GRIEF AND LOSS......AND FUNERALS

In the Royal Variety Performance at the end of last year, Ken Dodd made one of his jokes and received a laugh - but he said something quite profound. Why isn’t it a requirement that there is a good news page in every newspaper? You might think that the world is only full of bad news and there would be nothing to fill it, but there would be stories from all round the world and from all ages groups where there were good stories to tell.
For many people, and maybe you, there hasn’t been much good news recently. In fact you may have not felt happy for a long while. Your feelings at best are bearable, at worst intolerable. If that is the case, you may well be in grief due to loss. The loss may be a person, a job, a position you held, your home and security, a limb, a pet - in fact anything. And if you had some warning of the impending loss, you may well have begun the grieving process sometime earlier. To know that you are going to lose your job in three months, or that you spouse plans to leave, or that your parent no longer can talk sense and no longer recognises you can well start the sense of loss prematurely. It is not pretence - it is real.
I am no grief psychologist, and if you want to find out the full processes of grief, then you have no further to look than the library or the internet. But I have observed grief time after time with many families and individuals, and experienced grief of varying kinds myself. So all I can do is give a few ideas that may help you.
One of the things that is worth being reminded of is that some time or other, however far in the future it may be and however impossible it may seem, you won’t feel as bad as you do now. Grieving is a process that has to take time. Sooner or later, you will feel a bit better. If that were not the case, the whole of the world’s population would be going around everyday in a state of total grief and despondency, which is obviously not the situation. Even those who have lost all in earthquakes, or where families have been wiped out in warfare, begin to make improvement and people start to feel better and are able to respond normally by taking charge of their lives again. But there are really no short cuts. A few people deliberately put it off for a while in life and think they will cope with no emotional outpouring, but it will inevitably catch up, possibly at an awkward moment, maybe when there is yet another loss. Don’t forget that even Jesus was upset and wept when he heard that his friend had died.
This takes us to a second important matter. Grieving is normal. You are not odd. You are not peculiar. You have not gone mad. Your concentration might have vanished so that you can’t find your glasses or car-keys (these things are a problem for some of us anyway!) Your driving skills will not be as good as they should be. When you have had a little too much alcoholic beverage and still think you can drive as well as usual - the same thing is true for those who have suffered trauma or are grieving. So if you can, get someone else to drive you - and when you go back to work, a sensible employer will know that although the routineness of your job will assist your recovery, your level of accuracy may be well below that which you normally are capable of - and so they should make allowances.
Grief can be remarkably lonely, even if you are one of a family who is grieving. The reason is that no-one quite feels how you feel. No-one fully understands the sense of loss you have and how your world has fallen apart. You are not always able to control your feelings, so they let you down at embarrassing moments. Your personal pride gets a bashing because you burst into tears unexpectedly. You will notice that some people avoid you. That is one of those amazing things - you would expect people to surround you and support you, but so many will keep a distance, even some crossing the road to avoid you as if you had leprosy. And if you don’t know why, then you can start questioning - but of course, the problem is they don’t know what to say. They are scared of mentioning your loved one’s name, or referring to your loss. In the end, you feel you are supporting them.
Then there are those, of course, who do try and help and support, but all they end up doing is telling you about their losses and problems. Instead of someone talking to you, you know that you could do with someone listening to you. Or if you don’t want to say much, generally having someone around who will just be there for you. Sometimes I find I visit someone who has been very recently bereaved and we have a quite a lot of quiet as they think and just speak when they want to, and my role is to be there and listen. It varies - because another thing to realise is that everyone is different, and that we all respond in our own ways.
You will find you go through phases of different feelings, often all mixed up. Nobody usually tells people that it may well hurt physically - in the bottom of the stomach, like one of those old-fashioned string vests that is wet and has been wrung out by hand. It is hard and hurts the hands as you wring it. Or you may not be sleeping properly, or you just don’t want to eat and find food tasteless. Some, all or none of these things might happen to you. You may recognise some of the feelings: as well as emptiness, confusion and loss, you may feel very angry, depressed, bitter. You might find it hard to believe it has all happened.
