Understanding Bereavement - New Apostolic Church HQ/Trainin… · widely-recognized resource for people after a significant loss. This book offers readers, whether grieving people

Understanding Bereavement

A practical approach to

understanding grief, loss and change

in our modern world.

By

Dr. Bill Webster

Table Of Contents

Foreword 7

Introduction: Understanding Grief 11

Chapter 1: Social Perspectives on Grief and Loss 23

1. Families have changed .......................................................................... 24

2. Communities have changed ................................................................... 25

3. Religious and Spiritual Values have changed ............................................ 26

4. Medical technology has changed ............................................................. 27

5. The media has changed ......................................................................... 29

Chapter 2: Understanding the Grief Process 39

a. Grief is an Unwelcome Experience .......................................................... 41

b. Grief is a Natural Human Experience ........................................................ 42

c. Grief is a Uniquely Personal Experience ................................................... 43

d. Grief is an Emotional Experience ............................................................ 45

e. Grief is a Painful Experience ................................................................... 46

f. Grief is a Manageable Experience ........................................................... 47

Chapter 3: Understanding Primary and Secondary Loss 51

a. Relational Loss ..................................................................................... 51

b. Material loss ........................................................................................ 51

c. Functional Loss .................................................................................... 52

d. Role Loss ............................................................................................ 52

e. Systemic Loss ...................................................................................... 52

f. Symbolic Loss ...................................................................................... 52

Chapter 4: Understanding the Journey Through Grief 57

1. Avoidance ........................................................................................... 60

2. Confrontation ....................................................................................... 61

3. Reorganisation ..................................................................................... 63

Chapter 5: Effective Strategies of Grief Support 65

a. Education ............................................................................................ 65

b. Empathy ............................................................................................. 66

c. Support .............................................................................................. 68

Dr Bill Webster 3

Chapter 6: How to Communicate with Grieving People 75

1. Get Involved ........................................................................................ 76

2. Provide Support in Coping with the Loss .................................................. 80

3. Encourage their Unique Grief Process ...................................................... 87

4. Assist in the Adjustment to “Life as it Now Is” .......................................... 92

5. Applaud their Reinvestment in Life and Living ........................................... 95

Chapter 7: Helping Children Cope with Grief 103

Chapter 8: Understanding Complicated Mourning 113

1. Recognizing Complicated Mourning ....................................................... 114

2. Factors in Potentially Complicated Mourning ........................................... 117

Chapter 9: Understanding the Unique Distinctives of Specific Grief Situations 121

1. Anticipatory Grief ............................................................................... 121

a. Losses in the past........................................................................... 125

b. Losses in the present. ..................................................................... 126

c. Losses in the future. ....................................................................... 126

2. Sudden, Unanticipated Loss ................................................................. 131

3. Traumatic Loss (PTSD) ......................................................................... 137

4. Violent Death ..................................................................................... 141

a. Homicide ....................................................................................... 141

b. Suicide ......................................................................................... 147

Conclusion 161

And Finally... An Allegory about Grief, entitled: “Good Grief, This isn’t Kansas” 163

4 Understanding Bereavement

Understanding

Bereavement

Foreword

Dr. Bill Webster has been helping grieving people to understand

bereavement for many years. His interest in the field came out of his own

personal experience of loss. In 1983, his young wife died suddenly and

unexpectedly, and Bill struggled to come to terms with his feelings of grief,

as well as coping with looking after two young sons, then only nine and

seven. At first, he seemed to be doing well, and many commended him that

he appeared “so strong” at the time of the death. But that apparent strength

was in fact numbness, and three months after his wife’s death, when the

shock of her sudden death wore off, Bill felt like he was falling apart.

“That was probably the worst time of my whole life,” writes Dr. Webster.

“Three months after Carolyn died, I felt a thousand times worse than I had

at the actual moment. And the worst thing was that people’s expectation

seemed to be, by now, after three whole months, I should be “getting over

it.” What was wrong with me? Was I losing my mind? Was I going crazy?

Why couldn’t I ‘pull myself together?’

Dr Bill Webster 7

“Nobody told me that this was grief. Nobody put me in the picture as to

what to expect, so the entire process caught me completely by surprise.

What I would have given for someone to say that while it was possibly the

most difficult time of my life, grief is a natural human experience, and

reassure me that I was normal.”

Bill’s experience is not unique. In fact, it may be very much more common

than we realize. While loss is a universal experience woven into the fabric

of our society, it is a thread that is rarely acknowledged or validated. It is

really something we would rather not think about or confront. People are of

course sympathetic, and they mean well. But often, shortly after the death,

they expect the person to “get over it” or to “pull themselves together.” After

all, people surmise, “It’s been three months; you ought to be over it by

now.”

These expectations are understandable, however unrealistic they may be in

actuality. While we are sympathetic about the person’s loss, it is not long

before OUR world returns to normal. We are affected but not changed.

However, for the person who has experienced the bereavement, it is not the

same. Their world has been transformed by this loss. Our well-intentioned

but often misguided clichés are really expressing the desire to have the “old

person” back. “Pull yourself together” or “You have to be strong” and other

expressions are what I call “FIX IT” statements. They are really saying, “We

want you back to the way you were … we want the old Jim or Sally back; for

life to go back to normal and things to be the way they were.” Because we

all find a lot of security and comfort in that.

But sadly, for the bereaved person, their life will never be the same. That

doesn’t mean it can’t be good or meaningful but it is different and will

require finding a new definition of normality.

So, the key to understanding bereavement is not by analyzing the situation

or by trying to “fix” people’s emotions, reactions or behaviours; it is rather


in realizing that the bereaved person’s world has been changed

forever by the loss, and by acknowledging that all their unique reactions

are a distinctive, individual response to the fact that their world has been

turned upside down … and that they don’t like it.

It was out of a desire to bring some comfort, direction and hope to grieving

people in similar circumstances that Bill, having worked through many of

the issues that ordeal raised in his own life, began to offer grief support

programs in his community. As part of his reinvestment, Bill added two

additional academic degrees to his resumé, including his doctorate in 1990,

and has developed his grief support program to be a highly-effective and

widely-recognized resource for people after a significant loss.

This book offers readers, whether grieving people themselves or the family

and friends of those who have experienced a significant loss, an

understanding of what happens after bereavement. It also provides

resources and knowledge for professionals who work daily with clients,

employees and grieving people in businesses such as banks, law offices,

insurance companies, schools, funeral homes and many other areas of

society, and who wonder what they can do to be of help and support.

All of us will eventually experience grief or know someone who is going

through the process. Many times, you, as a friend, family member, colleague

or employer will wonder what you can do to help in the situation, particularly

where the symptoms seem uncharacteristic of the person.

It is Bill’s hope that this book will offer an essential body of knowledge to

enable the reader first to understand the process, and with that

understanding to be able to offer effective strategies of support.

Dr Bill Webster 9

Understanding

Bereavement

Introduction: Understanding Grief

Loss is a universal experience. From the moment of birth through each step

along life’s journey, we experience the concrete losses of people, places and

objects we have come to love and appreciate. Equally significant, albeit more

symbolic, we experience loss as we surrender our youth, our hopes and

dreams, the ideals or expectations of the way we hope life will be, and as

we confront its often harsh realities. Every significant loss involves change,

and when it occurs, we grieve what has been lost.

How are we to understand bereavement? Over the years, there have been

numerous attempts to explain the phenomena. Perhaps the most influential

and well-known theory has been that of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who in her

1969 book “On Death and Dying” focused on an emotional transition through

five stages, beginning with denial and progressing through anger, bargaining

and depression before arriving at acceptance. The “stage theory,” as it came

to be known, quickly created a paradigm for how people die in our western

culture, and eventually a prototype of how we should grieve. Even today, in

many quarters, Kübler-Ross’s premises are still taken as the definitive account

Dr Bill Webster 11

of how people will grieve and “the stages” we will be moving through.

Admittedly, such step-by-step models are appealing for their organization

and clarity, and have long held a widespread fascination among both

professionals and laypeople striving to understand the complexities of loss.

But while Dr. Kübler-Ross made an invaluable contribution to the field of

thanatology, which deserves to be acknowledged, such simple

straightforward theories are not without a number of difficulties.

Perhaps the appeal of such stage theories of grief was that they made loss

sound so controllable. The trouble is that it turns out largely to be fiction.

Though Kübler-Ross captured the range of emotions that mourners

experience, more recent research suggests that grief and mourning rarely

if ever follow a checklist; they are complicated, untidy and unpredictable,

more of a process than a progression, and one that sometimes never fully

ends.

Even Dr. Kübler-Ross herself, towards the end of her life, recognized how

far astray our understanding of grief had gone. In her book “On Grief and

Grieving” (1995) she insisted that the stages were “never meant to help

tuck messy emotions into neat packages.” If her injunction went unheeded,

perhaps it is because that very messiness of grief is what makes us all so

uncomfortable.

The implied suggestion of many traditional grief models seems to be that

the person suffering a loss simply has to go through the inevitable process,

wait it out, “see it through,” on the assumption that “time heals all wounds,”

and that eventually “in time,” they will “get over it.” This would seem to

suggest that in the emotional aftermath of a loss, bereaved individuals are

essentially passive, having to simply submit to suffering through a series of

stages or a certain structured grief system over a defined period of time and

incidentally over which they have little or no control and in which there is

not much choice.


But this is not what people actually experience after bereavement. We

cannot understand the grief process ONLY by some “timeline” system or “set

formula” whereby a person goes passively through certain emotions, stages,

phases or reactions in order to somehow eventually arrive at this destination

we erroneously call acceptance.

So, consider this foundational fact:

Foundational FactWe cannot understand bereavement and every individualresponse to it unless we appreciate how each bereavedperson’s world has been forever changed by the loss.

I am suggesting a different paradigm, another way of thinking about our topic.

The main focus should not primarily be (as it so often is) on a person’s

emotional reactions, or on their behaviours or manifestations of grief, and

more specifically how we can “control” these in order to get things “back to

normal.” Those who focus on these considerations are trying to “fix” a situation

that simply cannot be fixed; trying to get “back to normal” something that has

changed forever.

Losing someone we love is often likened to an amputation. But even this

analogy tends to be too clinical. The word bereavement comes from the root

word “reave” that literally means being torn apart. Losing a loved one has

been described as being like a branch that is torn off a limb, not in some nice

sanitized surgical way, but literally being ripped away. The emotional and

behavioural reactions of the grieving person should be seen as symptoms of

this unwelcome change.

Dr Bill Webster 13

Foundational FactWe serve people better if we focus on the

significance of this bereavement to the individual rather than on the substance of their specific reaction

to the bereavement.

Rather than concentrating on the reactions of grieving people and then

quantifying their responses, we need to ask the “why” of these reactions.

We must understand the meaning of the loss to this individual, which I

suggest is being “expressed” through their specific emotions and uniquely

individual behaviours.

In other words, the emotions and reactions of grief should be seen

symptomatically as behaviours in response to and in protest of the need to

search for meaning in what has become a new and unwelcome world. This

is the crucial point in understanding bereavement, one which many people

do not recognize, understand or perceive. The task is to help the bereaved

and grieving person locate themselves in a world that they know nothing

about, and that they, and indeed WE, cannot fully understand.

Put simply, instead of trying to get people back to normal by seeking to

resolve and rectify their emotions and behaviours, we should rather regard

these reactions as a symptom of the much deeper issue, namely, “My world

has changed … and I don’t like it.” Grief is a protest against something I

didn’t want, don’t like, but can’t change. And the challenge for the helper is

in enabling them to come to terms with this new albeit unwelcome reality

by beginning to form appropriate new patterns of emotion and behaviour.

We would probably all agree that, in one way, bereavement is a “choiceless

event.” Few if any would choose to lose those they love, or suffer through


the other life losses that inevitably affect us. Even when the death is “by

choice” such as a suicide, the incident is usually “choiceless” for survivors

who wish they could have “done something” to change the outcome and feel

guilt and regret because that option was not made available to them. Thus,

bereavement is an unwelcome intruder in our lives, one which refuses to

retreat despite our impassioned protests.

But, from another perspective, while the loss may be a reality we are

powerless to avert, the experience of grieving itself involves hundreds of

concrete choices that the bereaved person is invited or forced to make, or

indeed avoid. It is in another way a call for us to change. To go with it, or to

resist the process. We have a choice of whether to attend to the distress

occasioned by the loss or to avoid the pain by “keeping busy” or “trying not

to think about it,” which is an impossible task, by the way. We have a choice

as to whether to feel and explore the grief of our loved one’s absence or to

suppress our private pain and focus instead on simply trying to adjust to a

changed external reality. Loss may be inevitable, but what we DO about it

is optional. We may not have a choice in what has happened, but we do

have a choice in what we do about it.

Foundational FactGrieving is something we do,

not something that is done to us.

We need to gain a better understanding of not only “what” people experience

after a loss, but also “why” grief affects people so uniquely and individually.

We have come to realize that people do not passively and inevitably go

through a series of stages or tasks. Rather the grief process involves many

choices, with numerous possible options to approach or avoid the situation

at hand.

Dr Bill Webster 15

Several well-established principles seem to validate this conclusion:

1. The meaning of a death or any loss is personal and unique to specific

individuals, based on the relationship that has been lost as a result of

the bereavement.

2. People should be encouraged to be active in facing life challenges

rather than simply being passive reactors to them; in other words,

they should be proactive rather than reactive. “Who we are” must not

simply be defined by our experiences, but rather by our reaction and

responses to them.

3. Any realistic theory of mourning should suggest and include an

explanation of the personal meanings and reactions of loss, of how

this has affected or changed “ME,” without subtly suggesting or even

dictating what should constitute “normal” grieving within some artificial

time-frame or arbitrary list of common emotions or behaviours.

4. Any model of the grief process should integrate how a person’s world

is forever transformed by their loss, rather than suggesting a return

to some pre-existing, established behavioural or emotional state

following their “recovery” from the loss.

In other words, any good paradigm of grief will not simply propose some futile

attempt to re-establish pre-loss patterns of emotion or behaviour. Life has

changed and will never be the same again! But that does not mean it cannot

be good. The challenge is how we can support the person in integrating these

changes into their life as it now is.

Perhaps we can illustrate it this way. We all write a script for our lives. I

remember writing the screenplay for my life when I was a teenager. As the

main character in the production, my draft scenario included going to school

and university, having a career, meeting and marrying the most beautiful


woman in the world. As the plot progressed, we would work hard, have

children, do things as a family and when the kids were grown we would

travel, then retire, and ride off into the sunset together. Think about YOUR

script … most of us have one.

Every human being constructs a unique world of meaning. We all make

assumptions about “how life is going to be” in the course of daily living. We

are sustained by the network of explanations, expectations and enactments

that shape our lives with ourselves and others. These assumptions provide

us with a basic sense of order regarding our past, awareness regarding our

current relationships and predictability regarding our future.

And most of us, at the end of the script, whatever the final details, add the

words … “and they lived happily ever after.” Because that is what most

of us would like to think is going to happen. While the particulars may

change from time to time, we all want to think that life will be orderly,

predictable, and go “according to the script.”

But sometimes life does not go according to the script. Not everything works

out the way we planned. And then we find ourselves struggling to come to

terms with “the grief of unmet expectations.” Any loss can be interpreted as

disrupting the continuity of this assumed narrative. When this occurs, we

have one of two choices: either we revise the plot by rewriting the script

and assimilating the loss into pre-existing frameworks of meaning, ultimately

reasserting or justifying the viability of our pre-existing belief system; or we

accommodate our life narrative to correspond more closely to what we

perceive as a changed reality in the violation of our assumptive world.

To illustrate: some experiences of loss fit our assumptions of the world and

our expectations of how it should be. One example might be the “good”

death of an elderly relative after a life well lived; another might be the heroic

death of a warrior who martyrs himself for a cause we passionately support.

While these situations are undoubtedly difficult for those who experience

Dr Bill Webster 17

them, we can at least frame them in a context of meaning.

But other experiences invalidate our suppositions about life, God or the

world, and may stand as an “exceptional experience” for which we have no

interpretation. Several examples come to mind: the suicide or murder of a

loved one; the chronic suffering and death of a young spouse; or the tragic

death of a child due to the criminal behaviour of a drunk driver. We may find

ourselves struggling to find any meaning in situations that do not seem fair

or make sense … circumstances that bring an unexpected and unwelcome

twist in the plot.

When an event shakes our world and our sense of self, our natural response

is to try to interpret the event in ways consistent with traditional theories

and identities. We all like to think that “life is meaningful” and we often

struggle to put death and other events into a context of meaning. Think

about it! Many of the clichés people use are rooted in an attempt, however

futile or unsatisfying, to bring some sense of meaning or explanation to an

event that simply may not make any sense.

When these attempts fail and our most basic sense of “self” is assaulted,

we lose our grip on all that was familiar and are forced to re-establish a new

identity that will allow us to accommodate or integrate this new experience

in order to preserve our sense of security in the world as it now is.

It is vitally important to realize that “who we are” is determined not just by

genetic makeup, but also by our experiences and how we allow them to

affect us. In this statement we find an important key for life and living. We

do not have a choice in how we are born and our genetic or cultural

influence. We may have a choice over some difficult events and negative

experiences that affect us. Stuff happens! But while we may not have a

choice over certain circumstances, we do have a choice about how we are

going to allow them to affect us. The key is in enabling people to make good

choices about what they are going to “do” about what has happened.


So, we need to place the loss in a context of meaning. We can do this in one

of two ways. First we can reaffirm what we formerly believed about life;

or secondly, we can establish a new belief system about the meaning of

life. In other words, does this experience make sense according to what I

believed about life before or do I have to adapt my way of interpreting how

life can be meaningful. The challenge is to find ways to integrate the

experience into life as it now is, and to adopt new assumptions about our

world which has been shaken and even violated by the loss.

Foundational FactSometimes the challenge of loss is that we have to rewrite the script in order to make sense of what has happened in life.

The implication of this idea for caregivers, families and those seeking to

support grieving people is that we need to recognize the unique and personal

meanings of loss which will take us beyond clichéd expressions of support

or preconceived ideas of what a particular loss “feels like” to any given

griever. The particularity of any loss should prompt us to listen intently for

clues as to the unique significance of the bereavement experience for each

individual.

Grief counsellors need to appreciate more deeply the extent to which losses

can occasion profound shifts in the person’s sense of “who they are.” Perhaps

the question is better expressed: “Who am I now in the light of my loss?

How has my world, my assumptions about life and my own identity been

changed by it?” Grieving entails not only a process of relearning a world

disrupted by loss, but a relearning of the “self” in that world.

Thus I contend that helping people through the grief of bereavement is not

simply a matter of understanding the emotions that they may be expressing.

Rather it involves supporting them through a reinterpretation of “how life

Dr Bill Webster 19

can be meaningful even in the light of loss,” and empowering them to define

life as it now is and to find ways to make the most of what they have left.

This book is being written to give you … the friend, colleague, employer,

business person whose client is grieving, or one family member concerned

about another … some practical and workable resources to enable you to

find creative ways of supporting the grieving person.

I hope these ideas about grief theory will not leave you thinking that, “I am

not a counsellor so I cannot offer significant help in this situation.” I believe

in our modern society that we have abdicated the traditional supportive roles

and responsibilities of family, friend and community to “the professionals.”

I have come to the unshakeable conviction that we need to reclaim the idea

of “community support” for people struggling with the issues of

bereavement.

While not minimizing the important contribution of counselling and

counsellors (I am one, after all!); and while acknowledging that certain more

complicated or traumatic situations often necessitate intervention by

qualified, trained professionals; nonetheless, many if not most people

suffering bereavement are well served by the informed support and

encouragement of friends, family and colleagues.

What follows will be a basic and practical understanding of the issues and

challenges around bereavement with some very useful strategies as to how

you can support the people around you who are experiencing a significant

loss. Thank you for reading it; but even more, bless you for caring about

someone in your circle who may be struggling with grief over a significant

loss, which is, after all, one of the most difficult experiences of life.


Practical Suggestions

1. Dr. Bill suggests that “We cannot understand bereavement… unless we appreciate how each bereaved person’s worldhas been forever changed by the loss.” What do you thinkthe world looks like to the person now? How can youdiscover how their world looks different?

2. What was their “script” and how has it changed?

These questions give you the opportunity to begin to listento their story. Think about what you can ask to encouragethem to talk. Remember, “that which cannot be put intowords, cannot be put to rest.” But perhaps consider askingthe person about “the life” before talking about “thedeath.” It may be easier for them.

Dr Bill Webster 21

PS.

Social Perspectives

on Grief and Loss 1Understanding the Culture

in which Loss and Grief Occurs.

Death and dying, grief and loss, have been a part of the human experience

from the beginning of time. Yet our modern society is one in which death is

not often acknowledged as part of the business of living. Some have

described this as a “death-denying culture.” We all know that one of the

certain things in life, along with taxes, is death. Yet while we know this

intellectually, somehow we seem to have decided not to acknowledge or talk

about it in the normal course of events. As Margaret Mead succinctly puts it:

Foundational Fact“When someone is born, we rejoice.

When someone is married, we celebrate.But when someone dies, we pretend

that nothing has happened.”

Just a few generations ago, the situation was different. Death was very much

a part of life. Never an easy part, admittedly, but something that people

Dr Bill Webster 23

experienced and regarded more naturally. A century ago, when our

grandparents or great-grandparents were children, they grew up seeing their

elderly relatives grow older, get sick, and dying, often at home surrounded

by family. Most children would have their first experience of death when they

were quite young – sometimes a parent or a grandparent – but often a

sibling or a peer. In the early 1900s, over half of all recorded deaths were

those of children under 15 years of age. Life expectancy was 45 years of

age. In the absence of our modern medical technology, people tended to die

of diseases that are now regarded as almost commonplace. And,

significantly, these experiences with aging, sickness and death happened

with people who were close to them. Dying was in the context of family life.

Not to over-sentimentalize this, or paint a rosy picture of “the good old

days,” death and loss have always been difficult experiences. My point is

that when it did inevitably occur, it happened in a family or community

context.

Things have changed over the years. We live in a very different world to our

grandparents. I’m not saying this is good or bad, right or wrong. It’s just

different. Things like aging, sickness and death often do not occur at home

nowadays. We’ve institutionalized most of that; and thus we can distance

ourselves from it. We are less familiar with death, because it tends to

happen in a nursing home or hospital.

How has our society changed? Many aspects of our modern culture are

different, including the following:

1. Families have changed:

While it was not uncommon for families to live together in one

community a few generations ago, today tremendous geographical

distances often separate us. Admittedly it is a small world after all, but

that is little help when a family member lives on the other side of that

world. We also live in a very mobile society, where the average person

changes geographical locations six times in their life. It is sometimes


difficult to visit or attend a funeral when you live thousands of miles

away. Also, the dramatic increase in divorce, separation, blended families

and other social factors have significantly changed the makeup of the

family. These changes in the family structure may result in families that

are not always present for each other in times of crisis. Thus, where does

someone turn for help and support in such times?

Not only this, when someone dies, the family’s structure changes. Family

dynamics have changed, roles have to be reinterpreted and many other

factors come into play. So the loss is not just of the person, but of the

“familiar family.”

2. Communities have changed:

One of the outstanding characteristics of contemporary society is the

emphasis on individualism. In this “culture of rugged individualism,” we

have become increasingly isolationist. Yet, we still speak fondly of

community, longing for the “good old days” when neighbours would

gather together to help. Our hearts still swell with pride when a

community comes together and responds magnificently in a tragedy or

a crisis. The problem is that once the crisis is over, all too often, so is

the community. Yet we are people who need people. Scott Peck says,

“We are desperately in need of a new ethic of “soft individualism”, an

understanding of individualism which teaches that we cannot truly be

ourselves until we are able to share freely the things we have most in

common: our weakness, our incompleteness, our imperfections, our

inadequacy, our lack of wholeness and self-sufficiency ... (This) is the

kind of individualism that makes real community possible.”

(Scott Peck “The Different Drum”)

Sadly, because we live in a mobile, individualistic society, we may not

have the lifelong friendships, the sense of community or family

relationships of other generations. People today tend to be more

Dr Bill Webster 25

isolated. We often have FEW people with whom we are close, and to

whom we can turn for support in times of need. If families and

communities have changed and the fabric of relationships with them,

where can people turn in time of need? Many turn to the professional:

the counsellor, the clergy, the health practitioner or the social worker, or

towards community support programs. These then become what may be

described as surrogate family, surrogate community, and thus, often,

when someone dies, surrogate grievers.

