Becoming an End-of-Life Companion, Part 5: Grief

We recently spent a training day on grief, with two grief counselors walking us through different concepts of grief and sharing their advice on how to support people who are grieving. Here's what I took away from it.

❧ Grief is messy
There have been many attempts to fit grief into a concept or model, something we can measure and manage more easily. Some describe phases of grief, like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Others describe tasks to work through, like William Worden's four tasks: accepting the reality of the loss, processing the pain of grief, adjusting to a world without the person, and finding a lasting connection to them. Still others describe grief as something closer to a tide. But the truth is, everyone grieves in their own way, and while these models can offer some orientation, they're still just an attempt to bring structure to something that is, at its core, a messy emotional process without fixed rules.

❧ Accept the person as they are
Because grief is so messy, we need to learn to accept grieving people, and their emotions, exactly as they are. Avoid telling them they need to move on to the next phase or stage. Some experts even recommend not offering advice at all, just information, and only if it's asked for.

❧ Grief is hard work
The emotional and physical symptoms of grief can be exhausting. Grief really is hard work. Let's keep that in mind and be gentle with people who are grieving, trying to make their life a little easier instead of adding more pressure.

❧ You can't fix grief
You can be there for someone in grief, but you can't fix it for them. It's not your job to make them feel better, though they might feel a little less alone if you're willing to sit with them through the pain.

❧ It's not your grief
Their grief isn't yours. Stay empathetic, but take care of yourself too.

❧ Grief has become invisible
There's a reason widows in many parts of the world used to wear black for a full year. Everyone around them understood: this is a woman in grief, and could respond, or show respect, accordingly. That tradition has almost disappeared today, and grief has become largely invisible. We often have no idea whether the person sitting next to us is, in this very moment, carrying a heavy grief.

The rainbow in the picture below represents the last of the four "tides" in Ruthmarijke Smeding's grief model. It stands for the moment when the loss of a loved one (the rain) meets the future of your own life (the sun). The loss has been accepted, and at the same time, a new kind of relationship with the person who died has taken shape, one that allows the bereaved to keep living. When past and future come together like that, something beautiful can emerge.