A lot of people say I'd like to just get over it and as quick
as I can but over, under or around are not good prepositions
to use when we're discussing grief.
Everything in me wanted to hurry up, to have three steps
to be healed, to be whole and to keep going but I learned quickly
that if I was going to make it through this, that I was going
to have to walk through the valley.
It's very Bible, “Yea, though I walk through the valley,"
it doesn't say around or over or under the valley,
it says through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil and our promise from God in going
through is that He will be with us all the way on that journey.
Hello, welcome to GriefShare, I'm Nancy Guthrie
and this is my husband, David.
In our last session, we discovered that the death
of a loved one changes everything, the way you think,
the way you feel, your motivation, your relationship
with God and more but during that session, we also introduced
you to people who've been where you are right now.
We benefited from hearing them
describe how difficult grief was for them.
Nancy: As you watched them talk about grief,
you may have wondered, “How do I get to the other side of grief?"
Or, “How do I reach the point where I can talk
about my pain in the past tense."
You've just heard people describing grief as a journey.
Today, we want to show you the path you need to travel
as you heal from your grief and explain the steps you need
to take to move from mourning to joy.
We are at the beginning point of the path
that stretches behind us.
To get to the end of it, we've got to start hiking.
It's the same way with grief.
To work through it, you've got
to begin the process of grieving.
Right now, you may be thinking that you don't want
to move forward because if you do, you, in effect,
dishonor your loved one or maybe you're ready to move forward
but you worry that others will think you didn't really love
your child, spouse or sibling if you don't continue
to grieve heavily for a longer period of time.
Zoricelis: When we talk about grief and our goal of grieving is
adapting to a new life and to a new normal without that person.
Sometimes people can see that as bad
because they see the word new
and associate it also always with something good.
Well, that new, it just means something different
and now my life is different.
It's a new different life without that person.
That does not mean that that person has ever forgotten
that person who died that they loved.
They will always remember.
As human beings, we don't forget.
It's just that I cannot live in pain the rest of my life
with this intensity and this turmoil that I feel right now.
There's a difference between moving on
and moving forward 'cause moving on suggests
that you're leaving something behind.
Moving forward is that you're taking something with you.
If you're still concerned about what others will think
about the way you grieve, remember this; you can't heal
from grief while being overly concerned
about what those around you think.
Grieving is hard enough as it is.
Acting the way you think others would like you
to makes it unbearable.
Besides, while others can give you principles and guidance
about the journey of grief,
no one can tell you exactly how it should look for you
because everyone's journey is unique.
Dr. Viars: My experience as a pastor is
that everybody grieves differently.
There's no manual, there's no instruction sheet.
Some people, they just run away, avoid, hide.
It's a singular experience for those.
Some people are obviously angry.
When my dad was sick, people would tell me
that, “Prepare yourself because you're going to have a time
of wailing and just uncontrollability."
And I kept waiting for that and waiting for that, expecting it
and never came so then I thought well,
it was something wrong with me.
I know I loved my dad.
We sometimes feel in the Christian community that there,
you know, we have stages of grief and stages of this
and procedures for that
and I think there's a lot of danger in that.
The facilitator for our grief recovery group, she assured me
that everyone grieves differently,
that there are people who have outward bursts of emotions
and there are just some people who don't
and that's not my personality anyway.
Your grief journey is your own.
There's no time limit, there's not a certain way
you have to feel or act or whatever.
It's a journey that you have to go through.
Don't come up with formulas.
Don't come up with this is what --
this is the procedure that you must follow,
I think that's a huge mistake.
[Music]
Female Narrator: Sylvia's first husband Phillip died of a heart attack.
Seventeen years later, her second husband Bill died
from heart and lung disease.
Sylvia: I didn't grieve the same way with Bill
that I did with Phillip.
With my first husband, it was so sudden.
I mean I was just totally shocked beyond belief.
I think it took me much longer to get back to everyday living.
Female Narrator: Bill's. death, while painful, wasn't as sudden
so Sylvia's grief wasn't as intense.
