Blog: Mel's Muse
Showing posts categorised as 'Bereavement'
Suicide Prevention Day: The Trauma For Those Left Behind
THE TRAUMA FOR THOSE LEFT BEHIND
I spent the morning speaking with a male friend, of longstanding, whose mother took her own life when he was in his mid-teens. Coincidence? I had no idea that today, Monday 10th September, 2018 is World Suicide Prevention Day. Nor that my daily newspaper was...
Posted at 16:04pm on 10th September 2018
Break Loose (2015) Fly Free (2016)
What are your New Year’s resolutions? How likely are you to achieve them?
I read an article recently, which said that 95% of diets fail. Why? Precisely because they are diets! Counting calories or eliminating certain categories of food focuses your mind on the very thing you want to...
Posted at 12:34pm on 4th January 2016
Dear Mel, What Do You Know Of Author, Paul Gallico
On this night, the one-hundredth anniversary of the sinking of Titanic, comes a reminder of the sinking of another ship, the MV Victoria
Hi Ms. Menzies,
I performed a Google search on author, Paul Gallico and your name came up, and I noticed you used to work for him. ...
Posted at 21:44pm on 14th April 2012
8 Comments
Dear Mel, How Can I Promote My Book On Radio Shows?
Dear Mel,
We "met" on LinkedIn. I recently visited your website and enjoyed a few of the many things you offer. Something that struck me is the similarity of our book covers. You can see mine at www.grief-recovery.org I've written two books on grief recovery (any type of loss) and conduct...Dear Mel, How Can I Approach Radio Shows To Promote My Book?
APOLOGIES FOR THE SMALL FONT & LACK OF IMAGES. AM TRYING TO RECTIFY THIS.
Dear Mel,
We "met" on LinkedIn. I recently visited your website and enjoyed a few of the many things you offer. Something that struck me is the similarity of our book covers. You can see mine at www.grief-recovery.org...
Posted at 15:00pm on 6th April 2012
Interviews With Authors About Their Books: Continued
I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to post the second part of this article: blame my recent appointment as Chairman of ACW - a national association for writers. As I said in the first part of Interviews With Authors About Their Books, a reader of my blog asked...
My Daughter's Tribute To Her Grandfather
My grandfather, Bill, 97 and ¾
Photograph taken approx. 1941
I started to call him Billy when I was little and he replied with Milly (even though my name was Amanda). He was the only one that was allowed to call me Milly and Millicent when he was cross with me...
Posted at 05:26am on 25th January 2012
A Tribute To My Father
Photo: My father in his Flintstone tie on Christmas morning, one week before he died.
My father, known to his parents as Beel, was born in Elgin, Scotland, on 15th April, 1914. The middle one of three boys, he was raised, largely, by his mother and maiden aunts, because his father,...
Edgy Christian Fiction: Books For Summer Reading
If you're anything like me, a book will be essential packing for your summer hols, the perfect partner for a picnic lunch, a bonus for the beach and a relaxing read for bedtime. So here are four book reviews for sensational summer reads, all with a Christian world view that...
Online Book Club Discussion Summary: A Time To Live By George Pitcher
Are you in favour of assisted dying? Would you like British law to be amended to allow euthanasia? Or is the risk of abuse to the elderly, disabled and infirm too great a concern?
Most of my real-time Book Club members admitted, when we met on 28th July, 2011, that they'd...
Posted at 19:00pm on 3rd August 2011
Online Book Club Questions: A Time To Live By George Pitcher
QUESTIONS
How did reading the book either confirm or change your previous opinions about euthanasia / assisted dying?
What, in your opinion, were the most persuasive arguments put by the author against...
Posted at 17:29pm on 2nd August 2011
Living With Grief Following A Bereavement
If you have come here because you’ve heard that I shall be speaking about grief and loss on the OpenToHope blog radio show (airing at 9.a.m. California time [5.p.m. UK time] on 10th June, 2010) then it’s probably because you are coping with the loss of a child, or have been bereaved in some other...
