THE TRUSTED CHOICE

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By Steve Scudder CONTRIBUTOR

Everyone grieves. It’s the natural human response to loss of any kind. No matter your age, your gender, or your strength, grief is the natural human response especially if you lose someone you love.

Grief is change. It impacts us emotionally, physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. Depending on who died, grief changes our living environment, our daily routine, and our future. Grief changes us.

Grief is love. The depth of grief reflects the depth of our love for the one who died and what that person means in our lives. Even though our loved ones are physically absent, they are not gone. Our love remains and their meaning persists.

How we change depends on our resilience, our willingness to embrace the reality of loss, and our ability to move forward with our grief. Sometimes we need help to adjust to the changes.

Grief support helps us understand the reality of the loss. It empowers us to cope with emotional and behavioral pain, overcome barriers to adjusting, and discover how to maintain a bond with the deceased while moving forward to reinvest in life.

Because our grief never changes, good grief support helps our lives grow and build space to accommodate grief better.

Good grief support can be done individually with family, friends or professionals. It can be done in groups with other grievers and a trained facilitator. Groups provide mutual support, appropriate understanding of grief and its impact, effective coping skills, and paths to forward momentum.

Good grief support …

• understands the griever, what the death means to the griever, and what changes the griever faces.

• provides a safe environment to share feelings, thoughts, and challenges without being judged.

• guides grievers to accept what the loss means, cope with the pain, adjust to changes, and move forward with grief.

Friends of Caroline Hospice provides good grief support for all ages. With 20-plus years of experience, we provide Student Grief Groups for students in grades K-12 in schools during the school day, Camp Caroline (a two-day experience in June), and with coaching for parents with grieving students.

FOCH also offers a support group for parents who have lost a child (miscarriages and deaths of minor or adult children); a group for adults who have lost a spouse or partner; a group for adults who have lost family or friends; and sessions for individual adults.

These services are free and open to all. If you or someone you know are looking for good grief, contact Steve Scudder at steve@ fochospice.org or 843-525-6257.

Steve Scudder is director of support services for Friends of Caroline, a local nonprofit hospice and palliative agency. fochospice.org