Nursing Grief

Death has never been easy. It is a painful, emotive, saddening, devastating, and traumatic experience. Sad because no one ever plans to die, even for a terminally ill person. They may know they won't make it, but the time death strikes, they probably won't be ready for it.

Loss of Loved One

Personal life experience

I got married in August 1999, a short period honeymoon, and then back to settle into life, with great plans for a family. In December of the same year, my wife got involved in an accident along Nakuru Eldoret highway while on their way to bury her brother-in-law. The accident left her with multiple injuries, including dislocation/fracture of her pelvic bone, and she was bedridden for almost 9 months and was in and out of the hospital with infections. In September 2000, death struck. It was never an easy thing for me to handle since I was green to marriage life. My late wife was charming, born again and feared the Lord; she was lovely, respectful and welcoming to everyone who interacted with her. As a young man full of love for the woman of my youth, this was devastating, traumatizing and disoriented my life for a moment. I may not talk about memories with the late since we never got to know each other well in marriage life, save for the respect I saw in our happy 3 months in marriage.

The Grieving Process

Death has never been an easy thing to deal with. People react and respond differently to the loss of a loved one or significant others. I had a difficult time accepting the loss, I never understood why it had happened the way it did. I repeatedly asked God the why questions. To an extent, I felt nothing; she’s dead. What can I do? I tried my best to have her life, but it didn’t work; she still died, I can’t bring her back.

My grieving period/process was difficult, I had no one to support me, and I felt I wasn’t understood. The consolations I received from friends were but for a moment. At some point, I felt lonely, not able to pray or even work. As a driver then, I would always be alone, memories of this lady would come, and I would cry within and in my closet. The loss affected my relationship with people tremendously, especially ladies, with whom I appeared to be close yet far. I wondered whether things would be fine in the near future. I hardly opened up to anyone, and I was afraid. It took me almost 2 years to start talking freely about the experience. Through a friend, I was introduced to the Amani Counselling Centre for therapy sessions. I did several sessions, during which I was able to get help, disclosing my pain and fears to the therapist. I also understood that there is life in the midst of traumatic experiences such as death, among others. During and upon completion of the therapeutic sessions, I developed the following coping mechanism; sharing my experience when and where it was necessary, as a story to uplift others, engaged in various youth activities, as a worshiper, I would sing spiritual victory songs and testify of the goodness of God.

My most challenging thing was building a new relationship, as many things were spoken about when the deceased was sick and were really stressing me up. Secondly, the thought of marrying again. Will a lady accept me? And if they do, will I go through the same experience? This was challenging for me, and it took me 7 solid years before I remarried.

Professional Perspective of Grief

As a professional counselling psychologist today, I’ve come to understand that grief is a natural response to loss. It is a highly individual experience; it is important to know that there’s no right or wrong way to grieve and that how you grieve depends on many factors, including your personality and coping style, your life experience, your faith, and how significant the loss was to you. It’s the emotional suffering one feels when someone they loved is taken away, and the feel can be overwhelming. I also understand that experiencing difficult and unexpected emotions, including; sadness, disbelief, anger, shock, stress, trauma and guilt, are a normal reaction to loss {death}. Another thing is that the pain of grief can disrupt an individual’s health, and one can present difficulties in various things, including; isolations, devastation, sleep, eat, or even thinking straight. These are normal reactions to loss, and the more significant the loss, the more intense grief can be.

Inevitably, the grieving process takes time, and healing happens gradually; it can’t be forced or hurried, and there is no “normal” timetable for grieving. Some people start to feel better in weeks or months, while in others, the grieving process is measured in years. It is, therefore, important for one to be patient with themselves and allow the process to naturally flow. Grief has stages that must be taken to account when supporting an individual who has lost a significant other.

What is often misunderstood is that the loss of a loved one is the same and normal to all, which is not true. The death of a loved one cannot and should be compared, as often is the case, where people come to console and or morn with you but compare you with another. Loss is never the same and should not be compared; loss is personal. It is assumed and misunderstood that grief should be faster if you ignore the pain of loss. Being “strong” in the face of loss is often misinterpreted; just because you did not cry tears rolling does not mean you are strong, putting on a brave face is not protection to anyone, and crying doesn’t mean weakness in any way. Moving on with your life means forgetting about your loss, no, it’s accepting your loss, and that’s not the same as forgetting; their memories are still with you as an important part of you and can become integral to defining the people we are.

Dealing / Coping with Loss/Grief

1. Healthy & Unhealthy coping mechanisms

Whereas death can be devastating, and if one doesn’t find ample time to successfully grieve, this can impact negatively on their usual and normal life. Grieving is an active process, and a healthy grieving process requires some balancing to be done between the time you spend directly working on your grief and spend coping with your day-to-day life; the amount of time you spend with others and that you spend alone; be able to seek help from others with caring for yourself.