Posted at 19:41pm on 5th May 2010
Heroin Addicts Like Kate Walsh Show That The Grey Areas Of British Law Need A Black & White Reform
We read, this week, of a situation which has complied with British law but which is, nevertheless, a grave miscarriage of justice. Kate Walsh’s parents, when their sixteen year old daughter died of heroin in a dirty squat, were denied the protection that the law is supposed to provide. They are not alone. British law...
Posted at 02:01am on 5th November 2009
Bereavement Poetry - Death Is But A Door
IF YOU WISH TO USE THIS POEM FOR THE BEREAVED DURING A FUNERAL OR THANKSGIVING SERVICE, PLEASE SEE THE FREE REPRINT NOTICE AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE.
I lost my daughter some years ago, so I know what it’s like dealing with the loss of a loved one. You wonder...
Posted at 00:06am on 26th September 2009
Assisted Dying For The Terminally Ill?
Revised: 15th January, 2010
Does it ever strike you as strange that medical advances, in Western civilisations, are such that we can prolong life by nearly half as much again as our allotted three-score-years-and-ten, yet the legal position of euthanasia is constantly challenged? Of course, we don’t call it euthanasia! That in itself would challenge our sensibilities,...
Bereavement Poetry: Crossing The Bar By Alfred Lord Tennyson
In the following excerpt from my book, A Painful Post Mortem, one of the characters, Rosie, has been asked by her father to read a poem at her sister's funeral. Curious to remind herself of the long-forgotten verses, she looks out an old book before she goes to bed.
When the baby had been...
Posted at 05:50am on 29th November 2008
Successful Step Parenting: Do You Know What It Takes?
I’ve been asked by BBC Radio 5 Live if I would take part in a debate, arguing the case for the premiss Can A Step Parent Take The Place Of A Real Parent? The e-mail was from one of their producers, who said he’d found my book, Stepfamilies on a Google search. During the telephone...
Poetry For Grief - In The Silence Of Friends
Not everyone experiences the five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance; and even if they do, they may find that they occur in a different order. But frequently, at just the point when we most need them, our friends seem to melt away. They have supported us in the early days with...
Posted at 01:39am on 26th November 2008
Do Grief & Loss Conform To A Pattern?
This article was revised and updated on 28th July, 2010
One of the most shocking aspects of attending the funeral of someone you loved is the sense of desolation you may feel afterwards. Everything in you has been working towards this moment, to such an extent that it has emptied your mind of everything else. This,...
Posted at 22:13pm on 18th November 2008
Making Funeral Arrangements
It’s a paradox, but there is a sense in which planning a funeral is a positive and constructive experience. Although not intentionally so, making funeral arrangements – whether for burial or cremation – is a welcome distraction from grief and loss. As long as those who are bereaved are actively contacting funeral planning services and...
Posted at 01:18am on 2nd November 2008
Dealing With Denial, Grief & Anger Following Bereavement
REVISED & UPDATED 1st December, 2010
I wrote last week about dealing with the shock of losing someone you love and said that numbness is a normal initial response following a bereavement.� The loss of a loved one is a traumatic event, and this is the body's defence mechanism kicking in,...
Posted at 20:55pm on 18th October 2008
The Initial Shock Of Losing Someone You Love - How To Cope
“Life,” said Lewis Grizzard, the original grumpy old man, “is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.”
It took me a moment or two to take it in when I read that statement. When the penny dropped, I laughed aloud. It’s just such a clever line!
And on a physical level, it says it all. Life –...
Bereavement - Dealing With The Death Of A Loved One
DEALING WITH THE DEATH OF A LOVED ONE
‘Life is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.’ The quotation is attributed to a friend of the writer, E.M Forster, and is taken from a new book titled, Advanced Banter. It struck me, as I read...
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