Dealing with grief

                     Grief Explored

                              By Aubrey Hammack

 

Dealing with the death of someone we love is extremely painful and we find out quickly that most people do not feel comfortable with talking with those that have just experienced a loss. Part of that reason I believe is that it makes people get in touch with their own mortality. It is also a lot harder to deal with grief when it involves sudden, unexpected death.

Of course, if it is an older person the blow will be softened somewhat because we can rationalize it better and say that they lived to be an older adult and after all death is expected when one is older.

 But what are some things that can help us through some of these depressing times when we have lost that special someone.

 I heard a good example a few years ago that we need to allow folks to peel off layers of grief like we are peeling an onion. It is going to be a slow process and we are told that the usual time period in dealing with grief is roughly two years give or take some months.

 It absolutely helps when we are able to talk about the person that has died. Sometimes people will need a therapist or other professional to help with this process when there is more complicated grief issues, but it is my feeling that under normal circumstances we have a God given way of dealing with grief and can do this without outside help most of the time.

 Some things that help besides talking to people about that loved one are: looking at pictures of the person deceased, remembering the happy times and usually there were many, thinking of things that you did with them, visiting the grave site as many times as you feel like you would like to and talking to them there and sharing what you feel like you missed saying to them, writing a letter to the deceased if there were things that you felt like you didn’t get to say to them before they died, visiting places that you went with that person, touching items that you have that might have been given to you by the deceased, and calling that person by their name when you are telling someone about them.

Also, a great healer is laugher and I am convinced that if we can think of some funny things that we experienced with that person that this will help.

It is okay to get in touch with negative things that happened between us and the deceased. This is part of the overall process to work through grief.

The funeral is extremely important in the grief process. It is healthy if one feels they can do it to help plan the service. It is recommended that spending some private time with that special person that has died is good.

 Also, spending time with family members and the deceased helps. These suggestions are just a few of the things that can be of assistance to anyone that has lost a loved one.

Also, we need to cry. Crying is so important. When I hear people that have loss a loved tell me that they can’t cry, I feel someway that this is shutting the door on grief. Of course there are reasons sometimes why people can’t cry. We do know that crying is cleansing and healthy for us.

As we know there are stages that we go through when we grieve. The first one is shock or disbelief that we have loss someone and this is usually even stronger when it is a younger person that we’ve lost and it has been sudden. We are told that this period will usually last for about 3 weeks. This is the natural way that we deal with death. Our brain has a built in mechanism to protect us from going crazy. This is why we refuse to believe that this person has left us. We need time to accept this.

The second stage is reality. We wake up and realize that we will never see this person again on this earth. Here we experience a terrible lonely, blue, sad feeling. This usually occurs after the funeral. This stage can take more time.

The third stage is the reaction one. You start displaying anger. Anger is the natural feeling you have to any hurt. Some people in this stage may feel you are getting worse but actually you are getting better. Ministers and doctors many times get the brunt of this anger. Why couldn’t the doctor do something to save this person? We feel many times the minister should have been able to intervene directly with God.

The fourth and final stage is the recovery stage. People do get better and they do recover. It is not that we get over missing this loved one. We just learn to cope with the loss of that person and live in the world without them. It’s is not that we get to the point where we do not miss them and think about them. We accept the fact that they are not with us any more and realize that we are still alive and we will live in this world without them.

 It is possible to get hung up in any one stage and sometimes it might take professional help to move through them.It helps tremendously, I believe if we have a strong spiritual side. Then we can have the assurance that we will see this person again one day when we die.

 Death is hard to handle but we need to remember that we will get through the depression and yes it will be hard, but God will take us through it.


There is a lot of information on this topic out there. For anyone reading this today that needs help in this area, find someone to talk to. If you have a good friend, minister, therapist, or another person seek them out and ask if you can borrow their ears.

And for the person that is sought out, remember this. Many times all this person needs is to be heard. They need someone with compassion to let them talk. For those that say I don't know what to say to that person that has loss a loved one. Just say I love you, I care, or I am so sorry. Nothing else needs to be said. 

There is much more to this topic than what is seen in this article.  The intention of this pen is to be an introduction to exploring grief.