2009 Womens Conference Takes on the Topic of Grief

My mother’s death has brought me to my knees. I had feared it my entire life. I was terrified that when it happened I wouldn’t be able to go on. In fact, I was sure of it. A life without my mother was and is unimaginable to me.

Maria Shriver

I was very pleased to hear that the  Womens Conference 2009 included the a talk on Grief, Healing and Resilience as one of their Lunch Time topics.

California’s recently doubly-bereaved First Lady Maria Shriver moderated the session on Women Dealing with Grief which featured newly bereaved Lisa Niemi (widow of Patrick Swazye) and bereaved parents Elizabeth Edwards and Susan St. James. The losses represented (that we know of) by these women – loss of spouse, loss of teenage child, loss of parent, loss of uncle(s) and losses from cancer.

In this moving round-table chat the four women shared their stories of grief, of hope and of resilience.

You can watch a five-minute excerpt from the Grief, Healing and Resilience forum from ABC News on YouTube or the entire lunch session (which included the Grief, Healing and Resilience panel) at the Womens Conference website. The Grief sessions starts at 1:21:40 with an introduction by Katie Couric and moving words by Maria Shriver who informed the audience that “Every minute of every day I feel my broken heart.”

At one point, Elizabeth Edwards shared her thoughts on Grief and perhaps the most famous role model of grief, former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy:

Jackie O did just what our nation needed her to do. She stood there and said she is going to be strong, and we are going to get through this, but it set an impossible standard. In truth what you feel like doing is wailing — completely guttural, completely raw, completely full of pain, and we don’t allow ourselves that.

A special thank you to these very brave and courageous women who took on a topic that most people don’t want to hear about – grief. I hope that the openness shared by these women in discussing the very painful topic will help other people to begin talking about their own grief.