No two relationships are the same and I cannot say
that I loved one more than I did the other.
Like I say, our love, our relationship was very different.
As far as being less love,
there was none of that and I don't feel guilty
that my response was not the same.
Nancy: One reason your journey of grief is unique
is that you had a unique relationship
with your loved one.
Karen: People say I know exactly how you feel. They don't.
And it's because the relationship is different
or the experience is different
and so even though people mean well,
you get offended 'cause you don't know what my relationship
was like or maybe I had a good relationship
and you had a bad relationship
or yours was bad and mine was good.
I mean whatever they are, they're different experiences
and so it's important that when people are trying to be helpful
and you get offended that you understand it's simply
because the relationship is different.
I wanted people to understand how close I was with my aunt
and for people to understand that bond
that we were very special to each other and I was almost
in a panic, trying desperately
to have another human understand that.
Who that person was, who I am with that person,
the kind of role relationship we had,
the nature of the attachment just a lot of things go on into
that in terms of making it uniquely my own.
I think I was internalizing that only I, for the rest
of my life, I'm the only one
of this two part friendship that's going to remember
that bond because the other person is gone
and so now it's all resting on me to understand the value
and the way and the beauty of that relationship.
And it almost felt -- it was a heavy burden
to treasure that alone.
Female Narrator: Over time, Victoria realized that her relationship
with her aunt was a gift from God
and since God knew everything about their bond,
He also knew how Victoria was feeling.
Victoria: He not only understood the joy of that relationship
but He understood the brokenness I was feeling afterwards
and He was walking hand in hand with me the whole time
and it was actually a three person relationship
and so there was that person validating
and blessing the relationship
and saying you can put the full weight of the significance
of this relationship on me and you will always have someone
that understands what that relationship was to you
and consequently,
will understand the depth of my grief.
Since grief is such a personal experience,
trying hard to follow someone else's roadmap likely won't help
you find your personal path to healing.
Dr. Moitinho: If a grieving person is looking at someone else
and saying, “I'm going to do exactly what someone else did,"
the hazard is they may be trying to do something that worked
in a particular situation under a particular set
of circumstances that may not work here.
Several people have asked me have you --
do you regularly go to visit your brother's gravesite
and I have felt embarrassed when they asked me
that 'cause I've never been back to his gravesite
after I was there at the burial.
I was there when he was buried and I was weeping there
but I've not been back and people say well,
“That's what you're supposed to do."
And I don't think there's a formula
for what I'm supposed to do.
I am very logical, I reason things out.
I'm very factual, whereas I've noticed
that with other family members, they're more emotional
and rather than go by logic and reason,
they're going to feel that moment.
When I think about my father-in-law's death, for me,
I immediately began to collect memories and to start talking
about him and telling stories and keeping the memory alive.
For my husband, he withdrew.
On my camera, I still have pictures of my mom
in her casket and sometimes when I'm flipping through my phone,
I'll go other way and my friends will be like, “Whoa!"
I'm like, “Oh, that's just mom." [Laughter].
“Why do you still have that on your camera?"
I said, “Because I like to see her."
Then it's, you know.
I have to often tell them this is whats going to help me.
This is my healing process.
If you can't do it, then that's fine.
Do it when you can but for me, I need to go this path.
They said, “But don't you have better pictures of her?"
I said, “What's wrong with that picture,
I think she looked pretty snazzy, don't you?
Look at her nails." You know, stuff like that
and they're like, “Gracie, you're crazy."
I say, “I am, really I am but don't worry
about that, it will be all right."
Sometimes the hardest part is being okay with how they see it
and how they need to grieve and being okay with how I need
to grieve and not comparing the two.
Since every person's journey of grief is different,
it's not wise for us to give you a map
that details the exact path you should take.
But we can suggest six goals you'll want to work toward.
Well briefly explain four of the goals in this session
and well share the other two in future sessions.
Then throughout the remainder of your Grief Share experience,
we' ll go into more detail
about how you can pursue all six goals.
