Miss Jackie's House

10/09/2021

We don't do grief very well in this country. We don't talk about it, we get uncomfortable around it, and in some mind-twisting way, we hope grief will…

07/03/2021

Maybe you're here because someone is dead. I'm here because someone is dead. Maybe you've come because life has irrevocably changed—through accident or illness, through violent crime or act of nature.

How random and fragile life can be.

If you've found yourself here, in this life you didn't ask for, in this life you didn't see coming, I'm sorry. I can't tell you it will all work out in the end. I can't tell you things will be just fine.

You are not "OK." You might not ever be "OK."

Whatever grief you're carrying, it's important to acknowledge how bad this is, how hard. It really is horrendous, horrifying, and unsurvivable.

This place is not about fixing you, or fixing your grief. Our work is not about making you "better" or getting you back to "normal." This is about how you live inside your loss. How you carry what cannot be fixed. How you survive.

And even though that thought—that you CAN survive something as horrifying as this—is unsettling and horrifying in its own right, the truth is, you will most likely survive.

Your survival in this life post-loss won't follow steps or stages, or align with anyone else's vision of what life might be for you. Survival won't be found, can't be found, in easy answers or in putting your lost life behind you, pretending you didn't really want it anyway.

In order to survive, to find that life that feels authentic and true to you, we have to start telling the truth. This really is as bad as you think. Everything really is as wrong, and as bizarre, as you know it to be. When we start there, we can begin to talk about living with grief, living inside the love that remains.

I am so sorry you have need of this place, and I'm so glad you're here.

06/20/2021

Celebrated Jackie's 60th birthday yesterday... a beautiful day with sun and rain and flowers and plants and fountains and love ❤️❤️

"There is no sorrow so great as the memory of lost joy.
But if there had been no joy then, there'd be no pain now.
I will be ever grateful for the beauty of both."

Thank you Kate, Marie, Dave, and Tanya.

10/01/2020

https://youtu.be/2phQZMdN7jo

IN LOVING MEMORY (Alter Bridge) Thanks for all you've done I've missed you for so long I can't believe you're gone You still live in me I feel you in the win...

10/01/2020

You can replace "grief" and "loss" with whatever difficulty, pain, suffering is in your life... and the lesson is the same. Embracing your emotions keeps you alive and loving. The healing is in the pain.

--
"If I let myself feel my emotions, I won't be able to function" ... The thing is, we're much more likely to NOT function, actually, if we block our emotions. Research shows that we're much more likely to get anxiety, depression, eating disorders, even become violent, if we suppress our emotions.
--
You need to embrace everything that grief brings you.
--
In grief you're going to meet hate, you're going to meet anger, you're going to meet emotional pain, you're going to meet rage, you're going to meet terror. If you get through that you're probably going to feel torn to pieces. You might feel crazy. You might end up in a total emotional abyss. You're probably very likely to end up in an emotional abyss. You need to feel that emotional abyss. You need to let that abyss swallow you. ... Close off your experience of the abyss and you close off the flow of life.

Block that anger and you block your vitality. Block that fear and you block your excitement. Block that deep emotional pain and you block your access to compassion. Even block your hatred and you block your access to peace. Block your experience of that abyss and you will block access to the depth of who you really are and the energy that's going to take you forward.

Right in the center of that abyss ... you'll find your liberation.
--
Let loss be a life adventure. And the way to do that, stay with it, breath, and let your inner experience guide you.
--

Psychologist, writer and innovator, Geoff Warburton has spent the last 25 years studying love and loss. Geoff challenges conventional apathy about grief and ...

06/19/2020

https://youtu.be/v8EVotIk8JQ

Celebrating Jackie's 43rd Birthday in June of 2004

11/01/2019

Someone asked me why I choose to keep my daughter’s photo near if it brings me grief.

In many cultures, this is a sanctioned time to remember those who’ve died. For me, this time is every day. I never wish to forget, ever, not even for a moment.

I simply must remember the people I love who have died even though it brings my heart deep sadness. Not to remember them feels, for me, like I’m living a lie and like they are dying twice.

Those are not options in my world. I know many of you reading will get this.

I send tender compassion to all the broken hearts tonight missing....

www.JoanneCacciatore.com

06/19/2019

Happy Birthday Jackie!
I still love you and miss you 💕

06/19/2019

In grief you're going to meet hate, you're going to meet anger, you're going to meet emotional pain, you're going to meet rage, you're going to meet terror. If you get through that you're probably going to feel torn to pieces. You might feel crazy. You might end up in a total emotional abyss. You're probably very likely to end up in an emotional abyss. You need to feel that emotional abyss. You need to let that abyss swallow you. ... Close off your experience of the abyss and you close off the flow of life.

Block that anger and you block your vitality. Block that fear and you block your excitement. Block that deep emotional pain and you block your access to compassion. Even block your hatred and you block your access to peace. Block your experience of that abyss and you will block access to the depth of who you really are and the energy that's going to take you forward.

Right in the center of that abyss ... you'll find your liberation.

Psychologist, writer and innovator, Geoff Warburton has spent the last 25 years studying love and loss. Geoff challenges conventional apathy about grief and ...

05/29/2019

MAY 26, 2019... 35 YEARS

♥ lis

04/11/2019

Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let's face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief.
--
"[I]t helped me realize that my love for Aaron and my grief for Aaron, and my love for Matthew, are not opposing forces. They are just strands to the same thread. They're the same stuff. "
--
"You understand what you're experiencing is not a moment in time, it's not a bone that will reset, but that you've been touched by something chronic. Something incurable. It's not fatal, but sometimes grief feels like it could be. And if we can't prevent it in one another, what can we do? ... What can we do other than try to remind one another that some things can't be fixed, and not all wounds are meant to heal?"

In a talk that's by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let's face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift...