department and the fire department.

Still, when a friend asked me to go with her to this year’s parade, I opted to go. (I am still trying to say “yes” to most invitations). It was nice. Instead of standing around waiting for the parade, we walked along the parade route and talked to people we knew. (One woman told me a horrific story of a neighbor’s dogs jumping their fence and attacking her and her dogs. The neighbors called the police, blaming the woman. The neighbors escalated the situation on FB, and eventually, somehow, the woman’s husband got blamed for the situation and he was fired. Yikes. Many of the dogs around here are a menace! Luckily the dogs on either side of me are tame, and even if they weren’t, they can’t jump a five-foot fence.)

When the parade drew close, we stopped and watched.

I was surprised by how much I appreciated seeing all those official vehicles in the parade this time. Considering the fires in the area as well as the ongoing danger, it was a tremendous comfort to see at least a half a dozen modern fire trucks and loads of equipment. The fire department is a volunteer organization, but there seem to be enough people brave enough to answer the call when the siren blows.

I was also tickled by the mounted police. I thought the police I saw were just mounted on horses for the purpose of the parade, but when I checked out the sheriff department’s website, I discovered the police on horses belong to an actual mounted posse. Some of the members of the posse are law enforcement officers, but many are members of the community who have full-time jobs and serve in their spare time as volunteer members.

The members of the sheriff’s posse participate in training to learn the different skills needed by law enforcement officers. The mounted unit trains and practices horsemanship skills, mounted law enforcement techniques, and ranch skills. The horses used in the mounted unit are owned by the members of the posse. All members of the sheriff’s posse have the opportunity to learn law enforcement skills; some of these skills are arrest control techniques, traffic control, report writing, and methods for searching for evidence or people.

Too bad I don’t have a horse, don’t know how to ride, and am too old and decrepit to be of use to a posse, otherwise the posse would be something I might be interested in. Even if I can’t join the posse in real life, I can certainly have a character be part of the posse. Sounds like a fun addition to whatever book I decide to write once I re-retire.

I had no idea a parade could be so interesting. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go again next year.

***

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.

Treasures!

This morning, before the wind got too strong to be comfortable, I wandered around my property looking for treasures. The first treasure didn’t take much looking — the red tulip really popped in the sea of green.

This was one of the many tulips I planted my first autumn in this house. None of those tulips had come up making me wonder about my ever becoming a gardener. And yet now, almost three years later, this particular beauty decided to make itself known. As did this grape hyacinth.

Interestingly, an acquaintance stopped by to drop something off, and he was so taken by these jewels in the grass, that he, too, called them “treasures.” But those aren’t the only treasures of the day. There are a couple of double tulips that are still blooming.

and two yellow tulips hold pride of place beneath the lilacs.

Speaking of lilacs, the purple lilacs I planted three years ago are blooming! So lovely!

As are the white lilacs that gleam among those shiny green leaves.

The people I bought the house from had planted some clove currents, and she occasionally asks if they are still here. I can honestly tell her that not only are they still here, but that they are thriving.

So many treasures! And with any luck, this is just the beginning.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Leisurely Morning

This was one of those days that started out leisurely, and then suddenly, here it is, almost time to go to work, and I still have a blog to write, a meal to eat, cleansing to do, and all the other little chores one needs to perform before heading out.

It was a nice morning though, and despite not being as leisurely, it’s turning into a nice afternoon. I couldn’t ask for better weather. It’s sunny and warm, no winds (those will return tomorrow along with more fire warnings), plenty of non-searing sun (the sun around here can be strong enough to scorch one’s skin). Just an all-around nice day. Whether by coincidence or by dint of the mild day, I had enough energy to put the morning to good use.

Even though I watered my grass and other plants the day before yesterday, I took this opportunity to water everything again. A neighbor is supposed to come on Saturday to mow my lawn because he wants the clippings, and I want to make sure the grass has dried out enough to make the mowing easy in case he doesn’t show and I have to do it myself. Also, the winds that are expected tomorrow make watering difficult. In addition, I got a bit spooked when I heard that there might be water restrictions this summer because of the drought. I doubt watering extra now will help with less water later, except that perhaps it will settle in the sod even more. (Though after all these months, I don’t think my lawn can still be considered sod.) But the watering helps offset my worry.

