Recognizing Grief and Loss

As I sit here tonight, it has been a tough week for the nation.  We had the bombing in Boston. Tonight in Texas, an entire town was evacuated due to a fertilizer plant fire, which has been catastrophic for the elderly and disabled there, and children have been harmed and died from senseless cruelty.  Today, many of us are likely to be feeling a sense of loss and bewilderment.  However, if I might call attention to that feeling for one moment I think you will understand why.

It is vitally important that once someone receives a diagnosis of a health crisis or deterioration that they be allowed to be angry.  Naturally, it is important to also remind them not to lash out at their support system.  That said, anger is an important stage for grief.  Imagine your sense of loss over the above issues, and then imagine that you are slapped in the face by your own body every morning you try to get up and carry on because a health condition is stealing your abilities and your independence.  How did you feel when you passed that 30 mark and then snowballed to 40, 50, and 60 years old?  Some days the sense of a lost youth creep in. Our loved ones with chronic illness and health problems have to try to make peace with loss every day, and sometimes many times a day.  It is good to acknowledge the sense of loss and give that emotion a name.  That way your loved one can verbalize that it is not the caregiver they are mad at as much as it is the illness and be relieved from a feeling of guilt.