A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, Cameron served in the United States Navy from 1984 – 1987. While stationed in Alameda, California, his travels included the Western Pacific Islands, the Republic of the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, France, Italy, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 

He is a life-long member of Fall Creek Parkway Church of Christ and the proud father of Cameron II, Camera, and twins, Christian and Christopher. When time allows, his hobbies include watching basketball, football, plumbing, and restoring old homes and vintage cars.

1…2…3…4…5…6…

6 boxes are all that is left of my husband. One filled with his socks, another with his uniforms, and another with every card or photo he had received. Three more contain his books, sheets, and other military effects.

I remember when the boxes arrived, I sat there so anxious to see what was left of my baby. Opening each one I had no clue what I would see. Cautiously, I lifted the lid of the hard black containers.

There are the cards I wrote him, there are the movies he’d watch every night, there are the photos of me he had hanging next to his bed………there is the only thing left of my husband’s existence while in Iraq.

I remember opening up his laptop to find an snapshot of me I never knew he liked. There was the bear that had the personal message I had recorded telling him I can’t wait to see him come home and be together again. There were all the things I had sent, all the memories on film we had captured, all the literature he adored reading, now with no reader.

I forgot all that he had accumulated over his 8 months over there. Due to that fact, many items were so heartwarming but always with an aftertaste of anger.

I remember going through his clothes and immediately putting them to my nose……detergent. ‘I’ll try another shirt or maybe his socks!’ …….detergent. The fact that they had washed all of his clothing made me so infuriated! Let me have one last breath of his smell. The smell I was unable to be without for 8 months…..and now forever.

Some of Michael’s things I pulled out right away, others are still sitting in those looming boxes sitting in my garage. Every now in then I’ll open them to get a small inhale from his pillow that they DIDN’T wash, or go for a search for some hidden letter he may have written in the case he would die.

I never found the letter, I never got my husband to come home, and all I am left with are our memories, a few items of meaning and………6 black boxes.

1. Create an Online Memorial
2. Buy Yourself a Special Gift
3. Join a Support Group
4. Participate in Motherless Daughters Day
5. Keep Mom’s Memory Alive
6. Plant a Tree in Her Honor
7. Ask God to Help You Through
8. Live Their Philosophy
9. Spend the Day With Family
10. Reach Out and Volunteer
11. Send an E-mail to Heaven
12. Visit a Nursing Home
13. Celebrate Your Loved One’s Life
14. Wear Something From Those Who Are Gone
15. Be sensitive to Those Coping with Infertility

 Read more about these 15 tips.

How do you remember your loved ones on Mother’s Day?  Share by writing a comment.

Marria Asante-Doyle, Funeral Director

Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Marria has been with Crown Hill Funeral Home for a little over 2 ½ years.  She has always loved funeral service and views her personal professionalism as her ministry, aiding and advising families through a difficult process.   She has thus far enjoyed her experience with and looks forward to contributing to the diverse culture that is Crown Hill.  She has recently completed training as a Certified Funeral Celebrant and undertaken the annual Black History Celebration, which has proven to be both rewarding and fun.  With the support of Stephen Marana and the Funeral Home, we were able to award the 1^st annual Cynthia Whisler Memorial Scholarship to a very deserving student seeking a profession in funeral service.

A busy mother of 2 beautiful girls, Tyla (5) and Charlie (3), she is also involved with her church, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, and her childhood church, St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.  Her community involvement also includes The Indiana Black Expo, the Celestial Chapter #1 of the Order of the Eastern Stars, and speaking at workshops hosted by local community churches on the “Stages of Grief.”  Her hobbies include recreational writing, watching good movies, eating good food, and spending precious time with the people she loves.

Open to Hope, Deb Kosmer | March 20, 2012

Rebuilding a life isn’t easy especially when we may not want to, feel like it, or know where to start. When just getting out of bed makes us so tired we want to go crawl right back in. When we can hardly remember the way to the grocery store or our best friends phone number, when we don’t feel like cooking or eating or want to eat everything in our sight. When the phone never rings when we need it to and rings all the time when we don’t. When we feel like we have been forgotten and our friends have gone on with their lives. When someone starts to talk of rebuilding, we may wish they’d just get on with their life.

If any of the above resonates with you, chances are you are grieving the death of a loved one. There are probably people in your life who just don’t get it even if they sincerely want to help. Even though it’s hard when someone says the wrong thing, it may be helpful to realize they are at least trying, while others make no attempt and will often do everything to ignore the griever. That can be infinitely more painful. Suddenly people we’d depended upon disappear.

As difficult as this can be, the good news is there will also be some people there for you, that you would have never expected. As a well-known grief speaker and author, Dr. Alan Wolfelt says, “Grief has a way of re-writing your address book.”

Being open and receptive to the ones who are there for you is a first step towards healing. They may be people who have already been in the peripheral part of your life or people you meet after the death. People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. It takes courage and stamina to begin again, two things that are in short supply when you are grieving. Allowing those who want to understand to support you, drawing on their courage and stamina is a place to begin.

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When we are grieving over our favourite sports team having lost a game or two, it isn’t always easy to deal with. Whether it’s from last nights Vancouver Canucks loss of the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins or any other sports related event, these five things can help get everyone back on track.

#1 Talk about what happened. When you continue to talk about the same thing over and over again this is a form of becoming “okay” with the situation and being able to find a way out of the disappointment. Until you get tired of going over it in your mind or with words, it will be hard to carry on and be okay with what has occurred. Let yourself talk about the game, but don’t go overboard, or you might find yourself with no one to talk to!

#2 Compromise on how many replays are watched. When we get used to watching replays of our favourite team a routine has begun and it feels like we can’t live without seeing those fabulous plays! So, when our team loses it can become even more of an obsession to figure out what went wrong. Allow for time to analyze those replays, but don’t let it take over your life! Give yourself a time limit and stick with it.