Nancy: So let's look at your first goal; accept the reality
of your loved one's death.
Dr. DeVries: When we talk about the first goal of grief
as accepting the fact that the loved one has died,
many people will say, “Duh, of course, I see that person
in the casket, I know that they died."
But the reality is it takes probably six to nine months
for the heart to accept what the head has already seen.
That is, emotionally for a long time, we think we hear
that person coming back or you come home from work and you walk
in the door and you want to say hello to your son or your wife
or your parent who might be living there
and it just doesn't happen.
And so when we talk about accepting the reality
of that death, it really means putting yourself in situations
where you really face the reality
that that person is not there and is not coming back.
One of the hard things about the grief journey is
that you have so many tour guides.
You've got us telling you what to do,
people you see throughout the GriefShare videos,
well-meaning friends, suggestions in your workbook.
Sometimes it can be overwhelming.
Surrounded by all this information, it's important
that you turn and listen to the one person who is best suited
to help you through the grieving process.
I think I need to be able to say God,
not only are you relevant to this process of healing
but you're central and whatever the word hope means,
I've got to find it in you.
God's comfort is to be sought as well
so in some sense, it's not automatic.
There is a component to us --
to it that God says “Draw near unto God
and He will draw near unto you.
Seek the Lord and He may be found."
There's certainly grace that comes to us unmerited
in that sense in which He is with us
but there are also moments He wants us actually to seek Him.
Run to God, cry out to Him, accept the hope
that there is there, accept the comfort
in the Psalms and the Scriptures.
It's the promises in His Bible
that give me the most comfort.
It's not a warm feeling I get, it's the truth of God's word
that He has promised that the grave is not the end.
[Music]
Nancy: The next goal in your grief journey is
to appropriately express your grief related emotions.
David: When we try to numb emotions,
what happens is we numb all emotions so if I numb my anxiety
and my anger and my sadness, I'm also numbing my joy,
my love, my connection.
So as I run away from feeling certain things,
I'm also running away from the opportunity
to use those feelings for healing in my process.
I usually felt better after I cried so I knew
that it's God's way of helping you deal with the situation.
The fact of the matter is the more you keep your emotions
inside, the more you try to swallow them,
the more they'll come out in probably more detrimental ways
and therefore, we really encourage people to set as one
of the goals of grief to be authentic
about how they're feeling, to be congruent, if you will,
to say, “I'm really grieving.
I feel very, very sad," or angry or whatever the emotion might be
and find some appropriate way to give expression to that.
The next goal has to do with how you see yourself now
that your loved one is gone.
In short, you need to figure out who you are
without that person in your life.
H. Norman: I remember the first time that I received something
in the mail that said
H. Norman Wright, widower. I sort of bristled, I did not want them
putting that label on me, even though it was true.
When my mother died, that was the second of my two parents
who passed away and I walked
around for quite a while saying I'm now an orphan,
I have no parents.
It is coming to the place where we realize
that I no longer am that same person and so we have to sort
of carve out this new identity and it's a hard adjustment.
You might bristle at the idea of establishing a new identity.
You still want to be known as your late husband's wife
or as your child's mom and that makes a lot of sense.
But there are better ways to honor your loved one
than to continue to define yourself by your relationship
to him or her. So as we walk this journey with you,
we'll show you how to honor
and remember the person you lost while also moving forward.
Nancy: So those are four of the six goals of grief; accept the fact
that your loved one has died, turn to God,
appropriately express all grief related emotion
and establish a new identity.
David: We'd like to underscore a few things
about the goals we'll be sharing
with you throughout the GriefShare program.
First, reaching them requires effort.
We will focus more on that in our next session.
Second, these goals are not sequential and we're not talking
about stages of grief.
We've tried to present them in a logical order
but you'll probably find yourself working
on multiple goals at once.
In fact, sometimes the same effort can
help you move towards several goals.
And finally, some of you may not feel like trying
to accomplish any goals.
It's hard enough for you to simply get dressed each day
but if you think about it,
you've probably already made progress on many
of the goals we've shared.
