Insight into Bereavement

Waverley Abbey Insight Series Insight into Bereavement

with Diana Priest

Bereavement can come in many forms; the death of a loved one, the end of a marriage or the loss of a home or livelihood. Each bereavement we face follows a similar path of loss, disbelief, grief and adaptation. Insight into Bereavement gives practical advice for these times in our lives and points to the eternal hope we have in God.

Issues covered include:

• what is death?
• the effects of loss
• and being a channel of God’s love to the bereaved

With biblical cases studies and personal perspectives, this book offers a wonderful support to those bereaved or wanting to help others in this situation.

Read an extract…

Helping people to remember
Just as bereaved people do not forget, they do not really ever ‘come to terms’ with their loss. They simply learn to live with it. That may mean adjusting to a very different kind of life, but one in which they will still want to remember the one they have lost.We need to be sensitive to individual needs. Some people may genuinely prefer not to mention their loved one, others will find it hurtful if we avoid talking about them or avoid using their name. Sometimes it’s best to just ask: ‘Do you mind if I talk about…?’

Very often they will relish the opportunity to talk, not just about the death that is still so close, but about life before, even many years before. Talking-about the joys as well as the pain –can mean sharing in healing conversation.

Wendy visited Ruth who she knew and whose husband had died a year or so previously. Ruth had agreed to be interviewed, on tape, for a magazine feature on bereavement. Many tears were shed together during that meeting. But once the main part of the interview was completed, Ruth shared more reminiscences of Mark, the husband she missed so much. They ranged from the poignant to the hilarious until both Wendy and Ruth were laughing uproariously at Mark’s antics and the shared memories of his sense of fun and the difference he made to so many lives. As they parted, Ruth said, ‘It is so good to laugh about him-there have been too many tears.’ Ruth dates that conversation as a turning point in her bereavement journey. A conversation filled with tears, laughter and memories encouraged healing.