3. Religious and Spiritual Values have changed:

The last 50 years have seen a decline in church attendance and the

influence of religion on the community at large. Increasingly missing

from our society are many of the rituals, rites of passage and

expressions of faith, which have provided meaning and a sense of

continuity for the living for generations past. In former days, for

example, the bereaved would wear mourning clothes or armbands, often

black, that symbolized their sorrow. Many of these have not been passed

to new generations for a variety of reasons, one of which may be that

they have lost their meaning. Someone has said that a ritual is

something you do when you don’t know what to do. Such things give a

symbolic expression to that which can hardly be communicated.

Today, in many areas, there is even an increasing trend away from

funeral rituals. They are perceived as being empty and without creativity,

and in some cases this criticism is, sadly, not without merit. People who

have not been religious see no need for a service. In our “convenient”

society, many people take the attitude, “when I die, I don’t want anyone

to go to any trouble.” For sure, memorial flowers are often dropped for

the more practical “in lieu of flowers, please donate to...”

Again, this is not to comment on right or wrong, but the absence of

meaningful rituals may affect the resolution of grief issues. I believe from

my own experience that such ceremonies can have enormous value in


offering support and comfort, as well as bringing meaning and closure

to such a situation. But whether religious or secular, we cannot

overemphasize the importance and value of finding some creative way

to memorialize the person, and ritual is one very effective tool.

Foundational FactIf we minimize the importance of the DEATH,we minimize the importance of the LIFE.

I have encountered many people who, six months after the death, wish

they had done something more meaningful to help bring closure. There

is a need to develop creative and meaningful rituals, which can reflect

the meaning of both life and loss to a variety of people with their

individual belief systems.

We need to rediscover the importance of rituals in our world, whether

these are traditional or modern, religious or secular. A ritual is an

outward sign of an inward reality, and can be an external trigger to touch

our inner being, or the soul as some would describe it.

4. Medical Technology has changed:

Medical technology has made huge advances in the last 50 years or so

– antibiotics, new drugs and medications, heart transplants, organ

donations, X-ray and scanning technology, lasers, etc. And while there

are still many medical hurdles to be cleared, this has led to an important

shift:

i. People do not tend to die immediately from illness. Physical life can

be prolonged for months or even years. This can provide its own

special problems and stresses. It is significant that people are living

longer, yet there is an enormous increase in diseases, like Alzheimer’s,

Dr Bill Webster 27

that lead to mental debilitation. This, interestingly, leads to a grief

process among family members who grieve the loss of the person they

knew – the persona – yet cannot grieve openly or acknowledge the

loss because the person is still biologically alive.

ii. We have developed an attitude that there must be a cure for

everything. As expectations of a healthy life through medical

technology increase, the thought of dying becomes ever more

unnatural. Oh, we know that there are diseases for which medical

technology has not yet found the cure – cancer, AIDS and many

others. But stop and think for a moment. Don’t most of us hold in our

hearts the idea that, “It’s just a matter of time till the cure is found?”

When someone gets a terminal disease, they begin hoping the cure

will be found in time, and then if not, that perhaps THEIR case, or

their autopsy, will provide the breakthrough. It’s just a matter of time.

In fact there has been an increasing interest in a science called

cryonics. This is the technology that allows a person to be frozen in a

state of suspended animation, hopefully to be revived when their

disease or their aging can be reversed. In other words, we live in a

generation where death, far from being a certain part of life, can

possibly be delayed or even postponed.

Foundational FactDeath in our modern culture

seems to have become optional.

In such an atmosphere, with our expectations that medical technology

can solve all our health problems, the thought of dying is no longer seen

as part of the business of living. Rather than regarding it as an inevitable

part of life, we have somehow embraced the idea that death is a kind of

FAILURE. Any failure, to go back to our success-oriented material world,

is something we don’t take too kindly or deal with well. Ask any sports


team at the end of a losing season. Even some doctors seem reluctant

to accept the limitations of their technique and technology to cure the

patient. There’s many a terminally ill patient who can testify that when

“there’s nothing the doctor can do” they feel abandoned at a time when

they need comfort and help the most. I’ve spoken to some bereaved

families who feel let down by the medical profession and are angry –

some with very good reason, although in fairness much anger can be

displaced. And may I emphatically say, lest this be seen as an indictment

of the medical profession, I know many MORE wonderful stories of care

and attention; I am personally aware of many palliative care visits and

hospice movements that provide wonderful support and comfort. All I

am saying is that some departments of the medical profession have not

dealt well with what may appear to them to be the failure of their ability

to heal.

5. The media has changed:

There can be no doubt that the media has influenced and moulded how

our society views many issues, including the topics of death and dying,

grief, loss, trauma and tragedy. Just what that influence has been, and

whether for good or ill, is open for debate; one which is not my intention

to engage in. Perhaps in this brief section, it might be better simply for

me to raise questions rather than try to influence viewpoints, for surely

each person will have their own opinion.

Let me suggest three branches of media that have had an impact on the

public perception and understanding of the topics this book addresses.

i. The News Media

With the growth in technology has come the ability to report many of

the disasters of the world within minutes of their happening. Think of

the media coverage of 9-11, the London bombings, wars and violent

conflicts, both on local and international levels. Earthquakes, tsunamis

and numerous other natural disasters have brought to our living

Dr Bill Webster 29

rooms the impact these have had on human lives. We have been

spectators at some of the most horrendous events imaginable.

One questions what impact this constant exposure of human misery

and suffering has on the psyche. The constant repetition of such

disturbing images can have both a desensitizing effect and a

traumatizing effect. It is not an unreasonable statement to say that

perhaps the constant images of those planes flying into the twin

towers of the World Trade Center did as much to traumatize people as

the terrorists themselves. We cannot watch such a bombardment of

graphic images without being impacted. But another argument could

be that perhaps the constant barrage has meant that we distance

ourselves from it, in order to protect ourselves from becoming too

emotionally involved.

Now I know that the immediate protest will be the “freedom of the

press,” “people’s right to know” and that people are in control of the

“on-off switch” of their TVs. I am not addressing these arguments at

all. I am simply raising questions. Does this constant portrayal of

traumatic images, affliction and anguish have an effect on the people

who are endlessly inundated by them? And if so, should the media be

responsible in moderating to what the public is exposed?

ii. The “Hollywood” Effect

It is also interesting to ask what effect TV, movies, soap operas and

dramas have had on the past few generations. How has death and

dying, tragedy, loss and the like been portrayed in such programming?

Several concerns arise immediately, including the fact that we like our

stories to have a good ending, which is not always the case in real

life. Many programs tend to get the problem and the solution all tied

up in the one-hour time-frame that the program allows. How many

times has death been portrayed as a “dream” that all works out in the

end with a happy reunion?


More recently however, the increase in violence on TV and in movies

has had the effect of cheapening life and portrays people as

“expendable.” What influence does this have on young and old people

alike? I will leave it to others to make that assessment, although I

suspect many readers will have their own opinions.

Again, I am not seeking to criticize the movie or TV industry for they

might say they only give us what we want. All I want to do is to raise

the question as to what effect TV and movies have on society.

iii. The Effect of Video Games

This is not intended to be a sociological or psychological analysis of

the effect that video games have on the minds of participants. But I

see several possibilities. The “kill or be killed” premise of many of

these games and the gratuitous violence so graphically portrayed

surely has an impact on young people in particular. But what concerns

me most about this from the perspective of a grief counsellor is the

fact that when the game does not go well and the participant is

“killed,” there is a “restart” button that enables them to go back and

try again.

Could this possibly be a consideration in the increase in teenage (and

younger) suicides? Is it possible that young people, in an impulsive

moment, risk their lives with the mistaken belief that maybe there is

a “restart” button, leaving loved ones to deal with tragic

consequences?

I realize that I have posed many questions and offered precious few

answers. But my goal is simply to try to stimulate you to ask yourself,

“What is the message that is being communicated here?” by some of the

changes and approaches of the modern media. Not everyone will agree

on the actual effects the various forms and expressions of media have

on people, and indeed not everyone will be impacted in the same way.

Dr Bill Webster 31

But affected we will be. Influencing and moulding public opinion and

perception is after all what the task of media is all about.

So, how are we to understand loss in our culture and what are the

perceptions that influence those viewpoints?

Foundational FactIt is vitally important to realize that

DEATH is not the only significant loss that leads to grief.

Any and every loss can cause a grief reaction. There are many losses that

occur all through life that cause us pain and sorrow. Right from the

beginning of life, we experience loss. It is a universal experience.

Possibly our earliest experience of loss comes with the cutting of the

umbilical cord, when the familiar world of the previous nine months is cruelly

shattered. Gone is the warm secure environment of the womb, as the baby

is ejected into the bright lights of a delivery room and a very unfamiliar

environment. That child will experience many losses during a lifetime,

including possibly the loss of a pet, the death of grandparents, friends

moving away, leaving home, and many others.

Every life transition causes a loss. Even life changes that are good, natural or

happy can be difficult. When children grow up and move away from home, the

“empty-nest syndrome” is often more difficult for parents than many realize.

Make a list of all the losses you have experienced in your life, from the

deaths of significant people, to getting dumped by a girlfriend, or dropped

from the football team, among many other possibilities. Surprising, isn’t it!


Here is a list of LIFE LOSSES that could trigger a grief response:

i. The death of a loved one, friend or even a national figure.

ii. Divorce and separation.

iii. Friends or family moving away, or children moving out or moving on.

iv. A dispute or misunderstanding that ends a relationship.

v. Loss of a home, through an aging person going to a nursing home,

through a fire, or through bankruptcy or repossession.

vi. The loss of material possessions through robbery or similar

circumstances as above.

vii. The loss of independence through a power of attorney being signed,

through incarceration, or even through marriage.

viii. Functional loss, where you are no longer able to function as before,

through aging, a life-threatening illness, or indeed ANY illness; or the

ability or opportunity to fulfil many of the tasks you carried on before.

Remember, there is grief in a life-threatening illness whether the

person dies or not.

ix. The loss of a familiar ROLE in life: loss of a job, loss of a relationship

in which you were a caregiver.

x. The loss of faith in a SYSTEM, where you feel let down or disappointed

by the government, the health-care system, the education system, or

the legal system that seems to favour the perpetrator more than the

injured party.

xi. The loss of hopes and dreams, or expectations.

xii. The loss of faith or confidence and courage.

What other LOSSES can you identify in our world that might causegrief?

Dr Bill Webster 33

While we all acknowledge our “death-denying” culture, it is also fair to say

that we live in a “LOSS-denying” culture. We prefer to think of winning and

success rather than defeat or failure. We don’t deal well with death, but the

twin spectres of defeat and failure cast an equally dark shadow. Ask any

sports team or athlete after a losing season; any businessman or person

who has not lived up to their potential or met their goals.

Implications for

the Support of Grieving People

If we live in a culture that denies or avoids the reality of death and loss, it

is hardly surprising that we would also deny the significance of grief. The

same factors that affect our attitude towards death, influence, and even

aggravate, society’s perception of grief. Grief, which is the normal reaction

to any significant loss, is often minimized and unmentioned. People seem

reluctant to recognize the painful process of grief. The messages they give

the grieving person are conflicting. Things like “you must be strong; pull

yourself together; you mustn’t cry; life must go on,” and other “FIX IT”

statements.

We haven’t learned what is normal and what we can expect after a

significant loss. We rarely talk about the subject of death or the reaction of

grief except in the immediate days surrounding a funeral. We have often

failed to validate the long-term process of grief or legitimize the experience.

When people find themselves unavoidably confronted with loss and

struggling with grief, it can be one of the most difficult experiences of life.

The social factors we have described that make the subject of death and

loss difficult for us, also create a conspiracy of silence when it comes to grief.

• The grieving person may not be as close to their family because of

geographical distance or because many families aren’t as close anymore,

and as we saw earlier, the roles and structure of the family may also

have changed.


• The grieving person may not have many close friends or lifelong

relationships; people that you would share your heartaches with.

Sometimes we talk more easily to strangers; the barber, the bartender,

etc. This is an important factor in our rationale for support groups.

• The grieving person may not have a “community.”

• Many people do not attend church or belong to community organizations

as much as before.

• Even when they do, it is often surprisingly difficult to get back into their

community after a death. People may be regarding them differently; and

THEY feel they don’t “fit” anymore (e.g. You are no longer there as a

couple).

• The activities shared, interaction and even the presence of certain people

may only serve to remind them of their loss.

• Most people don’t want to break down or be seen as “weak” or

“emotional.”

• They just don’t want people asking “how are you?” anymore.

• The grieving person, having certain expectations of the way life would

be, may feel marginalized. A marginalized person is someone whose

normal social identity is vulnerable and changeable and their social

position is unclear and ambiguous. Living at a distance from society’s

norms or ideals, their self-identity is affected because of the perception

of others that they are different.

i. My hopes and dreams have been shattered.

ii. Life has let me down.

iii. Medical technology has let me down.

Dr Bill Webster 35

iv. I’m not living up to people’s expectations (“be strong”).

v. I’m not living up to my own expectations (“I should be able to handle

it”).

vi. This isn’t “a blessing”; or “for the best”; this is a loss.

The outcome of all this is that grief is regarded as something of a failure

that we never deal well with in our present culture. C.S. Lewis writes in “A

Grief Observed”: “An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being

an embarrassment to everyone I meet”. Many people think of themselves

differently after a loss.

These then are some of the factors that make up the social atmosphere in

which we live. We may be encouraged to deny the reality of death or

minimize the importance of grief yet this very attitude can lead us to forget

one very basic truth: death may end life, but it does not rob it of meaning.

People’s lives affect and change us. Someone’s death especially that of those

closest and dearest to us always affects us. Any time someone affects my

life enough to change it in a positive way, I will miss their unique presence

in my life after they are gone.

Many people – weeks and even months after the actual event of the death

of their loved one – may feel abandoned and that they are going crazy.

Sometimes it is when people think they should be getting themselves

together they may feel they are falling apart. And that is the dilemma in

grief. We haven’t learned what IS normal after a loss. We don’t know where

we can turn or to whom we can talk. Where can people turn for help? One

important place is a caring community that can offer information,

encouragement and empathy, and support them through this most difficult

human experience.



1. What “messages” has the bereaved person been givenabout grief by friends, family or society? (e.g. “be strong”;“pull yourself together”; etc.) How does the person feelabout these expectations? Are they in harmony with whatthey are experiencing, and if not, in what ways is theirexperience different?

2. What other losses have they experienced in life? How didthey and others cope with these situations?

3. What kinds of support does the person have in place(family, friends, church or community) and are thesehelpful? Are there ways to augment those? (e.g. a supportgroup, counselling, community programs.)

Dr Bill Webster 37

PS.

Understanding

the Grief Process 2

I have sought to make the case that we live in a culture that often denies or

avoids the subjects of death and significant loss. The same factors that affect

our attitude towards death, influence, and even aggravate, society’s

perception of grief, which is often minimized, misunderstood and

unmentioned. People seem reluctant to recognize the painful process of

grief. The messages they give the grieving person are conflicting. Things

like, “you must be strong; pull yourself together; you mustn’t cry; life must

go on” suggest that grief is unnecessary and even unacceptable. We haven’t

learned what IS normal and what we can expect after a significant loss.

When people find themselves unavoidably confronted with loss and struggling

with grief, it can be one of the most difficult experiences of life. Yet at the

very time when they may most need support from friends and family, many

are confronted by a conspiracy of silence around this whole subject of grief.

There is a real need for us to understand and legitimize the long-term

process of grief and to validate the many emotions and reactions that can

Dr Bill Webster 39

affect someone after a loss. Grief may be a natural reaction to loss, yet

saying it is normal does not minimize its difficulty. Grief is one of life’s most

challenging experiences, and often we need help to come to terms with it.

Much has been written on the subject of grief, and I recommend that the

person who would like to be involved in grief support read as many books

and resources as possible. Many different authors have their own “system”

to explain the process, and frankly I have found many to be insightful and

helpful, albeit different. But here is an important foundational fact:

Foundational FactThere is no one neat orderly way to describe the grief process.

Because grief is a unique experience for each individual, there is no one

formula or description that embraces all aspects of the experience. Every

individual experience is different, and just when you think you’ve heard it

all, someone tells you their story and opens up a whole new area of

understanding and insight.

My book “When Someone You Care About Dies” gives the grieving

person an insight into the grief process, and many grieving people have told

me that they have found it helpful in understanding some of the issues of

the grief process.

So, what is grief? It is important that we have an understanding of grief,

its impact and effect as well as how we can cope with it. Dr. Therese Rando

describes grief as “the process of psychological, social and somatic reactions

to the perception of loss.” Dr. Alan Wolfelt describes grief as “an emotional

suffering caused by a death or another form of bereavement.” Dr. Wolfelt

makes the distinction between grief and mourning, describing grief as “the

internal meaning given to the external event,” while mourning is “the

outward expression of grief.”


Bereavement is usually defined as “the state of having suffered a loss” and

as we saw earlier, the root word “reave” literally means “to be torn apart.”

The definition that I have found most practical, if less clinical, is:

“Grief is a natural human reaction to any significant loss,

manifesting itself in a bewildering cluster of ordinary

human emotions, intensified and complicated by

the significance of the relationship that has been lost.”

This definition allows us to understand the grief experience in several ways.

a) Grief is an Unwelcome Experience

While loss is inevitable in this life, no one welcomes the experience.

People who have lost someone they loved would much rather be

anywhere else and they are not happy about what has occurred to

change their world. Saying you have had a loss or acknowledging that

you may need some help to get through this experience is always

difficult. Because the process is more emotional and long lasting than

they had ever anticipated, people wonder if they are ever going to get

through it, which is never a happy thought. Added to the burden, many

around them may be telling them to “get over it” or that “it has been

three months, you ought to be doing better.” None of us likes to think

that we are not living up to expectations.

All of these things are enormously difficult to acknowledge far less cope

with. It adds to your credibility as a helper when you recognize and

acknowledge how difficult things must be for them and how much

courage it takes to be there. Participants sense that you DO have some

understanding of what they are going through.

Dr Bill Webster 41

b) Grief is a Natural Human Experience

Our definition affirms my strong, unshakable conviction that grief is a

“normal reaction to an unwelcome event.” It is not a sickness or

disease, nor should it be considered a mental health disorder. Grief is

not a disorder. It is the normal, human response to a significant loss.

While there may be pathological or complicated elements to some

situations, our grief over a significant loss is a natural response.

However, we should “normalize” but not “minimize.” Losing someone

you care about is one of life’s most difficult and challenging experiences.

We must never be tempted to think that because it is normal that it can

be dismissed or underestimated. People may be encouraged to “be

strong” or “not to cry.” But how sad it would be if someone we cared

about died and we didn’t cry or we carried on as if nothing had

happened. Frankly, I’d like to think that someone would miss me enough

to shed a tear after I’m gone. Wouldn’t you?

When you lose someone special from your life you are going to grieve.

Our grief is saying that we miss the person and that we’re struggling to

adjust to a life without that special relationship. Admittedly, saying that

grief is normal does not minimize its difficulty. That is why I lean more

to using the word “natural” rather than “normal.” Grief may be one of

the most challenging experiences of life. But the person experiencing it

is not crazy, or weak or “not handling things.” They are experiencing grief

and after a significant loss that is a natural response.

By educating people about what they can expect as part of this natural

process, you will validate the experience of grief. When you have

legitimized the process, people then feel free to “work through” their

grief issues. They know they are not crazy. They realize that their grief

is not a reflection on the inadequacy of their coping skills; grief rather is

an indication that they CARED.


Thus liberated from the stigma of grief, which is the fruit of those “you

ought to be doing better or be over it” statements, they can begin the

grief journey of exploring their feelings and making the adjustments they

need to reorganize their life.

Foundational Fact:Simply validating the significance of grief and legitimizing the albeit difficult process

is the greatest gift we can give to any grieving person.

But here is an important point. Sometimes people ask me: “What is the

worst kind of loss?” Is it worse to lose a spouse or to lose a child? Others

question if it is worse to lose someone after a long lingering illness or if

they die suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack or in an accident.

On one hand there is no answer to such a question. Perhaps the best

response is to affirm, “The worst kind of loss is yours.” A loss is a very

personal matter. Your loss seems like the worst possible thing that could

have happened to you. While these circumstances make each loss

different, they are not important right now. The worst kind of grief is

yours. When you lose a significant person from your life, whatever the

relationship, it hurts and nothing takes away from your right to feel the

loss and grieve the absence of that person from your life.

c) Grief is a Uniquely Personal Experience

Every individual is unique. We are all different, in looks, in character, in

cultural diversity, as well as in human experiences. The people who

experience loss are all different. They vary in gender, age, family

background, and personal loss histories. The relationship they lost was

unique. Not only is it important to differentiate the loss of spouse with the

loss of a child, parent, sibling, family member or friend – all of which have

their own unique stresses and challenges – it is also vital to recognize that

Dr Bill Webster 43

even within these broad categories there are many different situations.

Every marriage is unique: some are longer lasting, more interactive and

happier than others. Every relationship is unique and the legal definition

(spouse, parent, child, friend, employee, client, etc.) is just the

beginning of the diversity. My relationship with my parents will not be

the same as yours. So if both of us lose our fathers, why should we

expect that our grief reaction should be similar, just because our losses

are alike? You are a unique person, as am I. Our fathers were different

people. The relationships we shared with our fathers were distinctive.

And probably the circumstances surrounding the individual deaths would

be quite different.

Why then does society seem to expect every person in every situation

to grieve in exactly the same way? If you are looking for a cookie-

cutter formula by which to offer support – same thing for every

individual and situation – then you’ve got the wrong book! Every

grief is unique. While there may be many similarities, every individual

manifests grief in a way that is appropriate for them, and that is affected

and moulded by many variables, such as:

1. The Relationship Lost

2. Anticipated or Sudden/Unexpected Death

3. Mode of Death

4. Gender

5. Cultural Context

6. Loss History

7. Family History

8. Beliefs and Values

9. Age (of deceased AND griever)

10.Availability and the Perceived Appropriateness of Support

If I seem to be labouring this point, it is because I believe it is one of the

most seriously overlooked facts about grief. No two individuals experience


grief in an identical way. How the next bereaved person will experience

grief may be completely different to anyone else, and you will render an

important service if you recognize and validate that distinction.

d) Grief is an Emotional Experience

Grief is an emotional response to a significant loss. Because it is an

emotion, it is difficult to describe. The Scots have a saying that some

things are better “felt than tell’t” (tell it). Grief is one of these things.

Whenever we lose someone (or something) or an attachment is broken,

we can experience a painful reaction. To experience grief is to

acknowledge that you have loved someone and now that person has

gone. If you hadn’t needed that relationship, or risked the emotional

attachment, you wouldn’t be feeling the loss. But you did, and, oh yes,

it was worth the risk. It is a high compliment to any relationship that we

miss it enough to shed a tear and feel emotional. How awful if we didn’t!

Tears are not a sign of weakness, but an indication of how special the

relationship was. And, now that it is gone, we miss it. To experience grief

is to acknowledge that you are human.

Because we have not understood grief, its intensity often comes as a

surprise. We can find ourselves bewildered by the avalanche of emotions

that can impact us. Among these emotions are numbness, shock,

confusion, disbelief, anxiety, absent-mindedness, restlessness, crying,

fatigue, appetite disorders, sleep disruptions, physical symptoms, anger,

guilt, depression, and many more. What other emotions can YOU think

of or identify that can be connected to grief?

Just as every individual is unique, every person’s grief process is unique.

This somehow comes as a surprise to many. Some people experience

certain emotions, other people experience others. Everyone is different,

and so the way you respond to your unique loss will not be the same as

anyone else. That is why the word “cluster” seems so appropriate in the

definition.

Dr Bill Webster 45

One of my weaknesses in life is a love of chocolate, particularly nut

clusters. After a lifetime of research, I have made an amazing discovery.

There are no two nut clusters exactly the same. While each consists

of the same basic ingredients, every single one is different. Some are

round while others are a little “off shape”; some contain a few extra nuts

while others have a bigger blob of chocolate on top. Same ingredients,

yet none are identical.

Similarly, grief is a cluster of emotions. Every individual has their own

unique cluster, just because we are all different people. One person may

experience many of the emotions of grief, but always to a lesser or

greater degree than someone else.

That’s why I never say, “I know how you feel.” I don’t! How can I? All I

know is how I felt when grief touched my life. Just because one person

experiences something one way does not mean another person is

abnormal because their experience is different. Yet it is amazing how

many people do not give others the freedom to grieve in a way that is

right for them. Everyone is unique. Their situation and the relationship

they have lost is unique. So do not be surprised if their response to their

loss is unique, and especially if they do not live up to your expectations

of what is an appropriate response. There is a reason for every reaction,

and if we care to find out what that is, it will be insightful.

e) Grief is a Painful Experience

Part of our culture’s death-denying posture is evidenced in how we tend

to move away from pain. We can often distance ourselves from it,

sometimes going to great lengths to shield ourselves from things that

are unpleasant. Take for example the fact that the vast majority of

individuals no longer die in their homes. Death is more likely to occur in

a nursing home or hospital, sometimes, sadly, away from familiar

surroundings, family and friends. While this may mean that family

members need not be made to feel uncomfortable by watching someone


they love die, it can sometimes be avoidance behaviour.

