Understanding Dying And Bereavement

Painful as it may be, such experiences brings home the finality of death. Something deep within us demands a confrontation with death. A last look assures us that the person we loved is, indeed, gone forever.” (108) Cable finishes his essay by asking, Tim if his job ever depressed him. Tim in reply says, “No it doesn’t, and I do what I can for people and take satisfaction in enabling relatives to see their loved ones as they were in real life.” (108) After reading this essay I feel as though sometimes we don’t understand death so therefore we do not talk much about it. By reading about what goes on after your loved one dies and is sent to these places to be prepared and ready for burial, it helps to understand why morticians and funeral directors do what they do. Knowing that someone enjoys taking the responsibility in providing that comfort in a sorrowful time makes me appreciate these people in these occupations a bit

Discuss the components of a mature understanding of death, and what factors may lead to, contribute to, or affect its development.

Loss is a phenomenon that is experienced by all. Death is experienced by family members as a unique and elevated form of loss which is modulated by potent stages of grief. Inevitably, everyone will lose someone with whom they had a personal relationship and emotional connection and thus experience an aftermath that can generally be described as grief. Although bereavement, which is defined as a state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one, is a universal experience it varies widely across gender, age, and circumstance (definitions.net, 2015). Indeed the formalities and phases associated with bereavement have been recounted and theorized in literature for years. These philosophies are quite diverse but

While reading through the lossography I found a common similarity among most of the lossographys’, which is the ritual of having a funeral or a wake after someone has died. A specific example, is when a classmate describes the experiences of his grandfather’s wake (pg.8). I noticed most of the lossographys included some kind of ritual either mourning or celebrating the death of a loved one. I also noticed how age and

Death has always been and will be a topic that just a few want to talk, but since time immemorial man has worshiped their dead, and this is reflected in the various rituals and forms of burial. The anguish of death has been considered the deepest anguish of man. Death is the inevitable companion of life, is the final stage. It can occur at any age, suddenly or after a long illness. Despite knowing that someday we will have to die the death of a loved one is a terrible fact, very difficult to accept, that affects everyone around the deceased person. When the link with the deceased breaks, the suffering is so great, that they put into question the fundamentals of being, of human existence and our deepest beliefs, affecting significantly the basic family and social relationships.

This week in class we learned about some basic facts about loss, the journey of dying in America, how life expectancy has changed over the years and some examples of how they have changed, we went through some questions like why to study grief and loss, how there is a lack of training for those helping professionals, different settings in which grief can be encountered as well as experiences that could generate reactions, and the benefits of training in loss and grief. Talking about these things made me feel more comfortable with the situation of loss. It also made me feel sad when people share their experiences for some reason. I guess I am more of an emotional person than I thought when it comes to death and dying and usually I just try

According to (Liming & Dickenson 2011., p.3) “thanatology is the study of dying, death, and bereavement.” I believe that the study of death will be a topic to be discussed and forever researched. There are many different aspects of death that I believe people can study, rather it be cultural believes, medically researching different processes of death, or even just what your own personal discovery of what death exactly is or what happens after death. No one can interview the dead. No one can find out if death is peaceful, or if there is life after death, or what death feels like. So for this topic of defining thanatology I wanted to look at the studies of peoples near death experiences, interviews from people who are experiencing death, the different cultures behind viewing death, and lastly the communication skills needed for health care professionals to develop in order to discuss death and dying amongst the patient and their family

Having a close relationship with three of my grandparents, as well as being present during each of their dying processes, has greatly shaped my view of death. Death has a way of causing us to reflect. Death causes each of us to reflect on the life that is ending as we know it, to reflect on our lives and to reflect on the legacy we want to leave behind when it becomes our time. Having the

Recently, several scholars have begun to explore the ways in which we communicate about death and grief online, focusing on blogs and social media sites (DeGroot & Carmack, 2012, 2013), online grief forums (Hastings, Hoover, & As evidenced by the dates of these articles, communication research exploring the intersections of death or grief and computer-mediated communication is a recent phenomenon.

This stage is when the patient first hears about his/her illness, and this is where the patient is saying "no, not me" and "it can't be me". During this time they will also ask a numerous amount that "is the results wrong", or "could you check my results again please".