#3 Keep yourself busy. Find something new to fill the time that was spent watching the hockey or basketball games. Isn’t there something you’ve been putting off until “after the season” that really needs to get done? Enjoy the free time and try to lose yourself in that new task.

#4 Move on. Move on to your next favourite sport or to the next event that’s coming up. There is always a new opportunity to win these new games and be able to use your energy for something other than yelling at the television screen!

#5 Think of how much fun you’ve had! Remember how much fun your team has given you over the season and what kinds of laughs you had. Try to reminisce about what happened during the joyful and happy times during the season and what you’ll always remember about this particular year.

If you or a loved one is suffering from sports related grief, what are you doing to help yourself get through this tough time? I’d love to hear what some of your techniques are below.

Article written by Leann, LD Counseling / June 16, 2011

Write a comment on how you have been coping with your sports grief.

Join us as we honor and support our country’s men and women in uniform; past and present in a special ceremony to acknowledge each veteran in attendance with a small token of our gratitude.

• Brig. Gen. Stewart Goodwin, USAF (ret.), Executive Director, Indiana War Memorials will address the gathering on bahlf of the grateful citizens of Indiana.
• Light refreshments will be served in Crown Hill Funeral Home’s Celebration Hall following service.
• The conclusion of the service will be held at the Eternal Flame in the Field of Valor, rain or shine.  For those who wish to observe without moving ou to the cemetery, the reception area and patio will be open.

Click Here for event flyer.

Join us as we honor and support our country’s men and women in uniform; past and present in a special ceremony to acknowledge each veteran in attendance with a small token of our gratitude.

To participate, fill out the form and send it back to us.

Daily affirmations can help one uplift their mind and attitude.  It can make a difference while going through the grieving process.  We hope you find this article beneficial in your journey.

What’s the big deal about positive affirmations, really? Actually, it is a really BIG deal. The way you think, about yourself, and about your life, determines what kind of experiences you will have. We manifest our fate every step of the way, through our dreams, imaginings, projections, and expectations. But most especially it’s how and what we think about ourselves that determines how happy we will be.

Researchers have conclusively shown that when we think positive thoughts, we enjoy enormous short-term and long-term benefits. So, if faced with a choice of positive or negative thoughts, why not go with positive and see what happens? It’s like seeing your glass half full instead of half empty. The glass has the same amount of water in it either way. So why not see the glass as half full?

Positive affirmations are thoughts and sayings you can repeat to yourself out loud or silently in your head. Positive affirmations are designed to help uplift your mind, body and soul. Instead of putting yourself down every time you make a mistake, imagine telling yourself nice things, like: “It’s okay to make mistakes,” or, “Who I am is good and I’m good enough.”

Unfortunately, as loss survivors, we can end up flooded with negative messages. Usually these are messages we send ourselves, about not being good enough, not being a good parent, spouse, child, etc. Then if we do get criticism from family or relatives, we internalize it with more negative statements about ourselves. The damage this negativity does to our self-esteem and self-worth is incalculable. But with practice, we can control our thoughts and improve our sense of well-being.

I was mired in negativity after the suicide death of my loved one. I couldn’t even drop a fork on the floor at dinnertime without calling myself “stupid.” I was miserable and knew I needed a radical shift in my life. That was when I was introduced to the power of positive affirmations.

How to get started: Start listening to the “committee” in your head. Are you constantly criticizing yourself, calling yourself names, putting yourself down? If that is the case, you don’t need anyone to degrade or humiliate you — you are already doing it to yourself!

The key with positive affirmations is repetition. The more your subconscious mind hears positive words, the more these thoughts will manifest in your life. It is always exciting to start noticing for the first time when your positive thoughts start to outweigh your negative thoughts. Although this may take a while, and require persistence and commitment, the pay-off is well worth all the work!

Try this: for the first several weeks that you try out affirmations, call yourself “Sweetie.” When you drop something on the floor, say, “It’s okay, Sweetie.” When you forget something and have to come all the way back home, say to yourself, “It’s okay, Sweetie.” If you do this long enough, the positive in your subconscious will start to outweigh the negative and you will start to feel better about yourself and the world around you.

You will start to notice your relationships getting better — much better! Healthier and more encouraging people will literally start to show up, and more importantly, you will start to notice them! When we were once mired in negatitivy we didn’t even notice when someone nice was around because we were too busy being cynical and pessimistic about our chances of finding someone nice. But the affirmation: “I deserve unconditional love at all times,” will get you to a new and wonderful relationship very quickly.

Besides love relationships, positive affirmations create improvement in dealing with family members, bosses and co-workers on the job, friendships, dealings with neighbors, as well as any dreams you have for yourself in the future. Positive affirmations help us get through disappointment, rejection, and deep grief and keep us looking forward to living life in the moment.

Please remember, after a loss the last thing we need to do is beat up on ourselves. After my own suicide loss, this was especially true.  This is a healing time for you, a time to nourish yourself as you recover from your grief. This is a time to treat yourself well!

Catherine Greenleaf is a suicide loss survivor, and author of the highly acclaimed book, Healing The Hurt Spirit: Daily Affirmations For People Who Have Lost a Loved One to Suicide. She is a spiritual counselor and a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling. She travels nationwide to speak to suicide loss survivors about how to persevere after suicide loss. You can read more of her work on her blog, or follow her on twitter.

Thank you to U.S. Representative Andre Carson for his presenation of the Julia Carson Community Award.  Special thanks to Angela Cain for taking part in our Celebration of Black History.  We would also like to thank the Iibada Dance Company, Kountry Kitchen, and singer Lisa Simpson for their participation.