Some of the clichés used after a death, “try not to think about it,” “let’s

not talk about it, because it will be too emotional,” and others may also

be an attempt to move away from the pain.

Yet, grief is painful. It hurts to lose anyone we care about. Loss is one of

the most difficult human challenges, and there is no easy way around it.

People may try to avoid the pain, and others may attempt to get the

individual “over it” as quickly as possible. But most of the time it simply

doesn’t work that way. All that attitude accomplishes is to isolate the

grieving individual, who feels they can’t share their true feelings with

anyone, and who cries alone at night, all the while feeling they are “not

handling it.”

The way out of grief is through it. As Helen Keller says, “The only way

to get to the other side is to go through the door.” As we validate the

grief experience, people come to realize that pain is a gift that warns us

of danger. It can actually be a sign of healing, as we make the painful

adjustments from life before the death to life after the death. It is this

that enables us to reorganize, to learn, to grow. People need to find the

courage to go through the painful experience of grief and helpers need

to find ways to enable them to move into and through the pain. This is

one of the keys to recovery.

f) Grief is a Manageable Experience

It is never too early in the process to sow seeds of hope. Hope that the

grieving individual will make it through the process. They will be given

confidence when you can impart to them that they are not abnormal or

unusual. Rather you see them as good people who have been

temporarily overwhelmed by their situation and who, with help and

support, will be able to make it through this difficult time.

Dr Bill Webster 47

While many friends are supportive around the time of the death, grieving

people often discover that support fades shortly after the funeral. When

someone is going through a bad time, people tend to leave them alone,

often because the situation makes THEM feel uncomfortable. We aren’t

quite sure what to say or do, and many end up saying and doing nothing.

I know many grieving people who feel quite abandoned after their loss,

even though this is not the intention of their friends.

After a loss, people need to talk. To be more accurate, they need to talk

and talk and talk, sometimes repeating the same story over and over.

Part of the resolution of grief is found in reviewing the events of the

person’s life and death, and reliving their memories. Because of the

isolationist society I have previously described, many do not feel they

can share with friends or even family. This is why I believe there has

been such an increase in grief support groups. The opportunity to share

with others of similar experience can help bring resolution.

Yet it is always a struggle. Grief is difficult. It is never easy to lose someone

or something you have relied on. This is possibly the most difficult experience

of life. Some people, after a loss, see themselves as victims. They refuse to

struggle to come to terms with the situation. But as we struggle, we discover

that in every loss there is a gain. There will be times when the grieving person

will wonder if they can make it, but your involvement will help them to find

the confidence that they can. Little by little you will help them discover

strength and resources they didn’t know they had.

Expectant mothers have labour pains, teenagers have growing pains,

but out of that pain comes growth and life. That doesn’t make the pain

any easier, but it does help put it in a meaningful context.


Recommended reading for a fuller understanding of the grief process:

1. Therese A. Rando: How to Go on Living When Someone You

Love Dies (New York: Bantam 1991)

2. Bill Webster: When Someone You Care About Dies

(ISBN 0-9697841-4-7) Available at www.GriefJourney.com

Dr Bill Webster 49


1. Dr. Bill defines grief as “… a natural human reaction to anysignificant loss, manifesting itself in a bewildering clusterof ordinary human emotions, intensified and complicatedby the significance of the relationship that has been lost.”

2. How can you help the person understand that grief is anormal reaction to an unwelcome event, rather than asickness or pathological issue?

3. What have been some of their “cluster of emotions?” Listthe feelings that have been experienced and encouragethem to talk about each one.

4. How can you communicate that you understand that thismust feel like the “worst thing” that could have happened,rather than “being for the best” or “a blessing” as othersmay be suggesting?

5. In what ways is this person’s situation unique, and how canyou help them see that their grief response will also beunique?

6. What are some practical ways to “be there” for the personas they go through the pain of their loss?


PS.

Understanding

Primary and

Secondary Loss 3

As we have seen, there are many losses that we all experience throughout

life. Any and every loss is going to cause some level of grief. Even things

that may not seem negative, such as children moving out to attend

university, can cause feelings of loss. Some examples include:

a) Relational Loss:

Divorce; separation; breaking up; misunderstandings and hurt feelings;

moving away to another community; children leaving home; other

examples.

b) Material Loss:

People attach themselves to material possessions with sentimental value

so it is difficult when such things are lost in a fire; a robbery; after losing

a job; bankruptcy; giving up a home to go into a senior’s residence;

other examples.

Dr Bill Webster 51

c) Functional Loss:

Aging; getting sick; losing mobility after an accident or illness; not being

able to do a job or utilize past skills; other examples.

d) Role Loss:

A death can create a change of role: the role of being a couple; parent;

family as it was defined previously; the role of being employed. Any time

someone’s role or identity in society changes it is called

“marginalization.” Can you think of other examples?

e) Systemic Loss:

Systemic loss occurs when a “system” that you expected to work for or

support you in any situation lets you down. So, the health-care system;

the legal system; the government system; the educational system; or

the church; other examples.

f) Symbolic Loss:

After a death, people can experience what might be described as the

“loss of their script for life.” This can mean the loss of their hopes and

dreams; their expectations of the way life is supposed to be; the loss of

their assumptions about the world, people, God; the loss of faith or

courage; other examples.

Yet from another perspective, there are basically TWO kinds of loss, which

we can identify as Primary and Secondary Loss.

Primary Loss describes any significant loss that affects someone’s life. It

can be a death, separation or any other life loss that changes our lives.

A Secondary Loss is a loss that develops as a result or consequence of

the primary loss. One loss often leads to many subsequent losses that occur


as a direct result of that first loss. It is not that secondary losses are any

less important, intense or difficult; it is that they emerge out of, as a

consequence of, the primary loss.

It is similar to those scenes where someone spends many hours setting up

a complex series of dominoes and at the appropriate moment tips over the

first one in the sequence. That domino tips over the second one, and so it

goes, one after the other until all have fallen over.

When someone experiences a significant loss such as a death, a life-

threatening illness, or ANY significant life loss, that event often triggers

many other losses. These secondary losses are the subsequent dominoes

that fall as a result of the initial circumstance.

For example, someone dies. That’s the primary loss. But as a result of that

death, the grieving person feels many different secondary losses.

They will experience relational loss. That will be different for each person

depending on the relationship lost. A relationship with a spouse is different

from one with a child or a parent. But go a little deeper. Every person who

loses a spouse loses a UNIQUE relationship … there is no one else quite like

this person and the relationship they shared will be different from every

other spousal relationship. So what is it about the relationship that the

person misses? One will say, “Someone to go on vacation with”; another

might be “Someone to talk over decisions”; and innumerable other dynamics

that relationships offer. You need to ask about the relationship and what this

person misses about the unique relationship.

Some might also experience material loss. A loved one dies and as a result

the house has to be sold and the survivor is moving into a nursing home or

in with family. Or a business has to be run without the key person. Or

because of financial pressures, their lifestyle is altered and their financial

security has changed.

Dr Bill Webster 53

Functional loss may affect a survivor, inasmuch as life and the way they

functioned in it has changed as a result of the death. Perhaps they cared for

a loved one through a sickness and did 1001 things for that person every

day. Or possibly age has meant that they have surrendered their

independence and someone, who has power of attorney, is making financial

and other decisions on their behalf.

When a loss occurs, a person’s role or social identity often changes. This

person is no longer part of a couple or a parent; or when a second parent

dies, a person may feel like they are an orphan even though they have not

in actuality depended on parents for many years. When someone dies,

grieving people often feel like others are looking at them through different

eyes and are treating them like they are “broken.” They are still the same

people but they feel like they are seen as “different.”

Someone dies and the survivor feels like the health-care system has let

them down. A doctor misdiagnosed a situation; the surgery didn’t happen

because of long waiting lists. Another frequent example of systemic loss

occurs when someone dies in an accident and the legal system does not

mete out appropriate justice on the one who caused the accident because a

clever lawyer gets his guilty client off the hook. Think of examples where

people could be disappointed with government services, the church or other

systems that we expect are going to be there in support of us, but who,

whether in reality or in perception, fall short.

The death of someone we love can also mean the loss of many of our

hopes and dreams of the way life was going to be. When my wife died, I

felt like I had lost my hopes and dreams of living happily ever after. This

was not according to “the script” that I had in mind for my life. This was not

according to what I had expected. So I struggled with the grief of unmet

expectations. The loss of hope, the loss of meaning, the loss of courage or

faith; all these are symbolic losses known as intrapsychic losses.


When someone dies, that is the primary loss. But many other secondary

losses may occur as a result. How do we identify these losses? Only the

survivor can tell us.

Thus, the most important question we can ask in every unique situation is:

“What has been lost?”

What has this individual, in this unique situation, at this particular time in

their life, lost? The answer will probably be more complex than many would

realize or hope.

Every response will be different of course. I remember a lady at one of our

support programs talking about the loss of her husband and how she missed

all the things they did together, how as a result of his death she had been

moved into a nursing home, couldn’t write her own cheques or control her

finances, and how she was disappointed that God had taken him and not

her, and so on. She had a long list of secondary losses. Through her tears

she said, “I feel like I have lost everything.” Now, whether or not she had

lost everything could be debated and most would conclude she hadn’t.

But listen carefully to her words. “I feel like I have lost everything.” She is

really saying, “My entire world has changed.” She may not have lost

everything in actuality, but it feels to her like everything is being lost. And

it is understanding that feeling that enables us to support her in her

situation.

Dr Bill Webster 55


1. Can you find ways to encourage the person to talk aboutthe relationship they have lost? What do they miss mostabout the relationship? Are there perhaps things theyDON’T miss about it? (Idea: Maybe they would find it easierto write the story in a journal, and possibly (or not) sharesome of that with you.)

2. Dr. Bill suggests that one loss often leads to manysubsequent losses (secondary losses) that occur as adirect result of that primary loss.

a) What secondary losses (material, functional, role loss,systemic or symbolic losses) has the personexperienced as a result of their primary loss?

b) Ask yourself, “What has this person, in this situation,at this time in their lives, LOST?” And then ask themwhat THEY feel they have lost as a result of the death.


PS.

Understanding

The Journey

Through Grief 4

Is there a “road map” to help us understand and guide people through the

grief journey? Some would say “no” because every individual is unique, and

on one level, that is true. Every grief journey is going to be “one of a kind.”

I began by saying that, “we make a mistake if we only understand the grief

process by some timeline system.” I believe that is true. However, every

grieving person will say, “I feel lost and I need some direction to help me

find my way through this experience.”

So we are in the paradoxical position of saying there is no one

logical, precise, systematic, organized way to describe grief … and

yet we need one!

I will attempt to alleviate the dilemma by emphasizing the word “only”

above. If we only understand and measure grief by some nice neat orderly

predictable system tied to specific times or tasks, we will not understand

bereavement. And yet at the same time, we need to make an effort at it,

albeit realizing its shortcomings.

Dr Bill Webster 57

While there are no orderly periods of mourning or predictable phases

through which everyone must inevitably pass, it is nonetheless important

to identify a framework to assist each person as they navigate their unique

journey. People in crisis need guidance to help them find their way after a

loss, because they often feel … LOST!

While acknowledging the difficulties with the concept, I contend that there

IS a road map for the journey. I justify that conclusion by stating that a map

is not the same as the territory. A map is merely a picture OF and a guide

TO the territory. Buy a map and you get a piece of paper with lines, names,

numbers, colours – all of which draw a PICTURE of the journey you want to

make. But the actual territory has a unique landscape and scenery, with

many twists and turns, and even pitfalls that a map is unable to predict or

portray.

Let me restate an earlier concept and go in a different direction:

Foundational FactThere is no one neat orderly way to describe the grief process.

Whether it is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s “Phases of Grief” or William Worden’s

“Tasks of Mourning” or whichever of the many systems devised by various

authors and researchers, any attempt to develop a system whereby we can

help people understand the grief journey is at best a simple DESCRIPTION

of the landscape. The actual terrain will be unique.

What we can agree on is that there are many diverse ways to describe the

process of grief. Grief is not an event, it is a process. In my own work I have

developed the metaphor of the “grief journey” as an appropriate image for

understanding how grief works itself out. Yet even that concept is not

without its difficulties. Sadly, grief does not always lead us down a

predictable path to recovery and reconciliation. There are many choices of


direction that each individual makes on that journey, and one might also

question if there ever IS a destination, or if it just leads to a continuation of

our life journey.

But enough philosophical rationalization! Grieving people (who feel LOST

and desperately want to find some direction) need an idea of where the

journey is taking them and we want to help them find the way, even while

acknowledging its unpredictability and uniqueness. I encourage the reader

to find a “system,” in this book or wherever, that you feel will enable you to

help the grieving person approach and work through their unique situation,

while at the same time acknowledging that an individual’s personal,

emotional grief reaction is rarely encompassed by any “system.”

I have come to see that while there are many ways to describe the grief

process, most systems embrace three distinct segments. These can be

summarized in three words: Avoidance, Confrontation and

Reorganization. Again, someone will possibly find that there are better

words to describe this, to which I say, “good.” Anything that expands our

understanding is helpful.

My book “When Someone You Care About Dies” has been widely used

by grief support groups as a workbook to help grieving people understand

the process and work through their unique challenges. The book uses the

image of “Seasons of Mourning” and while there are always difficulties

defining grief in such categories, I have found this “system” enables people

to understand the process while not feeling “locked in” to an inflexible

pattern. It suggests five seasons, which are not “chronological” but

“emotional” and which can also be encapsulated in my three suggested

categories.

Dr Bill Webster 59

1. Avoidance

The Season of Numbness

Most often, the initial reaction to a death is “I can’t believe it” or “This can’t

be happening” and other statements that indicate avoidance. This is actually

a defence mechanism which enables people to take time to adjust to what

seems unbelievable and incomprehensible.

Often after a death, and the initial impact, people feel quite numb. Some

might describe this as denial, but whatever the appropriate label, it is

actually our human defence mechanism, which “shuts down” until we can

marshal our resources to face the reality of what has occurred. The problem

is that others often confuse “numbness” with “strength.” How many times

do we hear people commend the grieving person at the time of the death

for “doing so well” and for “how strong they are.” Then when a few months

later the numbness wears off and the grieving person is overwhelmed by

their emotions, the same folks can compound the difficulty with their well-

intentioned yet misguided statements of, “What’s wrong with you? We

thought you were doing so well.” Such remarks imply that now the person

isn’t doing so well. It is vitally important to let people know that their

experiences, which may include shock, lack of concentration, forgetfulness,

difficulty making decisions, confusion, fatigue, apathy, and others, are in

fact natural and there is an explanation for them. This does not minimize

their importance, however. The individual needs the confidence to know that

they will be able to survive – a word taken from two Latin words, literally

meaning “to live beyond.”

The Season of Disorientation

When the numbness wears off (and every individual’s time-frame is

different) what many people experience can be described as an explosion

of emotions. Everything seems to touch the person on the raw nerve.

Emotions like anxiety, irritability, confusion, sadness, vulnerability, panic,

impatience and crying are just a few of the manifestations of grief. There


can be many emotions associated with grief and no one has a

comprehensive list. What is important is to validate these difficult and often

uncharacteristic emotions, and to enable people to work with the feelings.

They need to come to see that feelings teach us about our reaction to losing

“life as we knew it” and to a new life without the presence of the person

who died.

Some in our society regard “showing feelings” as a sign of weakness. (For

example: you mustn’t cry; you have to be strong; pull yourself together;

etc.) Confronted by a grieving person’s emotions, many try to change the

subject. But good grief support allows people to feel their feelings,

encourages people to work through and understand the emotional reaction,

and supports them in expressing feelings in appropriate ways. This is never

easy, for the griever or the helper, yet it is the necessary process that will

help them begin to reconcile what has happened.

Yet, throughout this “season” it still doesn’t seem real to the grieving

individual. The individual may experience an important emotion called

“yearning,” a word meaning “longing” or “desire.” The person cannot yet

believe that this has really happened and so their desire is to “find” that

which is lost. Thus, they engage in the psychological task of searching.

Reality will surely come. But how is it actualized? The simple answer is “one

disappointment after another.” We search and do not find; we yearn, but

that longing is not fulfilled. Only after that important process of longing and

disappointment will the reality of their loss be faced.

2. Confrontation

The Season of Confrontation

In one sense, the seasons of numbness and disorientation are a time of

avoidance, and that is natural. The challenge of this new season is to accept

the reality of the loss and experience the pain of that realization. Thus it is

characterized as a time of “angry sadness.” What is it that people confront?

Dr Bill Webster 61

Certainly people need to face the reality of the fact that a loved one has

died and is not coming back. But, more often than not, in addition, the

reality of the loss confronts people with their own powerlessness to change

the situation, for if we could do anything to change the effect, we would

surely do it. Thus, the grieving person confronts their sense of inadequacy

to control the situation, and the need to master that becomes an issue of

“what do you do when there is nothing you can do?” This often becomes the

foundation of the responses of anger, guilt and depression. It is wise to

recognize that often the guilt and anger are related to that sense of

powerlessness and are a reaction to it; an attempt to gain some sense of

control in a situation that is beyond control.

The Season of Adjustment

Just as each grief response by every individual is unique, the adjustments

to that specific situation will be different in every case. The question that

each individual must address is: “How is my life different in the light of my

loss?” That challenge will be faced in numerous areas of the individual’s life,

including the following:

i. Practical adjustments, where there may be tasks that have to be

assumed, some involving new skills or responsibilities; and tasks that

may have to be relinquished, such as not having all the 1001 things

they had to do for a loved one throughout an illness.

ii. Emotional adjustments, such as coming to terms with loneliness, or

not having this special person to talk to or share with, can be

challenging.

iii. Social adjustments, where activities that were shared with the

deceased are no longer; or feeling “out of place” in a social setting

because you are not there with that special person.

iv. Physical adjustments, where the person may be missing the physical

presence of someone; a person they hugged, made love to or

appreciated having THERE.


v. Perceptual adjustments, where the bereaved feel marginalized, as if

people are looking at them through different eyes, or treating them

as broken, or “not quite whole.”

These and other areas of life involvement may be a major adjustment for

the grieving individual. Our task is to help empower people to adjust to this

new environment in which their lost relationship is missing.

3. Reorganization

The Season of Reorganization

The seasons of adjustment and reorganization are precursors to a re-

establishment of life by a social and emotional re-entry to the everyday

world. We learn to live with loss as we reinvest ourselves in new persons,

ideas and things. Reconciliation of grief means coming to the place where

we can accept life as meaningful, even in the light of a loss. We do not

recover from grief in the sense that loss changes us forever. But when we

learn how to integrate loss into our life, and affirm that life is still

meaningful, we have come full circle in our grief journey. Of course, as T.S.

Eliot puts it, “The end of our journey will be to arrive where we started and

know the place for the first time.” This applies in a special way to grief. Grief

should not last forever and neither should grief support. You will serve your

people well when you lead them to the place where they feel able and willing

to move on.

Every destination is the gateway to another journey, and it is at that portal

that you will set your people free to move on.

Dr Bill Webster 63


1. Does the person remember a time when it just seemedunbelievable? How did it feel then, and how does it feel now?What were some of the emotions of these early days, andwhat others did they experience in the days that followed?

2. Do they remember wishing they could change what hadhappened? How would they have altered circumstances ifthey could? How did it feel when they came to therealization they couldn’t change what had happened?

3. How is their life different in light of their loss? Whatpractical adjustments have had to be made, and how arethey coping with these? How about social adjustments?Perceptually, do they feel that people are looking at themor treating them differently, and how do they feel aboutthat?


PS.

Effective Strategies

of Grief Support 5

Each one of us has enormous potential to help a grieving person. Helping

takes more than good intentions, however. We need to know what to do,

and how to do it.

What are the goals of grief support? I have come to believe grieving people

need three things:

a) Education

This first suggestion may come as a surprise to you, but I think there is

a very solid reason for education and information being a top priority.

Because we live in a death-denying culture, people don’t often talk or

like to think about grief. Inevitably, it catches us by surprise. Because

we haven’t learned what to expect, the intensity of the emotions and

the grief reaction leads people to wonder if they are doing it right. This

is especially aggravated by well-intentioned but misguided people who

tell the griever to “pull themselves together” or to “be strong.”

Dr Bill Webster 65

Most often the griever does NOT feel they are doing well. They wonder

if they are losing their minds, because they can’t concentrate, and are

forgetful and confused. They question their sanity because of anxiety,

vulnerability and a host of overwhelming emotions. It comes as a HUGE

relief when they learn that grief is a natural albeit difficult response to a

loss. Just knowing that they are NOT crazy often frees people up to work

through the grief issues to reconciliation.

Any model of grief support should involve providing information about

what grief is and how it can affect people. In our death-denying culture,

where grief is often not validated, education as to what IS normal and

how grief can affect us is vital. The simple sharing of experiences or

feelings without understanding them is futile.

Where education and interaction is combined, an environment is created

in which grief is validated, where people can normalize their reactions

that they may have felt were abnormal. With that information and in

that atmosphere, they are set free to express and work through their

own grief process. People need to know that the grief journey has a

beginning and an end, and may require guidance to work through that

complex process. Sometimes education is the best medicine.

An employer concerned about their employee or a business seeking to

bring support to a client could consider some of the books and resources

provided at www.griefjourney.com to enable them to provide good

materials specifically geared to meeting those needs.

b) Empathy

Hand in hand with education is understanding. Grieving people usually

identify with someone who has “been there.” Some might argue

this point, but when people come seeking help, they want to know if

anyone understands what they are experiencing.


Foundational FactThe underlying question in the grieving person’s mind is,

“What do you know about this? Do you have any idea of what I am going through?”

When people give them clichés or easy answers, they feel that individual

does NOT understand and are therefore unwilling to share anything.

Many people have said to me over the years, “You know what you are

talking about because you have been there.” That statement may not be

true in every individual case, but this is the perception, and we can work

with it.

Admittedly you may not have had a significant or similar loss to the

person you are seeking to help. Feel free to acknowledge that. The

person who helped me most after my wife died was a good friend who

would sit at lunch and say, “I can’t begin to know what you must be

going through. Tell me.” Admitting that he didn’t know actually caused

me to believe he was more understanding than the people who said, “Oh

I know exactly how you feel.”

Empathy means the ability to see the world, not as it is to us, but as it

is to the grieving person. Their world has changed … indeed it may seem

like it is shattered. Empathy means to walk a mile in THEIR shoes … to

find out what their world looks like to THEM and be willing to accept that

they are wounded and in need of help. So, empathy means the ability to

perceive another person’s experience and communicate that perception

back to the person.

By listening to the person as they speak, you begin to have a mental

picture of the essence of what they are describing. Empathetic response

requires the ability to go beyond factual detail and to become involved

Dr Bill Webster 67

in the other person’s “feeling world.” To have empathy for another person

does not constitute the expression of one’s own feelings, but rather

focuses exclusively on the feelings expressed by another and conveys

an understanding of them. To simply say, “I understand how you feel” is

not enough. Empathy conveys a feeling on THEIR part that you do

understand.

c) Support

When a person is in crisis, they know that they need help from outside

themselves. The good news is that they are usually very open to help

from anyone who offers. The fact you are reading this indicates you are

such a person, and I thank you in anticipation of the support you are

willing to offer.

While it may seem basic, we cannot overemphasize the importance of

constant words of support and encouragement. Losing someone loved

often causes the survivor to feel a loss of confidence. They wonder how

they will manage, how they can survive, where they will find the strength

and resources to do some of the simple things of life they may have

taken in stride before. The encouragement and patience of friends and

family can not be underestimated in helping people find the confidence

to “go on.”

So, how can we facilitate these three goals? First off, we can try to

understand the tasks of the grieving person. In my book, “When

Someone You Care About Dies,” I have identified 10 challenges or tasks

for the grieving person:

1. To survive

The word “survive” means “to live beyond” and that is the basic

challenge for the grieving person – to find the courage, resources and

even the desire to “live beyond” their experience of loss.


2. To work through the feelings

We are sometimes tempted to regard feeling and emotions as “the

enemy”; something to resist and bring under control. Instead we have

to see these emotions as our “friends,” for each one is seeking to

express our protest against this unwelcome event.

3. To relive the memories

Grief invites us to remember, not to forget, and it is by working

through the memories, not only of the death but the memories of the

life, that we are able to put the situation into context.

4. To find the confidence to go on

There is often a fundamental lack or loss of confidence that occurs

after a loss. Things that the individual once took in stride suddenly

become like herculean labours. People say, “What’s wrong, you did

this before?” but they fail to realize the anxiety that is created when

your whole world is turned upside down.

