WELLBEING CONVERSATIONS
Running away from grief Dealing with grief in your life and helping others deal with the loss of a loved one can be difficult. Harriet Bremner provides some tips.
G Harriet Bremner and Poppy.
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rief smacks you in the face. Hard. Nothing prepares you for the moment when you lose someone, nor the life that faces you moving forward. It is something that we, as humans, are all going to face at some point in our lives, it’s inevitable. However, we sweep it under the rug and pretend that it is not there. I believe this is because of how much it hurts and because as a society we have not learnt how to deal face to face with this particular elephant in our lives. I wrote in my first column about the raw truth of grief and how it feels. Now I want to address how we, as people, deal with it when it comes rushing into our lives in an instant and how to support someone and navigate ourselves through this pain. I have been recording Raw Truth podcasts and through chatting to others while they share their stories of loss, trauma, mental health and physical issues, we all agree - the conversation about grief must start. No one tells you of the nightmares that haunt you all day and night, the physical toll the grief has on your ability to breathe or the inability to think or remember anything, just to name a few. While everyone’s experience is extremely different, they all talk about how important it is to have people in your circle.
Support people who are there through thick and thin, who are not going to walk away when they outgrow your grief and who are not just there for the funeral. It sounds harsh doesn’t it, but it’s true. We all go to funerals out of genuine love and respect for the person and their family but sometimes, days later, we find that we are back into the swing of our own lives and suddenly weeks or months have gone by without having given them a call or gone to see them. That’s one of the many things I have struggled with - the time clock. All you want to do is stop time because you cannot keep up with it, but it and everything else in life just continues to rush past you at lightning speed.This is one of the reasons we all need to have our own close knit group of friends who are our first layer and that is vital because they will still be by your side in years to come. My group knows exactly who they are and are still with me 4.5 years later. There are people who disappoint you and vanish out of your life and people who surprise you with their actions. I used to feel upset and let down by the people who faded away but I now realise that this isn’t about me personally, this is about them and their own story in life. The people who surprise you could be a perfect stranger that you come across two years later as Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2021
