Coping with your grief / Helping a friend in their grief:
Every person’s grief is unique and their response to death can be different.
Immediately following the death of a loved one, you can experience a bewildering range of emotions such as disbelief, distress, shock, loss of self-esteem and confidence, relief, guilt, laughter, anguish and anger. Physical symptoms of grief such as sleeplessness, loss of appetite, numbness, disorientation, nausea or chest pain may also occur.
Bereavement is something that needs to be experienced and gradually reconciled over time. Nobody should move away from grief before they are ready. The months following the death can be a difficult and emotional time.
Even though the feelings of disbelief may have faded and support from family and friends has become less apparent, your sense of loss, loneliness and grief can still be quite profound.
This is all part of the grief process through which you will work.
Although supportive friends and family members help many people, others turn to individuals, groups or agencies offering counselling or special support. As part of our dedication to caring for our client families we, at Doveton Park, can put you in touch with the people most suited to understanding your personal support needs.
We have put together a Guide for the Bereaved for further reading.
The value of a funeral:
The holding of a funeral today is probably more important than ever before.
Although death will inevitably come to us all, in today's world it is a subject rarely discussed and consequently not well understood. This makes it difficult for us to cope when it occurs.
Our modern society has trivialised or removed death from our everyday lives and made the experience of dying more and more alien to us. We do not know what to expect, how to deal with our fears, feelings and hesitancies, or bring comfort to either the dying of the bereaved.
Funerals are a way of expressing our beliefs, thoughts and feelings about the death of someone we love.
It is a way in which we can say goodbye and commemorate their life in a meaningful ceremony.
Funerals Also:
- Help us acknowledge that someone we love has died
- Help us remember the person who has died and to share these memories
- Affirms the value of our relationship with the deceased
- Provide a support system for the family and friends
- Allows us to search for a meaning of life and death
- Offer hope for the living
The funeral can be the single most important external avenue through which people can give expression to their grief and hopefully take that vital next step to emotional and psychological recovery.