5. To become increasingly aware of the reality of the loss

To the surprise of many, the avoidance aspect of the loss can last three

to six months or even longer in a traumatic situation. But the time

comes when the person confronts the reality of the loss. Because this

is often several or many months after the event, it usually catches the

individual and those around them by surprise. So phrases like, “We

thought you should be over it by now,” will not be uncommon, but

show limited understanding of the process. Try to realize that for

whatever reason, THIS is the time-frame in which this individual has

been able to finally face the reality of the loss, and support them in

that.

6. To experience the pain of grief

Of course when the grieving individual is confronted by the reality that

their loved one has gone and will not be coming back and that there

Dr Bill Webster 69

is nothing they can do to change that inevitable reality, it hurts.

Sometimes the person may be more emotional at this point than they

were when the death actually occurred. Sometimes it is when others

think they should be getting themselves together, that the grieving

person feels like they are falling apart.

7. To adjust to an environment where the relationship you have

lost is missing

When life changes, there are many adjustments. Life is different and

at every turn, practically, emotionally, socially and even sometimes in

people’s perception of “us”; everything seems different. We have to

adjust to a new environment where the very definition of “who I am

now” is open to reinterpretation.

8. To begin to reinvest energy in life and living again

Eventually, in each person’s own good time, they have to withdraw the

energy they have invested in grief and in morbidly recollecting the

deceased individual and begin to reinvest that energy in life and living.

Not every individual has the confidence to do this, and the support of

understanding friends and colleagues is an enormously important part

of that process.

9. To convert the relationship with the deceased from a

relationship of presence to one of memory

Part of reorganizing our lives after a loss is beginning to think of the

person in the past rather than in the present. Strangely, yet

understandably, for a long time the survivor will feel like the person is

“still there with them” or they will still “feel married.” It is important

to understand the why of this. We are often unwilling to let go of

something we had until we are confident that we will be OK in the

future if we do let go. Do not be surprised if in the first few months

the person talks of the deceased as if they were still there, but listen

for the first indications of them being spoken of as in “the past.” This


will be an important milestone.

10. To reconcile the loss by placing it in a context of meaning

This task does not mean to imply that the individual must find meaning

in the circumstances of the death, because, particularly in tragic or

untimely death, it is often difficult to find meaning. Rather it is helping

the individual to recognize that their life can still be meaningful even

after a tragedy or a loss. This is the goal of the grieving process – to

enable people to see that they still have a life and that they have to

find ways to make the most of what they have left.

I have unquestionably learned more about grief from grieving people

themselves than from textbooks and I am sure you will experience the

same. Here are a few of the things they have taught me:

• Help me go through my grief, not just get over it.

• When people were considerate of me, I appreciated it, as I felt so fragile.

• Please listen to me when I want to talk about my loss – even though you

may hear the same story many times.

• Be there to listen, not give suggestions or “should do’s.”

• Ask me what I want, don’t tell me what you think is best for me.

• Do find out when my difficult times are and call me, or let me call you

during such times.

• Don’t say “we must get together sometime.” If you mean it, be definite.

• Offer an invitation to join you in your plans.

Dr Bill Webster 71


1. Dr. Bill suggests that every grieving person is thinking “Doyou have any idea of what I am going through?” How canyou communicate that you do have empathy with thesituation?

2. What educational resources can you provide to help thegrieving person understand what they are going through?(e.g. books, DVDs, websites.) Can you point them to someof these resources?

3. Who can help you support this person on an ongoing basis?Is there a community support program? (Call local funeralhomes, hospitals, hospice and other agencies and societieswho deal with death and dying to discover what isavailable.) Does your Employee Assistance Program providecounselling support? Who are the trained counsellors whocould be called in complicated situations? Are there otherswho could help?

4. Facilitation Ideas for the Earlier Tasks of the GrievingPerson:

a) To survive: People need ongoing encouragement,especially a few weeks after the funeral when much ofthe support has faded. They need to know that eventhough it may feel like things are getting worse, thatthey will make it through. How can you communicatethis in word and in manner?


PS.

b) Working with feelings and reliving memories: Can you askthem to “put into words” the feelings that they have?Invite them to share memories; not just the difficultmemories of the death but the better memories of thelife.

c) Finding confidence: How can you help them through allthe “firsts” that can be so difficult, while gainingconfidence that they can do it even without this neededrelationship that has been so important?

Dr Bill Webster 73

How to Communicate

with Grieving People 6

“I’d love to help, but I just don’t know what to say or do….”

Most of us can identify with these words. We hear that someone has had a

loss and immediately our hearts go out to them. We long to be of some

comfort or assistance; yet, we are not sure what to do or say. “Should I

mention it or change the subject? What will I do if they get emotional and

start to cry? Perhaps the best thing would be to say nothing and leave them

alone.” We fear saying the wrong thing and adding to the person’s pain.

But when people do nothing, the bereaved person feels abandoned.

Some try to move people away from their grief with well-intentioned

comments like “maybe it’s for the best” or “perhaps it’s a blessing in

disguise” suggesting that somehow this is “good” or “meaningful.” While

both these statements may contain elements of truth, the grieving person

finds little comfort in them. They cannot see anything positive or anything

that “makes sense.” To them it is the worst thing that could happen. Clichés

Dr Bill Webster 75

like “you must be strong” or “you mustn’t cry” bring conflicting messages to

the griever. They may feel they are not living up to your expectations that

they should “be strong”; or their own expectations that “I ought to be able

to handle this.”

Many of us struggle to know how we can effectively help those who have

lost someone they care about. Because death is frequently denied and our

emotional responses often minimized, and because we have not learned

what to expect after a significant loss, grief often catches us by surprise with

its intensity, longevity and unpredictability.

So How Can I Help?

Each one of us has enormous potential to help a grieving person, but it takes

more than good intentions. We need to know what to do. Let me help by

suggesting some tasks of the caregiver.

1. Get Involved

a) Be There

Sometimes we are primarily concerned about what we can DO to assist

another, but what is often needed is for someone simply to BE THERE. After

my wife died, I remember very little of what was said to me in those early

numbing days. What I do remember is that certain people were there and

their simple presence made all the difference.

• Reach out and establish contact as soon as possible. Don’t wait to be

asked because the person may not know where to turn and may feel

desperate for any help that is offered. People in crisis tend to be

desperate for help and grab for the first offer, so don’t hesitate.

• Be present physically as well as emotionally, because your presence

offers the griever security and support. Being there is more important

to the grieving person (and will be remembered longer) than well-


intended sentiments about “you are in our thoughts and prayers” or even

calls, cards and gifts. Recognize the important therapeutic value of “the

gift of presence.” It is one of the greatest things you can give to a person

in grief. Although we cannot take away the pain of the loss, we will help

more than we realize by being present to share it.

• Do not allow the griever to remain isolated. Social support is critical

throughout the entire process. Let me emphasize again, nothing is more

helpful and therapeutic in such situations as the presence of a caring,

accepting and non-judgemental other. The grieving individual usually

requires the presence of concerned caregivers to feel grounded in the

midst of the chaos.

And what to do when you are “present”?

• Try to create a state of equilibrium. Any crisis creates a feeling of chaos

and a sense of urgency that may lead to attempts for quick relief that

may not be well thought out.

• Use sustainment techniques, such as reassurance and positive

suggestions, to help lower the person’s feelings of anxiety, guilt and

tension. Try to reassure them that you are there, that you will help, and

that together you will be able to get through all the challenges that may

lie ahead. Restoring that sense of balance will help alleviate some of the

symptoms of tension and urgency.

• Make sure that the griever has an appropriate medical evaluation and

treatment if and when symptoms warrant. But remember that the

manifestations of grief may not necessarily be best dealt with by a

medical model. Surviving grief, as one person put it, “is not a pill, it’s a

skill.” Nonetheless, take advantage of every avenue of support and help.

The goal of this initial intervention is to help avoid a disastrous outcome. It

can be pretty scary to realize that life has changed and your world has been

turned upside down. Many grieving people, in their urgency for instant relief,

Dr Bill Webster 77

may consider ending it all or some other catastrophic remedy in the absence

of any apparent solution. While all such things need to be taken seriously,

often it is in restoring a sense of balance that the person feels some relief.

Suggest what the person COULD do that would be more positive and

constructive, which actually leads us to our next point.

b) Take Action

The second step is taking concrete action. People in crisis tend to flounder

and a caregiver may need to help move them towards meaningful,

constructive and goal-directed behaviour. Perhaps decisions need to be

made and actions taken. How can we assist? Not, let me emphasize, by

doing everything for the person. They need to know that something is being

done for them and by them.

Did you know that there are two possible ways to help people? You can do

things for them or do things with them? It is often much easier to do

something for someone … it takes care of things and gets them done; you

take the strain away and save them having to do it for themselves. But that

strategy may have a downside.

If you do things for them, they may tend to sit back and let you get on with

it, thank you very much. Next time they will expect you to do it for them

again, and again, and soon they will find themselves in “learned

helplessness.” Meanwhile you find yourself with a bigger, more demanding,

ongoing job than you expected.

A more constructive approach is to do things with someone. “Let’s talk

through the possibilities and discuss what issues need to be attended to

immediately and which issues can be postponed till later. Now, having decided

what we should do first, let’s do it together.” “How can I assist?” is a stronger

strategy than, “What can I do?” Doing something WITH someone gives them

a sense of empowerment … “I did it, albeit with help” … and that confidence

helps bring them to the place where they can be self-sufficient again.


• Make a specific offer of help

While it is important to take the initiative and be there, it is important to

make a specific offer of assistance. Remember, the griever may be in

shock and not functioning too well.

So please avoid saying, “If there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to

let me know.” While this may be a well-intentioned offer, people usually

don’t respond, for several reasons. First, very few of us feel comfortable

asking for help or letting people know what we need. More importantly,

grieving people may not even know what they need.

So make specific offers: “Do you need food or someone to look after the

children?”; “Would you like me to drive you somewhere?”; “Would you

like me to stay with you?”; or “Can I go with you to this or help you with

that.”

Ask yourself what this person might need in this situation and then make

a specific offer to assist with that task or responsibility. They will find it

easier to respond with a simple “yes” or “thank you” rather than asking

you for assistance. But don’t be upset if the griever accepts another

friend or relative’s offer of help over yours. Sometimes grieving people

can even make decisions that can be hurtful, but don’t take it personally.

Perhaps other family members need assistance at this time, or possibly

you can make another offer later when others have faded from the

scene.

• Let your care and concern show

Sometimes we feel we should try to be strong for the person. But it is

OK to “weep with those who weep.” Do not be afraid to show your own

emotions at the loss. You can say, “I find this difficult” or “I’m not sure

what to say.” This can be seen by the griever as a confirmation that

indeed “this is a loss.” By not trying to “gloss over” the reality of the

Dr Bill Webster 79

situation, they will sense an acceptance and empathy. Your grief at the

situation normalizes their grief.

But on the other hand, you need to ensure that your reaction is a direct

response to the present situation and not a reflection of your own

personal issues. Don’t change the subject because it hurts or upsets you

to see the griever cry. It is always difficult to see someone in the pain of

grief. But remember, you are there to help with their grief, not to deal

with your own grief over this or some previous loss. Always make sure

you are doing things for the griever’s benefit, not for your own. Later

on, you can go back and revisit your own emotions. Ask yourself, or talk

to someone else, and try to see what unresolved grief within yourself

may have been triggered by this situation.

2. Provide Support in Coping with the Loss

Recently we have seen an emerging proliferation of grief counsellors who

“show up” at every crisis and situation. Grief is now an area of human

experience that we seem to leave to professionals or at least those people

who have had some training in the field.

While I am a trained, certified grief counsellor, and understand the need for

professional intervention in many complicated areas of trauma and loss, I

also believe that every individual and community member, whether family,

friend or colleague, can offer a great deal of assistance to grieving people.

Yes, I acknowledge we need to distinguish between “counselling” and

“support”; but if we say that grief is not a disease or a mental health

disorder, why do we so often treat it as such? I have come to believe that

we should “de-pathologize” grief and empower the community at large to

offer support.


Here are some basic yet necessary skills that are often overlooked:

• Listen

One lady described her experience in the weeks after the death of her

husband:

“Alone in my house I longed for someone to call. I watched from the

window hoping that every car that slowed down and every set of

footsteps was someone coming to visit. Anyone would have done. I

wanted to talk. But when they came they seemed to talk about every

other subject than the one most on my mind. Then I longed just as

strongly that they would leave.”

For someone to be able to talk, someone else has to be willing to listen.

And grieving people need to talk. In fact it is better to say they need to

talk and talk. Often they will repeat the same story or sequence of events

over and over. Difficult as it may be, we should encourage this, as each

reliving of the person’s life and death can be another strand of the cord

that is cut. Simple listening skills such as maintaining eye contact,

leaning forward and nodding your head in understanding encourages the

person to open up.

All too often people rush in with “advice” and offer many words trying to

rationalize or make sense of the experience of loss. These well-

intentioned but often misguided sentiments usually fall on deaf ears,

because that is not where the person is right now! They don’t want to

hear answers, because none make any sense to them. What they do

want to do is to talk, for by doing so it helps them begin to make sense

of something that at that moment makes no sense. The question is not

whether they want to talk about it; the issue is whether anyone is willing

to listen.

So, listen non-judgementally, and with permissiveness and acceptance.

Listen to the words and pick up the clues they may give you about what

Dr Bill Webster 81

the person is feeling, not just saying. Don’t be trying to figure out what

you will say next, but listen with no thought of any response. When you

do not know how to respond, say nothing. Often the silence gives an

unspoken message to the griever that says, “I don’t know what to say,

but I’m going to hang in there with you the best I can.” That message

will be remembered long after the words are forgotten. Feeling

comfortable with silence is, however, very difficult.

• Accept them unconditionally as wounded people

Grief is one of the most difficult and challenging experiences of life. It is

like a wound that needs time and attention to heal. For the individual, it

feels like a part of them is missing. They may be experiencing many

unusual and uncharacteristic emotions and reactions. They are hurt! The

wounds of grief may not be as obvious as physical scars, but they are

real. The grieving person may look to see if we understand or if we are

willing to accept them as hurting people before they share their hearts

with us.

Accept them as they are. Do not try to “fix” everything; they are not

looking for answers or solutions at this point, because there are none

and no suggestions will satisfy.

Let them know they have permission to grieve. To tell a person “not to

cry” or to “be strong” or to turn away or try to change the subject to

something more cheerful is telling them their grief and their feelings are

not acceptable to us. Assure them that we do not mind if they cry or

show anger or rant and rave or display any emotions associated with

grief. Let people know that you accept them in their weakness and

vulnerability.

• Be realistic about the help you can offer

There is a lot you can do to help a grieving person. But there is a


problem, because they really only want ONE thing, and sadly, it the one

thing we cannot do. The thing every grieving person desires and aches

for is the return of that which is lost. They want their loved one back.

They want life to return to “normal.” And of course we cannot rectify the

situation that is causing the grief. That can be one of the most frustrating

parts of the whole experience.

Thus, we have to be realistic about what we can accomplish. Grief is

painful and the pain of loss cannot be taken away; it is something we

must go through. The best you can do is to make the experience better

than it might have been if you had not been there.

Remember that you cannot take away the pain from the bereaved. As

much as we might like to, the situation cannot be “fixed.” Only one thing

would “fix it” and that would be to bring the person back and return the

situation to “normal,” which is impossible.

SO, because we are not able to do the one thing people really want, or

“fix it,” we have to be willing to …

• Tolerate angry responses

You need to be willing to tolerate angry reactions or outbursts from the

bereaved. Expect volatile responses and understand them. They are not

angry with you, even though it may look and sound like it. They are

angry because something has happened that you (and they) cannot

change. It is not a reflection on you or the help you may be seeking to

give. The griever is angry because they feel helpless and powerless to

change their sad situation. They may direct anger at us because we

cannot rectify the situation by bringing back the person or object lost.

Despite our care and concern, we cannot take away the person’s pain.

So, in those difficult early days, the person will often feel overwhelmed

and may not focus their anger in the right direction. Hostile emotions

Dr Bill Webster 83

are often directed at doctors, medical staff, ministers, funeral directors,

employers – indeed at almost anyone. Sometimes anger is justified, such

as in the case of missed diagnoses, inadequate care or inappropriate

intervention; or in a situation where there was criminal liability such as

an accident caused by a drunk driver, or some other act of neglect or

irresponsibility.

However, and sadly more often than not, anger is directed towards

others, such as family, children, pets or friends who are trying to be

supportive, most of whom least deserve to be the targets of wrath. The

real reason they are angry is because they have been left, and they don’t

like it. They are also furious because no one can “undo” the unhappy

situation they find themselves in.

Even though it may not always seem appreciated, do not let your own

sense of helplessness keep you from reaching out to the griever. In those

early days, the grieving person may seem unapproachable and

inconsolable. They may even express their frustration and say things

that hurt. It is important to keep in mind that the person is not angry at

you, as hurtful as some of the comments and actions can be. People

have every right to feel and express anger over their loss. They just are

not justified in “taking it out” on others and you have the right to point

that out to them.

To be effective in our support we must accept our inability to take

away their pain, but not be deterred by that limitation.

• Maintain a Realistic Perspective

As we have seen, one of the most difficult things about becoming

involved in helping the bereaved is being realistic about the extent to

which we can relieve their suffering. You should be aware that you will

often feel helpless when they are in pain, feeling like there is nothing

you can do, and thus that your intervention is not effective. DO NOT be


tempted to think because you cannot “fix” the situation, that your help

is not valuable. The following points may help you gain a more realistic

insight into how you may feel as you seek to help the bereaved.

i. View the loss from the griever’s unique perspective. Remember that

their world has changed, and we need to find out what that looks like

to them. You cannot assume that you know what this feels like or what

they feel they have lost. Try not to judge what the loss means to this

individual. Let THEM define and decide what is most difficult and

challenging to them in their situation.

ii. Do not let your own needs determine the experience for the griever.

Make sure your responses are for the person, not for yourself. For

example, don’t change the subject if you find it hard to see the person

cry. Don’t let your emotions about the situation determine your

responses. Sometimes when we want to hug or comfort someone, it

is to meet OUR needs. Be sure of your motives in helping and the

reasons for your reactions.

iii. Maintain an appropriate emotional distance from the griever. Be close

enough to share the griever’s pain, but not so close as to encourage

inappropriate dependency or lose objectivity and get drawn into their

sense of despair.

iv. Do not try to explain the death in religious or philosophical terms too

early. There are no easy answers to the questions of loss, and even if

the person has a faith in God, such answers may not be helpful to

them at this time. Probably the situation just doesn’t make sense, and

we should acknowledge and accept that this may be the person’s

reality.

v. Do not tell the griever to feel better because there are other loved

ones who are still alive. This robs the griever of their sadness. People

Dr Bill Webster 85

cannot be replaced. No matter how many others I have in my life, I

miss THIS one. Anything that diminishes or minimizes the importance

of this loss will infuriate the griever. Even a well-intentioned “I know

how you feel” can raise their ire, because to them, “no one knows how

this feels.” A better response is to say, “Tell me how it feels.”

vi. Do not try to unrealistically “pretty up” the situation. Don’t suggest

that “this is for the best” or a “blessing in disguise.” That is not how it

feels to the grieving individual. Tell it as it is: “This must be very

painful for you right now.” This does not negate the hope that it will

get better, but unrealistically bright and breezy, cheerful responses

should be avoided.

vii. Do not discourage responses appropriate to grief (crying, anger,

anxiety and other difficult emotions). Telling the griever not to cry or

recommending going to the doctor for tranquillizers merely to avoid

the distress of the loss may not be helpful. These only defer the pain

till later when much of their support has dissipated. People have to go

through the pain to come to the reconciliation of their loss.

(Please Note: I am NOT saying here that medications under the care

of a medical doctor are inappropriate, just that they should not be

used as an escape from the pain of the loss.)

viii. It is never too early to plant the seeds of hope. While recognizing that

losing someone you care about is one of the most difficult and painful

experiences of life, the grieving person must hold on to hope that

some day the pain will decrease and that life will have meaning again.

Do not fail to hold out the expectation that the griever will successfully

complete the tasks of mourning. The good news is that YOU are there

and they don’t have to do it alone. Even though it may be difficult to

see today, encourage them to believe that the pain will subside and

they will be able to carry on with life.


Effective assistance for a grieving person requires a delicate balance

between being sensitive and empathetic, with encouragement that

sometimes needs to be quite confrontational, to enable the griever to move

through the grieving process. I know that the ideal model of help and

counsel is not to “push” or to “pull” but to “walk alongside.” But we also

need to be practical here. Excessive commiseration, tolerating or even

encouraging inappropriate dependency does not always help.

Most people go through this process kicking and screaming, protesting

something they neither asked for nor like. They need a lot motivation and

incentive to go where they need to go. So choose whatever word you like to

describe how you achieve that end, but realistically it is going to require a

delicate balance between motivation and compassionate understanding.

3. Encourage their Unique Grief Process

While there is no one neat orderly way to work through grief, our ultimate

goal is to encourage the griever to get back into life and living. When they

are ready, we can help the individual to recognize and accept their loss and

move towards redefining “who they are now” in light of it.

There are several important milestones they need to reach in order to

successfully find their way through the process. They need repeated and

ongoing opportunities to talk and be heard; to express the pain of their

separation; to accept the reality and finality of the loss; to process the many

different feelings and emotions in reaction to the loss and its effects; and to

engage in the recollection and review of life.

How we can assist and encourage this process is the focus of this section.

• Interpret “normal” behaviour

It is important to understand what grief is and how it affects us. Only

then will we know what is normal. Indeed, what many sincere people

Dr Bill Webster 87

consider normal after a death may be quite unrealistic. Perhaps you

could obtain a book or DVD to help the person understand the process

they are going through or gather some information available on the

subject of grief and grieving by downloading some articles from the

Internet. Providing the person with information about the grief process

is very important because it validates that what they are going through

is not abnormal.

Yet we must still recognize that grief is unpredictable and manifests itself

in different ways. This fact is what makes normality so difficult to define

or neatly package.

Our grief is a blending of numerous emotions. Each person combines

these ingredients in a unique recipe. Two people can react to grief in

completely different ways, and yet both may be considered normal.

Because the experience seems unusual or uncharacteristic, people may

think they are going crazy. They are not; they are normal. By validating

their grief experience, you will encourage and enable them to examine

and work through these feelings, thus bringing the best medicine. Yet

be careful to normalize but not minimize.

• Give them permission to grieve

We live in a world that does not talk about death or grief and often seems

to encourage people to “get over it” and to “be strong.” Perhaps

unknowingly, in both verbal and non-verbal ways, we give the impression

that it is not acceptable to grieve. Thus, those in mourning will not feel

comfortable sharing their grief with everyone, especially with people who

expect them to be strong. They may be reluctant to share their grief with

family members because they see their role as comforting everyone else.

Some may not want to show their grief lest they upset others. Grieving

people will often look for signals to indicate that we accept them as being

wounded and that, with us, they have a safe place to express their

feelings of grief.


Let them know that their grief reaction will be unique and that they do

not have to live up to other people’s expectations. If the griever appears

to be resisting the grief process, explore the griever’s defences to

discover the reasons behind it. Remember there is a reason for every

behaviour and sometimes people may be finding it difficult to express

the emotions of grief, fearing they will break down or lose control. It is

never easy to open Pandora’s box ... usually because we are afraid we

might never get it back together.

So validate the fact that while they may want to avoid the hurt, they

have to go through it and yield to the painful process of grief. It hurts to

lose anyone you love.

More frequently there is a resistance to dealing with guilt and anger.

Some grievers fear that if they express anger it will mean there was

nothing positive about the relationship. Some may not want to express

it because they fear it would be disrespectful. Guilt and anger are usually

a reaction to our sense of helplessness. So …

• Identify secondary losses and unfinished business

In Chapter 3 we identified and discussed primary and secondary loss. A

secondary loss is a loss that occurs as a result of the death, and there

may be many such losses that each person will experience in their own

unique situation. There may be current losses (such as the loss of

financial security, companionship, social opportunities, and many

others). But there may also be potential losses in the future (no one to

travel with in retirement; no one to walk our daughter down the aisle or

enjoy the grandchildren). There will be losses that are physical and those

that are symbolic. A huge part of coming to terms with grief is the loss

of the “hopes and dreams” for the future; the expectations of how life

was going to be; that fantasy of cruising around the world some day.

Each loss that comes as a result of the death is another wound. By

Dr Bill Webster 89

recognizing and validating each of these losses, we help the grieving

individual come to terms with their new and often unwelcome situation.

