Tag Archives: Foundation for Grieving Children

The Mary Mac Show | Honoring Our Loved Ones on their Birthday and Anniversary of their Death

The Mary Mac Show Podcast

In this week’s episode we look at how we can help ourselves as we approach their birthday and the anniversary of their death each year.

In the first several years, this can be a source of dread, panic and anxiety mostly because you aren’t sure how you will handle it, what you will do, what plans you should make, if any, and what the world, your family and even yourself expects on these days.

You might be surprised to learn the thoughts in our head leading up to that day may have trumped what will really happen for you.

We have these images in our head and often the day of their birthday or anniversary is not as horrific as you made it out to be.

So be kind to yourself and listen in to Episode 44 to learn various ways you can help yourself as you approach their special days.

Leave your comments below.

Additional Notes:

Learn EFT, the Emotional Freedom Technique with Brad Yates.

Consider making a contribution in honor of your loved one to The Foundation for Grieving Children, Inc.  Your one-time or monthly recurring donation will help young ones, teens and their families learn to cope and recover from the death of a loved one early in life.

Meditation Videos to help you rest. Choose which resonate with you.

Grab my free ebook, 21 Things You Need to Know About the Grieving Process, right here on my site.

Also, I hope you will help support my podcast by using the links on the site. It would be much appreciated.

Please share with anyone you know who might benefit from this knowledge. Also subscribe to my podcast on whichever podcast platform you listened in.

xoxo

9/11…We Will Always Remember

Source: Jean-Pierre Ely 2013
Freedom Tower / Source: Jean-Pierre Ely 2013
When this day approaches each year, I always think to myself, “It can’t possibly be 12 years since 9/11.”

But it is…and I find myself shaking my head again. Same as I do each year…shaking my head in amazement.

Yet it’s a day anyone who was an adult then, will always remember.

They’ll remember where they were, what they were doing when they first heard about the attacks, and mostly, who they knew who was either killed or affected by this tragedy.

Sometimes people who weren’t deeply affected by this day will often wonder how the families can keep coming back for more pain, especially by the reading of the names at the World Trade Center.

And my answer is that when a loved one is taken so suddenly, it takes many years to let it sink in. And in this case, many more.

But regardless of how long ago a person has died, when the anniversary of their death comes around, it triggers memories and there isn’t anything one can do to act like those emotions don’t exist.

They do and they hurt. And while a person may feel very emotionally stable the other parts of the year, when that day comes, sometimes a flood of emotions come with it.

And there is nothing to feel guilty about; it is all natural.

So on this day, to the family members and friends of those who were killed…whatever you are feeling…feel it. Embrace it. And after the pain has softened…begin again.

We all love you regardless of how you express your pain on this 12th Anniversary. You are entitled to it all.

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If you need help after the death of a loved one, start by picking up your copy of my best-selling book Understanding Your Grieving Heart After a Loved One’s Death, available on Kindle and in Paperback.

9/11: Experiences, Reflections, Changes

I spent the summer of 2001 writing my book Understanding Your Grieving Heart After a Loved One’s Death. The evening before 9/11 I was developing the press plan and rejoicing because the printer had called that Monday to say the galleys had been shipped via UPS and I should expect them in a few days. Those books didn’t arrive for over four weeks.

Since I worked through the night, it was my former husband who woke me to the words, “Mar, I think you better get up…a plane has hit the World Trade Center.”

Stunned and still trying to wake up and comprehend what he said, something inside knew this was intensely serious and I jumped from bed and ran to the living room in our Central Florida home.

I remember standing there in the middle of the room with my mouth open and my hands covering it. I never sat down. We just stood there, almost at attention, in reverence of all that was happening to my beloved city where I lived most of my life.

I thought of all the people who worked in those towers and we estimated there would be nearly 25,000 people in each of them. Just the thought of losing 50,000 people was incomprehensible.

Being the video queen that I was back then, and to some degree still am, I immediately searched for VCR tapes (back then) and popped one in. I asked my husband to continue taping and we did just that, taping all the events for nearly a week.

There were times over the last ten years when I wanted to watch that footage again, but it was just too sad. Perhaps one day I will move it to DVD and have it available for a long lost weekend.

