Grief and Bereavement: Finding Support and Healing

Grief is the price we pay for love. When someone dies, we don't stop loving them—the love has nowhere to go except inward.

Understanding Grief

Grief is a natural, healthy response to loss. It's never something you "get over"—you learn to carry it.

Common Grief Emotions

Sadness

Missing their presence and the empty places in daily life.

Anger

At the person who died, the medical system, at God or life for unfairness, even at yourself.

Guilt

Feeling you could have done more, weren't there, didn't resolve things, or feeling relief about their suffering ending.

Fear and Anxiety

About your own mortality, finances, survival, or forgetting them.

Relief

If their death ended suffering or difficult caregiving (followed by guilt about feeling relieved).

Grief Timeline

First Days and Weeks

Numbness, surreal feeling, functioning on autopilot.

First Months

Numbness fades, emotions intensify. Holidays and anniversaries are hard.

Year One: Anniversary Reactions

First birthday, holiday, death anniversary are challenging.

Year Two and Beyond

Grief becomes less acute. You develop a "new normal." You learn to carry it.

Supporting Your Grief

Self-Care While Grieving

Grief Support Resources

Support Groups

Community of people who understand. Many types available: general, hospice-specific, by loss type, online or in-person.

Professional Support

Bereavement counselors, grief therapists, psychiatrists if depression/anxiety develop.

Important Reminders

You're not going crazy. Grief experiences like seeing them, hearing their voice, or forgetting they've died are normal.

Grief changes but doesn't end. You learn to integrate the loss and carry the love alongside it.

Your grief is valid whether death was expected or sudden, relationship was perfect or complicated, or few people knew them.