With the End in Mind. How to Live & Die Well

Bereavement is the process that moves us from the immediacy of loss and the associated grief, through a transition period of getting to know the world in a new way, to a state of being able to function well again. It’s not about ‘getting better’ — bereavement is not an illness, and life for the bereaved will never be the same again. But given time and support, the process itself will enable the bereaved to reach a new balance.

Bereaved people, even those who have witnessed the apparently peaceful death of a loved one, often need to tell their story repeatedly, and that s an important part of transferring the experience they endured into a memory, instead of reliving it like a parallel reality every time they think about it.

I escape to ponder whether bravery is about being fearless or about tolerating fear.

Sometimes, though, death arrives unannounced and unanticipated. In some circumstances this is seen by the survivors as a blessing, although adjustment to sudden death is often harder than a bereavement when there has been a chance to say goodbye.

Sometimes, it seems, a pain in the body is actually a pain in the soul, a pain in the deepest part of our being, often without a name or any recognition.