Death, it is said, is no respector of persons or positions and that is certainly true.  No one knows when Death will appear.  The Buddhists say that you should greet Death every day so that when he comes, he will come as a friend and not as an enemy.  While a sudden, peaceful death is a blessing for the person who died, it is extremely difficult for the survivors.

How do you deal with the loss?  How do you go on?  When does the pain go away?  When do you stop crying?  Are you going crazy?  These are some of the questions I am asked, as a grief counselor.  I'm not going to give you a lot of theory.  I'm going to share with you some of the ways I have learned to cope with the losses I have had in my own life and what I have learned from my grief clients.  Grief is like an ocean; the waves hit you when you least expect them.

First, you have to deal with the loss.  You have no choice if you want to continue as a healthy (and that includes mental health) person.  At first, you operate on adrenelin and in shock, as your body and mind work to help you accept the fact of the loss and to protect you from the overwhelming pain.  You go through the traditional  trappings of the funeral, burial or cremation.  Dealing with the many details can allow you to focus somewhat on something other than your loss.  Planning the service is a way of expressing your grief in a concrete way; a way of honoring the person who is no longer with you.  Traditional services also allow the community, family and friends to reach out to the bereaved and to share the sense of loss.  It allows the family and friends a last time to publicly acknowledge that the human community has lost a valued member.

The hard work begins after the services and after everyone, or almost everyone, as departed.  As others go back to their own lives, the immediate family can feel isolated, abandoned and terribly alone.  Each member of the family is dealing with the loss in their own individual way and they are in pain.  While they may try to comfort each other, it is very difficult because they are each hurting and don't have extra compassion or empathy to give to another.  The only thing that sustains them is the shared love they have for each other and for the one who is no longer among them.

At this point, many people have difficulty because for them the world has stopped (temporarily) and for everyone else, it is business as usual.  While many folks struggle on alone, a grief counselor can help.  I always tell the people who come to me that I don't have any magic wand and I can't take their pain away; but I will walk their journey with them.

Accepting and moving toward the pain is the only way to work through grief.  If grief is ignored or buried, it will only resurface at a later date.  There is significant statistical data that shows a strong correlation between loss of a meaningful person in one's life and serious illness.  Again, that is only a statistic.  

I urge my clients to cry.  The crying will stop when you run out of tears, even if you think you never will.  Crying is very healing and relieves stress.  At some point, crying will become less frequent and taper off.  Our society is kinder to our women than to our men.  Women have more permission to show their emotions while men are supposed to be the strong ones.  It is changing but slowly.  The bottom line is that we are human beings first and as such our emotions need to be expressed.  Repressing our emotins can lead to poor health in the future, as I already mentioned.

I have been asked many times by grief clients, "Am I going crazy?" and the answer is "NO".  Much of what a grief counselor does is to normalize the feelings and thoughts that a person in the throes of grief is experiencing.  Another question is "How long will it take?" and the answer is "As long as it takes".  Grief is unique and individual to each person.  The relationship to the deceased is key and the main determinent for the experience of the grief process.

The grief process has difinite steps but they are not linear in nature.  Just like the various stages of death and dying, people bounce all around as they experience a deep sense of loss one day and then feel guilt the next because they laughed at something.  Many feel that laughing again somehow means that they have forgotten the person or are being disrespectful.  In reality, that is a good sign.  It shows that the griever is going on with life.  Remember, the deceased loved you and would want you to laugh again.  They know they are not forgotten.

The first part of grief is coming to terms with the loss and accepting it as fact.  The funeral service, wake and ceremony, help us make the death real, even when we go through it in a daze.  The reality sets in when we return home and face the empty presence or when we reach for the phone to tell our friend something and realize he or she is no longer able to accept the call.

The next phase is the actual working through the emotional and physical pain.  Yes, grief can manifest as an actual physical pain.  While doctors may suggest medication as a way of dealing with grief, that is only going to delay the inevitable.  In some cases, medication may help, but in most cases, it is better to get on in dealing with the grief.  Grief is hard work; it is tiring.  Just as you would give a physical wound time to heal and proper treatment, it is just as important to tend to this immense emotional wound.  During the grief proces it is okay to be selfish and to take care of yourself.  In fact, it is vital.

As you move through the grief process, you start to adjust to the absence of the loved one.  It doesn't mean that he or she is forgotten, it just means that you have to go forward.  As you make changes in your life to include new roles for yourself, you also change.  You may be challenged to learn new skills, take on different responsibilities and to change the rhythm of your life.  Life goals may now be unattainable or postponed.

One of the characteristics of grief is that it is like an ocean wave.  You go along and think you doing pretty good and then you find yourself bursting into tears.  It is like walking on the beach and having a huge wave come up and knock you over.  It will continue to take you by surprise at times, even years after the loss.

I often tell people, it is like taking a peach and cutting it in half and taking out the stone.  If you then put the two halves together, they may fit, but there is still a hollow in the center and there is nothing you can do about it.  Over time, the hole gets smaller but it will always be there.  One of my clients once told me that losing his wife was "like two plants growing in the same pot, then suddenly they are taken out of the pot and ripped apart." Grief is not something you get over.  It transforms your life like few other events.  

As you adjust and go forward with your life, you develop a new sense of self.  You look at the world differently.  Grief can have a dramatic impact of your view of the world.  You also come away with a sense of being a survivor -- a survivor of a pain so deep you could not even have imagined it.  One idea that seems to help is to think of how you would feel if you did not miss the person or did not care that they were gone.  Wouldn't that be worse than what you are going through?  For spouses, it sometimes helps to think in terms of what your spouse will not have to go through in the grief process.  It can give additional meaning to your grief.  I also encourage my "survivors" to try and think of the deceased having completed their life, accomplished what was important to them and are moving on to the next chapter.  Somehow, if they can see that important milestones have been met and think in terms of life completion, it seems to give meaning to the loss and promote closure and healing.

As you move through the process, you will find yourself withdrawing your attention from the loss and pain and focusing more on the joy and happiness associated with your many memories of the deceased.  You find a special place for them in your heart -- and your heart now expands to include others.  If the person was significant in your life, he or she is never forgotten and you become a better person for having them in your life.

My personal belief is that our loved ones stay near and hear us when we talk to them.  They many times appear to us in dreams.  They don't leave us totally, just the physical presence is missing and that is what we have to adapt to.  Remember, death ends a life -- it does not end a relationship.

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