For example, just showing up here is a way
of accepting the fact that your loved one has died
and you've probably already spent time being sad
so you've already begun
to appropriately express your grief.
David: And I'm sure that some of you have already turned to God
in prayer or perhaps you've done some of the exercises
in your GriefShare workbook;
those are both great examples of turning to God.
So while you have a ways to go,
you're probably further along than you thought.
[Music]
Earlier, we noted that it takes a commitment to begin,
whether it's a hike along this path or the journey you'll need
to take as you heal after your loss.
Getting started on the grief journey is difficult
for many people but there are some of you
that may be tempted to rush through it.
Just like it would not be wise to try
to sprint along this trail
because there are too many twists and turns, it's also true
that you cannot hurry through the process of grieving.
Dr. Smeenge: One time, Bob and I were speaking somewhere
and a man came up to us and said, “You know,
I think I've done a lot of the behaviors and I've gotten
through what I think I got through the goals of grief
but you know what, I don't feel one whit better."
And so then I asked him, like, “How long has it been
since your wife died?" And he said three months
and as we had a conversation,
it turned out he was an efficiency expert.
He was a consultant for around the country of how
to make businesses more efficient.
We said, you know, you can't rush it, you just can't.
You know, I know it's agonizing and hard to do the day
by day stuff but that's exactly what grief is.
While we may be willing to take our time on this journey
of grief, many of us find that there are those around us trying
to rush us through the process so we' ll get back to normal.
Heather: My husband had a hard time with that 'cause
we had a small child and he wanted me to move on.
He wanted me to focus on our life and the happiness and not
in an abrasive way, he was coming from a place of love
and he didn't want me to get stuck in my grief.
The day after the day she passed, it was, you know,
late in the evening so we came home and then the next morning,
I could not believe that, you know, folks were looking for me
to get out of the bed.
And somebody looked at me one day,
“Well why can't you just get over it?
Why can't you just go on with your life?"
What does that mean?
You know, she has been my mom since day one, my love started
since day one, she was 54-years-old.
It hurts just like it happened yesterday.
I had one friend that came less than a month
after my husband died and said I know you're busy with your mom
but we need to clean everything out of his room.
We need to get rid of his clothes and I just stepped away
into the bedroom and she found me silently crying into a towel.
I was not ready.
Zoricelis: People around you may come to you
giving you advice on what you need to do to recover
and how soon you should recover
or recommendations that they offer.
If you are not ready for those recommendations
and you are assertive,
then I would recommend you saying “You know what, thank you,
thank you because you mean well.
You want the best for me but I am not ready for that.
I'm still in pain, I know you can see
from the outside what may be best for me
and that may be a good idea but right now,
I don't feel ready for that."
Now if you're passive and you don't dare
to say something, just thank them.
“Thank you for your recommendation,
I'll think about it," and you don't have
to do what they're recommending if you're not ready.
Remember that your grieving is personal and you go
through your own timing and pace but thank them
because they mean well and you want them
to love you and support you.
I think that people, you know, have a hard time
because they don't understand what to say.
Female Narrator: Christina, whose sister died from cancer, was struggling
to communicate to her friends and family how best to help her
so Christina wrote a grief letter.
Christina: My grief letter directed to my coworkers
and my boss was sent via email
and I wrote a letter to my husband.
Female Narrator: Christina quickly saw the benefits of writing
and sharing the letter.
Christina: It was an excellent idea for me to write the grief letter
because it made the entire communication with my friends,
my family, my coworkers better because they understood how
to help me and that's what they wanted to do.
They just wanted to help.
Female Narrator: The letter also helped her husband Steve have a better idea
of how to care for Christina.
Christina: My husband is very sweet and he would come and just want
to hug me but that would make me cry more
and so eventually I got tired of crying and I wanted to try to,
you know, put it out of my mind for a minute
and so I let him know that sometimes if I needed to,
you know, turn away from a hug or just have a minute
by myself that, you know, it was not directed to him personally
but that this was something that I needed to walk
through by myself because of my relationship with my sister.
