Videos That Have Helped: Pet Loss

One of my favorite YouTube channels as of late has been Dr. Ali Mattu's The Psych Show.  Dr. Mattu has a really good video from 2019: "Losing a dog is like losing a family member".  Very helpful and comforting if you are struggling with the loss of a beloved pet.

Personal Musings: Reflecting on Humor From Comedian Steven Wright

One of my all-time favorite comedians is Steven Wright.  I love a lot of his jokes, but one of my favorites is this one: "I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency Notify". I wrote "Doctor"... What's my mother going to do?"  

In recent months, I've realized that there can be a lot of underlying wisdom in humor.  For those of us who may have lost someone we were highly dependent on, especially if it's a spouse/partner or parent, we can feel like nobody else can help us if we find ourselves in a difficult situation -- that our loved one was the one person who could help us out.  Yet Steven Wright's joke reminds me that sometimes, other people might be in a better situation to help us out if we're in a crisis of one sort or another.  This isn't to say that our transitioned loved ones weren't highly capable people -- it's just that we can take solace and comfort in the fact that there are other people who can help us out and lift us up when we are not doing well and at a low point in our lives.   Even something as simple as someone cracking a good joke can make the dark days a little brighter.

Articles Worth Reading: Regrets of the Dying

Back in 2012, Bronnie Ware, an Australian hospice nurse, wrote the book "Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing."  According to Ware, the top five regrets these dying patients had were:

1. "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
2. "I wish I hadn't worked so hard."
3. "I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings."
4. "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."
5. "I wish that I had let myself be happier."
   

Mike Pegg, who writes over at The Positive Encourager, has this article which goes into a little more detail about Ware's book, along with some YouTube links of interviews of Ware herself.  

What's fascinating to me is that Ware is not the only person with these insights.  Julie McFadden, another hospice nurse, works in the state of California here in the United States, and has reported similar findings, according to this article from the Independent UK.  For me, this gives me pause and makes me think about how I need to live my life more mindfully and intentionally.

Can Technology Help Our Grief? New Developments of Amazon's Alexa

ABC News has published this article from the Associated Press about Amazon's latest development with their personal assistant device Alexa.  Excerpt:

"Amazon’s Alexa might soon replicate the voice of family members - even if they’re dead.

The capability, unveiled at Amazon’s Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas, is in development and would allow the virtual assistant to mimic the voice of a specific person based on a less than a minute of provided recording." 

I'm not sure what to make of this.  Personally, I'm not sure it would do much to help with my grief.  To me, hearing someone or some thing pretending to be my mother is not the same as hearing the actual voice of your loved one, even if it's from years ago.  But who knows?  Maybe there's another perspective here that I'm not aware of.