Healing and cathartic acts after the death of a loved one

Matthew Logelin, Bestselling Author & Blogger, shares advice from personal experience on how to find productive healing and cathartic activities to help cope with the loss of a loved one
Healing And Cathartic Acts To Help Cope The Loss Of A Loved One
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Healing and cathartic acts after the death of a loved one

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I coped with Liz's death in several ways. A lot of it was just pouring my time and attention into my daughter. That's what I did; that was one of the things that really kept me going, it really kept me okay. It leveled me out quite a bit because I was dealing with those devastating loss of my wife but at the same time I had this great joy in my life and so I wanted to make sure that I didn't lose sight of that. I wanted to make sure that my daughter felt that love that I had for her. I didn't ever want her to feel like she was a burden because of what happened. Another way that we kind of dealt with this together and that I did this for my daughter was we started traveling. When my wife first died, I didn't imagine that I could go back to the places that we'd spent our time together and I actively avoided all of them. But it was really easy in my neighborhood, at least it seemed easy at first; I could avoid Target and drive across the town to the other Target, or I could go to a different grocery store or different library or whatever I needed to do. But what I started to realize was that what if was going to be running away from those moments for the rest of my life, there was nowhere I could go to escape them, so i just decided to run toward them. We lived here in Los Angeles but we also grew up in Minnesota and I couldn't avoid that place. And so, the best thing I could do at that point again was to just run toward those places and those moments that I could remember. And, even better, I could bring my daughter back to those spots and it was something that I could do to share this life that I had with her mom, with my daughter, and she got a chance to see that we saw together, and experience the things we experienced together. And in some cases she was under two years old and we did it. But, this is something we will be doing for a lifetime. We're not going to be doing this just now; this is something that when she's fifteen, we'll go back to that spot, and I'll take her to those places and we'll take photos again, in the same spot that I took photos with her mom, and the same spots I took photos of Maddie when she was two, or eighteen months or whatever it was. And for us, that's just been such an incredible experience because we get go and feel her mom's presence in a way that, because I am not spiritual, I'm not religious, I don't feel that in any other way but to be in those spots where my memories are sort of conjured up. I have a great ability to recall the times that were both good and bad with my wife and tjhat's such an invaluable experience and I want my daughter to have that.

Matthew Logelin, Bestselling Author & Blogger, shares advice from personal experience on how to find productive healing and cathartic activities to help cope with the loss of a loved one

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Matthew Logelin

Bestselling Author & Blogger

Matthew Logelin is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Two Kisses for Maddy, as well as the acclaimed and award-winning blog, Matt, Liz, & Madeline. His essays have been featured in the Huffington Post, Glamour Magazine, Mamalode Magazine, and The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.

Two Kisses for Maddy was the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award in the Best Memoir & Autobiography category, 2011, has been translated to four languages and was recently optioned by the Lifetime network, to be adapted for the small screen by Marta Kauffman (Friends) and Denise DiNovi (Crazy, Stupid Love; The Lucky One).

Matt is also the founder and president of The Liz Logelin Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in honor of his late wife, with the sole purpose of providing hope for young widowed families (regardless of marital status or sexual orientation) through financial assistance and necessary resources. Since its founding in 2009, The Liz Logelin Foundation has given grants to more than 120 families. Most importantly, Matt is the father to four-year-old Madeline. His toughest critic most days, she is also his biggest fan. He spends his days helping her refine her taste in music and books. They live in Los Angeles but travel often to see as much of the world as possible. 

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