SURVIVING THE TSUNAMI OF GRIEF
By Katrina Taee and Wendelien McNicoll
Blog Post
SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO BE MERRY THIS CHRISTMAS
katrinataee • Dec 12, 2019
Some people are going to be at breaking point
Not everyone is going to have a good Christmas and this next week, the lead into the Christmas break can be a minefield. Those people who have suffered a bereavement this year, and especially recently are probably wondering how they are going to cope and get through it. They may well be at breaking point and that is a horrible place to be. Just when you wish time would slide by quickly, everything slows down and seems to go into agonising slow motion towards an insurmountable problem. How to cope, deny, avoid, mitigate, sleep through or deal with Christmas Day becomes the all consuming thought.
You might know someone who is bereaved this Christmas and be wondering what you can do to help them? The very best thing you can do is love them as best you can. Stand alongside them in their grief, wherever they are with their emotions. Grieving is a lonely business and can be utterly heart-breaking. Having what we like to call a 'sticker', (someone who sticks around come what may) is the best thing possible. It is someone to cry with, cook with, eat with, go out with and hopefully laugh a bit with too. It is company even when they don't really want it.
Remember too that as you go about your daily life, you will meet people who are stretched to their tipping point this Christmas. You just won't know it. I know we are busy people, but we can all be caring, patient and kind to others and you never know, without even knowing it you might just help someone through the day.
Our 3rd Reprint has just arrived with new foreword
Liz Gleeson's new short animated film about some of the common experiences of grief.
Authors of Surviving the Tsunami of Grief, Wendelien McNicoll and Katrina Taee attend the official launch of Liz Gleeson's Shapes of Grief Education Programme in Greystones, Ireland.