The powerful chaos brought on by loss of something we love wreaks havoc on everything we know or believe we know about the universe and our lives within it. Especially with the recent change in Canadian law to allow for assisted suicide, the rules around death ? the right to choose when and how we die ? are changing and that may change what we know and do with our grief.
There is no one right way or wrong way to deal with grief. We grieve all losses: people we love, pets who are family or closer than family, lost jobs, lost homes, lost opportunities. No one has the insight to tell us why some losses hurt more than others, or how long it will take to “get over it” ? if indeed there is any such thing as getting over loss and grief from loss.
We don’t like to think about that kind of intense emotionality without good reason, but unfortunately by the time there’s good reason, we’re likely to find ourselves deep inside a grief of our own an unable to think of *HOW* to handle that overwhelming emotion, we’re just drowning in it.
Sometimes it helps when the resources to aid are in the hands of those around us, so while the grief experience you encounter may not necessarily be your own, it may help to understand what a grieving person is going through, so you have an idea of how best to comfort and assist… and what is likely to be not helpful at all.
This one is big list of links; take your time going through them.
A Buddhist philosophy on death and impermanence.
I regret the way we are dying: Our unrealistic views of death, through a doctor?s eyes