We may also become aware that there is usually unfinished business

after a death. This idea that death comes after everyone has said a

tearful goodbye, all finally forgiven and everything complete, is really

only found in movies (usually OLD movies!). The reality is that there are

often regrets, hurts left unresolved, and now no more opportunity to put

things right. Sometimes in such situations, a counsellor can be helpful

in finding appropriate ways to facilitate closure.

• Encourage the verbalization of their feelings and the reliving of

their memories

To someone who has had a grief experience the following statement will

not be a surprise: the reality of the loss does not hit all at once. At first

the grieving person may be numb. Even after weeks or months, they

still expect their loved one to be coming back or momentarily forget that

they have actually gone. It takes a long time to work through the

process, and to do so, the griever needs repeated opportunities to talk

about the multitude of their feelings about their loss and its

consequences.

Even through numbness, memories can be incredibly painful, so raw that

in fact the person may not want to go there. This is often because all

they can think about is the DEATH. Often it is better to start with

memories of the LIFE. “Tell me how you met. What were some of the

fun times you shared?” Memories of the life are what help to soften the

memories of the death. I am not suggesting that we try to have the

person forget the death. How could they? But we are helping them put

the memories of the death in the context of the life.

Many grieving people find it useful to write some of their memories and

feelings in a journal. Giving words to grief and sorrow is important. There


is a reason for each emotion. It is often helpful to name the emotion,

work through the feelings and relive the many memories we have of the

person. Sometimes talking about the wonderful times of the relationship

can be painful, especially when the loss is recent. In order to come to an

acceptance of what seems unacceptable, the person may have to review

the events of the relationship over and over. By repeatedly reviewing

these circumstances, the finality of the death is eventually accepted. By

going over and over the same situation, the person puts the past into

perspective and begins to find some meaning and sense. Unfortunately,

many well-intentioned people thwart this process by trying to get the

person to forget, by moving them away from the pain, or by not talking

about the issues surrounding the death.

Assist the griever in identifying, accepting and expressing all the various

feelings of grief. Failure to express grief prevents its resolution. So allow,

indeed encourage, the bereaved to cry and cry, talk and talk, review and

review without questioning their sanity. There is a reason for every

reaction. Every behaviour makes sense to the person doing it, so find

out the WHY before jumping to the HOW.

Do not be surprised if the griever talks about many of the same things

repeatedly. Each story told, each memory relived, each feeling expressed

represents a tie to the deceased that must be processed and then

detached. Grievers need to review over and over, again and again, their

relationship to the deceased.

This is an important part of “letting go.” It is only by recognizing that their

needs, desires, hopes and expectations are being frustrated that the

griever begins to accept the reality of the death and begins to detach

from their loved one and move on. So, do not be afraid to mention the

dead person because this will only isolate the griever. People don’t want

their loved ones to be forgotten and if you don’t mention the person, you

not only hinder the process, you may frustrate the grieving individual.

Dr Bill Webster 91

Nonetheless, it is important to encourage the person to engage in

“realistic recollection.” Sometimes, when someone dies, we can be

tempted to elevate them to sainthood. We often hear people talk about

the deceased as the “most wonderful person” that may or may not be

realistic. Everyone is special to someone else, but no one is perfect, and

we need to carry that obvious truth into our care for the bereaved.

Encourage the griever to realistically review and talk about the deceased

and their mutual relationship: the joys and the sorrows; the good and

the bad; the happy and the sad. Only by reviewing this unique

relationship (warts and all) will the griever be able to identify the feelings

that must be experienced and get things into perspective. Sometimes

you find that a person’s negative traits and even their most annoying

habits can be endearing; at least we may be able to look back on them

and laugh. We need to remember the real not just the ideal.

4. Assist in the Adjustments to “Life as it Now Is”

Any loss changes us to some extent. People grieve until they accept that life

is now different and come to a healthy perspective of what life will look like

now. But while bereavement changes our lives in numerous ways, there is

another consideration that many miss.

People often ask, “What will this loss mean for the grieving person?” Less

often asked but just as important is the question, “What will the resolution

of their grief mean for the individual?” Or indeed, what will the FAILURE to

resolve their grief and reorganize their life mean for the person, because, to

be honest, some people grow to LIKE being the victim, and enjoy the

sympathy and even the pity that it brings.

There is a reason for every behaviour and some people would rather be

treated as a victim than be ignored. Assisting them to gain a perspective on

what life will look like NOW is imperative. Their world has changed, life is


different and that is what they grieve. But what would the world look like if

they DID pick up the pieces and put life back together again?

• Assist in the adjustments

A loss changes us in many ways. Life is different now and there are many

adjustments that need to be made socially, emotionally, spiritually and

practically. Eventually people need to face this, yet we should not raise

the topic too early in the process. I know many people who have been

hurt and confused by well-intentioned, yet ill-advised, suggestions about

changing things too quickly. People have to learn to accept their new

situation and learn to cope before they can constructively adjust.

The adjustments will be many and unique to each situation. Yet it is

important to remember that the challenge to the helper is to assist in

resourcing and equipping the person to adjust to a new life.

If, for example, a bereaved husband is struggling to adjust to a new

situation in which his partner is no longer cooking his meals, the solution

is not to do the cooking for him but rather to assist and encourage the

person to learn and develop skills that will enable him to take care of

himself.

• Be aware of difficult days throughout the process

Grief comes and goes and some days are better than others. Although

grief is never predictable, it is possible that certain days may be more

difficult than others. Birthdays are an example of such occasions. On the

deceased person’s birthday, the grieving person may miss the

opportunity to do something special for that person and to celebrate their

life. Also, on the griever’s birthday, it may be difficult inasmuch as they

may not receive a present or be given a party. How can you help on such

occasions?

Dr Bill Webster 93

Christmas and Thanksgiving are traditionally a time for family and a

reason to be jolly. This year however, people may feel neither jolly nor

thankful. Recognize that these will be difficult times. Are there ways to

help celebrate the season while also acknowledging the reality of that

special person’s absence?

Other difficult days you might anticipate include Valentine’s Day, Mother’s

Day or Father’s Day, anniversaries, weddings and other significant

occasions. Events like going on a holiday, going somewhere for the first

time without the loved one, or even recollections of “a-year-ago-today”

days can all bring back painful memories.

How can we help people through those times? A card, a visit or a

telephone call may help to ease their unhappiness. It does help to know

that they are not the only ones thinking about it and that someone has

remembered them. But even when we anticipate these situations, there

are some we will not be aware of, and we can offer an open invitation

for the person to call when they occur. Sometimes the anticipation of the

day is worse than the actual occasion and the emotions may emerge

days before or after the specific date.

• Continue support throughout the process

Sometimes I am asked, “How long does grief last? When is it going to

be over?” Good questions and no set answers. I have learned through

my own losses that we never forget the person, but how we think of

them has to change. I have concluded that our grief ends when we are

able to think about the person without pain. That is when the situation

is reconciled; when it is finally “put to rest.”

Grief takes time, usually longer than most people expect. The wonderful

support given around the time of the funeral fades away relatively

quickly. Do not make the mistake that they want to be left alone to get

on with their mourning. Your support needs to be available for up to 12


months after the death. Get together on occasion for a coffee or lunch.

Be especially sensitive on the known difficult days by telephoning,

offering an outing, or delivering a small gift. Possibly you could offer to

accompany the person to a support group. Grief support is a long-term

commitment.

But that said, there is no set standard time-frame for grief. People need

to take their own time, and those who help need to realize that there is

a reason for it taking whatever length of time it takes. One of the

temptations of the grief process is to equate the length of time or the

intensity and frequency of tears and suffering in grief as an indicator of

their love for the deceased. If someone seems happy and moving on

after a few months, we can think, “they got over that quickly,” and subtly

suggest that maybe they didn’t care as much as we thought. The

grieving person should be encouraged to take their own time to grieve

in a way that is right for them, rather than matching themselves to some

objective and arbitrary standard.

5. Applaud their Reinvestment in Life and Living

While usually a considerable distance down this long and winding road, the

reconciliation of grief means coming to the place where we can accept life

as meaningful, even in the light of loss.

That does not mean that we will necessarily find meaning in the death or in

the circumstances that surround it, which in many situations can seem

senseless. It means that rather than looking at the situation and asking

“why” or what the meaning of the event is, we should ask, “How is my life

meaningful even in the light of tragedy?” Acceptance means choosing to

believe life is meaningful even though it may not have been perfect or turned

out exactly the way I might have liked it.

Dr Bill Webster 95

However coming to this place involves several challenges:

• A reinterpretation of “myself”

We go through life believing ourselves to be the same – yesterday, today

and forever. A bereavement often challenges our long-held assumptions

about “who I am” and can initiate a fundamental loss of identity in the

individual.

Usually in life, people begin to find their identity in the teenage years or

the 20s. We define ourselves by our roles and responsibilities in life. But

when that long taken-for-granted “self” is shaken and challenged by a

significant loss, the challenge is often, “Well, who am I NOW?” For

example, the widow who has defined herself as a wife, part of a couple,

half of a partnership; the adult who says after both parents die, “I feel

like an orphan.” Such changes force the individual to re-examine how

they are perceived in and by the world, and even how they view

themselves.

We should encourage the grieving individual as they search for a new

identity in the light of loss. We often define ourselves by some of our

roles and relationships in life. After bereavement, we need to ask, “What

are the roles I have to relinquish and the new roles I have to assume,

both psychologically and socially?” It may mean having to develop new

skills and perform new tasks (e.g. learning to cook; looking after

finances; maintaining a business or finding a job; and a countless host

of others).

• A reinterpretation of the relationship lost

The grieving person must also develop a new relationship with the

deceased. What many fail to realize is that the relationship does not end

after a loss. We never forget these special people who make a difference

in our lives. We don’t have to, and in most cases, why would we WANT

to?


But something does change. We have to realize that the person is no

longer present in our lives. We never forget, but we begin to think of

them not as being in the PRESENT but as being part of the PAST. After

someone dies, we still have a relationship with that person, but it has to

change from being a relationship of presence to being one of memory.

So here’s what we are saying. When a person is alive, they are present

and part of our lives today. After they die, they are still present in the

sense that they are constantly on our minds, we don’t want to “let them

go,” and the struggle to come to terms with the death commands much

of our time and energy.

However, the grieving person needs to recognize that person is no longer

in the here and now, and convert the relationship from one of presence

to one of memory; to see that the person is no longer present in our

lives, while still recognizing that their influence and example can go with

us throughout the rest of our lives if we want it to.

• A reinvestment of myself

In a good grief journey, there comes a time when the bereaved will

decide that they are going to go on even without this person who has

been such an important part of their life. They invested in the

relationship with the person while they were alive; they have invested

much time and energy in grieving their absence; now they must consider

reinvesting that energy in life as it is now. Nothing will ever take the

place of the person, of course, but they may invest in new friendships or

activities, and fresh involvements in society.

Sometimes, when people realize that they are beginning to move on with

life, they may feel guilty, as if the person who died is being forgotten or

if somehow their moving on with life is disrespectful to the memory of

their loved one. I disagree. I believe it is possibly more dishonouring and

disrespectful NOT to move on. We should encourage people to grieve

Dr Bill Webster 97

and recognize that they miss the person who has died. But we should

also invite them to consider whether the deceased would want them to

spend the rest of their lives grieving or whether they would like them to

go on; maybe even be disappointed if they didn’t.

Sometimes people can spend so much time grieving what they have lost,

that they fail to make the most of what they have left. It is important to

remind them that they should give attention to both aspects and thus

restore a healthy balance to life.

It may also be necessary to remind them that “who we are” is

determined not just by our experiences, whether good and bad; “who

we are” is defined by what we DO with our experiences and by how we

allow them to affect us.

The griever does not “recover” from grief in the sense that any loss

changes them forever. But when they learn how to integrate loss into

their life and affirm that life is still meaningful, they have come full circle

in their grief journey.

A Final Word on Communicating with Grieving People:

In addition to the above list of things to do, let me suggest some “don’ts”:

• Don’t wait to make contact. Speak to the mourner or to someone close,

and ask if you can visit or how you can help. Even if much time has

passed since the death, it is never too late to express your sympathy.

• Don’t use clichés. Well-meaning phrases like “it’s a blessing” or “at least

he’s out of pain” or “aren’t you lucky that…” often do not help. The

grieving person does not feel lucky or blessed at the moment. A simple

“I’m sorry” may be the best.

• Don’t say too much. Often a hug, a touch of the hand or a few

expressions of encouragement speak louder than words.


• Don’t dispense unrequested advice. Do not tell the person what they

should do about such matters as selling the house, moving away or

disposing of clothing. Even to say, “You must feel relieved now that the

suffering is over” is presumptuous and the mourner will probably resent

your attempt to describe their feelings. You don’t know how they feel

until they tell you; learn from the mourner rather than instruct.

• Don’t treat them differently. Grieving people do not want to feel as if

they are objects of pity or have others take over for them. They want to

feel they can get through this difficult challenge. Therefore, encourage

them by treating them in a normal manner.

• Don’t criticize unusual or “morbid” behaviour. Accept the unusual or

uncharacteristic emotions and behaviours as part of the grief process for

that person. If the person is visiting the cemetery or returning to the

site of an accident or wearing the dead person’s clothing, all of these

activities can be part of their healing process.

• Don’t be upset if the grieving person does not want your help. The

person may need to be left alone. They may actually be trying to prove

to themselves that they can manage. Let them know you respect their

wishes; you can leave the door open by assuring them they can call if

needed, and by again offering help at a later time.

• Don’t tell them “time will make it better.” That statement may be true in

the long term, but not in the meantime. Our task is to help them now

while they are in the process.

• Don’t be afraid to mention the deceased by name. Shortly after the

funeral, when no one seems to want to mention the person’s life or their

death, the mourner feels frustrated, not wanting the person to be

forgotten. Even if it may risk an emotional response, mention the

person’s name when appropriate.

• Don’t make promises you are not going to keep. “I’ll call you; we must

have you over; if there’s anything you need, just call;” are easy to blurt

out at a funeral. You may forget, but the person who is hurting and alone

Dr Bill Webster 99

will not forget. After a while, they may feel let down and conclude that

you do not really care.

• Don’t say, “I know how you feel.” You don’t. No one can understand how

someone feels because each situation is different. Perhaps you should

only say, “I cannot know what you are going through, but I care that

you are hurting.”

• Don’t stop giving encouragement. Going back to work, making means,

getting over a special holiday or anniversary are survival tasks and may

each represent a major victory. Acknowledge and commend each

positive step.

• Don’t forget difficult days and holidays. Anticipate the birthdays,

anniversaries, Christmas and other perhaps less obvious occasions as

opportunities to be supportive. Help find meaningful ways to celebrate

the deceased person’s life and allow the memories to be a part of the

healing process.

• Don’t try to bring meaning too quickly. To say, “everything happens for

a reason” or “it’s God’s will” may well be true. However, if we try to bring

meaning too early, the mourner may not feel able to ventilate anguish

and express true feelings. Meaning most often becomes apparent

towards the end of the grief journey.

• Don’t pressure them to stop grieving at any time in the process. Support

encourages progress at the griever’s own pace.



1. From this comprehensive chapter, make a list of “things todo” to help the person, and practical ways you can providethat support.

2. Remember that the only mistake you can make is by doingnothing. Even if the person says they don’t need your help,keep on occasionally making the offer, especially duringtimes when you think their life could be most difficult.Sometimes a little card that simply says “thinking of you”at a difficult time can mean the world to the recipient.

Dr Bill Webster 101

PS.

Helping Children

Cope with Grief 7

Children of all ages are undoubtedly affected by any significant loss, and

often very deeply, because their coping mechanisms are just developing.

Everyone is usually rightly concerned about how a death or a life-threatening

situation will affect children.

Whether it is the loss of a grandparent, parent, sibling, peer, family member

or friend will make a difference, of course. Every loss is difficult, but each

loss is different. To lose a parent is a devastating loss for anyone. But to

lose a sibling is equally difficult, even though “what is lost” by each child

may be completely different.

Any child old enough to love is old enough to grieve. But we need to ask

ourselves the following question to understand the complexity of how the

situation affects this child, and how we can offer support:

What does THIS loss mean to THIS child, at THIS time in his/her

life?

Dr Bill Webster 103

We could analyze every relationship and try to understand the bond shared,

asking ourselves, “What has this child lost here?” The illness and death will

be difficult for any child of any age, regardless of the relationship, but will

be intensified and complicated by the bond that the child has come to

depend on with this person.

It is very important to acknowledge that children do grieve, and should be

encouraged to do so. Allowing them to express their grief helps make sense

of overwhelming fears and anxieties that may be evoked by a death or other

significant loss. Having their grief validated gives children the assurance that

they are not alone in their experience and that they will be OK.

The world changes when one generation ensures that the next is better

equipped to cope with situations when they inevitably arise. As we ourselves

learn about death, we also need to teach our children about mortality, the

dying process, the rituals around death and their meaning, and the ensuing

grief process. To do this we must talk honestly with children, listen to their

thoughts and questions, and support them through their own sense of

personal loss.

When tragedy strikes, there is often anxiety about the impact upon and the

reactions of the children directly or indirectly involved. Many instinctively

shield children from pain and sorrow. We try to keep them from upsetting

situations. We leave them at home when we go to visit a sick or dying

relative in the hospital. We send them to a friend’s house when we go to a

funeral. We talk about death in hushed voices, rationalizing that “this would

be too much for them” and “they are too young to understand.” In fact they

understand all too well.

Children, from a very young age, know when something is wrong. They hear

what is said and are sensitive to disruptions in the household. They feel the

distress of their parents and others and are deeply affected by it. And when

they discern that something is a secret that is being kept from them, they


arrive at unjustified conclusions. When we do not include children in the

situation or explain what is happening, we leave them to imagine the worst

and cope with their feelings alone. And sometimes, what they imagine is

worse than reality.

Children have varying abilities to comprehend death, depending on their

mental and emotional development. Maturity does not happen according to

fixed-age categories. Each child has a unique timetable as to discernment

of these things. Nonetheless, the following general guidelines may be

helpful.

Within the first year of life, an infant is able to feel separation and a sense

of loss. They have a sixth sense about when parents are going out, for

example, and they usually protest the prospect of being left with a

babysitter. Creating a warm, safe environment with the physical expression

of holding, hugging, rocking and reassurances of personal safety counteract

the confusion and restore some sense of security.

Children as young as two or three have a vague awareness of death and are

keenly aware that there is a disruption in the state of things around them,

which can cause insecurity. In the general age category of two to five,

children understand that people die, but death is regarded as temporary and

reversible, something like “a round trip.” There may be some idea of what

is happening linked to a concept of the person “sleeping.” No matter how

hard you try to explain, children around five cannot comprehend that

someone can be gone forever. Mommy is gone, but will be coming home

soon. Her ongoing absence means a loss of security for a younger child.

Between ages five and nine, children begin to realize that death is

irreversible, but assume it cannot happen to anyone in their family. The

concept of death is as something that can be controlled. This is the age of

“magical thinking” about ghosts, skeletons and demons, so death is

regarded as a “bogeyman” who comes to take people away. If we do not

Dr Bill Webster 105

make children a part of what is happening or if we keep it “a secret,” the

children assume that somehow they are responsible – an often mistaken

perception that merely adds complications to their mourning.

At age nine to 11, children understand the permanence of death. They are

able to grasp some of life’s mysteries and can think in the abstract. They

will carry clearer memories of the experience. Because they are no longer

thinking of themselves as “little children” they may put forward a façade of

independence and coping. They want to comfort a surviving parent or family

member, and may try to assume the roles of the person who has died. They

want to be helpful, which can be OK, but caution is required. All too often

younger children have a terrible burden placed on them by some well-

intentioned person who says, “You need to act grown up. You’re the

father/mother of the family now.” The child will assume the role to attempt

to master their pain and deny their helplessness, but it is unrealistic to

expect a child to be anything other than a child.

Older children often need help to express their grief, especially over the loss

of a parent. Research clearly shows that teenagers have more intense grief,

but struggle desperately not to show it. Adolescents are suspended between

the dependency of childhood and the adult responsibility they hope to earn.

The young person may fear that expressing deep sadness or grief displays

a return to childhood vulnerability, which they resist stoically. But also, it is

part of the teenage role to be in conflict with parents, and so when a parent

dies during this transition between reliance and self-determination, there

can be a struggle. Besides, it is not regarded as “cool” to be talking about

missing your parents. Teenagers are exceedingly concerned about the

acceptability of their responses to others, particularly their peers. Thus the

teen may find it difficult to express the feelings that the death of a parent

can raise.

Any death confronts teenagers with their own mortality. They could die.

Angry at the death, they may adopt a “why should I care” attitude. Perhaps


as a defence, or maybe in defiance, young people sometimes engage in

reckless or dangerous behaviours to show they don’t care or to try to prove

they are immortal.

Behaviours

The experience and expression of children may be different from adults, but

it will be no less painful or severe. Most children fear abandonment more

than death. Children who feel isolated tend to fall back on regressive

behaviours. Angry outbursts, irritability and changes in eating or sleeping

patterns are common signs that a child is suffering. Because children believe

in magic, they may believe that if they wish hard enough, mom will come

back, and the anger is because they believe they were unable to reverse

the effects of death.

Some may even believe they are responsible for the death somehow, and

struggle with guilt. Because children cannot differentiate between a wish

and a deed, they may recall a moment when they wished a parent would

disappear, and rationalize that this wish has come true and they are to

blame. Others may feel the person has “gone away” because they were bad

or unlovable.

Watch your child at play. Observe how they act with dolls or toys, as this is

often a clue to their feelings. Listen to the stories they make up in word or

play. You can help by sharing stories and memories of the good times, and

positive alternatives to any bad things they may remember.

Often it may appear a child is “unaffected” by the news of a loss. This is

because it takes a child a long time to “internalize” bad news. The hard

questions may come up many months later. There are perhaps four central

questions children express:

1. Did I cause this person’s death?

2. Does this mean I will die too?

Dr Bill Webster 107

3. Are you (parents) going to die too?

4. If you die, who will take care of me?

Children tend to mourn little by little, bit by bit. They cannot do it in chunks.

Sometimes they experience grief in other ways than sadness and tears. So

a child may be upset one minute and playing happily the next. They might

act as if the death has not occurred because the thought of the loss is

overwhelming. They need to be allowed to process their grief in child-sized

segments.

Children will need reassurance that they are not responsible. Some may

mistakenly feel this has happened because they were naughty or did not

keep quiet as they were instructed. Remember, the child feels that death is

controllable, so they will make the false assumption that if they had done

more, or behaved better, that this would not have happened. Most children

need assurance of love, acceptance and security, and these needs are

heightened in a time of crisis or loss.

The good news is, children can cope with most situations, provided they are

given appropriate choices, are prepared for what to expect, given

opportunity to talk it through before and after, and receive loving

reassurances and support. Sharing the reality of what is happening allows

children to understand, cope with, and integrate the experience of loss into

their lives.

How to Assist Children to Cope with Grief

• It is important to note that children have many questions about death,

and these are usually different than the ones that occur to adults.

Children’s questions deserve simple, straightforward answers. The first

task of a grieving child is to make sense of the factual information about

how the loss occurred. A caregiver’s direct, concrete explanation of the

facts surrounding the death will help the children begin to come to terms


with what has happened. They may ask to hear the facts a number of

times. They may also want to share the story with many others ...

friends, teachers, strangers ... to try to comprehend the unimaginable

that has happened.

• Children’s perception of loss and their grief has to be understood

according to their developmental levels, as we have seen above. Death,

or indeed any loss, means different things to children of different ages.

Inquire and try to figure out what this loss means to this child at this

particular time in life. What they feel they have lost will be a determinate

of what they are missing, and what needs to be.

• Dispel any fears the child may have. Children are often afraid that

someone else in the family or they themselves will also die. They need

to have reassurance that these fears are unfounded. Every child is afraid

of being abandoned, so if one parent has died, the remaining parent can

assure the child that he/she expects to live a long time and will take care

of all the child’s needs.

• Children need to teach adults about their grief. Every child and every

response is unique. Rather than assuming that we know what the child

is feeling, we must allow the children to be our teachers. As children

share their grief with others they trust, they tell us what they are feeling

and experiencing. As adults communicate respect, acceptance, warmth

and understanding, the child will sense that they are being taken

seriously and be more open to the stabilizing presence of that individual

as they reach out with meaningful support.

• Children express themselves in a variety of ways after a loss. Some of

the most widely recognized include: an apparent lack of feelings; acting-

out behaviour, due to feelings of insecurity and abandonment, and often

expressed by behaviours that provoke punishment, for children would

rather be punished than feel ignored; regressive behaviour; fear; guilt

and self-blame; “Big Man” or “Big Woman” syndrome (often encouraged

by those who with good yet unwise intentions tell a 10 year old that he

Dr Bill Webster 109

has to be the “man of the family”); disorganization and panic; loss and

loneliness; explosive emotions.