Some healthy ways of dealing with grief include; Crying tears are not a sign of weakness, but of love and strength we cry because the body needs the physical release of emotions. Crying helps in restoring the much-needed balance during the loss. Accept that grief can trigger different and unexpected emotions. Talk regularly about your grief and your memories with someone you trust. One should learn to go gently. Take your time, rather than give yourself a deadline for when you should be over it. Understand the uniqueness of your grieving process. Acknowledge the loss and the vacuum left, and accept some reduction in your usual efficiency and consistency. Accept help when offered. Speak to a spiritual leader, therapist, counsellor a coach or doctor. Maintaining healthy eating and sleeping patterns and do what you love doing.

On the other hand, the unhealthy process entails; denial (don’t want to hear about it), trying to get over it faster and move on; presenting a “brave” face of its “OK”; Engaging in risk-taking behaviour such as excessive drinking, over-eat or under-eat, and other “overs”; or becoming too anxious, depressed, or a combination of both, the list can belong.

The Dos and Don’ts in Helping Someone Dealing with Loss

People make many mistakes when consoling a grieving person; a lot of it is out of ignorance and not knowing the impact of their words of “consolation”. To effectively support a grieving person, there’s the art of “being there”, and it doesn’t mean talking.

The Dos

So what do you need to do; Reach out for physical comfort, “be there”, and be of service, if you have to say anything, validate their feelings, whichever is expressed. As a support system, understand your limits/limitations, you can never take their pain away nor change their situation no matter how much you would want to be of help; Encourage the person to take positive action toward healing, but do not rush them; Allow the person to express their emotions, and it’s important to talk about the deceased share fun memories, it helps one come to terms with the loss.

The Don’ts

Never presume to know one's feelings when you don’t know. Don’t use cliche sayings about the loss. People tend to use proverbial words such as; “everything happens for a reason,” “I know how you feel,” “he/she is in a better place,” as much as these statements are true, they are not helpful. Don’t tell someone you know how they feel; it is a lie, and you don’t know. Such statements/words offer very little solace, and in some instance, may make the person more upset; do not avoid the person, whereas you may not know what to say or do, or be uncomfortable in the situation. The thing is, you’d rather be uncomfortable than avoid your friend in time of need; your being there without a word may mean a lot.

It took me about 2 years to move on. The trauma, disbelief, and devastation experienced during the sickness and subsequent death of the deceased were overwhelming, and this made me stagnate. I was stuck with anger against God and my family for a while. However, when I went for professional help, counselling, I was able to work through my grief successfully. Therapy session offered me a new lease of life of healing from the loss and a springboard to “jump-start” my life.

Who Said that Men Don’t Grieve?

We live in a patriarchal society, where men “kingpins” and are expected to assume or act as such, act strong, “be like a man”. This societal construct, the conditioning of men, has deprived men of free expression of feelings in all facets of their life. The non-expression of feelings, especially in grief, do impact negatively on Men. Unlike women, men feel grief and have emotions as much as anyone, though their grief is so hidden and rarely seen, a majority will suppress their feelings. Unexpressed grief has a negative impact, not only in men but on anyone; however, for men, it might be manifested in various ways; Lack of sleep; Many feel stressed up and short-tempered (irritable) depending on the situation at hand; Resort to alcohol or eve smoke more cigarettes or; become a workaholic (concentrate at work). This behaviour is not helpful when it comes to coping with grief in men. The high societal expectation of men makes them susceptible to not dealing with their grief successfully.

Youth and Grief

Greif cuts across all ages, and dealing with the death of a loved one can be tough for a young person. I am cognizant that young people are already dealing with so much, their process of changing from children into adults notwithstanding. The process through which a young person responds to and copes with the death of a loved one is unique to each individual.

Although young people do struggle with Identity, dependence and independence, grieving is a time that they need to seek help. Any person who comes to offer support to a grieving young person need to consider the fact that they experience a lot and can sometimes have strong feelings of regret and anger following the loss of someone special and dear to them. May feel aggrieved due to disruption of their lives as a result of death.

Today, I would encourage every young person dealing with losing a significant other in their life. However, when you lose someone close to you, your sibling, and a parent or even a close friend, it’s natural to feel sad, depressed, worried or angry. We all react in our own way, and if you’re finding it hard to cope, seek help. Death is inevitable, the when and how is what we don’t know; as a young person experiencing grief, you are not alone, and it’s okay to express your feelings; you should learn to reach out when you feel emotionally or even physically overwhelmed.