Bereavement Help
Dick Underwood
Published by Technology Now at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Dick Underwood
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Table of Contents
COPING
STRATEGIES?
Unable
To Sleep?
Constantly
Thinking of Loved One
Mind
in a Whirl
Re-Living
the Death
Depressed
Angry
Guilty
Can’t
Accept Death
Seeing
Dead Person
Ways
of Helping Yourself
How
Long Does Grief Last
What
Makes Bereavement Worse
Anniversaries
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Nothing is really adequate to express the feeling of loss when someone close to us dies, but the word ‘devastation’ comes as close as any, and when we are devastated by loss, we feel that nobody really understands how we feel.
If anyone does know how you feel, then I do. My name is Dick Underwood, and I am a former Minister of Religion and a former Industrial Chaplain within the deep sea fishing industry. I am also a former Chief Executive of a national counseling charity in the UK.
As a minister of Religion I was regularly called upon to conduct family funerals, always visiting the family home several times before the funeral to provide comfort to the bereaved, and always continuing to visit afterwards for as long as my comfort and support was needed.
As an industrial chaplain within the fishing industry I was frequently (more frequently than I liked) asked to break the news to relatives when a fisherman had been washed overboard, or when a ship had sunk with complete loss of life. I know the sense of disbelief and numbness that is so often the first emotion. On one occasion a fisherman phoned his wife only a few minutes before I turned up at the family home to say that he had died. On returning to his ship from the phone box, the fisherman had fallen between his ship and the quay, being immediately crushed to death.
Although I sometimes conducted up to three funerals a day, I never became hardened to the suffering of others, and as I faced mourners during funeral services I frequently joined them in their tears as I shared in their loss.
Sometimes I had to find appropriate words not once, but three times for the same person, conducting a funeral service in church, a service at a crematorium, and then a later service during which the ashes would be scattered. Frequently, in the case of bodies lost at sea, I was faced with conducting memorial services for relatives, some of which (because there was no body) were finding it almost impossible to believe their loved one had really died. I have conducted funerals that have been attended by hundreds of mourners, but I have also conducted a funeral where I have been the only mourner.
The above experiences have led me to write this book. This book starts off by explaining what bereavement is, but it does far more than that. It goes on to share methods of helping you through your bereavement and grief, both short-term and long-term. I know these methods work, and I know these methods can help you.
Death is the Last Great Taboo
One of the first problems for anyone who is bereaved is where you go for help.
Go to the largest book store you can find or the largest library in your neighborhood, and look for self-help books on bereavement. The chances are, you won’t find any. First of all, where would you look? The non-fiction area of a book store or library is usually divided into sections, but where would you find bereavement? The medical section, bereavement isn’t an illness. The psychotherapy section, they are full of self-help books on all sorts of subjects, everything except bereavement. The religious section, not everyone is religious, but even if you are, you’ll find little or nothing about bereavement.
There are books about every subject under the sun, except bereavement.
I know that everyone is different, and what helps one person cope, may have the opposite effect on the next person. There is no magic formula that will help everyone, but in this eBook I am sharing the knowledge gained by my experiences in the belief that it will bring help and comfort to those of you suffering from bereavement.
Bereavement counseling is not an exact science, but there will be something in this eBook for everyone.
WHAT IS BEREAVEMENT?
Bereavement is Normal
The first thing that I want to tell you is that what you are feeling is normal.
The feelings we have when we lose someone we love, all come under the general heading of ‘Bereavement’. The feelings change, and become less intense over time, but make no mistake, in one form or another; they can last for years, even a lifetime. Bereavement affects every part of our being, emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually; but the overriding initial feeling is one of intense pain, or grief.
This eBook cannot remove the grief, but I know from experience that following the advice in this eBook will help ease the intensity of your pain.
Death is a Fact of Life
A century or so ago, and in many third world countries still, death was a familiar and frequent visitor. Families were large, children shared bedrooms, and many of the illnesses that we now receive immunization for were killers. By the time a child had grown to adulthood they may have experienced the death of a close family member several times: a sibling sleeping in the same room, a parent, and two, three, or four grandparents.