One premise of the Storybooks For Healing (SFH) program is that grief is universal, yet loss is individual. Through Grief Reflection, there are three layers about your grief to understand: The universality of grief; the bond with someone who experiences the same type of loss; and your own personal, individual loss.
Universal Grief
Most everyone who experiences the death of a loved one may also recognize the common experiences of grief. This reaction to loss may be physical, such as nunbness, fatigue, restlessness, hunger, lack of appetite, inability to concentrate; and/or emotional, such as crying, lashing out, or feeling disconnected. These are symptoms that can wax and wane over days, weeks, months and even years. Some may be present, others may not. There are often sudden and highly charged reactions that arise when ordinary daily activities become painful reminders of your loss. It is important to realize that these physical and emotional reactions are normal, and universal, for most people after a significant loss.
How Type of Loss Effects Understanding
When in the pain of grief, there is a question that comes up often in support groups about whose death is most difficult. The bereavement specialists, rightly so, will tell you that deaths are difficult for the one left behind, and thus comparisons aren’t valuable. Yet, there are some factors which make accepting the reality of loss for some people hard to grasp. Identifying the impact on how the type of loss affects you and your lifestyle can help you in the mourning process. Rather than comparing the difficulty of loss, recognizing the circumstances (suddenness or lingering, trauma or peacefulness) and the relationship between you and your loved one (parent, child, spouse, friend, distant relative, etc.) are key components to why it’s difficult for you.
Seeking out others in a similar circumstance is a powerful validation of normalcy. There are national organizations dedicated to the well being of widows, survivors of suicide, families of drunk driving victims, loss of a child, SIDS, cancers and illness, military, losses not related to death such as adoption and disability, plus many more. Their effectiveness is based upon sharing common knowledge and story among people who “really get it.” When you have the opportunity to hear from others and talk about your grief, especially when there are similarities, you each become more expert on your loss.
SFH, through its group process, can help create this common bond, too, as you work through grief together in small groups, regardless of type of loss. For participants who share similar loss circumstance or relationships, the experience is even more profound. Sometimes making a contrast (rather than comparison) of the differences among loss helps everyone better articulate their feelings. What’s most important in seeking out others is that you’ll gain the understanding that you are not alone in many feelings and challenges associated with your loss.
Your Loved One
At the deepest level of your pain, your loss belongs to you. You own the relationship, the connection, and all the feelings. You have the insider’s track to how you feel, and who you miss. You are the expert.
If you have a child die in an auto accident, you may simultaneously relate to another parent whose child died and the widow who spouse was killed in a car crash. You may even find other parents who have lost a child in a car crash. Military families have the shared knowledge of the loss of a soldier in service to our country; families whose loved one had cancer know anticipation, illness, and treatments; the elderly have a common adjustment to being alone after many years of togetherness. Finding people who experience similar circumstances create immediate relationships based on “having gone to different schools together.”
Yet, your loss is always personal. Beyond the circumstances of the death is the person you loved. Discovering this essence, the characteristics of the person, is the “why” of your loss. Your grief is usually buried in the life you are missing rather than the death.
The Story
How you relate loss is through story: your story of your role, your story of the event, and your story of your loved one. By sharing story with others, you’ll discover parallels in loss, and the power to give and receive support. Story provides the language of your journey.
Can Outsiders Get it?
As you move through time, family, friends and even strangers will offer their condolences.
“I understand.” You hear.
“No you don’t.” You think.
This exchange is as universal as death itself. On the top level of grief, most of us believe we understand. But your reaction to your loss and how you feel – your grief – is based upon your individual loss. As the expert on your grief and loss, you are right. No one else can really understand unless you learn and tell your story.
What do you think? Do you feel like an expert on your grief? Can someone else really understand how you feel? Have you met others in similar loss circumstances, and has that helped you?
Storybooks For Healing (SFH) is a program of remembrance for overcoming loss using Grief Reflection. SFH is offered by bereavement organizations in an 8 week group writing and discussion course. After the program, participants are prepared to publish a beautiful tribute storybook of their loved one, and are encouraged to join the SFH online community to share, teach and provide support to others in their grief journey. 
Grief Reflection is a term used in the Storybooks for Healing program for the process of writing, listening and sharing the stories of life, grief and finding meaning after loss. Follow the 
I found myself nodding my head while reading this article. It is so true…everyone’s journey through grief is unique…however the same….in the feelings grief causes you to have.
Well done on being able to write exactly how it does feel when travelling this often unknown journey of heartache that we sometimes have no control over. My 3 family members all died differently over 3 years, however what you feel…the grief…..was the same each time. And I thought i’d be ok and know how to deal with losing another family member when it happened in the future.
Well three years ago we were hit with another shock death, my aunt in a horrific train crash in Australia. I was to learn again the hard way that grief is grief, never easy, always the same and is hard work each time you face it.
Thank you for this blog and I’ll look forward to reading more.
Diana Doyle
http://sunshineinabluecup.blogspot.com/
I couldn’t agree more. My loss was unique to me and different from that of my mother’s and my younger sister’s. This is why we need to take responsibility for our grief and discover our own way through it. I know other people people who have lost their brothers but they can never understand what it was like to lose my brother nor can I understand what it was like for them to lose their brother. All we can do is talk about it and find similar experiences to help us relate to each other. By focusing on what draws us together rather than what differs us is what is important.
I couldn’t agree more. In my book, How to Survive Your Grief, I talk about the power of story. Even when people don’t want to talk about what they’re feeling, they almost always want to share their stories about the person who died. It’s powerful stuff.
When you’re able to follow people through the entire grieving process, you begin to see how the story changes over time. Even little things like a change in tense from past to future can signal a shift in the healing process. Often the person grieving doesn’t even notice that they’re beginning to think about a future without their loved one.
If I could convey one thing to friends who want to help it is this…invite them to share their memories. It is the most healing thing you can do especially when they’re experiencing so many other people trying to change the subject. It’s usually a great relief to be able to tell their stories.
Two great ways of getting the conversation going is to share your own memories and/or ask to see their favorite photos.
Thank you all for your thoughts. @Diane, sounds like you’ve naturally come upon the compare and contrast of losses in your life. As I hear from more people, I realize how much our first experiences with death shape some of our later responses, just as having multiple losses to grieve does, too. @Tabitha, I definitely think we really are more alike than different! Maybe that’s why a support group can be so helpful. @Susan sharing story is the best icebreaker after loss. Getting through the bittersweet memories (I’m sad as I remember but I am comforted, too) is a great healing tool. Plus, sharing story becomes easier with practice.