I do tend to worry, even when I tell myself not to worry because things so often do work out, but I can’t help thinking that things work out because of the worrying. If I focus on something, thinking about all the probable ramifications and possible solutions, perhaps it’s that focus that keeps the things I worry about from happening. So if I heed my warning to not worry, will things still work out? Just one more thing to worry about!

Either way, I watered today, keeping my grass alive a bit longer, so that’s good.

In addition to the watering this morning, I also dug up and transplanted a couple of lilac sprouts from a neighbor’s lilac bush (with his permission). It’s not something I planned to do, but as I was watering and looking at my garden area from a different angle, I suddenly saw the perfect place for a couple more lilac bushes.

I also transplanted a tree. It’s not much of a tree, just a foot-tall seedling, but I’ve had it in a pot for a couple of years, and it’s outgrowing the pot. There is a spot that would be perfect for a small tree. A big tree could be problematic because the spot is fairly close to overhead wires. Even though this particular tree — a locust — grows tall, I planted it there anyway. I figure I can lop it off to keep the tree small and bushy, assuming, of course, I can continue to keep it alive.

Once the tree was planted, I poured a bucket of ornamental rock around bare dirt so it would fit with the surrounding area.

I think that’s all I did this morning. I’m so exhausted, it feels like more.

One thing I didn’t do was take a photo of the pretty tulip that bloomed today because I didn’t have to. I’d found the tulip in my yard last year and took a picture of it before transplanting it among the rest of the tulips. It looks exactly the same this year, so I’m using last year’s photo. Oddly, the photo was taken on this very same day last year.

Well, it’s been nice visiting with you. Now I’m off to deal with the rest of my small chores before I head to work.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Red-Letter Day

The term “red letter day” refers to the practice, dating back to the Roman Empire, of using red calendar numbers to signify important days. Although this was (and still is) a common practice for perhaps a couple of thousand years, the actual term “red-letter day” wasn’t used in print until 1663. Unlike so many words and terms that have begun to mean the opposite of their original meanings (bully originally meant a darling; harlot originally meant a goofy fellow; naughty originally meant having naught; nice originally meant silly; silly originally meant blessed), the meaning of “red-letter day” seems to have remained unchanged for centuries.

Despite this discussion of “red-letter days,” today is more of a “white blossom day” than a “red-letter day” because the blossoms are what make this such a momentous day. “What blossoms?” you might ask.

The blossoms on the greengage plum tree I planted last year. Those blossoms. And oh! They are so pretty, and such a sign of hope.

Flowers of all kinds seem to symbolize hope, of course, but fruit blossoms bring with them the added hope of someday having fruit. There might be too few blossoms to merit even a single plum this year, but still, it’s nice seeing the flowers.

Today is also a “black hat day.” My use of the phrase “black hat” isn’t used idiomatically to mean a villain, but is used literally. A neighbor gifted me with a beautiful black hat! A wonderful side effect of being known as “Pat in the Hat,” is that if anyone has a hat to donate, I am the first one to come to mind.

It’s also a grey cloud day, and a pink tulip day, and probably all sorts of other “days,” but all these important days can be found under the single umbrella of “red-letter day.”

I hope you’re having a red-letter day, 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.

Too Much Television

I watch too much television

Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write since I don’t have television and only watch an hour or so with my client when I’m at work. It comes out to be four to six hours of television a week, and that, truly, is too much! I end up with jingles going through my head, as well as names of drugs.

Someone, somewhere, has done research on how to create the most memorable names for drugs, and it works, because those names get stuck in my head. Almost all of the names are three syllables, almost all contain q, x, or z, and none of them have any recognizable meaning. Nonsense, in its literal meaning.

Considering the cost of television commercials, it’s no wonder the most prevalent ads are for personal injury attorneys, window and gutter installers, vehicles, and of course, drugs. None of these commercials mean anything to me, especially not the drugs considering the long list of potentially lethal side effects. What gets me is that despite that shopping list of side effects, people still ask their doctors about those drugs. You’d think that listing the dangers of the drugs would make people stay away from them, but since they show happy families and now-healthy folks doing fun things while the horrors are being recounted, it’s no wonder ill people embrace these drugs. And anyway, most people believe that bad things happen to others, not them.

But that’s not what prompted this rather mild diatribe. What really stands out are the vaccine ads.

