What is grief?
Grief is the entire range of naturally occurring emotions of humans that accompany loss. Grief is the natural and normal response and/or reaction to loss. How many times have you heard someone tell their child, “its alright, don’t cry”? Or “go to your room” if you are going to cry” and the most common “oh don’t be such a cry baby”.
Even though death is inevitable, there often isn’t the space and time to discuss openly about what it evokes. As a society let us consciously begin to change those beliefs and thoughts about the importance of tears and grieving!
What I learned about grief working in Palliative Care
In my first few years of working in Palliative Care I did not know the importance of doing specific grief work that began to accumulate from the various losses of clients.
Until my father died.
I took some time to fly back to Saskatchewan from Nova Scotia, where I was living at the time. As a family we were very involved with his care before and after death which I will speak to later. Within a couple of weeks after my father’s memorial service, I was back working with the dying.
Perhaps a month had gone by and I was with a friend talking about something to do with my work, and he said so directly “Rayne, maybe you should take a break”. And he was right, I wasn’t taking time out to mourn my father’s death. I went for a couple of therapy sessions as well, which helped some. And now after a few losses of loved ones I see the importance of receiving ‘grief’ support. Support that revolves around loss.
Grief and grieving resources
Edmonton and area is very fortunate to have a list of valuable grief supporters available.
In addition, here are some videos you may find helpful
Forgiveness practices (audio)
Watching the breath
Here’s a simple one minute video on meditation to help you get through the day.
