Grieving Parent

Category: Resources

  • The Blogroll From Hell

    The Blogroll From Hell

    I’ve built a lot of websites.

    One of the most important things for a website is links. It’s the life blood of the Internet. The search engines such as Google view links from other sites as votes for that site. The more links, the more votes, and the higher a site will be in the search results.

    So I’ve added an additional feature to the sidebar of this site. I call it the Blogroll From Hell. It has links to other sites. You’ll find it towards the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.

    Trust me, you don’t want a link there.

    Sites I link to in the Blogroll From Hell are blogs and websites of other grieving parents.

    There are only a few links now. As I become aware of other such sites I’ll add them in.

    I hope there are never any new ones to add.

  • A Meeting Place For Grieving Dads

    A Meeting Place For Grieving Dads

    Being a grieving dad is no fun. It has all this emotion stuff. Let’s face it, most of us guys aren’t too good with that kind of stuff. And the resources geared toward grieving dads seem to be limited.

    Kelley Farley, a two time grieving dad, is trying to improve that. He’s working on a book for and about grieving dads. He also has a blog.

    One of the posts on Kelly’s blog, Nightmares Have Taken the Place of Dreams, has become something of a meeting place for dads trying to deal with the loss of a child.

    In his blog post he shares the story of Jody Dark Eagle Breedlove, who lost his son to suicide two years ago. It is a very powerful story and a testimony of the struggles of dealing with this sort of huge loss.

    Other dads left encouragement for Jody in the comments. Jody responded.

    The post was written in June. It has continued to be a place where dads come to post in the comments when they need a little help from their fellow grieving dads. It’s not the normal way blog posts work, but there’s really nothing normal about dealing with the loss of a child.

    So maybe you might like to check it out. You should probably bookmark it so you don’t have to search for it every time you go on Kelley’s blog like I do.

    Oh, if you leave a comment make sure to check the box to get notified when a new comment is added so you can stay in touch.

  • Memorializing FaceBook

    Memorializing FaceBook

    Richard had a Facebook account. Not too surprising, nearly every college kid does.

    It’s sort of a piece of his life, dangling out there in cyberspace.

    Debbie was one of his “friends” on Facebook. I wasn’t.

    Facebook started out being limited to students only. Later they opened it up to everyone, and all us old people invaded the young people’s turf. I didn’t request to be friends with our kids or our nieces because I didn’t want them to feel like I was snooping. I decided to let them make the first move. Richard never sent that friend request.

    Debbie likes to go on his profile from time to time. His friends leave comments. It’s important to us to have his Facebook profile stay there.

    But he hasn’t logged on in a long time. Facebook has made many changes and Richard hasn’t been there to respond.

    So we’re worried his profile might be deleted someday. Debbie says that would feel like losing him all over again.

    So we looked for some way to protect his account. And Facebook has something.

    You can memorialize the profile of a deceased loved one. The “wall” remains active, so family and friends (active Facebook friends only) can post to the wall. The account is secured and locked down.

    So we requested to have his account memorialized.

    If you need to do this for someone you love here is the link to the Facebook form:

    http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased

  • Another Brick on the Walk

    Another Brick on the Walk

    We have another Richard brick.

    There’s a nice little park in Frankfort, KY called Cove Spring Park. Way off in the back corner, tucked into the trees, is a beautiful memorial garden sponsored by The Compassionate Friends of Frankfort, KY. At the center of the garden is a raised round flower bed, with a statue in the middle. Paver brick surrounds the flower bed.

    Many of those bricks have names. And dates. One has Richard’s name and his time on earth.

    Sunday they held a brick laying ceremony and a balloon release. There are now more than 100 memorial bricks in that garden. The number of  tears those bricks represent is uncountable.

    After the balloons disappeared from view we enjoyed a potluck style picnic.

    It was nice spending time, enjoying life, laughing and eating with others in TCF. People from all walks of life and different stages in the grief journey, that have become brothers and sisters because of a bond we never wanted to share.

    Click the thumbnail pictures below to see larger images.

  • Grieving Dad’s Project

    Grieving Dad’s Project

    I stumbled upon this site today.

    Geared toward grieving dads. Kelley Farley is a bereaved father that’s had two children die. He has decided to write a book to help grieving fathers.

    His website tells his story and leads to a survey where you can tell yours.

    He hopes to get enough stories about dad’s that have traveled the grief journey to put together a resource for other grieving dad’s searching for help and hope.

    Resource Links:

    The project website: http://www.grievingdads.com/

    Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GrievingDads