Sometimes what would be ordinary grief is made worse by the fact that the person has died tragically, maybe in an accident, maybe (though less likely these days) in pain, or from a disease that has disfigured them. Maybe they committed suicide. Whatever, all that you do is picture them in this way. Do be assured again, that after a period of time, you are very likely to find you will think of them as you used to, chatting to you and being their normal selves, seeing in your mind’s eye how they were in good health. It is wonderful how our minds gradually adjust.
Parents find it especially hard when their son or daughter dies, even more so if that was their only child. It doesn’t seem to matter whether that person was an adult or a young child, it somehow feels that it goes against the natural order of how things should be. You may have lost child at birth, or within a few days or weeks. For everyone, the pain is there along with the sorrow, and sometimes with the help and support of family and friends and maybe a community of people like a church family, we get through okay. Other times, it is best to get some further support from “Cruse” or a similar organisation that supports those who are bereaved. Also you can look up in the library the directory of the British Association of Counselling, and you will find people there who are especially trained to support others who are going through grief, as well as the many other kinds of personal others who are going through grief, as well as the many other kinds of personal difficulties in life. (Note: Cruse Bedfordshire’s local phone number is 01582-595300).
Overall, remember that you are you and the pain is real and unavoidable. And so it is not surprising if for a while everything goes on hold. A good thing is never to make major decisions affecting the whole of the rest of your life whilst you are in such a situation.
Another thing people find is that their status changes. Suddenly they are a widow or widower, and that is what has to be filled in on forms. That can be painful - though you will suddenly find there are lots of others in the same boat as you. You may be well into middle age, but when a second parent passes away, you may feel yourself orphaned for a while. And we could go on…..there are all sorts of things that to us and those around us that can cause pain when we suffer loss and grief.
One or two thoughts about funerals. Firstly, you will be given by funeral directors or the hospital a booklet with practical things you need to do after someone has died. From the Church’s point of view, it is the practice in the Church of England for parish clergy and readers to try and take as many of the funerals of their parishioners as they can, and only when that proves impossible to ask a colleague to stand in for them. There is no obligation to be a church member or attender in order to use the vicar or to have a service in church - it is one of your legal rights. Whether you decide to opt for a service for your loved one at the crematorium, or the cemetery chapel or at the parish church - that is your decision, though most people try to honour the request of the deceased. Julie, Sandra or I will do our best to organise our lives so that we can take the service if you want us to. May I recommend informing us straight away when someone has died rather than waiting till you have your appointment with the funeral directors, because it is then much easier for us to try and arrange to be available. However holidays, other services and other commitments as well days off do affect our availability. Once we have been notified and the date and time of the service is arranged, we will contact you to call round and meet with you to discuss the details of the service, and to learn a bit more about your loved one.
Finally, it is worth saying that some people who are near their end request clergy to come and see them and pray with them. We are very happy to do this. It does not matter what time of day or night it is, do ring. If the person who you are trying to contact does not appear to be answering, then phone one of the other members of staff. But do feel able to do this, even if it seems an unsociable hour. We will come to home or hospital or wherever as soon as we can. And of course, the same goes immediately after someone has died - on occasions we are asked to come and be with you at that moment, to support and pray for you and the one who has just departed.
The subject of this article is grief and loss - it is not intended to be about Christian hope and the life beyond. Many faiths believe in life after death in some form and we as Christians have our own understandings based on our Scriptures. Suffice to say there is for us a hope that we have through our faith in Christ. It is one that gives us the confidence to think that this world is, as C S Lewis describes, just like the foreword in a good novel, and once you have got into reading the novel, chapter after chapter gets better and better. Put in Christian jargon “for ever with the Lord”.