The range of feelings involved in grief are  sadness, anger, guilt, anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, helplessness, shock, yearning, emancipation, relief, horror, terror, and numbness. Always  remember that feelings are part of you. They are your friends. They will ultimately liberate you. Allow them. there is a very good poem by the Afghan poet, Rumi, called the ‘Guesthouse’, which explains very well how important it is to allow, even to welcome, your feelings as if they are guests. By welcoming them you make them less threatening. You can get this poem on the web under ‘Rumi’. Majella, my friend gave it to me, and I wrote it on the back of an envelope. She got it in Australia in a centre for Cancer, and I remarked how it coincided with my own philosophy. She responded ‘you don’t have cancer, Jim’. But my friend Majella, did accept her cancer and ultimately her death some months after this our last meeting. I’ll talk to you in a few days.

I will look at loss which does not always mean death. People may experience loss when they retire, especially if they are forced to retire through ill health, they experience loss if their health fails, if a relationship breaks down; children experience loss at the death of pets, and so on.  Indeed, the word bereavement comes from the word ‘reave’, which means to be dispossessed or robbed of something.

So,  for the moment I will look at normal grieving, and later at delayed or complicated grief, which normally requires counselling to unravel.