Elements of Healing

• Try to remember, try not to forget.

• Good memories (“I remember when…” stories) are important.

• Time can result in either healing or infection. Visiting and acknowledging your grief promotes healing.

• You may need support from both inside and outside your family.

• Faith – Beliefs – Explore them. Lean on them.

• Learning about the experience of others can give insight into your own story.

• Assume whatever you are going through is normal.

• Share the pain of your darkness.

• Be sensitive to the fact that people grieve differently. Don’t let them tell you how to grieve (or vice versa).

• Sharing with those who have been there may have a special meaning.

• Feel free to protest the “why” of death.

• Take time and space for yourself and work through your guilt over doing so.

• Take time to laugh and to cry.

• Take the initiative and make things happen for yourself, work, activity, exercise.

• Life will never be like it was. You will need to create a new life, make new choices, develop new friendships.

• Confront guilt by realizing you did the best you could (“All things considered, with no rehearsal for what you went through, you did the best you could”).

•  You must eventually let go of the pain of losing your loved one.

• There is nothing wrong with talking to the dead.

• Persons who have been down the road before you can sometimes by symbols of hope.

• Your experience of death may be significant in other aspects of your life.

 – Rev. Czillinger