(Chris Haws is a British born Psychologist and certified Grief Counselor, based in Washington DC. He specializes in grief, loss, and bereavement recovery working with individual clients – both face to face and virtually. He also advises multinational corporations, grief support organizations, and bereavement affinity groups locally and internationally. His work has appeared in print, radio and TV in the UK, the USA, Australia and Europe.)
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One every 10 seconds. That’s the average death rate here in the United States.
One death every 10 seconds, or about 8,500 a day. (For comparison, there are a little over 10,000 births every day, so we’re just staying ahead of the curve.) But with over 3 million deaths every year, the chances are high that most people will have had some experience of a death in the family, or among their circle of friends, by the time they enter their mid-20s.
This stark reality prompts the mainstream media to keep reminding us, as if we needed reminding, that the only certain fact of life is that one day we will all die. The other truism the media like to repeat is that, despite death’s universality, every death is different, and furthermore, everybody affected by that death grieves in their own unique way. Such statements are indeed true, but these commentators rarely, if ever, say why.
As a psychologist and a certified grief counselor, I encounter an almost unimaginably wide range of situations relating to a death. But there are a few key – and common – questions that help explain the course of grief your clients, the surviving loved ones, will experience.
The first rather obvious question is, “What was the deceased’s relationship to your grieving clients?” Was he or she a mother or father? A son or a daughter? A sibling? A spouse?
The answer to that basic question is crucial to the counselor’s approach to aiding their clients. But, more often than not in family situations, the deceased was also all or most of those things to the other grieving relatives – each of whom will have their own perspective on who the deceased was and what their passing will mean to them individually. They also each can observe how other family members are coping with the loss.
Family dynamics are important, and factors such as the depth of emotional attachments; presence of unresolved issues; and level of dependency on the deceased can all influence how individuals navigate their grief. Same departed, but different perceptions of him or her.
Already things are becoming complicated.
Then, there is the question of cause of death. Was it expected? After a long, drawn-out illness like cancer, dementia, MS, ALS, or Parkinson’s? Or was it unexpected – the result of an accident or acute, unforeseen and rapid illness? Each has a crucial impact on the surviving client’s assessment of the manner of their loved one’s passing.
Often, this was not how they think their life’s “script” was meant to unfold. The level of preparedness, sense of fairness or injustice, and the ability to say goodbye can all impact the grieving process – particularly with regard to acknowledging and accepting the new reality of life without someone.
That sense of a dislocated narrative – a mistake in the “script” – is greatly affected by the age of the deceased and the client(s). When a young person dies, the most-common grief stems from a sense of lost opportunity and potential, life not lived, marriages uncelebrated, grandchildren unborn (and unspoiled), family holidays unrealized – the list is agonizingly endless.
Unfortunately, agony does not abate when the deceased is middle-aged. It’s just different – young families, careers, property, financial security, social structure – everything seems to get turned upside down, leaving the grievers to cope with the headaches of new reality, alongside the heartache of loss.
And, when the deceased is elderly, the concerns of an equally elderly partner are often a question of “what’s next … who will I have to talk to … (and) what am I going to do with my remaining years?” These senior situations can be particularly distressing for the surviving loved ones and require careful management by the grief counselor and available support organizations.
Access to support is a fundamental question. What kind of help is the client receiving? Social support is crucial in coping with grief. Family, friends, community, religious institutions, and support groups provide comfort, validation, and companionship during times of loss, but not everyone has their benefit, which is why they turn to professionals like me.
An important part of my job is to steer people toward resources to allay the loneliness that often accompanies grief.
One final (often overlooked) aspect of support relates to culture, nationality, and tradition. Different countries have different ways of handling death, but almost all have traditions that help formalize the grieving and mourning processes. From a psychological standpoint, these traditions and milestones help to share and ease the burden of bereavement and provide some measure of what is commonly called “integrated grief.” Unfortunately, in recent decades, the western world has been guilty of treating death and dying as a taboo subject; not discussed in polite circles.
It wasn’t always like that when families were larger and often lived together – three and sometimes even four generations under the same roof. Babies were born, grandparents died; life moved on. In other parts of the world, that’s still the case, where communities are more tightly knit and conventions about celebrating the dead and other ancestors are openly acknowledged.
This notion of life “moving on” is not as heartless as it may seem. Faced with all these complexities, a professional grief counselor’s job is to guide clients toward an acceptance of new reality. This is a new chapter in their book of life, not the beginning of a new volume. There are new experiences to be lived, memories to establish, and relationships to be explored. Recent writing suggests that after grieving, embracing these new chapters provides a chance to reassess the purpose and meaning of life.
Many authors have described bereavement as a transition, a transformation, an evolution. It may not seem so when emotions are most raw, but I’ll close with the remark of a Midwest client about two years after her beloved husband died unexpectedly of liver failure (not in their life script). She said, “I think I’ve become a more compassionate person since my husband passed. Maybe even a better person. Does that sound crazy?”
Of course, I said no – and I knew at that moment my work with her was done.
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Final Exit Network (FEN) is a network of dedicated professionals and caring, trained volunteers who support mentally competent adults as they navigate their end-of-life journey. Established in 2004, FEN seeks to educate qualified individuals in practical, peaceful ways to end their lives, offer a compassionate bedside presence and defend a person’s right to choose. For more information, go to www.finalexitnetwork.org.
Payments and donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Final Exit Network is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
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