Two high school basketball teams unite in grieving a player's recent loss. Johntel Franklin, senior basketball captain for Milwaukee Madison, lost his mother to cervical cancer on the day of a game with friendly rivals from DeKalb. In a beautiful act of sportsmanship, both teams decide to forgo points in order to help Johntel deal with his grief.
posted by Four-Eyed Girl on Feb 20, 2009 - 76 comments

"Our society really doesn't deal well with the whole dying process." No, it's not a hoax. Through the magic of soft teddy bears, pillows, and plush dogs or cats, you can hold your deceased loved one, thanks to Huggable Urns. It's founder, Alexandra, Lachini was inspired to form the enterprise after her recently departed father spoke to her. "All I wanted to do was hold him again, but the urn was hard and impersonal." For less than $100, her solution can be yours too.
posted by motherfather on Jul 5, 2006 - 34 comments

"Things just happen, he had decided; they happen and they happen again, and anybody who tries to make sense out of it goes out of his mind."

For this reason, Tom Rath, the hero of Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, decides not to "make sense" of the the atrocities to which he bears witness during World War II. Instead, he accepts that war is in itself irrational, and that he must simply forget its horrors before returning to civilian life. This New Yorker article contrasts Wilson's 1950's stoicism with today's veneration of the grieving process and suggests that this change in attitude has led us to vastly underestimate our own capacity for coping with trauma. The author also draws some interesting parallels with a controversial study in which victims of childhood sexual abuse were found to be no more likely than others to suffer from mental health problems as adults. Intriguing stuff, to say the least, and as I read it, I can't help but think of Johnny Cash's "The Man Who Couldn't Cry"

(Note: Having thankfully never been subjected to war or sexual abuse myself, I am in no way attempting to demean the anguish of those who have. Rather, I'm more interested in the idea that people are stronger than they give themselves credit for, and how different upbringings affect our experience of trauma.)
posted by idontlikewords on Dec 28, 2004 - 41 comments

Ways to heal. I'm a long, long way from being OK, as are most others here in NYC, many of whom have lost far more than me. The one thing that has helped more than anything has been the people who have crawled out of the woodwork of my life. From the friends currently housing me, to a phone call from an expat friend living in China, to hearing an ex-girlfriend say "I love you," a month after it hit me that we would probably never speak again.

As a distraction, how about you? Who have you heard from that you never thought you'd see again? Old lovers? Former best friends? Long-lost cousins?
posted by Sinner on Sep 12, 2001 - 3 comments