How can anyone cope when experiencing bereavement overload? Coping with one loss at a time provides individuals with more time to heal before having to experience another loss. Ideally, we would only experience one loss at a time but this is often rarely the case. Bereavement overload is characterized by experiencing loss upon loss, which results in individuals decreased ability to cope (Kastenbaum 363). The grieving process is complicated when experiencing bereavement overload because it becomes incredibly difficult to deal thoroughly with each individual loss. Figuring out where to even begin coping is overwhelming and a loss of faith is often inevitable. Moreover, feeling overwhelmed can result in neglecting to attend to ones feelings.

It may be family members, friends, or intimate relationship partner. This loss brings out the deepest of human wounds. It may arise shared feelings including sorrow, sadness, fear, hurt, confusion, depression, loneliness, anger, despair, shame and guilty. The psychological process of grieving includes the following; opening to the presence of the loss, dispelling misconceptions about grief, embracing the uniqueness of the pain, exploring the feeling of loss, recognizing that an individual is not crazy, understanding the needs of mourning, nurturing oneself, reaching out to the others, seeking reconciliation and appreciating one’s process of transformation (Corey, G., & Corey, M. S, 2014). I will help the families of the victims in their bereavement by accomplishing the mentioned tasks. First, I will make them understand the reality of loss and will contribute to accept the same. I will tell family members that everyone have to go one day eventually. This is the bitter facts about the life. Thus, I will convince them to accept the reality of the loss. Second, I will work through the pain of grief and help them to express their emotional pain about loss, and at the same time will nurture themselves both physically and emotionally. Third, I will assist them with adjusting to the environment in which deceased is missing. I will help them to learn to develop a new relationship with the

I found out shortly after beginning my experience this summer that this would not be the case. See, I chose classwork that not only interested me at the time but also would help drive me towards my goal of working in the field of forensics and the death sciences as well as preparing me for the work that would be found within the career. These classes tested my patience and my willingness to continue because of the way that they opened my eyes to the amount of work required for a working knowledge of the material and for the work that awaits me in the field of forensics. This work includes the discussion of uncomfortable topics, namely the topic of death. It is death that most people all over the world fear and are afraid to discuss, even when a conversation on the topic is necessary to have. Even I feared it at the beginning of my experience. I was uncomfortable talking about that subject. I have my father’s stubbornness, though, and did not like that the only reason for my fear of death is because of the unknown. It was through my chosen experiences that I found new ways to discuss and contemplate the subject and lose the fear that I had. I am now determined to take what I have learned and discuss my path to comfort with as many people that are fearful of death as I

I have always been fascinated by the human body and how it works, even when life no longer exists within it. I, myself have never had to deal with the death of a loved one, but I have been to my fair share of funerals. On many occasions, I have had to prepare myself for what lies beneath the doors of the neatly polished caskets. I remember the very first time I had to go to a funeral, I was ten years old and a very good family friend of ours had passed away. I had dressed in my very best that day, my family and I approached the closed doors of the visitation room. Nothing had prepared me for what was in store for me beyond those doors. Sobs and cries flooded through the slow opening doors, with a wave of cold air that showered over me. Everyone was dressed in nicely pressed suits and straight black dresses, and there between the passing crowds of people I could see it, the freshly polished wood casket. My mother turned to me and stated “You can sit in the car with your brother if you want, you don’t have to see this if you don’t want to.” I looked deep into her tear-filled eyes and blinked rapidly. After considering the option, she had given me I relied slowly “It’s okay, I can handle this. I want to say goodbye too.” I approached the casket cautiously with the fear of the unknowing. Once I reached the side of the casket I peered down at my beloved elder, but I wasn’t frightened. I knew she was no longer living because of the slight discoloration to her skin, but she looked so happy. Her makeup was done so flawlessly and she was dressed in her Sunday best with her arms across her stomach clutching a bouquet of flowers which filled the surrounding area. She was so beautiful, I then glanced back at everyone in the area, some sitting and some standing off to the side all of them had the same look on their faces. They all looked so pained, I just could not understand why. She was the lucky one she was able to

This class was harder than I thought it was going to be, but still a good class. My two highs from this semester would be learning about the different death rituals which I didn’t know about before and that fact that approximately 75% of the more than 6,000 people in the US who die on average day are 65 years old or older (Aiken, p.38). The two lows from this course is how much I felt like I shouldn’t be taking the course because I am not a nursing major and I do not agree that the decline of public dying and death has promoted the denial of death (Aiken,