LOVE AND LOSS

LOVE AND LOSS

Glendon Geikie, MSW, IELDA, CGCS

Our love for someone or something is crucial to our psychological well-being as humans.

Without love, our life can lose their meaning and purpose.

But loving also brings peril because who or what we love can be taken from us.

We live in a world where the only consistency is change itself.

Yes, change can often be positive, but there are also changes that bring us physical and emotional pain.

Perhaps when you got out of bed this morning you noticed that when you started to walk there was something different in your gait.

It is a change that worries you. Is this the start of something serious?

Maybe you notice that your beloved partner of 30 years is forgetting more and more things.

You wonder if this is the beginning of a more serious memory issue. What will you do?

Your daughter and her husband have decided to relocate from the west coast to the east coast.

Your only grandchildren will be leaving with them. You wonder if you will ever see them again.

Or you get a telephone call letting you know that your dearest friend of 40 years died during the night.

And, because of covid-19 restrictions, there will be no visitation or funeral.

If we love, we can lose. The pain and devastation of the losses are what we call grief.

It is a normal and necessary experience. Grief is the other side of love.

We invite you to visit Glendon Geikie in the Wellness Village at ParkinsonsResource.org/the-wellness-village/directory/end-of-life-doula-palm-springs where he has been a member since June 6, 2020.

PRO is launching another specialty support group, a Grief Support Group this summer, facilitated by Glendon Geikie, and we are so inspired because grief, as he so gracefully stated above is so much more than “The End OF Life”. Grief for a person with Parkinson’s may happen as they start grieving their losses of movement, Grief for a Partner in Care may start as they start losing the partner relationship they once knew; and grief for a child may start as they witness what appears to be “losing their hero”. We will post the information through our emails and through the newsletter just before launch.