exploring grace and gratitude following loss
The mission of life is a pretty word is to inspire you to mindfully honor your heart and soul.
Of the many mindfulness strategies available today, this piece describes my recent experiences with ancient forms--traditional yoga and from the indigenous people of Australia, dadirri, inner deep listening.
Read MoreIn this story, about the things we do for our pets, the phrase “no one left behind” comes to mind.
Read MoreRemembering the interactions between family generations can be a loving way of witnessing our grief like a thread of yarn woven through our connected lives. These connections hold us up when we need them most.
Read MoreMy daughter, Lena, experienced a near fatal health crisis about six months before she walked on. Contrasting her thoughts before and after that hospitalization, her words bring clarity to the thin veil between life and death.
Written the day before my daughter's first memorial service, this is my tribute to her. A significant portion of this piece includes my daughter's words and is therefore named "A Eulogy of Voices". As there were two memorial services, the first at the Bad River Community Center in Odanah, Wisconsin and the second at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, this is a merged version of the two eulogies.
Read MoreBreaking out of the self-care routine can be a useful health strategy both tangible and intangible. Letting others support us in grief, acknowledging our vulnerability and taking steps to ensure our safety can create space to consider the deeper reasons we resist joy.
Read MoreIt takes experimentation to find self-care strategies that are achievable within the limits of our physical and emotional abilities before they became a sustainable routine. Through the discovery process, I learned self-care is not a selfish act and I began to feel real results.
Read MoreA person in grief wants to remember and talk about their loved one despite the double-edged sword. How can you help when they can't ask?
Read MoreThe joy of remembering the small things, the snippets of memory that trigger a deluge of emotions or provide a moment of reprieve.
Read MoreLet It Burn is an imaginary view from my daughter’s perspective moments after her passing. Louise Gluck’s poem "The Wild Iris" prompted this imaginative piece.
Read MoreA conversation on how our aging may impact how we think and feel about loved ones we are grieving.
Read MoreThis piece is a reaction to my struggle to understand medical decisions, protocols and permissions or lack thereof. It is written from my daughter's viewpoint as she lay dying.
Read MoreFrom Pine to Palm is Lena's autobiography written during her House Seminar at Brander Hall, Stanford University, March 2000.
"From the womb of a white mother, came forth an olive skinned infant born into two worlds. . ."
Wise beyond her years as many "old souls" are, this page is a collection of snippets found throughout Lena Kay's numerous journals, notebooks, and scribbles as well as found around the web.
Read MoreOur mission is to encourage and inspire you to mindfully honor your heart, soul, and emotions following a loss. This site is a tribute to a beautiful, loving, and talented young woman who once scribbled on a scrap of paper life is a pretty word.
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