What is a Life Loss?

A “life loss” is the loss of someone or something significant, important, or precious to you. Life losses can affect personal relationships, sometimes disrutpting them in unhelthy ways. Marriages, parent-child relationships and friendships can suffer. An individual's professional life can be affected because of the mental and emotional exhaustion associated with normal grief.

Can you imagine the following experiences? Are some of them yours? All of these are life losses.

• You check on your baby during her nap and discover that she has died in her sleep.
• Your adult son commits suicide by shooting himself, and you never had any indication that he was thinking about killing himself.
• You have a new baby who is diagnosed with a severe genetic disorder that is incompatible with life, or that will affect his life and yours forever.
• You are a teenager on a date with your girlfriend. There is a car accident. You were driving. You are severely injured, and your girlfriend is killed.
• You and your spouse have been struggling with infertility. You are finally pregnant after 7 years, and there is a miscarriage 6 weeks into the pregnancy.
• Your child dies of meningitis.
• Your spouse has left you for someone else.
• You are anticipating the birth of your baby in two weeks. At a routine appointment, you are told your baby has no heartbeat.
• You have an adopted child who is struggling with the grief of not knowing where she came from (her biological roots). You are worried that, if she finds out, she won’t love you anymore.
• Your mother has become your closest friend; she dies suddenly of a heart attack.
• You are a single mother, 15 years old, who gives up a child for adoption.
• You had an abortion long ago, and now, after the birth of your first baby, you are experiencing flashbacks, severe guilt, and depression.
• Your daughter has disappeared, and you don’t know where she is or what has happened to her.
• You have been married for 54 years, and your spouse dies after a long illness.
• Your son is killed in combat.
• Your mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
• Your father died, and you don’t know how to explain death to your children.
• A neighbor has lost a loved one, and you don’t know what to say or how to help.
• Your father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he wants to be able to live fully until he dies.
• You have been in an accident. You are paralyzed from the waist down and can no longer work in construction.

These are a only a few of hundreds of true situations that have come through the doors of the Joy in the Mourning Center.  Many times we know people who have been through a difficult experience, and we don’t know what to say or what to do for them. We are suddenly faced with a real-life situation that is unimaginable, and we recognize for the first time that life isn’t safe and that bad things really do happen to good people…sometimes even to us or someone we are close to.

The Joy in the Mourning Center for Life Losses was started to help individuals and families facing situations similar to these. We believe that life is full of difficulties and that many of them involve losses. We are here to help you and those you care about to move through the grief and return to the joy of living.