As a small business owner we have to deal with tax law changes, local ordinances, environmental laws, Workers Compensation, etc. Just when we thought we had everything under control, something terrible happenes. A death in the family. Oh my God you say? What do I do now? Well since I have been there, let me tell you what you need to know.

During the two years of my husband's terminal illness, death was never far from my mind. We had been told he was dying and even a time in which it was supposed to happen. We had no idea of how it would happen. I was loathe to let him out of my sight incase he should suddenly die and not return to me and woke each day fearing that he may have died during the night. Towards the end of his illness I sensed that death was near, waiting in the shadows to steal my love from me and wrote the following poem.

Death, it waits in the shadows

But it sneaks ever closer

Suicide is the one form of death that has quite a stigma attached to it. It brings with it a feeling of shame and betrayal. It is not the same as saying to someone "My father died in a car crash" nor is it the same as saying someone died from a heart attack. Having to explain that someone took their own life can be quite a difficult thing to do as we have no explanation as to why this dreadful occurance took place.

My dearest Grandma, I will never forget

you and sorry that I was not there with

you when you passed.

Grandma...I can't believe The last kiss,

The last "goodbye" was yesterday...

Your death was a shock,

I know that you are gone for now

I really just do not believe how.

I called you all that week

You told me that you were not weak.

The question of whether, say, a man should have the right to take away his life granted pain and suffering have overcome him is a very important question today. A different way of putting this question is this: Should a man have the right to take away his life if he ceases to function as a human being?

When I invited Martha to the gathering at my house, she accepted the invitation cheerfully. Martha was new to the area and so I thought this small potluck I was hosting would be a chance for her to get to know other women in our town. Martha stuck it out till the end, softly responding to each person's questions about where she had moved from and the details involving her current job. It was not until the last guest left that night that she was able to utter her fears, "Oh, Alice, maybe I shouldn't have come." Then she fell apart in tears.

I opened the dishtowel drawer for about the sixth time, hoping the towels had somehow magically appeared.

The brand new towels still werent there, of course.

What did Mom DO with them? I wondered aloud.

I knew they had to be around somewhere because I had given them to her for Christmas only a few months ago. Not that the towels were so terribly important. Its just that when youre expecting guests, youd kind of like everything to look nice.

What is it about Grief and Loss that upsets us so much? Is it the heavy duty emoting that we have to do to get through our suffering? Is it the fear we have about opening ourselves to all this pain? Because, lets face it, its hard down there, in the land of grieving where all those emotions toss us around like a cork on a stormy sea.

I was with my daddy when he died. Excuse me, I was with my daddy when his spirit left his body. I drove him to the emergency room because he was having chest pains. He said that they werent too bad, and his color was good. He was still walking.

In fact, Daddy walked into the cubicle in the ER and hopped up on the gurney. Almost as quickly, he hopped off saying, Whew, doggie! Feels like somebodys got a knife in my back, right between my shoulder blades. Daddy said it with a great big grin on his face. Thats just the way my Daddy was.

Why We Fear Death

"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark." - Bacon

There may be a thousand reasons why we fear death, but most of all we fear death because we fear the unknown, and death is an unknown entity to most people. We fear that dying may be painful and we do not know what will happen to us at the point of death.

Some people fear death because they imagine the dying process to be very painful. Death is not painful. In fact, death is often very peaceful and silent even for those suffering from cancers or other terminal illness.