He, you know, received it well.
I think that, you know, he would have preferred for me to want
to spend a lot of time with him during that time
because that's his love language but he respected my request
to just take some time to process my grief by myself.
David: Grief letters help people understand what you need as you grieve.
For more information on how to write and distribute one,
see the end of this week's note-taking section
in your GriefShare workbook.
Sometimes when you take a walk in dense woods,
it's easy to get disoriented and lost.
When you are grieving.
You may sometimes experience emotions
that can disorient you as well.
For example, you may find yourself feeling relief and joy
in the middle of your grief.
I did feel some relief after my mom passed away.
I woke up one morning and I realized I didn't have
to do all the things I was doing, had been doing
for my wife and I felt relieved but then,
shortly after that, I started feeling guilty
about being relieved.
I mean it's almost, “Wow, I'm glad she's gone," and that wasn't it,
I was just glad to have the load lifted off my shoulders,
I wasn't glad she was gone.
I was tired of seeing her suffer and I just prayed, “Lord,
please take her," because I knew she was going to heaven.
It was a relief that she didn't have to go
through anymore; that was the relief part that now she was
in a peaceful place, that one day I would see her again and it will be well.
Another disorienting aspect of grief is
that it often gets worse before it gets better.
Donna: My intense grief came
about three months after he passed away.
It's kind of like when reality really set in and, “Oh,
he is not coming back."
He has not gone on a vacation, he's not coming back.
I think my first year
of grief was everything was just new to me
and didn't all make sense.
I was just kind of in this fog and it wasn't
until really the second year that I felt
like this depression hit and this realization
that he's not coming back and it was a struggle
and anxiety about everything.
In a lot of ways, the second year is worse.
Because the numbness of the first year has worn off
and so you go through this pain
but then you start taking steps moving forward and the grief
that was this big is now maybe like this
and then shrinks a little more,
shrinks a little more, then it expands.
It's heavy in a whole new way.
I remember calling my sister and I was hysterical
and told her, “Renee, he's not coming back.
He's not coming back, he's not coming back." lust screaming
in the phone he's not coming back.
[Music]
I think the thing that really surprised me the most is
the ambush business.
David: Have you ever been ambushed by your grief?
Nancy: An ambush of grief is a situation in which something
an event, a person, a place, a smell,
almost anything you can think of triggers a memory
of your loved one, which leads to an emotional reaction.
You may feel like you're getting better
and things are going on, life it's getting back to normal
and then all of a sudden, you may smell something
fresh baked bread and it can take you back to moments
where you were with the person that you've lost
and you can be overwhelmed with feelings of emotions.
You're in the grocery store and you're looking at a jar
of pickles that your husband loved
and you realize you never have to buy that jar again
and you just start bawling.
I went out to eat one day and this elderly couple come
down the sidewalk hand in hand,
well the only thing I could think
of that was supposed to have been us.
There was Christmas Eve a few years back and somebody got up
and sang “I'll be Home for Christmas"
and it really just -- it threw me.
I went to get a driver's license, thought I was okay
and she asked me if I'd like to be a donor.
Well, they had asked us at the hospital
if we would allow our daughter to be a donor and we struggled
with it knowing she had so many physical problems but then
at the last minute, we said yes, we signed the paper.
Then they came and said “Well, we can't use anything."
And that hurt me so terribly.
And when I was at the driver's license office,
the woman said would --
I hesitated and then I said yes and then it hit me.
I didn't want them to have mine
if our daughter's wasn't good enough either
but I went ahead and said yes.
And then it just broke all over, I just cried so hard.
[Music]
Some grieving people fear being around others
because they're not certain who or what will trigger an ambush.
But isolating yourself isn't going to help you make progress
on the journey of grief, that's why you need to think
through how you will respond to a grief ambush.
We do fire drills with children in schools
and other places so that when that moment comes
and it is unexpected that their instincts are trained,
this is where the nearest exit is and this is where we need
to go and so in that moment of unpredictable hard time,
do I have a phrase where I can say to someone this is hard
for me, I think I need a moment.
