In the aftermath of my husband's death, my friends bought me potted plants. I promptly returned them — unable to contemplate caring for another living thing. Fourteen years on, what would it mean to use my credit at the florist?
At my daughters' concerts and school performances, I see all the happy grandparents, snapping photos and bearing flowers. That's when I feel my own mother's loss most acutely.
Between the time we decided to stop treatment and the time my baby son died, I felt desperately alone — pulled between my ‘cancer family’ still fighting to save their children and the bereaved families on the other side of this battle.
And other lessons therapist Lori Gottlieb, the author of ‘Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,’ learned from her patients who are grieving — and those who are dying.