I started to think of all the people who might be there whom I knew. There were many.

First my cousin, Peter. He had been a FDNY firefighter for many years, like his father, my Uncle Pete before him, and had taken the Lieutenant’s test. It took a while to find out he was safe, but had lost so many of his friends that day.

He would spend weeks down at the Trade Center in the recovery effort and on the next Sunday was promoted to Lieutenant since so many had perished. It was a bittersweet moment and one our family will never forget. We still have the picture of him in his dress blues with his devoted and wonderfully supportive wife, Maureen by his side as he held his first daughter, Kaitlin, only a few years old then.

Later we would talk via instant messenger usually after midnight when he couldn’t sleep and I remember how difficult it was for him. And why wouldn’t it be. He had been to dozens of funerals and being such an amazing man, his heart was always so giving and loving toward everyone he knew and even those he didn’t.

To this day, I have such great respect for him and such deep appreciation for all he’s been through during the past ten years.

As the days passed, we heard about my cousin Sharon’s husband, Mike who lost his cousin. His aunt was devastated and although I never met her, I remember sending a bunch of my books for a fundraiser they did on Staten Island. I was glad to do that.

We also heard about my cousin’s husband, Brian, who works for Port Authority and lost many friends but also almost lost his life trying to get out of the towers, walking dozens of flights to safety.

Years later, I would hear his story in person when we had a chance to reflect, ironically when I was recovering from a life-threatening accident and he graciously would pick me up and bring me to church.

Both Brian and Peter were so steadfast in their willingness to help me when I was recovering from all those broken bones, and I will never forget their love and care for me.

Then there was my brother’s former girlfriend, Nina, who lost her brother Andrew in the towers. I stayed with her a few years after the tower fell when I moved back to NYC and I remember the two of us reminiscing about Andrew and his life and work and loves. She loved and missed him so much.

I also remember meeting and exchanging books with Julia Rathey, whose husband, David was killed in the towers that day. She had written a book entitled What Children Need When They Grieve which I thoroughly enjoyed and felt was so wonderfully written, not to mention all the help it brought to suffering families in the years following 9/11.

I was so happy when she shared, years later, that she would remarry a great guy named Gregg. She deserved to be happy again.

As I stood in the living room not moving, not speaking, in total shock, one of the things I started to remember was my pictures. I frantically started to search for them in my boxes.

I knew they were there…but where were they. You see I have celebrated three milestone in my life in the towers.

The night I finished my MBA from Fordham, my parents picked me up after the last exam and we enjoyed dinner together at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top with the most magnificent view of the entire city.

I remember taking home the empty bottle of champagne and writing on it the date and place. That bottle was kept on the top shelf of my living room hutch for many years. I often wonder if I’ll find it one day among all my memorabilia in deep storage. That would be amazing.

Another memory was when I got engaged on the Observation Deck of the Twin Towers. While we had decided many months before to get married, it was on the 4th of July that he actually presented the ring and formally asked for my hand. We went to the restaurant afterwards and had champagne.

When my 40th Birthday rolled around, there was no other place I wanted to celebrate. Funny thing…I remember being in the elevator with Michael Bloomberg that night going up to Windows on the World. I knew immediately who he was, long before he entered politics.

It was those pictures especially I wanted to find. I dug and dug. I couldn’t find them fast enough. My husband kept asking me what I was looking for and I remember just flipping through hundreds of pictures until they finally appeared.

It was then I wept.

I handed them to him. The best two pictures we had inside the trade center. He took one of me and I one of him across the table celebrating my 40th Birthday. The lambchops arranged so perfectly on the plate…my favorite.

I looked at the booths we had been sitting in. I remembered the look of the restaurant, so open and elegant. I thought about how all those booths were now disintegrated. All that steel, and all those people who probably were serving breakfast that morning.

I have been back to the World Trade Center or as it was known “Ground Zero” a few times since 9/11/2001. The first time was on the 2005 anniversary when I was then living there again.

It was a most profound experience. One I will always remember.

It took nearly four weeks for the galleys to arrive for Understanding Your Grieving Heart which were originally shipped on 9/10, the day before our nation’s tragedy.

