Dear Judy,
Some years ago, maybe 3, my friend, her husband and I practically came to blows. (the issue, believe it or not, was abortion rights. They are anti. I am pro).
We stopped speaking completely. Now her husband has pancreatic cancer, and is not expected to live long.
I’ve sort of hinted around to mutual [...]
Dear Judy,
I read thecheckoutline.org pretty often now that my father has lung cancer. I couldn’t believe the question on Friday from the woman who was pissed off that people in her office wanted to share their own stories of grief with her. She felt she had too much to handle with her own mother dying, and [...]
Dear Judy,
I think whatever I write is going to sound harsh, no matter what. My sister lost both her children — 1 in a drowning accident, the other of leukemia, and that was just this year.
I’ve been very sympathetic, there for her all the time. But sometimes, if I just mention any hint of a [...]
Dear Judy,
Six months ago, our four-month-old baby died. We were not surprised: he was born with a kidney that could barely function and a number of other issues. But we were devastated.
Last week when I went out to dinner with my husband, a friend who’d barely acknowledged our pain at the time of our son’s death, saw [...]
Dear Judy,
I recently wrote a sympathy note and may have inadvertently offended the widow. I did mention that maybe the husband’s death was “a blessing in disguise” (he was in great pain before the end, with prostate cancer).
Was that wrong??
I felt the widow was very chilly to me when we met by chance yesterday – though I may [...]
Dear Judy,
I see from reading your advice column (I am new to thecheckoutline) that you get people writing in all the time about supposedly sympathetic friends and acquaintances who make dumb remarks about the dead. These people ask you what to say in reply.
I have a fairly special situation. My sister was shot dead in [...]
Dear Judy,
My wife died two months ago. She had melanoma, but by the time it was caught the cancer had spread, then it recurred — 3 times — and she was in great pain for part of the time. All our friends knew this, and it was awful. For her it was worst of all [...]
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Posted on January 24th, 2009