Posts Tagged ‘grief’
Making Grief and Memorial Playlists
Grief and mourning are two different experiences that accompany loss or change. While grief is a personal, internal experience, mourning involves the things we do to recognize a loss or express our grief. What is grief? Grief is the collection of thoughts and feelings we have internally when we experience loss. These feelings vary over…
Read More3 Questions You’ll Have After Your Parent With Alzheimer’s Becomes a Widow
When your parent has Alzheimer’s disease, you can’t help but worry about their well-being. However, when a loving spouse is acting as caregiver, you can at least take comfort in the fact that they’re cared for in everyday life. But what happens when that husband or wife dies? Dealing with a parent’s death is never…
Read MoreWhere Words Fail, Music Speaks
Many years ago now, I was an undergraduate studying music therapy, and my roommates and I decided it would be a great idea to write out famous quotations on construction paper and attach them to a wall – for an inexpensive, inspirational decoration, you know? Of all the quotations that I read and re-read while…
Read MoreDeath Cafe: A Review
I went to my first Death Café recently. Yes, that is a statement worthy of a double-take. We don’t typically associate coffee, treats, and casual conversation with DEATH, do we? As it turned out, having cake and coffee in a quiet café setting presented the perfect context for conversations about death, dying, grief, and hope.…
Read MoreMusic Therapists Do It Differently: In-The-Moment Adaptations
In this series, we are exploring how music therapists do live music differently than other musicians, even though it may not be easy to see. This is part two of a ten-part series. You can find an introduction and links to all ten posts here. #2. In-The-Moment Adaptations No matter what kind of musical interaction a…
Read MoreFred Stobaugh, "Oh, Sweet Lorraine," and the Therapeutic Value of Musical Expression
You Can’t Cheat Death
As the old saying goes, only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. Today is Tax Day in the U.S., so, well, there you go. As for death, though, one North Carolina hospital is telling its potential customers that they can “cheat death.” Besides the inevitable billboards and flyers that go along with…
Read MoreA Meditation on the Rhythms of Life
Song Spotlight: “Blue Christmas”
Sometimes the holidays are hard. As much as we’d all love to live up to the pictures and stories we see on the holiday cards, jewelry store ads, and made-for-TV movies, that just really doesn’t happen to most of us, and definitely not every year. Sometimes all the lights and decorations and red and green…
Read MoreSong Spotlight: “I’ve Got Plenty To Be Thankful For”
Thanksgiving can be a bittersweet day for caregivers. On the one hand, the things you’ve lost can seem so much more GONE during the holidays, whether it is the first holiday season since a loved one’s death, the realization that Grandma just can’t make the sweet potato pie herself anymore, or a year when all…
Read More