While waiting, I informed the printer to update the dedication. It now reads:

For those who love them so deeply
Miss them so desperately
Grieve for them so despondently
The tears of a nation join you.

Remembering those who perished on
Tuesday, September 11th, 2001

We pray blessings over the survivors of these attacks,
the rescue workers for their brave service to our people,
the canine rescuers for their devotion to help, protect and love us,
and the countless volunteers who heard the call and answered it

We will not back down
We will never forget

God Bless Our Great Land
and its people

Mary M. McCambridge (Ask Mary Mac) is the Founder and President of the Foundation for Grieving Children, Inc., a Grief Coach and author of several award winning books and CD programs on bereavement. She resides in Central Florida.

Kids Who Grow Stronger After Trauma

I wanted to share with you a recently published article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Kids Who Grow Stronger After Trauma” by Sue Shellenbarger which speaks about the length of time it takes for our young ones to deal with significant trauma in their lives.

This is the very reason we raise funds at the Foundation for Grieving Children…to give to community-based organizations which help children work through their pain and loss after a loved one’s death.

I encourage you to learn more by clicking on the links above.

In The Blink of an Eye

Well it’s been an interesting few months for me personally. On Monday evening August 31st Frank and I were driving home when an “alleged” drunk driver plowed into us head on, leaving us both unconscious in a near fatal crash.

Fortunately we were taken to the number one Trauma Center in the area, Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, and spent seven weeks there being treated by a phenomenal Trauma Team, Orthopaedic Surgeons, Nurses and Aides.

This one irresponsible act has caused a great deal of trauma, pain, countless broken bones and realigned life plans for both us and family members who have graciously risen to become caregivers to us. Frank remains in critical care at the hospital and I’ve recently moved to a rehabilitation facility to work toward my recovery.

But as I’ve laid staring up at ceiling panels (do you have any idea how many tiny holes they have in them?) in between three surgeries, blood tests, IV changes, XRays, CT Scans, several pints of blood, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, mountains of paperwork, police visits, and the constant consultations with nurses, trauma doctors and surgeons, you have no choice but to reassess how to move forward. And after the morphine fog slowly dissipates, and through a lot of trial and error you figure out a new pain management system, you begin to make plans again.

My beloved Foundation for Grieving Children, aka as the F4GC, continues to receive just as many grant requests while I’ve been hospitalized. We’d like to fill as many as possible and to do this I need your help.

During the month of November, we are asking our valuable donors and brand new friends who are sympathetic to our cause, to make their best donation at this season and also to extend an invitation and encourage all their friends in their email address books, as well as their Facebook, MySpace, Linked In and other social networking site accounts to give at least $10.00 sometime before November 30th. That’s only two coffees or a lunch!

To make it more fun, for each $10.00 donation you will receive 2 chances to win a 32” Insignia TV donated by Best Buy, 529 Fifth Avenue at 44th Street in Manhattan. If you donate $50.00, you’ll receive 10 chances; every $5.00 gives you another chance for the prize.

There are two easy ways to give:

1. By credit or debit card at Foundation for Grieving Children website.

2. Mailing a check to Foundation for Grieving Children, Inc., P.O. Box 3057, New York, NY 10163.

The winner’s name will be posted on our website (hopefully with their smiling face!). Funds raised in November will be sent out as grants in late December to non-profit organizations which assist, educate, counsel and comfort little ones who have experienced their parent, brother or sister, or grandparent’s death.

So please take some time this month as we move into the gift giving season to strongly encourage all your friends on Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, etc. and in your address book to make a donation before November 30th. Many thanks for spreading the word to everyone you know.

And a very special thank you in advance for your personal donation!

Blessings to you and your family,

Mary Mac
www.facebook.com/askmarymac
www.marymac.info

P.S. If you haven’t yet signed up to receive our F4GC newsletter into your inbox, please do so by simply sending an email to [email protected] and we’ll send you updates on what’s going on at the Foundation for Grieving Children. We promise not to flood you with emails because I can’t stand that either!! Just the facts madam, just the facts…

P.S.S. If you’d like to do even more, please put our cause on your personal Facebook page.