Friday, December 10, 2010

The Lonely Journey of Grief, Part 10 of 15

IDEA: A friend can encourage a mourner to move out into a more active life.

PURPOSE: To help helpers know how to encourage those who are ready to move from the crucible stage to the construction stage of grief.

C. S. Lewis talked about “the laziness of grief,” and it may be necessary to press friends gently to move out into a more active life while not insisting they do so. Through such encouragement we may help them live again.

Some mourners change the scenery of their life—they travel or take up a new hobby, etc.

Grieving persons are often helped by returning to work or finding a job (in the case of a widow now deprived of support). Many people have to return to work, and others have to enter the workplace for the first time.

Some men and women who have no financial concerns invest themselves in others by volunteering to work at their church or in their community.

Some have gone back to school, enrolling in a college or seminary or business school to learn new things or to establish fresh, creative patterns for living again.

Caution: When friends see a mourner taking such steps, it does not mean that the grief is over. Spasms of grief, sudden and unpredictable, recur. Particular seasons of the year, tunes, scents, places, and, of course, anniversaries provoke the return of sadness. The first anniversary of the death is the worst. Somehow, passing that milestone gives hope that one can go on.