The Floridant - Mother's Day When Your Mom is No Longer Here

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Catch Me When I Fall: Poems of Mother Loss and Healing, by Donna Stoneham, PhD., publishes just in time for Mother's Day.

RICHMOND, Calif. - Floridant -- "…our guide to the landscapes and the inscapes of grief, loss, and the quickening of the human heart." --Jean Houston, PhD. Author of The Possible Human

Donna Stoneham, PhD., had a difficult relationship with her mother until her mother's final years. They seemed to be on the opposite ends of just about every issue. Donna, the LGBTQ, progressive Democrat who fled to the East and West Coasts in her early twenties, was the daughter of a Southern Baptist, fundamentalist Christian Republican who lived her entire life in Texas until the age of eighty-five, when she moved to Northern California to live her final years with Donna. During that time, Donna finally got the mom she had always wanted. And then lost her.

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Catch Me When I Fall is a guide and a comfort to anyone who is grieving a loss in life. It reveals how our grief journeys can be a powerful transformative force. Through the conversations between mother and daughter that take place in this moving collection of poems and letters, we are provided with the opportunity to explore a beautiful notion: as long as we keep our hearts open to the mystery and power of transcendent, eternal love, we can heal and continue our most pivotal relationships—even after death.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, grief can be the pathway for that to happen. Rather than trying to bypass the sadness, or seeking to avoid the pain of loss with alcohol, drugs, too much busyness, or other distractions, it is important to face it head-on and remain present with the feelings.

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Donna Stoneham is an executive coach, team facilitator, and former hospice chaplain who lives with her wife and rescue dogs in Point Richmond, California. Her last book, The Thriver's Edge: Seven Keys to Transform the Way You Live, Love, and Lead was a USA Best Book Awards, a National Indie Excellence Book Awards, and an International Book Awards finalist. Her work has been featured in the Wall St. Journal, Woman's Day, Buzz Feed, The Huffington Post, and on TV and radio.