Grief

Grief affects people in different ways. With some people you will clearly see the pain. Where as others may seem okay on the surface but underneath are in terrible distress. It doesn’t mean they are hurting any less if it doesn’t show. It is just how they are dealing with it, it maybe they are a very private person. Some people cannot grieve in public.

It depends on who has died, their age and how close a relationship to how it will affect someone. For a parent who has lost their child, young person who had lost their sibling it is completely different to losing a grandparent.

Unfortunately, for all of us death is inevitable. For most people this is thought of as something that happens when they are old. Sadly, this is not always the case. Loosing someone of any age is very upsetting, it is the end of an era, a chapter, the reality sinks in that we are all getting older. The generation that were once the youngest, the children generally move up to be the parents and then the Grandparents and oldest generation.

When a young person dies it is the wrong order of life. They had not lived their life. They still had all their life ahead of them.

There is said to be five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Although how each person grieves is individual, unique, no two people will be the same.

It is not something that you can understand unless you have been through it.

People say that time heals or makes things easier but it doesn’t, somehow you just learn to carrying on each day, missing the person dearly and manage to ‘cope’.

There will be days when you manage better, you can remember them with fond memories and days when you can’t manage at all, even mentioning their name is impossible to do without your eyes welling up.

Friends and relatives can be good in the beginning, however as time goes on and people continue to live their busy lives they forgot how much your loss still affects you. It is not normally deliberate but it is not helped by the fast pace of life of today.

Sometimes people don’t know what to say, or how to bring the person up. They don’t want to upset you, so they don’t mention them at all.

I always appreciate people mentioning my loved one, bringing up memories or talking about them, it is comforting and it keeps their memory alive.

Birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries are the hardest times. They are times when their missing presence is highlighted more, as they should and would be there whatever stage in their life they are at.

Hannah x

You may also be interested in reading Sibling Grief