By Ruth Ferguson, NDG Editor
Angie Ransome-Jones’ Path to Peace, A Guide to Managing Life After Losing a Loved One offers insights on how to pick up the pieces of your life when you lose a loved one. Her book focuses on the death of a parent, but the lessons apply to the death of anyone close to you.
Ransome-Jones is clearly a woman of action. She tries to take challenges and find a way to grow and learn from the heartbreak. Then she takes it a step further and shares her knowledge to benefit her community. After watching her mother lose her battle to cancer years earlier, once Ransome-Jones dug herself out of the depths of grief she launched Magnifying our Mothers (M.O.M.) in 2010 as a tribute to her mother. The organization’s website says grief counseling resources and financial assistance for financially challenged moms are available on an application basis. Through M.O.M., Ransome-Jones is not merely lamenting the loss of her mother; she is honoring her through helping others. That embodies a legacy.
The loss of her father was a different experience because his death was unexpected. Whether you are 15 or 40, waking up one day and realizing your parents are both gone is one of the hardest milestones in a person’s life. Our parents usually are our cornerstone, the foundation of how we learned to define ourselves and our beliefs. They are also the ones who often provide us with unconditional love. Losing such an emotional safety net is hard.
Then there are the practical realities of handling the affairs of those you love. When the second parent passes away the family often must face with closing the interests of both, even if years have passed between their deaths. It can reopen the wound of grief of the other parent. This effort is especially challenging if that loss was never fully processed.
Get your affairs in order
Ransome-Jones addresses not only the emotional need for allowing yourself to grieve but offers reminders business affairs must move forward decently and in order.
A few examples include:
The Social Media Factor – Facebook can be a quick way to get the word out to friends, but try to notify key family members first. No one wants to discover their brother passed away via a Tweet; that is a quick way to start hurt feelings that will not heal easily. By the way, do you have the login info for your aging family member – otherwise it can be a challenge to gain access to their social media profiles.
Draft a Winning Team – Sometimes you are incapable of explaining everything over and over to other family members, the funeral directors, insurance company, etc. When people ask what can they do to help, and you have confidence in them – take them up on the offer and get their help on tasks requiring immediate attention.
Create a Control Book – Someday your family and friends will face the heartbreak of putting your affairs in order. Having critical information in an organized document or book is important. For example, PIN numbers and passwords they will need to access your financial accounts. Phone numbers to employers, insurance company, and retirement accounts. Also, include an outline of any final wishes for the services and organizations to notify. For example your sorority or fraternity, or former co-workers. These are people not in your life on a regular basis but important to you.
When a friend loses a loved ones, often we do not know what to say and how to help them in their darkest moments. Path to Peace, A Guide to Managing Life After Losing a Loved One is a book to have on hand and share. It is personable as Ransome-Jones discusses her experiences, but also practical. More importantly, it is quick and laid out in quick bite size sections. This format can allow the reader to focus quickly on where they are in their grieving journey with reference points.
Thank you for the insight on the book. I believe this book can give a lot of hope to people trying to help others through the grieving process.