Suggestions to Help With Holiday Grief During a Global Pandemic
Tukios Websites • July 5, 2008
Cress Funeral & Cremation Service is pleased to share a compassionate and timely video by Dr. Alan Wolfelt, one of North America’s leading death educators and grief counselors, offering practical suggestions for people grieving the death of a loved one during this unique holiday season.
We are living in a time of many challenges. Funeral options are limited, restrictions are keeping people apart, and we are all trying to cope with the unknowns lying ahead. Dr. Wolfelt offers a variety of insights to grieve, mourn, and still embrace hope in the coming months. A few takeaways include:
- Be tolerant of your limits both physically and mentally;
- Be willing to express your feelings
- Think about, and discuss, wishes and needs regarding your time and traditions;
- Make use of alternative means to stay in touch with others; and,
- Where able, eliminate any unnecessary stress.
“Allow yourself to be sappy,” Dr. Wolfelt says. Having paradoxical emotionality, being happy and sad at the same time, is a great sign of mental health.
Dr. Wolfelt serves as the director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Yesterday, Jane was on duty as a tour guide at a lovely little pre-revolutionary war church in rural Virginia. It was late in the afternoon when a youngish woman wearing shorts and a Cubs ball hat stepped into the visitor’s center looking lost. Thinking that she might need directions, Jane quietly approached to offer her assistance. The seemingly lost young lady said she just wanted to go in the church.
Let’s talk about the stages of grief. There is denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I studied them in nursing school, reviewed them when I got divorced and generally found them to be a pretty accurate and helpful bit of knowledge. And then, a family member died. Stages?
First, relax. Talking about your funeral plans might make you a little uncomfortable at first but making a plan doesn’t mean you will be using it anytime soon. Your funeral director or advance planner will guide you through the process. Most people get very comfortable in just a few minutes.
Can I just say that funerals stick in the mind of a loved one years after a death? It’s important that you get it right. Please don’t put your wishes in the drawer with the rest of your files. Oh, and that thing where you tell the kids what you want. That’s not the best either.
When death is near or has just occurred, there are so many things to do and yet there is nothing you can do. You feel helpless. You can’t make the person well or bring them back. But you know you will, very soon, need to make many decisions about the service, the final resting place, the music, food, flowers, donations, clothing and much more. Your mind is racing and oddly enough, at the same time, at a complete standstill. On one hand it feels like it is too soon to do anything. You’re just not ready. But at the same time, you feel the weight of all that is coming.
It is not uncommon for people to ask themselves, “Since I never had any children, who will take care of my funeral plans?” That is all the more reason to preplan your own funeral!
According to a National Funeral Directors Association survey, more than half (62.5%) of us expect to participate in making our own funeral arrangements. And yet, less than a quarter of us have actually acted on that impulse. Not really so surprising since making funeral arrangements can literally be the very last thing we do. We can put it off right up to the end!
Why should you attend a funeral? The presence of family and friends at the funeral is appreciated. We gather to acknowledge a life that was lived. We gather to comfort those for whom life has just been forever changed by the death of someone they loved.
Are you considering going to a funeral? Will you be a guest or, are you the survivor in charge and deciding if there will even be a funeral? Either way, before you just skip the funeral perhaps you should consider how elephants behave when one of their species dies. Perhaps we have something to learn from Dumbo.
One of the realities of losing a spouse or a parent is the impact that event has on living arrangements. Are we living in the “right” place?
