Grief affects us all in different ways. Everyone’s experience of losing a loved one is different and each journey will be unique. Grief can shake everything up – your beliefs, your personality, your sense of meaning and identity and even your sense of reality.

Bereavement is the time we spend adjusting to loss. There is no standard time limit and there is no right or wrong way to feel during the bereavement period – everyone learns to cope in their own way. The word ‘bereavement’ comes from the ancient German for ‘seize by violence’. Sometimes when someone dies, it can feel just like that – like that person has been forcibly taken away.

Grief, although normal, can manifest in a huge range of unexpected ways. Some people get angry, some people withdraw further into themselves and some people become completely numb. Talking about the loss often allows a person to adjust to their new life with all it’s changes – Any loss has to be acknowledged for us to move forward.

Jo Reeve is our Bereavement Support Worker and Imogen Wells is our Bereavement Support Assistant.

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