Healing WordArt

Language is the way we human communicate with each other and consists of the use of words in a structured way, and often unique to a particular country or community.   The Oxford English dictionary has about 220,000 words. In the Oxford 'Shorter' Dictionary there are 163,000 different words, The Oxford Reference dictionary has 115,000 different words (200,000 meanings) and The Oxford English mini-dictionary has 40,000 different words (50,000 meanings). So there are thousands of different words, some nouns, some verbs and some adverbs and adjectives.   So what does this all have to do with a grieving parent?   Well you might ask! I recently came across an article where a bereaved parent who wished there was a term like orphan, widow or widower to describe her status. She further stated that while the death of a child is too awful to contemplate it happens every day to countless parents who are get no comfort from the denial of their loss. With suicide at...

Birthday celebrations in my family are usually a low-key affair.   In fact, I don’t think I have ever even had a birthday party – not even as a child. Being one of seven children, you can probably understand why that might have been the case.   On the other hand, my aging mother has had several big birthday parties including one at 60, 70 and 80 years of age.   If she lives to be 90, she will probably have one of those too.   My older sister is following in her footsteps and her husband has given her a 40 th , 50 th and 60 th to date.   In some ways I am disappointed none of my children have ever wanted to have either an 18 th or 21 st birthday party.   I would have loved to made it a special occasion for them. 13 April Dilemma – Sebastian’s Party/Nick’s Birthday Earlier this year my nephew turned 21 years of age. He is in the Australian Armed Forces and had his first posting to Iraq late last year.   Since he has been back in Austral...