Individual Variations and the Grieving Process

The grieving process for a lack of a better way to describe one of the most painful passgaes of life, it is exactly that, a process. The process starts at the time of death.

This process is a never-ending motion of ups and downs and lots of in betweens for the one grieving and it will
effect every aspect of their lives and all those around them.The grieving process will require alot of understanding and love and most of all support for the one grieving.

For most grieving people, the idea of going through stages is hard to except. The reason being is they don’t want to be put into a category or lumped together with everyone else.

Grief is very personal and al though you may share the same type of grif it is a very personal and private matter for each person who grieves.

It is about their relationship with the one who has died that makes it different.

The griever doen’t want to be put into a cookie cutter mentality of the stages of grief. They want to feel the process in their own special way.

The person grieving wants to know, that it is okay to be where-ever they are in the process. They also neeed to know that they are not crazy for having so-called crazy thoughts. Depending on the type of death and who it is to them, the process is different.

For those their who have lost their children, this is one of the most painful process’s through grief. This one is the hardest for the one grieving and also for all those around them because they feel helpless to help them through it. Having been through this one myself, I can say I have experienced many deaths in my life including the death of my eight year old sister and the death of my father and none could compare with the death omy eight year old son Ryan to cancer. His death in the begining of my grieving process required every ounce of my strength on a daily basis.

There is a line in my book I wrote that talks about being stuck in grief or as I put it, to walk in grief.It is here where I give the reader an alternative to walking in grief and that alternative is to allow grief to walk next to them instead. and the benefit from allowing for grief to walk next to them is this:

Grief then becomes like a shadow and just like a shadow follows you around so too does grief. And just like your shadow it never hinders your walk because it never really gets in the way. It moves with you, it never goes behind you or in front of you it always just stays beside you. Most important it never stops your forward motion, it is just there to be that subtle reminder that it does exist and it will not go away, it will just find its place in your everday living.And your everyday living will never be the same again but it still can be good, just different and differnt isn’t a bad thing it is just different.