Copyright Jennifer Mullins Do you ever wake up with a sadness you can’t quite name? It may be from a dream about a loved one who is now dead. Or it may have to do with something that is going on in your life now. When it happens to me, I usually can shake it…… Continue reading Ambiguous Loss
Category: Grief Journey
The Gift
Copyright Jennifer Mullins Photography Alzheimer’s is one of the cruelest diseases as it creates two losses: losing the person slowly while they are alive, followed by their physical death. It’s so painful watching a loved one go from a place of vitality to a shadow of who they were. I’ve had to deal with this…… Continue reading The Gift
Cherishing Life’s Moments: Navigating Family and Fragility
Copyright Jennifer Mullins I wish I could remember who said this on a podcast related to death. The gist was that some people’s lives are short stories while others are epic novels. There is no guarantee of how long we live. However, we get to choose how we write and rewrite the story throughout our…… Continue reading Cherishing Life’s Moments: Navigating Family and Fragility
Unexpressed Love
Copyright Jennifer Mullins Denial is a hard habit to break. I’ve been struggling to get a good night’s sleep for the last two weeks. I wake up groggy, and my body hurts. Sometimes, naps take the edge off, while I’m tense other times. Writing this the day before Thanksgiving reminds me that my body keeps…… Continue reading Unexpressed Love
Meditation
Copyright Jennifer Mullins Grief took my breath away. My overwhelming emotions made it hard to get a deep breath. This, in turn, increased my anxiety, which soon became a constant companion. A few months after Mike died, I ended up in the ER, sure I’d had a heart attack. My tests showed a healthy heart,…… Continue reading Meditation
Books That Inspire
Copyright Jennifer Mullins Books have played an essential role in my life. I used to love mysteries until Mike died, and then the thought of dealing with death was too much. Also, they didn’t capture the grittiness of emotions that you go through when someone you love dies. Instead, I started reading books by people…… Continue reading Books That Inspire
Coping With a Chronic Illness
Vestibular Self Portrait The top three grief experiences in order are the death of a child, spouse, and parent. The pain of my husband’s death is part of my DNA. But there is other grief that we encounter. One of them comes with developing and living with a chronic condition. On May 27, 2020, amid…… Continue reading Coping With a Chronic Illness
Exercise: Stress Reliever
One of the things that I knew would be important in dealing with the stress of grief was exercise. I also knew that it would have to be something I could do year-round since Phoenix summers are too hot for me to exercise outside. I decided an exercise bike would be a good choice, but…… Continue reading Exercise: Stress Reliever
45 Minutes
Copyright Jennifer Mullins At first, I never thought that I would stop crying. The grief was overwhelming, and anything could trigger it. My dad had washed my towels, and S brought them to me. They were rough and scratchy. I sat on the bathroom floor and began to cry. That’s not how they were supposed…… Continue reading 45 Minutes
Kindness Matters
Copyright Jennifer Mullins Every act of kindness after Mike died, especially in the early days, made all the difference in my ability to cope with the immense loss and pain. We often think that these acts have to be big, but the small, quiet ones could bring me to tears. My parents flew across the…… Continue reading Kindness Matters
Beautiful Bittersweet Life 
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