Personal Narrative: Dealing With Grief

Circumstances surrounding the unexpected death of a loved one often add to the traumatic impact upon the bereaved and those left in deaths wake. Grief is a universal human experience. Most people will be confronted with the death of a loved one at some point in their lives. The grief response is unique from person to person (Cutcliffe, 1998). Despite the abundance of research studies that exist pertaining to grief, there is still little understanding of how grief is exhibited in the human experience and how healthcare professionals can best care for those who grieve (Reed, 2003).

Death is the hardest thing to get over especially if it’s your family members. In the course of my life, I’ve had four people passed away. My mother 's dad and my father 's two brothers and sister died. I really didn 't know much about my dad 's sister but, she died from a brain aneurysm. My dad and his siblings always said how pretty and smart their older sister was. Death can be devastating to a person 's life because they 'll never get to see or talk to them ever again.

#3-Examining how death and the losses were addressed within my African American family is openly discussed and always some one’s fault. The experience of my grandmothers death relates to the statistics of the life expectations of African America. According to (Walsh 2004 p. 56) African American woman life expectancy for older adults is 70.2 years and African American men life span is 66.1 according to the national Vital Statistics Report (Volume, 47 NO.28). My grandmother died young I believe she was 59 years old. She had her very first heart attack when she was in 50 years old and she stopped drinking and gave herself to the lord. She was on so many different medications as a child I was not aware of the different medications she was taken.

It was April 2016 when we were sitting at the dinner table late at night with our family friends. My mom’s phone began to ring. When I saw her reaction, I knew immediately. Her face was pale and she held her hand to her head in disbelief. I knew it was grandpa. Although we knew the death of my grandpa was coming, I never actually wanted to experience the loss. I stood in front of the mirror, staring at myself, crying continuously.

Grief is defined as the neuropsychobiological response to any kind of significant loss, with elements both typical and unique to each individual or situation. The response is mostly associated with degrees of suffering, at times intense or even unbearable, and of widely variable duration. Grief is an individual or a larger group of individuals’ event where they are thrown out of equilibrium through changes brought on by loss.

I knew that the event that would affect my life and the lives of those around me was approaching. 9 months is more than enough time to truly digest what the arrival of new life would entail and yet I am only scratching the surface of my new role now that we are a year past that fateful 3rd of July.

In this quote from the roman poet Horace he claims that “adversity can elicit talents and prosperous circumstances can remain the same”. Horace hits the target with this quote, because from personal experience when my grandfather passed away it brought out the toughest bond in our family and myself. Horace's assertions were also correct because when one is comfortable with themselves, or in a joyous lifestyle they tend to not change this, so everything is habitual throughout. Another way Horace's assertions were correct, because from my own observation of the world, and if adversity is present it develops a person's character in a negative or positive way.

Grief is a complicated literature to describe as it is a powerful and personal human response, typically after losing a loved one. Grief is universal, every individual copes with grief in their own ways. The problem of this literature is that it has not been studied in depth and this complicated topic can become difficult to analyze due to misinterpretation of feelings and emotions, which is clearly foreseeable in the articles reported. Grief is a natural human reaction, however the outcome grief has on an individual is powerful and often dangerous to one’s own life. PubMed Health describes grief reactions into three terms; anticipatory grief, common grief, and complicated/prolonged grief. The outcomes of grief, in particular complicated grief,

Coping with death can be very overwhelming for children. In my essay I will be discussing how children grieve, and how parents can help their kids grieve in a healthier way.

Each and every time my mother responded either by doing what I asked, like cuddling with me, or by answering my questions and saying, “You were deathly allergic to an antibiotic they gave you. You can’t leave just yet. Who’s Brunner? You missed the volleyball game last night and the girls are worried about you. Today’s Friday Jocey. You missed two days of school. Ryan had to go home because he had school today. He wanted to stay, but he knew you would be angry if he didn’t go to school.”

It was Memorial Day in 2016 and I was planning on spending my day relaxing on my couch. However, my mom presented me with something new that changed my day's outlook. She told me that she got a call from one of her friends on Lions Club saying the local congressman, Scott Garrett, was looking for supporters to march in the local Midland Park Memorial Day parade with him. I have always been interested in politics, so I told my mom that I would love to, and went down to town hall where people were gathering before the parade. I walked down with my dad who was going to walk in the parade with the fire department. We met with my mom’s friend who introduced us to Representative Garrett. We shook hands with him and he thanked us for our support.

A single death greatly affected me. On February 8, 2014, after getting into the car with an impaired driver, my eighteen year old friend was killed in a horrific drinking and driving accident.

My non-normative life event started at the age of twelve years old. I have five sisters and one brother, me being the second youngest. During one summer my mother started feeling quite unwell. Her symptoms seemed similar to cold or flu symptoms, but they never regressed after treatment. She developed a lump in her neck which the doctors biopsied and diagnosed her with Lymphoma Cancer.

As human beings, we suffer losses of many kinds and sizes in our life time. While some of these losses are small and do not hurt much, some are big and hurt deeply. Those that are accompanied by pains that are difficult to bear include the loss of a loved one through death or divorce, cheating or unfaithfulness in a trusted relationship or loss of good health when a diagnosis of a terminal illness is made. In all these instances of loss, pain and grief are experienced and an emotional wound is created which needs healing.

From the moment a mother finds out she is with child, she already believes of it existence, of its life. Maybe it grows to have its soul tainted black, but death is not a reason or a solution. A life should never be taken away, because they might have been a mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son, uncle, nephew, a loved one. A life is a life just as age is being a number.