Eleven:11 Grief Coaching

After the Funeral

When someone you love dies, you’ll feel the loss as long as you breathe…which is a long time after the funeral is over. People are there in the beginning…and then they’re gone. It’s not because they don’t care…it’s just they have their own lives to live.

Some people leave because they feel estranged from the death. They may have known you as one half of a couple, or a parent…and even family…but after the loss they don’t know how to navigate the new dynamic the death has created.

They knew how to be with you…but they don’t know how to relate to a ‘grieving’ you.

Sometimes people will see you and mistake your stability for being ‘over’ your tragedy, and no longer needing them. What they don’t realize is your public display of functioning doesn’t mean you’re not falling apart when you’re alone.

Here’s the thing…people will say…”you’re so strong”…but you know you’re not. All you’re doing is what you have to do to survive.

As a person who has suffered significant loss, I know that the time when you need the presence of others is in the days, months and years AFTER the funeral. It’s when all those people that were there for you immediately after your loss have gone away, that the road your walking on becomes most lonely.

It’s in those countless ordinary moments when grief sneaks up on you and knocks you to your knees that you feel it all over again. The pain can be as present and profound as the very day it happened.

Unfortunately, it’s you…the one suffering…that needs to reach out to people long after the funeral…because death is a date on the calendar…but grief IS the calendar.

Gary Sturgis - “Surviving Grief”

I lost my child today.
People came to weep and cry, as I just sat and stared, dry eyed. They struggled to find words to say, to try and make the pain go away, I walked the floor in disbelief, I lost my child today.

I lost my child last month.
Most of the people went away, some still call and some still stay. I wait to wake up from this dream. This can't be real. I want to scream. Yet everything is locked inside, God, help me, I want to die. I lost my child last month.

I lost my child last year.
Now people who had come, have gone. I sit and struggle all day long. To bear the pain so deep inside. And now my friends just question, Why? Why does this mother not move on? Just sits and sings the same old song. Good heavens, it has been so long. I lost my child last year.

Time has not moved on for me.
The numbness it has disappeared.
My eyes have now cried many tears.

I see the look upon your face,
"She must move on and leave this place."

Yet I am trapped right here in time.
The song’s the same, as is the rhyme.
I lost my child... Today.

Words © Netta Wilson

. It’s the best gift you can give a grieving heart. 💕

— What is Normal After Your Child Dies? —
Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile because your child is missing from all the important events in your life.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything anymore.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if's & why didn't I's go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving the day your child died, continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.

Normal is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.

Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has become a part of your "normal."

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your childs's memory and their birthdays and survive these days.

Normal is a heart warming and yet sinking feeling at the sight of something special your child loved.

Normal is having some people afraid to mention your child.

Normal is making sure that others remember your child.

Normal is everyone else eventually going on with their lives.

Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to your loss, unless they too have lost a child. Nothing compares.

Normal is realizing you do cry everyday.

Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone except someone stricken with grief over the loss of their child.

Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with other grieving parents.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did the laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours.

Normal is learning to lie to everyone you meet and telling them you are fine. You lie because it makes others uncomfortable if you cry. You've learned it's easier to lie to them then to tell them the truth that you still feel empty and lost.

And last of all...

Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal."

Written by A Grieving Mother 💕
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The reality ….

People often do avoid grievers. Since our society has so miseducated us about loss, we are often led to believe that the griever wants and needs to be alone. In some cases grievers do want to be alone but more often they want to be treated normally. Because we were never properly taught how to talk about the conflicting feelings caused by loss, we are often afraid to talk to our friends when they have experienced a loss, especially the loss of a loved one . Our own fear will cause us to avoid grievers or to avoid the subject of their loss.
Understanding grief will remove the taboo/ stigma attached to it and will Allow you to support a grieving friend or family member