I need to excuse myself.
Do I have a few friends that I've said if something just pops
up on me, can I call you?
Do we have some places in scripture that we can go
to seek comfort that just reminds us that God cares
and He understands and He can relate to this experience.
And if you feel emotion, it's okay to cry
and if you feel laughter, it's okay to laugh out loud
and the people around you may be clueless as to what's going on.
And so it may feel a little awkward
but it's a private moment.
And so the question is,
is not so much what do I do, as if I need a detailed itinerary
for every possibility that could happen
in an unpredictable hard time of grief but do I have a sense
of where I'm going to run in that moment
so that I don't feel stranded and alone when those times come.
The journey you're on right now can be painful.
There will be countless things, parties, anniversaries,
holidays, church services that you do for the first time
without your loved one.
When those events come around, it makes sense
that you'll be looking for a way to comfort yourself
but it's important that you choose wise ways of finding relief.
Some of the things people use to feel better only end
up adding to their pain.
Sabrina: I mean there are lots of things that we do
to make ourselves feel better just because we don't want
to experience the pain.
I probably shopped too much.
I was using the alcohol as a Band-Aid.
It just seemed like some people get comforted different
ways, you know, like they drink or take drugs or whatever.
I got comforted with food.
If I wanted to cry, usually I didn't if I was drinking.
Numbing pain is, in the long run, ineffective, you know,
the alcohol wears off, the pills wear off,
shopping, the bills come due.
But the grief doesn't go away, the loss is still going
to be there and the grief is going to be waiting for you
after you've eaten a half gallon of ice cream or drank a fifth
or done something else but you will have added a layer
of problems that impairs your ability
to face your first problem and has added problems of its own
so you're just compounding your problems while you're
compromising your ability to deal with any of them.
I was getting into other problems when drinking
like fighting, saying mean things to people,
doing whatever I felt like doing and I would have
to pay the consequences later so I'm like what's the point
of having alcohol if I'm still going to hurt?
[Music]
Female Narrator: Years before Cindy became a Christian,
she had a cocaine habit.
After her fiance David died in a workplace accident,
her friends and family worried
about how she would cope with her loss.
Cindy: So, now fast forward and I call this man
and say I need some drugs and he said, “Cindy,
I thought you were some kind of Jesus girl now,
like I'm not selling to you."
And I said, "Hey, what are you talking about Jesus,
like I've got cash, you've got drugs and this is how it works,
like I buy drugs from you."
Female Narrator: What Cindy didn't know is that her father had spoken
to the local drug dealers.
He threatened to kill anyone who sold drugs to her.
[If I ever find out that you've been selling her drugs,
I will kill you!
Whoa!]
Cindy: And he said, “Cindy, your dad was not kidding.
He would kill the person that sold drugs to his daughter;
that's not going to be me."
Female Narrator: Then the drug dealer gave Cindy some good
but unexpected advice.
Cindy: And then he said something like, “You need to get
down on your knees right now and pray and ask God to help you."
And I'm like, “You are a drug dealer.
What are you doing telling me to pray?"
And so all of a sudden, then I'm determined,
like I'm going to find some drugs so I went to walk
out of my door and there was my girlfriend
and she had a sleeping bag a pillow
and a bag filled with her pajamas.
And she said the craziest thing, “I was just praying
and God said you need to go spend the night with Cindy."
Female Narrator: Cindy is thankful that God sent her friend to stay
with her that evening.
She is also thankful that since then, she hasn't experienced
such intense cravings for drugs.
You may not be tempted to use cocaine
but you'll certainly be tempted to comfort yourself
in unhealthy ways so how can you resist?
First, remember that unhealthy forms of comfort don't help you;
they postpone your healing and reduce your ability
to handle your circumstances.
Second, let others know how you're tempted
to medicate the pain of your grief.
Ask them to hold you accountable to make wise choices.
