I deal with people’s grief pretty well every day, whether that is the death of a loved one, a relationship ending or perhaps losing a job – they are all different forms of grief and everyone handles things differently.  There is no right way to deal with grief, the main thing is that you do deal with it and work through all the stages.  If you’ve lost a loved one, you won’t ever truly ‘get over it’, what you will do though is learn to live with it, the pain eases so you can get on with life, but that doesn’t mean you don’t miss the person that has gone.  For those dealing with this kind of grief, do know that they are OK in the spirit world, you don’t have to worry about that, you just need to focus on what you have to do to get through each day when the pain is so raw you just don’t think that you can.  For those that are friends with someone that has lost a loved one – don’t tell them to ‘get over it’ or ‘pick up the pieces’ that really doesn’t help.  Be there for them and let them talk about their loved one, share memories with them that is a key in grieving, being able to talk about it, it helps them come to terms with their loss and don’t make them hurry the process, they need to do it in their own time.

Grief is an emotion because what you thought was going to be is no longer, you don’t always just grieve for the person, you often grieve for what was or what you missed.  I had a neighbour that lost her son to SIDS and she told me that she grieved for the life and experiences that they would never have, whereas when we’ve lost someone who has been with us for a long time, we miss what we had.  Grieving is natural and needed, but what some people do is get stuck in one of the stages of grief and then just don’t move on nor do they want to, this is when it becomes unhealthy and they do need to seek professional help.

Remember that crying is good for the soul, don’t hold it in, let it out, holding the emotion in isn’t healthy, you don’t need to be brave, let those around you know that you’re human and you’ll find that you heal so much quicker because of it.

Death is a part of life, that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to deal with, but if we looked at death as a release and the beginning of a new chapter and not as an ending, I do wonder how different our world would be.