Healing Stories and Storytelling

Guest Blogs Healing Stories and Storytelling

‘Cancer Ghosting’: When Friends Disappear

By Gretchen Brown Want to make your friendships awkward? Try getting cancer. My diagnosis two years ago put a gulf between me and virtually everyone I knew. I’d spent my life and career figuring out how to relate with other people. Then, I got a disease in my twenties that…

End in MindOctober 3, 2023

Grief and Grieving Guest Blogs Healing Stories and Storytelling

Remembering Mom by Turning Grief Into Art (Guest Post)

Kitty Shea Mother’s Day is coming up, and it’s a holiday that elicits a wide range of emotions. For some, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the joys of motherhood. But for others—those who have lost a mother or a child, those with complicated or strained family relationships, those who yearn…

Christa MelandMay 3, 2021

Grief and Grieving Healing Stories and Storytelling

Creativity is a Powerful Tool for Healing

A couple of weeks ago, the event I’ve been dreading for more than a decade finally happened. My beloved cat Tux, who’s been with me for virtually all of my adult life, died. On the one hand, I’m grateful because it was just about the best losing-a-pet experience one could…

Christa MelandApril 26, 2021

Food for thought Healing Stories and Storytelling

Resilience Expert Learns Firsthand: Laughter is the Best Medicine

Jacquelyn Fletcher Johnson is a resilience expert who trains people in what she calls “the art of the return”—finding a sense of meaning and purpose after challenging times. But it wasn’t until she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2019 that she discovered one of the most important…

Christa MelandFebruary 8, 2021

Guest Blogs Healing Stories and Storytelling

Held Up by Love: What Cancer Has Taught Me (Guest Post)

We are grateful to be able to share a beautiful and thoughtful reflection from Rev. Cindy Gregorson, who serves as director of ministries for the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. In October 2018, she was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. She underwent surgery the following month to…

Christa MelandDecember 26, 2020

Grief and Grieving Healing Stories and Storytelling Music Purposeful Living

Join us for Oasis 2020: Hope and Possibility

Join us at 6:45 p.m. Dec. 29 for a virtual event to explore and honor the loss and grief we've experienced amid the pandemic and to look ahead to brighter days. The event, Oasis 2020: Hope and Possibility, is our gift to you after the crushing and confusing losses many…

Christa MelandDecember 15, 2020

End of Life Wisdom Healing Stories and Storytelling

Wounded by Loss. Uplifted by Love. Celebrating and Remembering the dead

I was alone in the choir loft of St. Albert the Great Catholic Church. It was an All Souls Day Mass. I had carried the box of my Dad's ashes down the aisle of this same church eight months earlier and now in the choir loft, a tear or two…

Cathy WurzerOctober 28, 2020

Healing Stories and Storytelling Purposeful Living

How Pregnancy Losses Gave Way to Gratitude, Renewed Purpose

When my husband and I were ready to have a child, we both assumed that it would be easy for me to become pregnant, and that the following year, we’d have a baby in our arms. After nine months of trying, we got the news we were hoping for. We…

Christa MelandOctober 24, 2020

End of Life Wisdom Healing Stories and Storytelling

In Gratitude for Michael

I always knew I'd have to write these words some day but had hoped to push this task off for months or even years but life doesn't work like that. Death came for my friend Michael Bischoff this week. He slipped from this world surrounded, uplifted and sent forward into…

Cathy WurzerFebruary 12, 2020