Finding Support

During the initial mourning period it is important to recognize that:

• each person has the right to grieve in their own way and their own time

• most people return to daily routines after 2 to 4 months, but healing often takes longer

• help to deal with grief is available if wanted

• persistent, debilitating grief may require professional help.

The initial shock has worn off. Urgent matters have been settled. This time can be especially difficult. Friends and family have gone back to their lives, but the bereaved person sees only emotional turmoil ahead. This is when it is especially important, says grief counsellor Cheryl McQueen, to find ways to ventilate, validate, vocalize, and normalize your grief. The one thing not to do is minimize your grief.⁴

For some, help to vocalize, validate and normalize grief comes from a support group. This has two main benefits. First, group members help newcomers see their feelings as a valid and normal response to loss - they're not unusual or crazy! Second, ventilating and vocalizing - talking openly about sadness, anger and other feelings - is the first stage in reaching an understanding of the loss and how it's affecting you. A support group is a confidential, friendly setting for talking with others who've had similar losses, finding emotional support, and sharing ideas about working through grief and coping with life.

Local seniors' centres or councils will likely have the names of bereavement support groups. Or talk to your family doctor, spiritual adviser, or mental health professional.

If you have trouble opening up to strangers, a support group may not be for you. Or perhaps you feel that attending a support group is a sign of weakness or inability to cope on your own. In this case, a trusted friend or spiritual adviser may be able to provide compassionate listening. Professional counselling or therapy might be helpful. Or personal work in the form of reading and writing about grief, contemplation, meditation or physical activity may help resolve grief.

And make no mistake -- whether done in a group or in a more private way, grieving is hard work, demanding physical, emotional and spiritual energy. But one way or another, grief must be resolved, for unresolved grief erodes our mental and physical health and eventually our capacity to function as independent human beings.

4. Bereavement Services. Support and Education (www.bereavement.net) reading lists and support resources; series of four booklets by Cheryl McQueen, grief counsellor, to help people work through the first year of bereavement.

A special thank you to the people of:

Division of Aging and Seniors,
Health Canada
Address locator: 1908A1 Ottawa, ON K1A 1B4
Tel.: 613-952-7606 Fax : 613-957-7627
E-mail: seniors@hc-sc.gc.ca

for permission to reprint this article on www.thefuneraldirectory.com.