• Simple ceremonies such as lighting a candle next to a photograph;

placing a letter, picture or special memento in a casket; or releasing a

helium balloon with a message attached for the person who died, can

be effective rituals of farewell. Children can be wonderfully creative with

these kinds of meaningful, symbolic ideas.

• Speak in simple language. Ask the child what he/she thinks, knows and

feels, and respond specifically to these concerns. Do not give excessive

detail, and make sure you check how the child is putting the information

all together.

• Be honest. Avoid half-truths. Never tell a child something he/she will

later have to unlearn. Don’t avoid the word death, because sometimes

the alternatives (asleep, gone away, in a better place, etc.) create worse

difficulty in a child’s mind.

• Be open about the situation. When my wife died, my boys were nine and

seven years of age. As much as I might have wanted to, there was no

avoiding the questions that arose. “Why did mommy die?” “Where is she

now?” “What will we do if you die too?” I tried to answer the questions

they asked simply and honestly, without giving too complicated

responses. They discerned that I was making them a part of it all, and

was being open about everything and accepted that.

• Initiate the conversation. Children may not ask questions because they

do not want to upset the adults. They may not know what to ask or be

able to put their uncertainties into words. They know that something

unusual is happening and are scared by it. Instead of asking questions,

they may turn to whining or other negative behaviours, which add to

your emotional stress. In response, rather than helping them cope,

adults may get upset or angry and this adds to the reluctance to talk.

Try to be sensitive to opportunities to ask children how they feel. We

might ask, “You’ve probably been wondering about …” and pose the


question that the children may be asking.

• Sometimes our concern for the children can mask a deep need to resolve

our own adult grief issues. Sometimes it is easier and more socially

acceptable to say, “I am concerned about the children,” than it is to say,

“I’m having a hard time dealing with this myself.” So be careful not to

transfer your own fears and anxieties on to the children.

• Often a child may benefit from a support program. Talk to your doctor,

spiritual leader or other community resource people to see what

programs are available for your children.

• Above all, let the child know that these feelings of grief are natural and

a necessary part of the grieving process and that their grief will pass.

Assure them they are not alone and that others, including you yourself,

feel sad as well. Assure the child, however, that these feelings will pass

with time and that life will return to normal.

A few practical guidelines:

• When describing the death of a loved one, use simple direct language.

• Be honest. Never teach a child something they will later have to unlearn.

• Allow children to express all their emotions.

• Listen to children, don’t just talk to them.

• Don’t expect the child to react immediately. Be patient and available.

• Understand your own adult feelings about death and grief, for until we

have come to terms with it for ourselves, it will be difficult to convey a

positive attitude to children.

An important influence on children is the observance of how adults are

responding. Caring adults can help guide children through this difficult time

and make it a valuable part of personal growth and development. When you

support children through these difficult life transitions, they will know

without a doubt they are not alone. There is no greater gift we can give our

children.

Dr Bill Webster 111


1. The most basic need of children during and after any crisisis a feeling of security. What can YOU do to give that childa sense that “life will go on?” In what ways can you helpresource the PARENTS (and family) to provide what isnecessary for the children emotionally, when theythemselves may feel they have nothing left to offer?

2. Maybe the child needs a break from grief, so offer to takethem to a theme park, sports event or even just toMcDonald’s … anything that would be a help to the childAND to the parents. Could you sponsor the child for asummer camp or other enjoyable experience if familyfinances are a problem?


PS.

Understanding

Complicated Mourning 8

What we have attempted to provide thus far is a brief, basic overview of the

grief process. While grief is one of the most difficult of human experiences,

I have made the case that it is a natural human reaction to an unwelcome

event. However there are some situations that can cause the person’s grief

reaction to be “complicated.”

What follows in the next two chapters will NOT be a comprehensive

examination of complicated mourning, which is a complex and difficult topic

that would take many books and much research to fully comprehend, if

indeed such comprehension is possible. Even professionals have difficulty

defining symptoms and assisting people when the situation is complicated.

Nonetheless, the reader may want to know or at least identify if the person

they are seeking to support is experiencing a “normal” reaction or if there

are complicating factors that may be affecting their progress through grief.

We seek here to offer just enough information to enable the layperson to be

Dr Bill Webster 113

able to recognize some of the factors and the manifestations of complicated

mourning and to be able to know when to refer the grieving person to a

qualified counsellor or health-care provider.

1. Recognizing Complicated Mourning

While grief is a natural human experience, not a sickness, disease or mental

health disorder, there are factors that can contribute to complicated

mourning. It is important to identify these and identify appropriate actions

to take when we recognize such symptoms.

While it is important not to pathologize grief, it is also crucial to acknowledge

that satisfactory reorganization of one’s life following a major loss

(which is often the stated goal of the grief process) is not a guaranteed

outcome. Indeed, there are several ways that we can become stuck in the

grief cycle so that grieving is patently absent or chronic or even life-

threatening. Examples might be untimely deaths, which are out of sync

with the family life cycle: the death of a child (of any age) that robs the

parent not only of the child’s presence, but also the expected future; the

untimely death of a parent leaving young children to mourn. Factors such

as the level of social support available to the mourner can also promote or

impede healthy grieving in situations. Where there is bereavement overload

in which any individual is confronted with the simultaneous or sequential

deaths of many significant others (for example in combat situations or

vehicular accidents in which several friends or family members are killed)

grieving each loss separately and fully becomes a near impossibility.

Complicated mourning is just that, COMPLICATED. It is unwise for anyone

to try to deal with issues such as traumatic loss without thorough

comprehension of the potential complications that such a loss can bring

about, and such situations are often best left to those who have specific

education and experience in the field. Never be afraid or embarrassed to

refer to professionals who have skills and expertise to better deal with such

situations. Yet if this section provides you enough information to be able to


spot the situations that merit professional attention, it will serve its purpose.

Part of the difficulty here has been the absence of a diagnostic category to

allow the mental health profession to adequately define or recognize the

phenomenon, or to identify anything but the most basic uncomplicated grief.

DSM-IV fails to identify the objective criteria to determine when mourning

is complicated. Words like atypical, pathological, neurotic, abnormal,

dysfunctional and deviant are only a few of the descriptions that can be

found in the research literature. The demarcation between uncomplicated

and complicated mourning is hazy and constantly being re-evaluated. No

determination of abnormality can be made without taking into consideration

the various, unique factors that are known to influence any specific response

to loss. Reactions always have to be understood in the context of this

particular loss, for this particular person, in this particular circumstance.

Put simply, we need to note that it is not the situation that makes grieving

complicated. Rather it is connected to a person’s response or reaction to any

given situation. The event is not what triggers the crisis. It is the person’s

REACTION to the crisis that determines whether their coping mechanisms

are able to handle and come to terms with what has happened.

Perhaps the best we can say is that complicated mourning indicates that,

given the amount of time since the death, for whatever reason, there is

some compromise, distortion or failure to work through some aspect of the

normal grieving process.

Dr. Therese Rando, however, in her book “Complicated Mourning” lists seven

high-risk factors that can predispose any individual to complicated

mourning. Note the word “predispose.” That does not mean that these

factors necessitate a complicated process. For our purposes here, suffice

it to say that when you encounter situations that fit the following criteria,

you should at least be aware that mourning could be complicated.

Dr Bill Webster 115

a) Sudden and unexpected death, especially where the death

has been traumatic, violent, mutilating or random. Situations

reflecting this factor might include vehicular accidents, heart attacks,

suicide, homicide and many others. It is worth noting that as people

live longer because of medical advancements, the likelihood of dying

by accident or some unexpected means increases. Thus it is not

unrealistic to anticipate a growing number of complicated grief

reactions in the years to come.

b) Death from an overly long illness. While this factor may surprise

some, deaths after a long-term illness can produce a host of stresses,

including social alienation, guilt and anger that can haunt the survivor.

Again as medical knowledge extends life and people do not die

immediately from their ailments, we can expect a growing number of

complications in mourning.

c) Loss of a child. This is always difficult, because it seems out of the

natural order of things. We do not expect children to die. The loss of a

child includes many situations, ranging from stillbirth, SIDS, childhood

illness, accidental death and teenage suicide, to the increasing

incidence in today’s world of the loss of adult children. Again, as people

live longer, the chances of an adult child being in an accident, suffering

a heart attack, dying violently or committing suicide seems to increase

the possibility of complications.

d) The mourner’s perception of the loss as being preventable.

The key word here is “PERCEPTION.” Perceived carelessness or

negligence brings feelings of anger, victimization and unfairness.

Grievers often feel the need to assign blame as an attempt to gain

some sense of control in a situation that is out of control.

These first four factors are associated with the specific death. The remain-

ing three have to do with prior and subsequent variables.


e) A relationship with the deceased that was markedly angry,

ambivalent or overly dependent. We have seen previously how we

cannot understand what the person has lost until we understand the

meaning and importance of the relationship. This is particularly true in

situations where the relationship has been, shall we say, less than

perfect. The loss of an abusive parent or spouse; the loss of someone

who had abandoned or betrayed them; the loss of someone they had

not seen or spoken to in years or had an argument with that was never

resolved; a sibling they never really got along with; a parent they held

on to into adulthood and from whom they never detached.

f) Prior or concurrent liabilities. Examples of this might include

unaccommodated or unresolved prior losses, so it is important to ask

people about OTHER losses in their life, inasmuch as “today’s grief”

might be more connected to “yesterday’s loss” than any current

situation; mental health problems; or bereavement overload due to

cumulative losses. All these pre-existing conditions can complicate the

current grief situation.

g) The mourner’s perceived lack of social support. In our death-

denying culture, grieving people often feel like there is no help and

even that nobody cares. The good news is that support programs and

informed individuals, friends, families and companies offering

assistance can help.

2. Factors in Potentially Complicated Mourning

Every loss is difficult. Every loss is personally traumatic to the individual who

experiences it. Sometimes people ask whether losing someone suddenly and

unexpectedly is more difficult than if someone dies after a long lingering

illness.

The answer is clear. EVERY loss is difficult. But every loss is different. There

is no such thing as more or less DIFFICULT; it is just DIFFERENT. Yet it is

Dr Bill Webster 117

important for us to be able to distinguish the unique characteristics of every

loss and the distinctive reactions that they can evoke.

In the chapter that follows, we will identify many situations of grief, such as

anticipatory grief; sudden unanticipated loss; and traumatic loss, including

homicide and suicide. Whether the loss is anticipated, or sudden and

unanticipated, it is important to understand that the grief reactions to any

of these situations CAN be complicated. But it is not the SITUATION that

is complicated, it is the person’s REACTION to the situation that can

complicate or compromise their grief.

What factors might alert you to potential complicated reactions that may

require counselling? If the following changes in behaviour are sustained with

lasting intensity for six weeks to four months, they deserve careful scrutiny:

• major deterioration in personal hygiene habits

• difficulty in simple decision-making

• expressions and manifestations of fear, anger or guilt

• hyperactivity or compulsive talking

• sustained memory problems and confusion

• hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not actually present)

• major disturbance of self-esteem, preoccupation with worthlessness, and

self-condemnation

• significant impairment in social functioning

• initiating or increasing alcohol or drug abuse

• physical symptoms: failure to eat, continued weight loss, extreme sleep

problems.

Speak to a caring professional such as a medical doctor, clergyperson or

health-care worker if you have concerns.



The purpose of this section is to help you understand andrecognize when grief may be complicated. If you suspectthis is the case, REFER the person to a qualifiedcompetent counsellor.

Dr Bill Webster 119

PS.

Understanding the

Unique Distinctives

of Specific

Grief Situations 9

We have seen in the previous chapter how certain situations can predispose

an individual to experience a complication in their grief process. Two of these

were sudden and unexpected death, known as acute grief; and death after

an overly long illness, known as anticipatory grief. It might be helpful to give

some additional information about both these increasingly common

situations in today’s world.

1. Anticipatory Grief

Perhaps the person you are seeking to support is grieving even though the

person has not died, but is rather suffering with a life-threatening situation,

such as a debilitating disease, or limited by the effects of a devastating

accident or incident. The grief a person experiences before a death is often

known as anticipatory grief.

However, understanding anticipatory grief is not as straightforward as it

might seem. Traditionally, anticipatory grief, as the term suggests, has been

Dr Bill Webster 121

thought of as the grief that a person might experience in anticipation of a

death. For example, a person gets a life-threatening diagnosis and is told

they have a year to live. That year gives both family and the patient the

opportunity to “anticipate” or get ready for the death; deal with unfinished

business; prepare practically, psychologically and emotionally for the death;

say their goodbyes; among other things. These are all things that cannot

happen in the case of a sudden or unexpected death.

By doing such things, the general view was that the grief would somehow

be LESS in both intensity and in time, because the opportunity existed to

anticipate and therefore prepare for the eventuality (if not the inevitability).

In an ideal and predictable world, this theory would work well. However,

death, and life-threatening illness, is never so predictable or programmable.

Several factors come into play. Due to advances in medical technology, the

time between diagnosis and death is lengthening. People tend not to die

immediately from illness. Numerous remissions and relapses, which

lengthen periods of anticipatory grief, not to mention the increased social,

physical, emotional and financial pressures, long-term family disruption and

uncertainty: all these factors influence the way we grieve when someone

could be dying. People are learning to “live with dying” so family and friends

may wonder if it is “giving up hope” to actually grieve in anticipation. Indeed,

nowadays many people recover from illnesses that were once considered

terminal.

One of the major misconceptions is that anticipatory grief is merely “a post-

death grief begun pre-death.” Consider that phrase carefully. The

concept is that there is a fixed volume of grief to be experienced and if

we experience that grief in anticipation of the loss, the remaining grief that

is experienced after the death will be diminished. Therefore it would not be

unusual to hear someone say after a death, “Oh, I did all my grieving during

the illness. I don’t need to grieve now.”


This is a fallacy, however. First, there is no fixed volume of grief. If there

were, the grief after an unanticipated loss would be the same in volume as

an anticipated one except it would come in its entirety after the death. But

in fact, we know that grief following unanticipated bereavement differs

both in form and duration from anticipated grief. This is because the

sudden and unexpected death overwhelms the adaptive capacities of the

person and mourners are often unable to grasp the full implications of their

loss, which we will see in the next section.

Also, I think there have been several misconceptions around the traditional

explanations of anticipatory grief. The first is the overemphasis on the

ultimate loss of death, without due regard to the other losses involved in

a life-threatening diagnosis. Anticipatory grief has to take many losses

associated with a life-threatening illness into account, of which death is only

one. These might include the loss of functioning, health, abilities, body parts

through surgery, hair; the loss of the future that had been planned, with the

loss of hopes, dreams and expectations; the loss of security, predictability

and control; and the loss of the relationship.

Anticipatory grief must not be thought of as solely relating to the

death. In fact, anticipatory grief is not composed exclusively of grief over

losses that are being anticipated, but encompasses grief for losses that have

already befallen, or are currently being experienced, as well as those that

will (or may) be experienced.

Another misconception is that if we grieve in anticipation, this necessarily

means that we have given up on the person. The term used is “decathexis”

which is by definition the opposite of “attachment.” So critics of anticipatory

grief suggest that it encourages us to “give up” on the person and to begin

to disengage ourselves from them. However, in good anticipatory grief, the

idea is that we should not be disengaging from the person themselves but

from the idea of that person being in the future and the relinquishing of all

the hopes and dreams connected to a long-term future with them. The

Dr Bill Webster 123

future can be grieved without relinquishing the present. Continued

involvement with the dying person and making the most of what we have

left should not be inconsistent with by the experience of anticipatory grief.

But again, this is what should happen ideally but does not always occur in

practice. We see many examples of people who, for example, after years of

old age, illness or infirmity in a nursing home, are abandoned by family, who

might claim they find it “too difficult” to see their loved one in such a

situation over such a long period of time, or just simply forget about them

as if the person was dead already. This is known as premature decathexis,

the family having disengaged from the person themselves rather than from

the person as being healthy or in their familiar role in the family.

So, the term “anticipatory grief” is in one way a misnomer, yet in another,

it is a reality. To understand this seeming contradiction, the following

statement may be helpful: “A rehearsal is not the real thing.” No matter

how much we get ready for and anticipate a death, we are never fully

prepared. Because what we anticipate is never the same as when it

happens. The feelings we have when it does happen are usually not ones

we might have anticipated. But that does not mean that in anticipation we

do not grieve.

It is important to note that there are two perspectives of anticipatory grief.

The first is that of the dying person themselves. The other perspective is

that of those who are emotionally involved in some way with the dying

person, whether that be family, friends, colleagues, community, etc. It is

important to understand the loss from BOTH perspectives.

Perhaps part of the difficulty is that the term “anticipatory” implies

something that is in the future. However, there are THREE focal points

towards which anticipatory grief directs itself: the past, the present AND the

future. From the moment that a life-threatening diagnosis is given, there

are past losses that have already occurred, present losses that are occurring


on an ongoing basis, and future losses that will occur, of which death is only

one.

a) Losses in the past:

Let’s consider the case of a 55-year-old man, married with two children,

one in high school and one in university, who is told he has cancer and

has one year to live. The moment this life-threatening illness is

diagnosed, there are losses that have already occurred that must be

mourned. Both he and his wife might grieve over the vibrant and healthy

man ALREADY lost to cancer. They might mourn their altered

relationship, lifestyle and their dreams for the future that will never be

realized.

It will not be unusual for her to remember the activities they shared

when he was well and to recall how, in contrast to his current state, he

was strong and independent; to grieve over the fact that so many

limitations have been placed on their lives and interfered with their

plans; and to mourn for all that has already been taken away by the

illness.

Each of these losses is a fait accompli – and this is what is meant by the

grief entailing mourning over losses in the past. This past may be recent

or in the more distant past, as in the lost opportunities that are regretted

in light of the limited time left. In both cases, paying attention to these

past losses does not mean that the wife is not still fully involved with her

husband in his present state.

In fact, because of her concern for her remaining time with him and out

of her desire to protect him, the wife may not even address these losses.

She may work to keep them out of her own consciousness and push

them aside to deal with after the death. Even if she does feel grief over

them she might not show it. However, despite what is done with it, the

situation calls for some grief response because losses have transpired.

Dr Bill Webster 125

The issue is that even in the shadow of the ultimate loss of death, there

are other losses that have already occurred and that necessitate a grief

process.

Exercise:

What might be some of the losses that have ALREADY occurred for the man,

his wife, his children, his work colleagues, and his friends at the moment

the diagnosis is revealed, and the days that follow?

b) Losses in the present:

In addition, the woman experiences conditions that stimulate grief in the

present. She witnesses the ongoing losses of progressive debilitation,

increasing dependence, continual uncertainty, decreasing control, and

so forth. A fundamental part of her grief is grief for what is currently

being lost and for the future that is being eroded. This is different from

grief about what will happen in the future. Rather it pertains to grief for

what is slipping away right now; for the sense of having her loved one

being taken away from her and for what the increasing awareness of her

husband’s impending death means at this very moment in time.

Exercise:

What might be some of the losses that could be PRESENTLY occurring on a

daily basis for the man, his wife, his children, his work colleagues, his

friends, etc.?

c) Losses in the future:

Both the patient and those involved will also grieve for future losses yet

to come. Not only is her husband’s ultimate death mourned, but also the

losses that will arise before his death. This may entail mourning for such

things as the fact that she and her husband will not be able to take the

annual vacation this year. She knows that he will lose his mobility and


become bedridden, but such grieving is not limited exclusively to losses

that happen prior to the death. It may also focus on those losses that

might occur in the future after the death as a consequence of it: the

loneliness, the insecurity, the social discomfort, the uncertain identity,

the economic uncertainty, the lifestyle alterations, the fact that dad will

not be present to walk their daughter down the aisle on her wedding

day, among many, many others.

Exercise:

What might be some of the losses in the FUTURE that will or might occur for

the man, his wife, his children, his work colleagues, his friends, etc.?

It is critical to recognize that a major component of anticipatory grief is the

mourning of the absence of a loved one in the future. Although the reality

of this absence will not be fully realized until the death has occurred and

the person is no longer there, it is possible to get a small but important

indication of “what this will be like” through experiences that

foreshadow his permanent absence in the future.

For example, during the illness, the wife may be forced to attend a social

function alone or go to a parent-teacher interview; the children may

experience their father missing an award ceremony or sports triumph; or

the family must become accustomed to a reduced income. All these things

reinforce not only the current reality, but portend a small bit of what the

world will be like after the death. They do not mean discontinued investment

in the father in the present, but are precursors of the ultimate loss that is

drawing closer.

Can you think of other examples from perspectives of all theparticipants?

Ideally, any decathexis that occurs in anticipatory grief is not from the dying

patient in the present, but from the idea of the dying person as someone

Dr Bill Webster 127

who will be present in the future. There should be continued involvement

with the patient in the here and now, despite the decreased emotional

investment in those hopes, dreams and expectations of a future that

formally included that person. Emotional energy gradually must be

withdrawn (decathected) from the concept of the person as someone in the

future beyond this terminal illness.

It might be helpful to recognize that in anticipatory grief, the primary loss is

not the death but the illness. The losses that arise because of that illness

(the primary loss) are therefore secondary losses. In any situation of a life-

threatening illness, accident or other critical situation, the question is, what

has been lost here? (See the section on primary and secondary loss to

elaborate on this concept.)

Although anticipatory grief possesses the potential to offer therapeutic

benefits to the dying person and concerned others, it is not without its

problems. Whereas anticipatory grief can serve to bring people together and

to heighten emotional attachment, too much of it or inappropriate

application of its processes can result in premature detachment from the

dying person. Too little anticipatory grief can compromise the griever’s

participation during the patient’s hospitalization or the preparation of death

and subsequent adjustments. It has also been suggested that long-term

anticipation of loss may appear at times to lead to LESS grief because the

emotional exhaustion following a prolonged illness may lead to temporary

numbness, to suppression of grief after the loss, or even to relief that the

long struggle is finally over.

So how may we define anticipatory grief? I turn again to Dr. Therese Rando:

“Anticipatory grief is the phenomena encompassing the processes of

mourning, coping, interaction, planning and reorganization that are

stimulated and begun in response to the awareness of the impending loss

of a loved one and the recognition of associated losses in the past, present


and future.”

By definition, the griever is pulled in opposing directions. On the one hand

they move toward the dying patient, a consequence of wanting to devote

increased attention, energy and behaviour toward the person as ongoing

involvement with them continues. Directly coinciding with this, however, the

griever is starting to move away from the dying person in terms of

beginning to decathect from the image of the patient as someone who will

be present in the future, and from the hopes, dreams and expectations for

that patient and their relationship in the future. The challenge in anticipatory

grief is to balance these incompatible demands to cope with the stress their

incongruence generates.

It must be remembered that anticipatory grief takes time to unfold and

develop. It is a process, not an all-or-nothing thing.

The anticipatory grief of the dying patient is in many respects similar to that

of their loved ones who are grieving the forthcoming death and the other

losses associated with it. From the dying patient’s perspective, becoming

aware of a life-threatening illness means confronting the fact life as it has

been known is now limited. They also will experience grief over the past,

present and future. The dying person must reorient their values, goals and

beliefs to accommodate this realization. This may precipitate a crisis for

them, because it poses a problem that is unsolvable in the immediate future

and to which the patient can only surrender. It goes beyond the scope of

their entire traditional problem-solving methods because they have no

previous experience to draw from … they have never died before! They are

in a situation perceived as a threat or danger to their life goals. Thus, it

stimulates a crisis, during which there will be the mobilization of either

“integrative” or “disintegrative” mechanisms characterized by a tension.

They may also feel they are being treated differently now that they’re

terminally ill. Former roles and responsibilities may have been reassigned

Dr Bill Webster 129

to others, making them feel “useless.” Unfortunately, they may experience

the gradual withdrawal of loved ones, some of whom may start to invest in

other things or people. Unfinished business may further complicate the

process. Just because people have an opportunity to deal with unfinished

business, ask forgiveness or put things right does not necessarily mean they

do so!

Anticipatory Grief Conclusion:

Anticipatory grief offers an invitation to respond with care to a person that

is ill, in need or confronted by death, and to address our own emotional

needs that the situation creates. To the extent that healthy behaviour,

interaction and processes can be promoted during this time, the individual’s

post-death mourning can be made relatively better than would have been if

the experience lacked the therapeutic benefits of appropriate anticipatory

grief.

So in conclusion, anticipatory grief is a complex and multidimensional set of

processes that are called forth during the illness of a loved one. They entail,

not only grief over future losses, but over past and present losses as well.

However if the process is done positively, it does not have to result in

premature decathexis from the dying loved one. And in fact, it offers the

potential for and capability of supporting and stimulating continued

involvement with the dying patient.

