I woke up this morning anticipating that it might be a bit sad for me because it is my son's birthday and he is not here. He hasn't been here  meaning on earth in body for quite a number of years now. Yes, I still miss him and yes, his birthday is always a little difficult. Anyway, I grabbed my cell phone out of habit. I always check to make sure there aren't any messages from my children. Well, one message caught my eye. It was from one of my best friends who lives in NC. I

Grief is a journey. It is a series of ups and downs. The path can be like a hilly climb. Sometimes rocky and sometimes smooth. Or the journey can feel more like peaks and valleys. One day you feel up and the next you are laid low. One thing is for certain...when a parent is grieving the loss of his or her child it is devastating. It is my observation that many parents of a single child might suffer an even greater cruelty when their only child dies. My dear friend April had

When my mother died three months after my father had passed away my oldest brother said to me, "now we are the older generation...we are next in-line."  That statement hit me like a ton of bricks. My brother was right, we were now the old folks of our family. We were forced to look at our own mortality. Our identities changed instantly too. We were no longer the son or daughter of John and Jesse. We were their  adult orphans. So, even though we were grown ups we were parentl