In the midst of all the pharmaceutical commercials with their long lists of side effects, there are the vaccine commercials. They don’t show happy people. They show determined people getting a shot. But what’s even more obviously missing is the recounting of side effects. Instead, they have representatives of doctors, nurses, and other health professionals saying, “Trust me.”

Huh? That’s it? Just, “trust me”? That’s the extent of the information they’re giving us?

It makes sense when you consider that vaccines are immune from product liability lawsuits. It doesn’t matter what the side effects are (and yes, there are possible side effects no matter what they want you to believe) because you have no recourse. The whole purpose of listing side effects is to limit the company’s liability because if they can prove a person knew ahead of time about potential lethality, then the person can be considered complicit. But that’s not the case with vaccines. So a simple “trust me” is all they need to encourage people to get the shot.

What makes me even more leery about the whole thing is that they now have a drug that supposedly knocks out The Bob if you take it in the first five days, so you’d think it would make the vaccine less important. But miss out on all that non-litigable money? No way!

Not that any of this makes any difference. It’s just that I’ve been watching so much television lately that I am familiar with what is standard in a drug commercial. And what is not.

[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://ptbertram.files.wordpress.com..." data-large-file="https://ptbertram.files.wordpress.com..." src="https://ptbertram.files.wordpress.com..." alt="" class="wp-image-22560" width="600" />

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

When I left my parents’ house and was living on my own in an apartment, my father said he never worried about me. It wasn’t so much that he thought I could take care of myself. It was that when I was out of sight, I was out mind. This sort of philosophy has followed me much of my life. People always enjoyed being with me, but when I wasn’t around, they seldom thought to call. (When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a lot of friends who seemed to like me, but I got tired of being the one to carry the friendships, so one day I decided to wait until one friend called and then I’d check in with everyone. No one called. Not one person. Either they didn’t like me as much as I thought they did, or they succumbed to the whole “out of sight, out of mind,” mentality.)

Apparently, despite the spectacle I make of myself with my fifty-year-old iconic car and my fancy hats, I am forgettable. Though he denies it, my contractor forgets me, which is why, when I haven’t heard from him in a while, I text him to remind him I am still here and he still has work to do on my place. The text doesn’t get the work done because as he becomes involved in other things, I slip from his mind again. (Though to be fair, he did send someone out last week to pound down the metal edgings along my pathways without my reminding him.)

My car mechanic is the same way. Every week for the past few weeks, I’ve stopped by to find out what he’s doing about getting the part for my brakes, and every time he says he’ll drop by my house to take a photo of the necessary part. (The part he ordered didn’t fit, even though it was supposed to.) And every week, as soon as I left, he promptly forgot me.

I’m being halfway facetious with this “out of sight, out of mind” scenario because I could nag the poor workers until they finally showed up. But maybe they wouldn’t show up anyway. Considering how busy they are, even if they didn’t forget me, they probably wouldn’t be able to fit my atypical jobs into their schedule. And in a way it’s okay since this gives me a lien on their time, so that when emergencies arise, I feel comfortable calling. And they are very good about taking care of emergencies.

Are my brakes an emergency? They could have been. With all the nearby fires last week and all the evacuations, I would have been in a pickle if I had to evacuate. Of course, my neighbors would have offered a ride (if they remembered me), but then I’d have to leave my car behind. Generally, though, the brakes not working don’t qualify as an emergency since I walk to do local errands, and I go with a friend when she hits the “big city” to stock up. (We joke about the big city, but it’s merely a slightly bigger town with a Walmart.)

Today, as usual, I visited the mechanic’s shop, and he seemed a bit embarrassed when he realized that he’d spaced me again out last week. So he promised to come for sure today.

And he did.

Now that he has a picture of the part he needs, it’s just a matter of finding it. I did tell him about an air-cooled-VW parts place that has a help line, so if he can’t find the master cylinder, they might be able to help him get one. You can buy all the parts necessary to build your own classic VW Beetle from scratch, so it seems rather strange that something as important as the brakes would be hard to find, but what do I know. Even though I’ve had the car for fifty years, I still don’t know a whole lot about how it’s all put together. (I’ve actually learned quite a bit over the years, just not how to fix anything.)

The mechanic doesn’t need to remember me to order the part; he just needs to look for it, and I’m sure he will do so since a part is probably more memorable than I am.

Once the VW bug is fixed, maybe I’ll start bugging my contractor more frequently to see if we can get some of the work done around here. Maybe.

***

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.