The death or anticipated death of someone important to you can cause great grief and sadness, whatever the cause of death.
Change and loss are an inevitable part of our lives and they are often hard to face, whatever our age and stage. Grief is the way we gradually come to terms with what has happened and adjust our lives, our thoughts, and our feelings around it. Everyone's grief journey is as unique as their fingerprint.
Coming to terms with the loss will take time, it might take time for the reality to hit home.
We all need to know that grieving for difficult losses and changes is valid and completely acceptable – whoever we are. As one person put it, even though it hurts, it helps to grieve.
A useful way to think about the grief process is using the acronym TEAR. Grief helps us...
T= To face and accept the reality of the change and loss,
E= Experience and work through the emotional hurt this brings,
A= Adjust to life being different, without things being as we wanted them to be,
R= Reinvest in the new situation and find ways to live well in it.
Adjusting doesn’t mean we’ve finished grieving and that’s that. While we might accept our situation and move forward to build positive, good lives, our loss may still bring us sadness at times. This is normal.
Your grief process is about assisting you to adjust to all the changes in your life, by helping you come to terms with it physically, mentally, spiritually, socially, and of course emotionally. Gradually, bit by bit, you can build your life out around your loss, in healthy and positive ways. And what you have learned can help you as you move ahead, and may even help others facing loss, that you meet along the way.