(For further reading on the subject of Anticipatory Grief, read Dr. Bill

Webster’s book, “Help Me … If You Can”, available through his website at

www.GriefJourney.com)


2. Sudden, Unanticipated Loss

While we will be examining traumatic loss, homicide and suicide in the next

section, it is important for us to get a more general understanding of the

DIFFERENCES between anticipatory grief, which we have examined, and

acute grief, which is defined by scholars in the field of thanatology as

sudden, unanticipated loss.

Basically what distinguishes acute grief from anticipatory grief is the lack of

warning resulting in a lack of preparation. Thus when a sudden loss occurs

it takes the person by surprise and the shock of it threatens to overwhelm

their entire being.

The important distinction is that one is not more difficult than the other,

they are just different. Everybody’s loss is difficult, even though the

situations and conditions may be quite different. To the grieving person,

THEIR circumstances feel like the worst thing that could have happened to

them, and that feeling should be acknowledged and validated.

Nonetheless, there are significant differences in reaction to a sudden and

unexpected loss. Sudden losses such as a death without forewarning

understandably create special problems for survivors. Survivors of

unanticipated loss face TWO difficulties. The first is simply coping with

their significant losses. These may include not only the death of someone

they have loved, but in the case of an accident or disaster, may involve

multiple losses, all of which causes intensified grief. There are more often

likely to be secondary losses related to the primary loss. Grief is often

intensified since there’s little or no opportunity to prepare for the loss, say

goodbye or deal with unfinished business. In addition, the nature of the loss

can bring on intense grief reactions such as anger, guilt and helplessness,

as well as a lingering sense of disorganization and a consuming obsession

with the person who died.

But in addition, there may also be a loss to one’s sense of normalcy.

Dr Bill Webster 131

This is sometimes referred to as the “shattering of the person’s assumptive

world.” We often “assume” that the world is a generally safe and predictable

place, where one gets in the car, goes to work and then returns safely home.

But a sudden loss may immediately make one feel that the world is a very

dangerous place, so that even that simple act like getting in the car, going

to work or walking on the street causes problems. Survivors of this kind of

loss often experience a heightened sense of vulnerability and anxiety.

Nothing appears safe anymore. Activities previously casually undertaken,

even as simple as driving a car, can now seem fraught with danger. Often

that sense of safety and security has to be addressed early in the

intervention process.

Added to that, in circumstances of accidental death, survivors may have to

deal with the pressures of media interest and intrusion, and of police

involvement or legal entanglements. They may experience secondary losses

like lost income or even loss of their homes because of lack of financial

planning; and confusion over the absence of a will, not knowing the plans

and wishes of the deceased.

Admittedly, some sudden losses may still have a degree of expectedness.

For example, some situations may not be a total surprise: a heart attack of

someone obese or at risk; or the sudden death of someone struggling with

a life-threatening illness even though supposedly they were in recovery or

remission. Other losses, though, may have no forewarning whatsoever.

All of these factors remind us that sudden losses, like all losses, are highly

individual and likely to affect survivors in very different ways. Each loss may

have factors that complicate or facilitate the grief of survivors. Each loss,

whether sudden or not, creates its own issues. Losses are not more or less

difficult. They are just different. We cannot measure pain in this area.

Therefore, we acknowledge that sudden loss creates distinct issues for


survivors, even as it shares many reactions common to the grief process.

Highlighting certain types of more dramatic sudden loss, must never

minimize other types of sudden loss. Each type of sudden loss, whether a

heart attack or a terrorist attack, leave survivors dazed and vulnerable. The

survivors of the death of a loved one by heart attack or stroke live with many

of the same after-effects as survivors of suicide, homicide and automobile

or airplane accidents.

Other factors that survivors of sudden unanticipated death may face include

the sudden disruption of family functioning; redefining responsibilities and

roles of individual family members; indifference or short-lived support from

institutions previously depended on; financial changes and burdens;

challenges to faith or belief systems; possible intrusions by media or the

legal system; or even words and actions by friends and family that often

inadvertently hurt.

Following traumatic deaths, heightened feelings of guilt arising from self

accusations about things one should have said or done will not disappear;

often good memories do not have equal time with negative ones. The roller-

coaster effect of the grief journey has many ups and downs after a sudden

death, marked by moments of high function and then moments of confusion,

disbelief and despair, when the sudden death is a burden dropped on the

shoulders of the survivors without the advantage of anticipation or the

marshalling of personal resources.

Suddenness and lack of anticipation influence the mourner’s internal world

and coping abilities so adversely that a subjective of trauma is created. As

we will see, not every situation is considered objectively traumatic.

Nonetheless, it feels traumatic for the person going through it. This has been

termed the shock effect of sudden death. With no time to gradually

anticipate or prepare for the loss, the full and total confrontation of it all at

once is overpowering. The mourners coping abilities are assaulted by the

sudden and dramatic knowledge of the death and their adaptive capabilities

Dr Bill Webster 133

are completely overwhelmed.

The effects of a sudden unanticipated loss of a loved one tend to leave the

mourner stunned, feeling out of control and confused; unable to grasp the

full implications of the loss that is perceived as inexplicable, unbelievable

and incomprehensible. The mourner becomes bewildered, anxious, insecure,

self-reproachful, depressed and despairing. They are in shock emotionally

and physiologically, and it persists for an extended time. This further

interferes with the mourner’s ability to grasp what has occurred, and the

intensity and duration of the acute grief is extended. Often the mourner

engages in the avoidance of others and social withdrawal.

The devastation to their adaptive capacities tends to compromise the

completion of the grieving process. In essence, the shock overwhelms the

ego and its resources, which then become taken up with trying to master

the helplessness and other effects, the intrusion of associated traumatic

memories, and the resulting sense of personal threat and vulnerability, all

of which interfere with the mourning that is required.

In summary, the following issues are particular and specific to sudden

unanticipated death, and can complicate the mourning process.

i. The person’s capacity to cope is diminished as the shock of the death

literally overwhelms their sense of self. The impact of the loss can

cause a crisis which leaves the individual feeling overwhelmed.

Remember, the crisis is not the event. It is a person’s REACTION to

any event that constitutes the crisis. At the same time new stressors

are added, such as heightened personal threat or vulnerability.

ii. The person’s assumptive world is violently shattered without warning.

This is not “according to the script … not the way life is supposed to

be.” We all make assumptions about life: such as the world being

orderly, predictable, meaningful and fair; the idea that things like this


can’t happen to me; that bad things don’t happen to good people. A

sudden, unexpected loss can cause intense reactions of fear, anxiety,

vulnerability and loss of control.

iii. This loss of control often results in the mourner experiencing a

profound loss of security and confidence in the world, which affects

all areas of life and increases many kinds of anxiety. The thinking

seems to be, “If I could not control (or anticipate) THIS, than what

CAN I control?”

iv. A sudden loss can be so overwhelming that it cannot be understood

or absorbed at first. The mind is inundated by more information than

can be stored or processed. It simply does not make any sense. It is

just “too much to comprehend.” The person will feel that “it must be

a mistake.” They may respond by saying, “I just can’t believe it” or

obsessively asking for information, insisting on having the same facts

repeated to them over and over, as they struggle to believe what is

unbelievable. This is known as “cognitive dissonance.” The questions

and repeated requests for information are the psyche’s desperate

attempts to understand this mind-boggling event while frantically

trying to seek some confirmation that it is not true.

v. In the ongoing effort both to comprehend the death and to prepare

for it in retrospect, the mourner may also obsessively reconstruct

the events that occurred in the days, months or years leading up to

the death. This is enormously important, for where there is no

opportunity to prepare in advance for what has happened, the person

psychologically must prepare FOR the event, AFTER the event.

vi. Accordingly, the symptoms of acute grief and the physical and

emotional shock will often persist for a prolonged period of time,

inasmuch as it often takes the person longer to get through the shock

of the sudden death to the place where they are able to grieve.

Dr Bill Webster 135

Therefore numbness, for example, may be experienced for a longer

period after a sudden death as the person takes their own time to get

to some safe place in their minds where they can finally begin to

confront the reality of the loss.

vii. After a sudden death, there is most often no chance to say goodbye

or deal with unfinished business with the deceased, which can cause

unique problems due to a lack of closure.

viii. A sudden loss cuts across, isolates and “freezes” the final experiences

in the relationship and tends to highlight what was happening at the

time of the death. What happened in the last encounter or

conversation with the person can often “define” the entire relationship

in the survivor’s mind. This often causes “last-minute” situations to

be out of proportion with the rest of the relationship, predisposing

the person to problems with unrealistic recollection and often with

guilt. For example, if they had a good relationship in life, but the very

night before the death, there was an argument, it would not be

unusual for the survivor to say, “We were always arguing,” which is

unrealistic. However, it can also apply in “poor” even abusive

relationships where there might have been a “last-minute”

reconciliation or a “nice weekend” just before the death. The survivor

then “idealizes” the relationship with the deceased or “what could have

been” if the death had not occurred, which is equally unrealistic. It

is important for any listener to encourage the griever to engage in

what is known as “realistic recollection,” the good and the not so good,

the yin and the yang, which are always part of any human

relationship.

ix. It is important to note that the emotional reactions after a sudden

death are no different from other losses, but are often relatively more

intense. For example, greater anger, greater ambivalence, greater

guilt, greater helplessness, greater death anxiety, greater


vulnerability, greater confusion, greater disorganization, and

greater obsession with the deceased. Along with this may exist a

stronger need to try to make meaning of the death, and in an

attempt to do so, to determine blame or affix responsibility.

x. Sudden and unanticipated deaths tend to be followed by a number of

major secondary losses because of the consequences of lack of

anticipation or preparation. For example, the loss of a home because

of lack of adequate financial planning for such an eventuality; or

confusion or worse caused by the absence of a legal will or knowledge

of the deceased’s wishes regarding a funeral, and many other things.

xi. A sudden death can provoke post-traumatic stress responses such as

the intrusion of traumatic memories and a numbing of general

responsiveness. (See a fuller discussion of this in the following

section.)

xii. Finally, additional complications can occur if there has been no

opportunity to view the body or to actually confirm the reality of the

death, such as in the case of an airplane accident or a terrorist attack

like 9-11, where remains cannot be recovered or identified.

Sometimes in situations where there is litigation, the legal process forces

the mourner to face circumstances causing “secondary victimization,” such

as feeling that justice has not been served or by a sense that some

perpetrator is “getting away with it.”

3. Traumatic Loss (Recognizing and Treating Post Traumatic Stress

Disorder, known as PTSD)

The word “trauma” stems from the Greek word for “a wound.” The American

Psychiatric Association uses this definition: “Trauma is a disordered psychic

or behavioral state resulting from mental or emotional stress, or physical

injury.” Although virtually any death may be perceived by any mourner as

Dr Bill Webster 137

personally traumatic, circumstances that are objectively traumatic are

associated with five factors known to increase complications for mourners:

a) suddenness and lack of anticipation

b) violence, mutilation and destruction

c) preventability and/or randomness

d) multiple death

e) the mourner’s personal encounter with death, where there is either a

significant threat to personal survival or a massive and/or shocking

confrontation with the death and mutilation of others

Traumatic deaths typically, though not inevitably, tend to produce post-

traumatic responses in the mourners. When people are in crisis, which we

have defined as a reaction to any traumatic event, they commonly suffer

from a problem called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Recent

studies estimate that 10 per cent of the total population suffers from PTSD,

and that 25 per cent of those exposed to a critical or traumatic incident

manifest the symptoms. These percentages are particularly high (65–92%)

with those who experience violence or assault.

While the title “PTSD” is fairly recent, the symptoms of post-traumatic

stress are not new. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of the panic and distress

of those who survived the great fire of London in 1666: “A most horrid,

malicious, blood fire.… So great was our fear … it was enough to put us

out of our wits.” For weeks after the fire, Pepys, along with many other

survivors, described suffering from insomnia, anger and depression, all

common symptoms of PTSD.

Soldiers came home from the Second World War suffering what was

identified then as “shell-shock.” Subsequent studies have shown that this

was PTSD and the research indicated it was not connected to pre-existing

mental health issues or family stability, as had previously been assumed.


Rather, the critical variable was the degree of exposure to combat and the

amount of stress to which the soldier had been exposed.

In the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM IV), the

clinical diagnosis of PTSD depends on meeting the following criteria:

A: You have been exposed to a traumatic event involving actual or

threatened death or injury, during which you responded with panic,

horror, and feelings of helplessness.

B: You re-experience the trauma in the form of dreams, flashbacks,

intrusive memories, or unrest at being in situations that remind you

of the original trauma.

C: You show evidence of avoidance behavior, such as a numbing of the

emotions, and reduced interest in others and the outside world.

D: You experience physiological arousal, as evidenced by insomnia,

agitation, irritability, or outbursts of anger.

E: The symptoms in B, C, and D persist for at least one month.

F: The symptoms have significantly affected your social or vocational

abilities or other important areas of your life.

PTSD can either be acute or delayed-onset. Acute PTSD occurs within six

months of the traumatic event. Delayed-onset PTSD usually means the

symptoms occur more than six months after the traumatic event, and can

actually even occur many years after the actual incident. This gives further

weight to my contention that the crisis is not the event but rather the

reaction to the event.

Post-traumatic stress is an entirely normal reaction to an abnormal amount

of pressure. Many people exposed to traumatic situations try to be strong.

Dr Bill Webster 139

“Not to cope” feels like weakness, which many of us find the most difficult

thing of all. Yet, in a brief moment, one’s emotions, identity and sense of

the world as an orderly, secure place has been severely shaken if not

shattered. Trauma truly is an affliction of the powerless, so much so that a

traumatized person might think, “I just can’t get over it.”

Trauma often increases anxiety. Psychologists tell us that one major cause

of anxiety and fear is the inability to control things. A major factor in trauma

is the sense of helplessness and powerlessness it engenders. The traumatized

person feels they were unable to control the traumatic event, and thus

projects that if they could not control this (as important as it was) then they

can control nothing. This is the perception of the traumatized person.

Therefore, traumatic events overwhelm the ordinary adaptations to life.

Typically, feelings of shame, irrational though they may be, will be associated

with feelings of helplessness that assault the person either at the time of

crisis or afterwards.

Finally the violation of one’s assumptive world involving the shattering of

many of our assumptions about life or the world is a major aspect of

mourning. The adjustment process often centres on:

i) A search to find meaning in the experience.

ii) An attempt to gain mastery over the event in particular and control

over one’s life more generally.

iii) An effort to restore a sense of self-esteem through enhancing

evaluations of myself and my progress.

Accordingly, a major goal in the treatment of post-traumatic responses will

be the empowerment of the survivor after the trauma as well as

throughout the remainder of their life. It is the subsequent gaining of

some sense of control that will mitigate to some degree the feelings of

helplessness.


4. Violent Death

When death occurs from sudden, unexpected circumstances, such as

accidents, suicide or murder, reactions are more severe, exaggerated and

complicated. The mourner’s capacity to use their adaptive coping

mechanisms is overwhelmed. This is not to say that this loss is more

DIFFICULT, it is just that the factors that impinge on the grieving person as

a result of sudden violent deaths lead to more complicated bereavement.

a) Homicide

Some of the factors that can affect a survivor of homicide are as follows:

• Cognitive Dissonance

Inasmuch as there is no preparation for news of a murder or suicide (or

indeed any sudden or unexpected death) there is no preparation for the

emotional onslaught such news brings. It is difficult to believe that MY

loved one could be gone so swiftly, and in such a violent and degrading

manner at the hands of another human being. The death does not make

any sense and our minds cannot absorb the reality far less the meaning.

Such situations demand more information than the mind can store, so

questions about the events and circumstances will be asked repeatedly,

over and over, in an attempt to try to find both understanding and

confirmation, not that the news is TRUE but that it is “not true.”

Nothing in our psychological makeup or coping mechanisms prepares us

for this kind of psychological trauma. There will be a constant rehearsal

and repetition of events; what happened, when, how, where, who did

what … and the unanswerable “why.” No answers to these issues are

good enough because the mind is seeking to understand something that

is incomprehensible.

Such cognitive dissonance may last for months or even years. It may be

triggered or revived by court proceedings, every time there is an appeal

or a parole hearing, and even when and if the perpetrator is released

Dr Bill Webster 141

from jail, lasting for years.

• Anger, Rage and Violent Impulses

It is difficult for someone who has never been in the situation to

understand the intensity, duration and frequency of the anger and rage

that such a situation generates in survivors. What is dangerous in such

situations is that these emotions are often on a continuum from anger

to rage, from rage to violence. While anger can be a healthy emotion,

obviously acting out our rage in violent behaviour must be prevented.

After a homicide, the normal anger of grief is compounded by the rage

and desire to destroy the life of the person who destroyed a loved one’s

life. Research shows that often survivors imagine ways of making the

murderer suffer more horrendously than they made a loved one suffer.

Such feelings often then engender a sense of shame, “that I could think

such a thing,” and can be frightening. “Am I no better than this animal

who killed my loved one? If I know myself to be a good person, how can

I think such thoughts? If I can contemplate such savagery to this person,

am I safe around my own family?” Such thoughts can lead to withdrawal

and deep depression.

Survivors should be helped to understand that such thinking can actually

help them re-frame both the scenario and the reaction. Once again the

issue is the survivor’s feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. The

circumstances of the murder cannot be changed, but what CAN be

accomplished? How can the survivor be empowered? By helping them to

see what they CAN change, they re-establish a sense of control over life.

• Fear and Vulnerability

Often survivors of homicide will have fears and apprehensions, feeling

vulnerable to further psychological and physical assaults. Their world is

no longer as safe as previously believed. This can affect their lives by


restricting many activities. Chronic phobia can lead to total dysfunction.

• Conflict of Value and Belief System

Murder violates our belief that we have a right to life and directly opposes

the high value we place on life. Most people strive to maintain life at all

costs. Murder is a direct violation of that principle. Once a person starts

to question their belief system in one area, all other areas come under

scrutiny as the survivor searches to find understanding of the

circumstances and meaning of life in general. This can lead to our next

category.

• Guilt and Blame

Guilt is rooted in our feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. When

someone dies we confront the reality that something has happened that

we may not like or have wanted. We all like to think we are able to

control our own destiny and that if we work hard enough, believe and

have positive attitudes, everything will work out. So, when confronted

by any challenge, we try to determine, “What can I do?” Sometimes, in

spite of our best efforts, there is nothing we can do to change the

inevitable. Facing the fact that something has happened that there is

nothing we can do to change is the most difficult challenge of all.

And then the question for many becomes, “What do I do when there’s

nothing I can do?” While that may seem contradictory, it is a very real

issue.

One of the things we often do when there is nothing we can do is to

express guilt, anger and blame. Why do we do this? Because we would

rather feel guilty, or express anger, or lay blame, than admit there is

nothing we can do!

Many times over the years, I have heard people tell their story of a

Dr Bill Webster 143

positive and enjoyable relationship they shared with someone they cared

about. But after a death or a crisis, they will say, “I feel so guilty.”

One’s first instinct is to respond, “You mustn’t feel like that. You’ve

nothing to feel guilty about.” But the reality is that for whatever reason,

they do feel guilty.

I have come to realize that there is a big difference between being guilty

and feeling guilty. Many people feel at fault even though there may not

be much evidence to suggest that they are to blame.

In a situation where there is nothing we can do, we try to discover what

we could have done. “If only I had done this. What if I had done that?

I should have done things differently. I could have done something else

or something more.” Guilt expresses itself in terms of actions that might

have made a difference. You will notice how many times the words “do”

and “done” have arisen in this section. Guilt is often an attempt to punish

ourselves for what we did not do, but could have done, should have done

and might have done, that could have changed the outcome. Because

we did not do it, guilt is the retribution.

Let me say it again. Most of us would rather feel guilty than feel

helpless.

More often, however, the cause and effect is not identifiable, yet many

try to rationalize in an attempt to make it so:

“If only I had made them wait five more minutes, they would

not have been on the road when that truck went out of control.”

“If we had not had that argument, my husband would not have

died of the heart attack.”

The problem is that sometimes arguments cause heart attacks and


sometimes heart attacks cause arguments. Guilt becomes a means to

self punish in an attempt to atone, and in some way acknowledge how

this could have been avoided.

Sometimes guilt is connected to the fact that someone else is gone and

we are still here. Many people fantasize about saving the deceased

person or of taking their place. “I would do anything to save my sister,”

one fellow said. “I’d be ready to give up my own life if she could survive.

Why her and not me? She had so much more to live for.”

Survivor guilt seeks to punish us by reminding us that, unlike the deceased

person, we are well and will live on. If not dealt with effectively this can

cripple one’s efforts to reconcile their loss and rebuild their own life.

Venting your feelings and fears, whether with a friend or with a

professional, can help relieve some of the pain and anxiety. Being able

to talk through some of these issues can help us see that perhaps bad

things happen in spite of, rather than because of, our efforts. Seeing that

death, and much of life itself, may actually be outside our direct control

can free us to let go of the things that are unchangeable. There are many

things in my world that I cannot control and the older I get, the more I

realize how long that list really is.

• Intrusion by Other Systems

The homicide survivor will be impacted not only by the death, but by the

presence of other outside systems, which may include police, the

criminal justice system and the media. What makes it more traumatic is

that the survivor may have little knowledge or familiarity of how these

“work.” Each of these systems may intrude into personal matters at a

time of great emotional turmoil. Some survivors talk of “secondary

victimization” by such intrusions, which may be even more difficult to

deal with, inasmuch as it is seen as an invasion by outsiders infringing

on privacy with what seems to be little respect for the rights of the

Dr Bill Webster 145

individual. This results in systemic loss.

While grief is a normal reaction to the loss of a loved one, the mourning

process after a homicide is affected by systems and events outside the

control of survivors. Such situations can cause the survivor to withdraw

in order to make sense of the tragedy. A support group needs to help

build bridges back to the living.

• The Power of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the key to dealing with guilt, blame and anger. More often

than not with grieving people, it has to do with finding a way to forgive

ourselves. A great deal of the guilt, anger and blame is because we

cannot fix the situation. “I wish there was more I could do” is the

sentiment, leaving us feeling guilty that we were not able to do enough

to change things.

But some will say, “How could I ever forgive that monster who took my

loved one’s life?” We need to understand that we should forgive, not for

this other person’s sake, but for our own. Hatred and other emotions

keep us connected to that person. They symbolize the fact that this

person and their behaviour still has control over our life. They have done

much damage to our life already. Do we want them to ruin the REST of

our life with hatred and negativity? Forgiveness may do nothing for

them, but it will do a great deal in helping give us back our life. Talk to

a counsellor or spiritual advisor about this vitally important ideal.

People need to forgive themselves for being human. Part of our humanity

is our inability to change or fix all situations and circumstances. Tragedies

happen, and as much as we might like to prevent them, or have them

happen to us rather than our loved ones, we have no control over these

things. Some things in life are beyond human control. Work to help

people accept that this is part of our human limitation. Goodness knows

that we would do anything to change this, but nothing will be sufficient.


b) Suicide

While we correctly say of grief that, “there is no such thing as more or less

difficult, it is just different,” there are some situations that are “uniquely

difficult.” One is the loss of a child. Another is death by suicide. And when

these two situations come together, it can be a devastating blow to “suicide

survivors.” For the purpose of this book, the term “suicide survivors” refers

to those who have lost someone to suicide.

Listen to the words of Julie, whose teenage son hanged himself:

“You never get over a suicide. You just learn to deal with it. The worst part

is not knowing WHY. If I could just say he had been seeing a shrink, or

anything that might have explained it, it would have been better. But I just

don’t know why he did it.”

Bereavement following suicide is qualitatively different from other causes of

death in at least six ways:

• Survivors of suicide experience a prolonged search for motives.

• They may more often deny the cause of death.

• They may have to deal with deep feelings of rejection by the deceased.

• It may raise questions about the afterlife and religion.

• They may more often conceal the cause of death from others, making

the “cover-up” just another stress.

• They may feel vulnerable to being susceptible to suicide through

heredity. While it is statistically true that suicide tends to run in families,

it is learned not genetic. Often it is unconsciously suggested as a

means of coping with overwhelming moments.

There is also a body of research that suggests that survivors of suicide are

viewed more negatively than those with other bereavements, leading to the

conclusion that survivors of suicide often feel less supported in society.

Dr Bill Webster 147

It is not my intention to outline the many and varied theories of suicidal

behaviour, many of which are conflicting. The focus here is simply on how

we can help support suicide survivors through their unique process. There

are some sobering facts, however:

• Every day, throughout the world, over one thousand people commit

suicide.

• It is estimated that for every suicide there are 15 unsuccessful attempts.

• White males over the age of 50 make up approximately 10 per cent of

the population but account for 28 per cent of the total suicide deaths.

• Men commit suicide three times more than women, but women

attempt suicide five times more than men. Most attempts of suicide are

‘made by women in their 20’s and 30’s.

