Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Sherrie Cassel The sky is gray and it’s getting cold in the high desert, yes, even in a dry Southern California it gets cold. I had to learn how to dress in colder climates. My brother says that a sweater is merely a suggestion in San Diego. Alas, I miss my home county, notContinue reading “Fumbling toward Gratitude”

By Sherrie Cassel The longer I live with grief as my constant companion, the more I learn about how much grief touches all our lives, in one way, one shape, or one form or another. I’ve been grieving a lost childhood, the loss of a child, losses of friends, and distant family, celebrity deaths. IContinue reading “Healing through self-talk”

By Sherrie Cassel Making meaning is what humans do to imbue their lives with purpose, tranquility through and after crises, and how we make sense of what happens around us every minute of every day. I don’t dream often, but I’ve had dreams in which a person’s face is very detailed, and yet, I haveContinue reading “Salud!”

By Sherrie Cassel As the 8th year angelversary for Rikki approaches, I become more contemplative about life, before and after Rikki’s death. I think about the hopeless and tortured child who used substances until they killed him. I know why my son chose the path he did; he suffered a lot in his life. MyContinue reading “The Metamorphosis of Hope”

By Sherrie Cassel The Hospice nurse said a dying person’s hearing is the last sense that remains once a person is unconscious, so … I spoke to her. I told her I loved her and that it was okay for her to go. I also made a promise I’m not going to keep; I toldContinue reading “The Kindness of White Lies”

https://www.facebook.com/shitgetsrealhere

Death can be a dark topic; it certainly can; however, when we plan for the inevitability for ourselves, or a cherished loved one, I know from experience, it takes some of the sting out of the process. My mother just passed and had hospice care and her family surrounding her on the night of herContinue reading “The benefits of an end-of-life Doula”

By Sherrie Cassel All she wanted was to walk again. She fell and broke her pelvis at 80 and her life changed seismically after that; there was an adjustment that took her from us after two years of pain, sickness, disability, fewer and fewer joyful days, but when she did have them, they were beautifulContinue reading “When Pleasure and Purpose are Present”

By Sherrie Cassel The world has been silent, different, incomplete somehow as I adjust to my mother’s death, in the same way I’ve been adjusting to my son’s death for nearly eight years. I used to wrestle in the early days of grief with the possibility that there would be an end date for grief,Continue reading “Higher, Mommy, Higher”