This blog article from ‘What’s your grief?’ has really resonated with us here at SLOW, especially for the bereaved parents and facilitators that are a little ‘further on’ in their grief.
For many parents coming to our support groups, one of their first questions is ‘will it always feel like this?’. It was definitely one of my overriding questions in the early days after my daughter’s death that I directed at Nicola and Susie, the facilitators at my first SLOW group. I wanted to know if it would get better – surely I couldn’t feel like this forever and I didn’t think my body could even survive such physical heartache?
I can clearly remember Susie saying – ‘it does get better but it doesn’t “get better” ’ and now eight years on I know how right she was.
This article shows how you can live with grief and that over time that isn’t as negative as it initially appears.
The reality of grief is that it often stays with you until the day you, yourself, die. For those who think of grief as being all negative emotion, I can see where this may seem unmanageable, but rest assured the impact of grief changes over time. As you change your relationship with grief – by changing how you respond to, cope with, and conceptualize grief – you will likely also find hope and healing. If you think about it, grief is one instance where there is a strong benefit to accepting its ongoing presence in your life because doing so creates more room for comfort, positive memories, and an ongoing connection with the person who died.
SLOW support groups are here for bereaved parents weeks, months or even years after the death of a child. And I know, personally for me, that in the early days it was so important to understand from others further along how the grief for a lost child evolved.
For more information on our forthcoming groups click here