• Suicide tends to run in families, but it is learned not genetic. Often it

is unconsciously suggested as a means of coping with overwhelming

moments (“If Dad did it to cope with his problems, so can I”).

• People who talk about suicide DO commit suicide. Suicide RARELY

happens without warning.

When someone commits suicide, the mourning process for survivors is

different in at least two ways:

1) The period of numbness and disbelief will be longer, because of the

shock, thus extending the duration of the grief process.

2) There is the added burden of trying to understand the motivation for

the death.

For suicide survivors, the grief process is particularly long given the

complexity of issues survivors struggle with. This means that one year after

the death, the griever may still be in the depths of their grief, long after

society expects people to be over their grief. Fred observes:


“I think before the grief really set in, it took over a year. I mean there are

times when I still think this is unbelievable. But I think it took a year for me

to really believe it. And I think that it was because I surrounded myself with

him, looking at pictures, and talking about him to everyone that helped me

come to terms with it in such a short period of time. I don’t know if a year

is a short period of time or not, but it is very real to me today.”

For this reason, patience on the part of the helper is most important. There

is no way to speed up the grief process. One can only go through it!

Perseverance is also required because, for many survivors, basic trust in

relationships with others is broken when the person committed suicide,

leaving them feeling cautious about reconnecting or establishing new

relationships.

Some of the things survivors might be feeling and saying to themselves:

• Shame - “What would people think of me if they knew my child

committed suicide?”

• Blame - “I must have been a lousy parent if my child killed himself!”

• Guilt - “I noticed she was depressed. Why didn’t I do something?”

• Anger - “How could he do this to me?”

• Fear - “Will my other children end up killing themselves too?”

• Relief - “It’s finally over!” (This feeling is more evident in cases where

the person who died was abusive or had a difficult history of mental

illness.)

• Rejection - “I guess he didn’t really care about me or he would still be

alive.”

• Hopelessness - “What’s the point in going on?”

• Confusion - “How could this have happened? I just saw her yesterday

and she looked fine.”

• Isolation - “I feel so ashamed and guilty that I don’t want to see anyone.”

Dr Bill Webster 149

One of the differences in the grief process after suicide is that the act

involves a conscious decision, and it is this element of “choice rather than

chance” that complicates the grief process, causing the survivor to search

for “reasons.”

There are four areas of conversation that are particularly helpful to suicide

survivors:

i. Listening to the Story

To facilitate the telling of the story of the death it is important to create

a supportive atmosphere through gentle inquiry. Questions should be

asked about the relationship with the person that died and the sequence

of events just prior to and after the death.

• What was your relationship to the person who died? What were they

like? What do you miss about them?

• How long ago was the death?

• How did he or she die?

• How was the person discovered?

• How was each person told? Where were you when you heard? What

were the reactions of those around you?

• Did the person leave a note?

• Who else did you have to deal with and what was that like (police,

coroner, hospital, funeral home, newspaper reporter, clergy)?

• What have you told relatives, friends and the larger community?

These types of questions are intended to outline the point that the story

needs to be expanded through a recounting of the many details of what

happened. But PLEASE do not use them one after the other like an

inquisition!

Many survivors feel uncomfortable talking to friends about the details of


the suicide feeling that these details are too horrific for others to absorb.

Families sometimes avoid talking about difficult and painful parts of the

story, even in discussions with one another.

The fear is that these difficult elements may be too overwhelming for family

members to bear because of their own grief. Relief will occur through the

experience of talking in a supportive atmosphere that allows the expression

of all the details, feelings and thoughts related to the death.

Families who feel they have had an opportunity to tell the whole story

related to the death and have their feelings validated are better able to

move on to issues in the present. Families who have not had assistance

in making sense of the death are far more likely to get stuck in the

repetitive talking about the death without resolution.

It is helpful to encourage tolerance for differences by helping members

listen to each other’s different explanations and interpretations of events

and to accept that each person’s perspective and rate of acceptance of

what is happening is OK. The tendency can be for each person to want

to convince the others that his or her version of the facts is the only “true

version.”

Going over the events in detail allows family members to appreciate that

everyone is in pain and to realize that they may all be at different stages

in their grief, with each attributing a different meaning to what has

happened.

Fred makes the following observation: “If there is one thing I would say

to people going through this situation, it is this. Talk about it. Get help.

I found the greatest therapy was in talking to my friends, my colleagues,

to anyone who will listen. So lean on your friends, because they want to

help. But it is difficult when you don’t want to talk about it.”

Dr Bill Webster 151

Having the individual or family tell the story of the death of their relative

or friend helps to facilitate a number of key processes, namely:

• Each person will begin to ascribe meaning to the suicide (initiating the

ever present “why?” question).

• Each person will begin to experience some relief through

acknowledging, identifying and working through their feelings of loss.

• Each person will begin to create their own understanding about what

has happened.

ii. Expressing and Understanding Feelings

Many survivors of suicide carry a special burden throughout the process

of grieving. Higher levels of guilt, shame and anger are just three of the

emotions that such survivors may experience. In addition those grieving

the loss of a loved one by suicide are left with questions such as “why

their loved one would kill themselves,” and “what, if anything, they might

have done to prevent the action?” Such questions, which are generally

unanswerable, may prolong the process of grieving and condemn the

survivors to live in the shadow of the death far longer than is healthy.

When his son Michael took his own life, Fred was overwhelmed by an

avalanche of feelings and emotions:

“At first disbelief, not wanting to believe that this had happened. Then a

tremendous sense of anger. Wondering what I could have done to

prevent what happened. It seemed so unbelievable that Michael could

do this, and that I hadn’t seen it coming and stepped in to help him.”

The sheer force and complexity of the reaction of survivors of suicide

make it likely the emotional effects will be more intense than after many

other types of loss. When talking about these feelings it is important to

validate and acknowledge how painful they can be, while at the same

time normalizing their intensity.


SHAME

“What would people think of me if they knew my child committed

suicide?”

Research shows that suicide survivors are viewed more negatively than

those surviving other types of death. Until relatively recently, suicide was

not openly discussed nor dealt with as a problem deserving the attention

and education of the community. Stigma came from the erroneous

assumption that anyone who commits suicide is insane, and the

accompanying supposition that “insanity runs in families.” Shame can

also be rooted in long-held beliefs such as it is wrong or “a sin” to take

one’s own life, and the fear that their loved one has “gone to hell.” This

feeling intensifies the family’s perception that they failed in some way.

They often feel disgraced by what has happened.

BLAME

“My neighbours must think I’m a terrible mother because my son killed

himself. I bet they blame me for his death.”

Families who lose someone to suicide often feel blamed. In trying to

make sense of the death, other people will sometimes blame (scapegoat)

a relative for not having done more to prevent the suicide. Or there may

even be suggestions that the survivor “drove them to it.” Scapegoating

is partly due to the need to have some answer – to make sense out of

something that is senseless. Sometimes even police, coroners or

insurance representatives can challenge the survivor’s motives, morality

or integrity, where they have to defend themselves against the

suggestion that they were somehow complicit in the act.

This kind of thought or statement assumes that suicide is a “cause-and-

effect” situation, meaning that one singular circumstance caused the

death. But suicide, as with many situations in life, is a complex

phenomenon, and we dare not oversimplify.

Dr Bill Webster 153

GUILT

Suicide survivors frequently use the word “should.” For example:

“He had talked of suicide before. Therefore we should have done more

to listen to him.”

“We knew she was depressed and should have got her better

professional help.”

Although guilt may serve a purpose, eventually it is helpful to examine

evidence to the contrary of their perceived shortcomings. It is important

to remind the family of the efforts they did make to assist their relative,

and take them back to times when they went the extra distance to

support them. This will eventually assist them to move beyond this

painful feeling. But also remind them that sometimes even superhuman

efforts to protect the person are not enough to prevent them making

their own choice.

“I think there is always guilt after a tragedy. Over four-and-a-half years,

I can say without hesitation that I did everything under the sun to help

my son. But after all is said and done, the guilt feelings are still there.

What else could I have done? What didn’t I do? Because if there was

anything I could have done to save him, I would have done it.”

ANGER

“I guess he didn’t really care about me or he would still be alive. How

could he do this to me?”

Although the survivor’s rage is often directed at multiple targets

(incompetent doctors, demanding bosses, insensitive neighbours,

thoughtless friends, uncaring relatives, or even an impotent God), the

real source of much of the anger is the action of the person who chose

to die and “abandoned, rejected or otherwise hurt me.”


Perhaps what makes us most angry is that WE saw their life as viable,

but THEY saw it differently and chose to die. It is that choice that makes

this so hard to bear. The survivor may feel the deceased acted with

contempt towards them. Or perhaps they perceived themselves as

unloved. Either way, we ask why they didn’t see how hurtful this would

be or why they didn’t seek alternatives.

Anger at a loved one is often the last area that survivors are able to

acknowledge and work through. Permission to process this anger can be

prompted with, “What would you like to say to them if they could hear

you now?” Simple suggestions such as writing a letter to the deceased

and saying it out loud can help process these feelings.

FEAR

Many families who have lost someone to suicide have a lot of anxiety

and fear. One reason is concern for the safety of other family members.

“Might they opt for suicide as an answer too?” is a question they have.

Another worry is that family members cannot tolerate talking about

certain painful aspects of the death and that doing so “will make them

feel worse and they will be less able to get through each day.”

If we suspect the presence of these issues, the most effective way of

reducing anxiety is to address the issues directly. “Are you worried that

Jim or Jane may hurt themselves too?” followed by asking the individual,

“Jim, do you have any thoughts of suicide?” This gives the family

permission to discuss and to clarify their anxiety and fear.

The usual reaction at “getting the unspeakable said” is relief. Expressing

our fears can reduce them from the “imagined insurmountable” to

“actually manageable.”

Dr Bill Webster 155

iii. Anniversaries and Special Occasions

Anniversaries and special occasions can be particularly difficult to deal with,

especially in the first year after the death. All the “firsts” can be a challenge,

such as Christmas, birthdays, holidays and special family occasions, which

are usually times of joy, but which now are sad and difficult.

Survivors are often reluctant to create rituals that honour the life of a

person who died by suicide, worrying that people might think this is

abnormal or socially unacceptable. A woman whose daughter had died

in the winter wanted to bring her friends together on her daughter’s

birthday in June to spend an evening reflecting on the young lady’s life.

But she was worried that others would be reluctant. However she went

ahead, and much to her surprise, her daughter’s friends were thrilled to

have the opportunity to participate in the occasion and talk about her. It

helped the grieving mother embrace the significance of that date in her

own life, and celebrate her daughter’s life, in spite of the difficult

circumstances surrounding her death.

iv. Stress, Coping and Support Systems

Grief particularly after suicide is an exhausting process, both physically

and mentally. It is important to ask survivors about the physical toll the

event has exacted on them as well as ask about their emotional well-

being. Changes in eating and sleeping patterns, concentration and

energy levels in survivors can all be significantly affected after a suicide.

Some survivors may feel suicidal themselves during their grief process.

This can be frightening for caregivers and family, and they need to

understand the reasons “WHY” someone is feeling suicidal. The main

reason people take their own life is to end the pain. It is imperative

to provide survivors with strategies and directions as to what to do if

and when their pain becomes unbearable.


If you have some concerns that the grieving survivor may be considering

ending their own life, always take such concerns seriously. So, ASK the

person. Simply asking is not going to trigger the action. It may be

that the person doesn’t want to die, but just doesn’t see how they can go

on living. They may be quite relieved that someone had the courage to ask.

If they indicate that they might be considering killing themselves, you may

need to enter into a covenant of “no harm” with them. You may also need

to assure them that you are willing to do anything to help them survive.

If the survivor specifically suggests they might act on their suicidal

thoughts, assist them in creating a safety plan, which involves helping

them identify what they will do if they become overwhelmed by their

thoughts and feelings. These safety plans always involve non-destructive

coping strategies such as doing something positive for themselves,

calling a friend or doctor, seeing their priest, or going to the nearest

hospital emergency department or distress centre. Supply the names

and numbers of emergency clinics or resources they can reach out to if

they feel that they might act on their suicidal thoughts.

Ask them to enter into a “no harm” agreement with you for a period of

time such as six months. You are promising to help them, but as part of

that covenant, they agree not to harm themselves. In my own practice,

clients have later told me that this had been a strong motivator in

stopping them from considering harming themselves.

“As difficult as it is, tragedy sometimes allows you to see that there is

something incredible inside all of us. When, in the midst of pain, you

reach down deep inside yourself, you become much more than you think

you are. More than you could ever imagine possible. You survive.”

Dr Bill Webster 157


1. Anticipatory GriefLook at the exercises suggested at the end of the sectionson losses in the past, losses in the present, and losses inthe future. Can you identify the specific losses throughoutthat difficult process and support the person in eachaspect of the situation?

2. Sudden Unanticipated Loss What struck you about how a sudden loss is different froman anticipated loss? What were you able to learn about howthe grieving person may respond differently to otherlosses? How can we help support them in that, especiallygiven that they may feel numb for longer, and have moredifficulty dealing with certain aspects that we identify andlist in the chapter?

3. The sections involving post-traumatic stress disorder,homicide and suicide are intended to give you a basicinsight into some of the issues involved in such situationsfor your understanding of what the person may beexperiencing. However, while your ongoing support andunderstanding is essential, referral to a qualifiedcounsellor to help the person deal with the traumaticaspects of the situation may be the best course of action.

Nonetheless, please do not underestimate the importanceof your supportive role walking alongside the personthroughout the situation. Grief takes time, usually longerthan most people expect. The support given around the


PS.

time of the funeral fades away relatively quickly.

Do not make the mistake that they want to be left aloneto get on with their mourning. Get together on occasionfor a coffee or lunch. Make it a regular weekly event theperson can look forward to and rely on. Possibly you couldoffer to accompany the person to a support group for thefirst time so that they do not feel so alone. Be especiallysensitive on known difficult days (birthdays, anniversaries,etc.) by telephoning, offering an outing, or some gesture toshow you care.

Grief support is a long-term commitment. But the factyou have read this book to this point gives an indicationthat you want to be involved. On behalf of grieving peopleeverywhere, THANK YOU.

Dr Bill Webster 159

Understanding

Bereavement

Conclusion

It is not the intention of the author nor is it the purpose of this guide to

provide comprehensive information to enable all facilitators to

adequately deal with all manifestations of complicated mourning. Indeed, it

is written in the full expectation that most people seeking to assist will

simply want to be able to recognize when mourning has become

complicated and refer the individual to a good mental health professional

where they can be afforded the appropriate help that such situations

warrant.

I plead with grief support group facilitators, all of whom have an

unquestionably important and valuable task to fulfil with grieving people, to

also recognize their own skills and strengths, and to be wise and secure

enough, when confronted by a situation in which they have little or no

expertise, or where they may know they are out of their depth, to

acknowledge that a referral to someone who has specific skills in that

particular area is a selfless act of compassion that provides the grieving

person with appropriate help.

Dr Bill Webster 161

The word facilitator is taken from the root word, facile, meaning “to make it

easy.” While helping someone after a bereavement is one of the most

difficult and challenging things we are ever called on to do, you need to

realize that you cannot “fix” the situation. All you can do is to try to make it

“easier” for the person, so at the end the grieving person can say, “It was

better that you were here than if you had not been here.” Everything you

do may not be perfect and may seem unsatisfying, but you can make a

difference. You will have helped.

And helping people, after all, is what we are called to do.


And Finally. . .

If you are sitting comfortably. . .

An Allegory about Grief, entitled:

“Good Grief, This isn’t Kansas.”

There is a very familiar story, which, when loosely interpreted, provides us

with an idea of the modern grief journey and some of the dangers inherent

therein.

“There once was a girl whose name was Dorothy. One day,

Dorothy was playing with her little dog, Toto, when she noticed

a tornado moving across the fields towards her. She picks up Toto

and starts to run, but just as she gets inside the house the wind

whirls it into the air, carrying her far away from the world they

knew.

After a while, it comes back to earth and comes to a stop in a

very strange place. In one of the great understatements of all

time, Dorothy observes, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas

anymore.”

The story is, of course, the Wizard of Oz. But it is also a picture of the grief

Dr Bill Webster 163

journey. Life goes along as always, when suddenly, seemingly out of

nowhere, one is swept up in a whirlwind of events. The death of someone

significant can seem like that. It can carry us far away from all that is

recognizable and secure. Nothing seems familiar anymore.

All we want is to get back to the way things were, back to the familiar, back

to Kansas. But how?

When the house finally touches down, it lands on a wicked witch,

killing her. The local people are very grateful and are anxious to

help Dorothy get home. But unfortunately they don’t know what

they can do to assist. But they know someone who can help.

The wonderful Wizard of Oz will have the answers!

So they send Dorothy off, wearing the witch’s ruby red slippers

for good luck, with instructions to follow the yellow brick road, en

route to the wizard’s Emerald City.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? People mean well, but often they struggle to

know what they can do to assist a grieving person. So let’s call in the

experts. Let’s see if we can find some wizard to magically make the situation

better. Perhaps a grief counsellor or support program … yes, that’s the ticket

… follow this path; find an “expert” who can tell you what to do, listen to

the advice of those who know better than you, and all will be well. And so

off we go, skipping down our yellow brick road of promise in the hopes of

finding solutions.

Dorothy sets off on her journey with high hopes. But she soon

encounters three strange travelling companions. A scarecrow who

doesn’t have a brain; a tin man who is complete except for a

heart; and a lion who looks fierce, but really is a scaredy-cat.

They too are looking for solutions to their unique problems and

hope that the wizard will be able to supply what is deficient.


It’s really a wonderful picture of life. Isn’t it? These three characters are

often OUR companions on life’s journey:

• the part of us that feels we aren’t smart enough to handle the challenges

life gives us;

• the part of us that either pretends we don’t care or is uncertain about

how to express our real feelings;

• and a part of us that is faking it, because we feel so insecure, self-

doubting and lacking in confidence.

Yes sir, Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man and the cowardly lion

… is US!

The journey is difficult, as most journeys are, with ditches and

streams to cross, a forest of trees with arms grabbing the

travellers as they pass, and even a field of opium poppies that

almost ended the journey right there, by putting the lion to sleep.

(Dare we liken this to the use or abuse of drugs and medications

to try to solve our problems? You feel free to interpret that any

way you wish!)

But at last they get to the Emerald City where the Wizard of Oz

lives. Finally, now they will get some answers. But unfortunately,

the visit doesn’t go so well. There is a shimmering green colour

everywhere that makes it hard to see clearly. The wizard speaks

out of clouds of smoke, and his words don’t make much sense.

All that seems clear is that the journey is not yet over.

Dorothy and her friends must go into a dark land, where there is

not even a yellow brick road. Even worse, the challenges of the

previous journey were minor league compared to what they will

encounter on this second journey. They have to face flying

Dr Bill Webster 165

monkeys that carry away Toto, and a wicked witch who is

determined to get her revenge on Dorothy and her friends.

Finally, after a long chase, Dorothy and her friends are captured.

It looks like game over.

But when the witch tries to set fire to the scarecrow, she pushes

a little too far. Dorothy has finally had it, fed up with this

journey and her situation. Picking up a pail of water to douse

the flames, she dumps it over the witch and immediately she

melts away into nothing.

How did Dorothy know how to do that? Actually, she didn’t. She knew she

had to react, and it just seemed to come to her. The breakthrough wasn't

planned, it just emerged. There were no self-help books available containing

the specific instructions for this particular circumstance. It just happened!

But not insignificantly, it was when Dorothy herself decided to do something

about her situation that the problem melted away.

Dorothy has shown great concern for her companions

throughout; she re-stuffs the scarecrow, smooth’s out the

wrinkles in the tin man, and constantly reassures cowardly the

lion that he really is brave.

In this, Dorothy personifies one of the most important principles in human

experience. She could have quite easily just thought of herself and gone

back to the wizard alone. But, no! She chooses to help her companions get

straightened out and find their way too. Dorothy illustrates a very important

principle, namely that what helps most in times of trouble is to help others.

No one reaches higher than when they care enough to reach out and help

to pick someone else up.

She rescues Toto and they all march back to the Emerald City.


Surely the wizard will have to tell them the secret of getting back

to Kansas now.

Isn’t it interesting how Dorothy still sees the object of the exercise as

“getting the answers from the wizard.” Doesn’t she represent so many of

us? But when she arrives …

The wizard seems less than thrilled to see them. He beats around

the bush, while puffing out a cloud upon cloud of that infernal

green smoke. He hums and haws, until Toto knocks over a screen

and reveals a scraggly little man behind it, trying to make his

voice bigger by talking into a megaphone. This is the wizard?

Dorothy is not impressed. No wonder he isn’t happy to see them.

It’s all just a trick. He doesn’t have any answers at all.

However, the wizard tells them that he is about to take off for

Kansas in a hot air balloon. (How significant that his only solution

involves “hot air”!) There is just enough time for a little awards

ceremony where the scarecrow is given a diploma (which turns

out to be all you need to be considered a person with brains);

the tin man is given a ticking clock to put inside his chest to show

there is a heart in there after all; and the lion, who it seems really

only needed public affirmation of his courage, is given a medal.

There you go! A solution for every problem! It doesn’t seem to cross

anyone’s mind that these awards are meaningless in themselves. A diploma

does not mean someone has learned anything; a beating heart does not

mean someone cares; and, remind me again, what did the lion DO to earn

a medal?

And yet maybe that is exactly the point. The only redeeming feature seems

to be that these things somehow seem to change the recipient’s attitude

towards themselves and their disabilities, so to that extent they have

Dr Bill Webster 167

great value. It is what we think of ourselves and how we see ourselves that

makes the difference.

Dorothy makes her way towards the balloon, but first she must

say goodbye to her fellow travellers. A journey like this creates

bonds and she will miss her friends. The wizard, Dorothy and Toto

climb into the gondola … but wait a minute, just as the balloon is

about to take off, Toto jumps out. Disaster … again! That darn

dog is more trouble than it’s worth! Dorothy hops out to retrieve

Toto, but when she looks around, the balloon is disappearing into

the clouds, and her hopes of getting home seem to vanish.

But wait! A voice comes from behind. It’s Glinda the good witch.

She gives Dorothy the best advice she’s received since the story

began.

“You don’t need the balloon or the wizard,” she says in effect.

“You’ve got these ruby slippers. Just knock your heels together

three times and wish yourself back in Kansas.”

So, “Click! Click! Click!”… and whoosh, she’s back. And she finds

new life has come to everything. A new beginning has occurred.

The moral of the story I hope is obvious. There are no wizards who have all

the answers. There may be a yellow brick road, but it only takes us on a

journey. The journey itself and the people we encounter on it are important,

but they only serve to help to get us to where we need to be.

What we learn is that after all, the power to find your way back home is

within yourself. You thought that some wizard or expert had it. You thought

you had to perform all these tasks and arduous labours to fulfil the journey.

But all the time you had the answer at your own fingertips … well OK, maybe

at the tip of your toes!


The only magic lies within yourself, and when you finally get to the place

where you can channel that energy, you are home.

And that is where we all want to get back to, right?

Dr Bill Webster 169

Understanding Bereavement

This book offers a basic guide to Understanding Bereavement, providingan “essential body of knowledge” required to be able to effectively facilitate grief support programmes. Understanding Bereavement is thetext book used in Dr. Bill Webster’s Facilitation Course, in conjunction withhis manual “How to Organize and Facilitate Good Grief Groups” whichsummarizes the practical issues involved in organizing community griefgroups, including programme outlines for a 6 or 8 week series.

Dr. Bill Webster has been organizing and facilitating community supportgroups in numerous communities in Canada and in the UK for over 25years. He is the author of numerous books, including ‘When Someone YouCare about Dies” which is often used as a “workbook” in his grief groups.Among his other resources:

Now What When Someone You Care about DiesHelp Me..If You Can Why Me?Grief Journey When Someone You Care about is GrievingA Not So Jolly Christmas When Life Changes Grief matters 3 DVD Set Understanding Grief DVD

He also has an interactive web site at www.GriefJourney.com

ISBN 978-0-9697841-9-7

The material contained herein is copyright to The Centre for the GriefJourney.

© 2011 The Centre for the Grief Journey, Inc.

COPYRIGHTAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmittedin any form, means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without express permission in writing from the publisher and Dr. Webster.

PDF versions of this book are sold and distributed on the understanding that they will not be copied or forwarded, and anytransmission will be regarded as a breach of copyright.

Published by Greenleaf Consultants3243 Grassfire Crescent, MISSISSAUGA, ON L4Y 3J8

E mail Dr Bill Webster: [email protected]

Printed in Canada by Right Angle Graphics Inc.

Distributed through the Centre for the Grief Journey Inc.


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Understanding Bereavement - New Apostolic Church HQ/Trainin… · widely-recognized resource for people after a significant loss. This book offers readers, whether grieving people