Understanding and Managing Grief, September 1 - September 30, 2025

Best selections from Grief Healing's X feed this month:

Most people expect to feel better after that first year of bereavement, as if they've reached some sort of significant milestone in their grief journey. Unfortunately, this is another of those myths about grief that simply does not hold true. If you assume that grief will ease as the second year begins, you may soon discover that in many ways it seems much harder now than it did before. You may find yourself feeling even worse ~ and that can seem very unsettling. Beyond the First Year: Struggling with New Waves of Grief « Grief Healing

Beyond the First Year: Struggling with New Waves of Grief

Consequences follow when we force people to use a universal roadmap for grieving, and then judge those who do not follow it as wrong or sick. We deny the normality of grief. We deny the differences in our grieving experiences. We deny people the freedom to grieve. ~ Nancy Berns

If you find yourself (or someone you know) struggling with new waves of grief after having reached the one year mark, you are not alone. A woman whose husband died 15 months ago described her experience this way:

Myths and Misconceptions about Grief

 . . . just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.  ~ Humphrey Carpenter

Loss is a fact of life, and so are the reactions that follow, but the grief that accompanies significant loss is frequently misunderstood.

Here are some of the more commonly held myths and misconceptions about grief, along with the facts to dispel them:

When someone dies, grief is felt only by that person’s family members and friends. In reality, grief is felt by anyone with an emotional attachment to the deceased, whether we know the person well or not. As we saw with the deaths of Charlie Kirk and Robert Redford, for example, we may mourn for public figures we like or respect and admire, even though we’ve never met them personally.

Grief is what we feel only when our loved one dies. Grief is a normal response to the experience of loss of any kind, including unusual and secondary losses. Such grief often goes unrecognized and unacknowledged. (Examples include disenfranchised losses such as loss of a cherished pet, and losses stemming from major life transitions such as graduation, moving, marriage or divorce, job loss, incarceration, disability or alteration in health status.)

In Grief: Finding Crying Time

Sorrows which find no vent in tears may soon make other organs weep. ~ Sir Henry Maudsley

A reader writes: My sister has been very sick and only recently recovered from a serious illness, thank goodness. Thursday will be three months since my big brother died. And last night I found myself crying—really crying—for the first time. Maybe it’s because I can breathe a little easier now that my sister is more out of the woods. I've always been a caretaker. I've always put everyone I love before myself. I did that for my big brother when he was alive. And I'm doing it for my sister. I couldn't save my big brother, just as I couldn't save our father. I cried for a good couple of hours last night. My husband tried to console me, but either I just wouldn't allow it, or he was doing it wrong. I don't know really. All I know is that my big brother is gone and I'm having a hard time with his loss. He was my big brother and meant the world to me. His passing is hitting me hard.

End of Life Care for Companion Animals

All we animal lovers ever want is to do the best for our animal. When it comes to dying, what is best can be more complex than euthanizing. There is a way to come to peace with the dying process and discover its life enriching value. Animals can teach us about this if we let them. ~ Ella Bittel, Holistic Veterinarian

Coping with the terminal illness of a cherished animal companion presents the same challenges to an animal lover as would anticipating of the death any other family member. Today hospice and palliative care for human beings provides a much needed service to the dying and to those who care for them, but finding such support for a beloved animal close to the end of life can be more difficult.

Reflecting a growing trend toward allowing companion animals a natural death at home, the concept of providing hospice and palliative care for our four-legged friends is similar to that offered for people. The focus is the same: on providing safety and comfort care in loving, familiar surroundings, rather than on aggressive treatment and cure in a hospital setting. Animal hospice is based on a belief that, with proper preparation and guidance for everyone involved, symptoms can be managed, pain can be controlled, and death can be experienced with dignity and compassion. In this way, pet hospice can be an effective alternative to euthanasia.