Loss | Iron Butterflies Project

Old Man Take a Look at My Life: I’m a Lot Like You Were

By Kimberly Spicer Standley This month marks ten years without my Dad. I think of him everyday. I hate that he is dead, and I hate how he died. I hate it that alcohol is so powerful that it can consume anyone. A person can be smart, kind, successful, and respectable;...

A Veteran Traveler’s Roadmap to Resilience

Health, Iron Caterpillars, Loss

By Caryn M. Sullivan I’d just made my First Communion when the woman who gave me life betrayed my trust and eroded the foundation that should be afforded to every child. Under the auspices of taking a vacation, my beautiful, brilliant, willful mother loaded our...

Carried Away

Loss

By Kara Paige My father committed suicide. He took with him a healthy body but a diseased mind. A mind that was under the command of manic-depression. It was classic: Cycles of euphoria then depths of despair, often coupled with psychosis and suicidal ideation. While...

What You Think, You Are

Loss

By “C” “You’re not what you think you are, but what you think, you are!” This quote by the late American psychologist, William James, is one of my favorites for handling the aftermath of grief. The loss of a loved one can feel like you have fallen into an...

Wonder Woman

Education & Career, Loss

By Kay Lynn Means Darling Growing up in East Texas in the 70s may have had its own challenges. But, for Kay Lynn, it meant a chance for her to do something that many women had not done before. By 1975 at the age of 19, Kay Lynn found herself divorced and in need of a...

Give Yourself Permission to Step Through Fear and Experience Eternal Change

Loss, Relationships & Spirituality

By Mindy Miralia In the waking hours of March 29, 2011, I received the call that is every parent’s worst nightmare. Before I could utter a sleepy ‘h-e-l-l-o’ my father announced in an odd emotionally neutral tone, “Mindy, Micah’s dead.” “No! He is not!” I shouted with...

My Unexpected Life with Aunt Lillie and Mom

Intercultural Experiences, Loss, Relationships & Spirituality

By Deb Hernandez I never imagined that at age 63, I’d be living with my Mom, but I’m amazed at how happy it makes me. Then again, I never imagined we’d both be caring for a 99-year-old Mexican woman either. This Golden Girls kind of life has been an adjustment for me...

When Your World Is Turned Upside Down

Loss, Relationships & Spirituality

By Verlie Edwards I was happily married with a great job I loved. Life was good. Then at 2 a.m. one night my entire world turned upside down. My husband of 28 years suffered an epileptic seizure that led to a traumatic brain injury and loss of short term memory. Four...

Fate Deals The Hands

Health, Loss

By Norma Alford Having survived breast and uterine cancer, I am occasionally asked how I coped. Although it has been almost twenty years since my ordeal began, I still have no definitive answer. I do know that fate sometimes deals us a hand we don’t want to...