Helpful Grief Counsel

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Unpredictable reactions can cause difficulties

Grief is difficult. That is a given. And one of the main reasons it is difficult is that it is unpredictable. People, it seems, naturally assume that grief is something that begins shortly after a death of a loved one, proceeds into various, easy to define stages, and then gradually fades away over the course of a few weeks (or, at most, a few months). It is such false assumptions that ironically compound the difficulties of grief.

Experts warn that grief cannot be easily packed into the textbook-style descriptions that are so prevalent in today self-help literature often written by self-proclaimed authorities. The famed stages of grief rarely manifest themselves exactly as prescribed in the multitude of pamphlets and websites that so readily offer advice to the grieving. And, when the grief does not go as planned, even more suffering is a result. Family members can become impatient and critical of one another, psychologists may be consulted, disabilities diagnosed, and drugs may even be prescribed.

And all of this can often be avoided with a proper understanding of one important factor to grief: it cannot be said to apply uniformly to all people and all situation.

Grief can rise up with alarming intensity even decades after a death. Or can be curiously sporadic in the days immediately after a loved-one has died. Spouses have been known to grieve powerfully on anniversaries but, then, not at all on birthdays (or vice-versa). And, in some cases, the grieving of a loved can even appear to take second stage to that of a pet.

Grief, in short, is unpredictable. That means even the most unorthodox grieving must be, by nature, valid. And that simple fact is what makes helpful grief counsel a tough trick.

To help a person who is grieving, the most important thing to do is to rid you of preconceived ideas of what makes for healthy grieving.

Healthy grieving, from a helpful grief counselor point of view, is, well, anything.

Helpful grief counsel can come from anyone, not just professionals, able to accept that grieving is erratic. When a person is grieving, he or she is best served by counsel that avoids judgments based on how grief is to happen. Such counsel will not show surprised when, for example, a man does not cry at his beloved wife burial ceremony but breaks down publicly month later at the site of the wife favorite shade of green. Such helpful grief counsel will be unobtrusively sensitive to the grieving person choices on special anniversaries, holidays and birthdays. If an otherwise annual trip to a gravesite on, say Memorial Day, does not appear desirable on one particular year, a truly helpful grief counselor will not press the issue. That is because the counselor understands grief is unpredictable and erratic. Trying to change that is a disservice to the grieving.

Helpful grief counselor, as we said, does not have to come exclusively from professionals. In fact, anyone who understands that the grieving process is, despite connotations that come from the word process - above all - varied.

Grief can be relieved when a memorial is put into place from a cremation funeral urn to a wonderful marble statue.