Third, develop the habit of going to God in prayer
and reading His word when you feel overwhelmed
with grief. Developing this habit takes time
but it will lay a solid foundation for your healing.
You may be wondering,
how long will this journey of grief last?
Perhaps you're tired of grieving
and even though you love your former spouse, parent, sibling
or child you know that you can't go
on feeling this much pain forever.
H. Norman: Many times I'm asked how long is my grief going to last and my response is,
“I wish I could give you a definite time but I can't."
I don't think in terms of grief as weeks or months,
I think of it in terms of years.
For example, with a death of a child, it often takes from 5
to 10 years to stabilize.
Some used to write and say “Well, if it was a death
by natural causes, it will take about two years,
that's approximately but we know that in the first year, the --
at three months, it will intensify usually.
At one year, the one year anniversary, it can intensity,
then all of the other significant holidays
or important events will be triggers as well but we do talk
about it in terms of years and so it is a difficult journey
and we are people that like to be in control.
We want things over immediately.
It does not work that way when it comes to grief.
After I had been widowed for a while and was
at church one Sunday,
some people from what they called themselves the widowed
group came up to greet me and said,
“Well, welcome to our widowed society."
And I said, “Well, what does that mean?"
And she said, “Well, you know, I want you to know as a widow,
you'll never really be that happy again or feel very good
but it will get better."
I really wanted to heal,
now I don't believe the grief journey has to be
like some people may choose or think that they have
to experience it where it gets a little better
but I'm always going to be grieving.
I'm always going to feel pretty bad
because this loved one isn't here.
In my thinking, grief is a journey, you know,
we start out on the main stream and somebody
who we love dearly dies
and we experience this intense devastating loss and so
without asking for it, we're immediately stuck on a detour
as we go on this grief journey.
But I don't know of any detour that lasts forever.
Eventually we get back into the mainstream again
and that's my concept of the grief journey.
It's a journey that we really have to go on if we want to heal
but that there is the other side of grief where God,
through His mercy and healing power, does heal us
with our help and work in that process.
And so I guess eventually I went back to this woman and did say
to her, you know, “I'm feeling a whole lot better but I had
to do a whole lot of hard work to get there
but I guess I would say I'm no longer grieving."
Female Narrator: You've just heard Dr. Smeenge say
that she's not grieving anymore but does that mean
that you can reach the point
that you aren't affected by your loss?
Although there will always be a sense of sadness when you think
about your loved one's death, H. Norman Wright says that
“As you heal, you'll begin
to remember your loved ones differently."
H. Norman: There's two types of remembering,
there's emotional remembering, where we remember the loved one
and the feelings and the emotions come to the surface
and eventually, probably in terms of years,
we come to the place
where there's a historical remembering.
Yes, that was the person in my life
but the emotions are not there like they were before.
Female Narrator: Even Dr. Smeenge says “That as you heal from your loss
or stop grieving there will still be times
when you revisit your sadness."
Dr. Smeenge: It's like high school, college graduation, “Okay I did it,
I got through the grief journey,
I think I've completed it." But that doesn't ever mean
that we forget our college or our high school.
We go back even for reunions
and maybe those momentary sadnesses could be we're going
back for reunions, we remember the way that it was
and maybe how it would have been if these people were
in our lives even now.
But we're still not grieving that, we're just sad
or have some poignant memories.
Female Narrator: So when you hear people say they've healed from grief
or that they're no longer grieving, it doesn't mean
that they are pain free or that they've forgotten and moved on.
It simply means that they no longer feel intense pain and sorrow.
Male Narrator: When Susan's mother died, she felt like she was alone.
Learn how she coped with the void created
by her mother's death in this week's From Mourning
to joy exercises in your GriefShare workbook.
In the next session of GriefShare, you'll discover more
about what's ahead on you journey of grief.
Amy: I was afraid the pain would open a door to something
that I couldn't handle.
What do I do with the things that we have here in the house
that belonged to our loved one?
And we often wonder am I doing grief right.
Thanks for joining us.
We' ll see you for the next session.