It goes without saying that death is a complicated and often devastating emotional experience. When someone close to us is grieving, the first thing we often ask ourselves is how we can help. But when the grieving person is a parent or relative, and the deceased was someone we were also close to, this process becomes even more complicated. Not only do we struggle with how to help our loved one cope with their loss, we also struggle with prioritizing their grief against our own. The most important thing to remember about grief is that it isn’t something easily fixed – and it shouldn’t be. Grief is a process, one that’s vitally important to the grieving person’s emotional health and well-being. This might seem obvious. But when we’re faced with a grieving person or our own grief, our first impulse is often to ask how the grief can be stopped. Instead, we should ask ourselves how we can support our loved ones (and ourselves) through grieving. It's also important to remember that everyone grieves differently. As the American Hospice Foundation points out, it’s often easy to forget that losing a spouse is different than losing a parent (or step-parent, uncle, or aunt). Keep in mind that your loved one’s grieving process will be different than your own. With that considered, here are some of the ways you can help a loved one grieve:
Finally, remember that just as no two people grieve exactly the same way, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Above all else, the best thing you can do for a person in grief is to support them: to let them know their grief is normal and understandable, and that they are not alone.
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