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Rita’s physical frame could not support her emotional weight.  She leaned against the living room door frame, slid down and slumped to the floor, all the while moving her head back and forth as if she could shake off the crushing burden of grief that wracked her body.  Her breathing was shallow; her chest felt constricted, her sobbing came in bursts.  All Rita knew in that moment was the pain of loss.  When her breathing relaxed and Rita felt a little stronger, she pulled herself up from the floor and made her way to the couch to sit down.  There she buried her face in her hands and sobbed out loud-the wall of a mother’s anguish.

Working Your Way Through

Rita was experiencing intense grief emotions.  Seven months earlier, her daughter had been killed in an automobile accident.  Rita was still finding her way along the road of grief, through a void that could never be filled, to a life that would be forever different.  Intense grief emotions such as those Rita experienced are not a sign of psychological problems, mental illness or an inability to cope.  They are a natural response to a loss that goes deep, such as the death of a family member or other loved one.  Though they are painful, the good news is that they do pass, and in the meantime you can listen and learn from them, and even heal and grow strong through them.  Here are a few ways to do so.

Realize There Is Nothing “Wrong” With You

Intense grief emotions are difficult to describe to those who have not experienced them.  They can and often do come to us at unexpected times, sometimes with no warning and with no evident “trigger”.  They can be frequent in the days, weeks and months immediately following a severe loss, usually lessening in frequency and intensity with good grieving and the blessed passing of time.  Difficult as they might be intense grief emotions are not uncommon, nor are they cause for alarm.  In her book How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies, Dr. Therese Rando notes that grief can be severe and might make you “conclude that you have lost touch with reality and are going crazy.”  And she offers assurance: “you are not.”

Do Not Try To Escape Or Avoid Intense Grief Emotions

Intense emotions can be frightening and exhausting and they can immobilize us for a short period of time.  They can also be awkward, depending on where we are and who we’re with when the emotions flood through us.  But they are not abnormal; they are not permanently debilitating.  “I was in a restaurant with my brother about seven weeks after my wife died,” recalls  Brent.  “I had to excuse myself from the table and go outside to the parking lot for a while.”  Especially in the early weeks and months following a loss, be aware that your experiences of grief may be especially intense at times.  Be patient and flexible with yourself; respect the emotions, take the time you need to allow them to be -and to pass.

Listen And Learn From Your Intense Emotions

“Grief work” is often an “inside job.”  After an experience of feeling intense grief emotions, take a period of quiet time to go “inside” your thoughts and see what your emotions might be telling you about the challenges and changes you now face.  Perhaps the void left in your life suggests you need to take greater responsibility in certain areas.  Perhaps your intense grief emotions are pointing you in the direction of a deeper experience of faith.  You may find that your loss has left you questioning your sense of worth.  Listen well to what your intense emotions are teaching you about good grieving, healing and identifying and accepting the changes you now face.  “No matter how much it hurts and it may be the greatest pain in life-grief can be an end in itself, a pure expression of love.”

Talk And Talk Some More

Talk about your loved one.  Telling stories about your deceased loved one is a way to process the new reality of that person’s physical absence.  Those who care about you will listen with attentive love.  Bob Deits, author of Life after Loss, says that talking about a deceased loved one “helps every bit as much as having air to breathe and food to eat-and for basically the same reason: survival.  The parent who has lost a child or the widowed person who is alone for the first time in 50 years is terrified that they might forget the smallest detail of their lost loved one.  I hear such people begging just to hear the name of the one who is deceased.”  It also helps to talk about your intense grief emotions.  Say the words out loud: “I sobbed until my body shook.”  “I had to lean against the wall for support.”  “I felt like the grief was actually physical.”  Share these experiences with a trusted friend, a professional counselor, or those in a support group.  When you hear your own voice put into words how you survived an experience of intense grief, you see and name your own healing strength.

Take The Time You Need

Grief knows no timeline.  Do not impose on yourself a schedule based on previous experiences of grief or what well intentioned friends and loved ones might suggest.  You will face these emotions as long as you need to-and the time you need often depends on variables such as what or who you are grieving, the details of the loss, your support systems, childhood memories, guilt and fear associated with your loss, and your current relationships, health and lifestyle.  Let time-all the time you need-be a gentle and healing friend.  In her supportive book The Mourning Handbook, Helen Fitzgerald emphasizes the importance of taking the time you need.  She is forthright about time and offers hope: “Keeping in mind the definition of grief as “intense emotional suffering,” you can look forward, at some point to an end to these over whelming emotions.”

Reach Our For Support

It was a decisive moment in my life.  I sat at the kitchen table crushed with loss and overwhelmed with sadness, fear and anger.  As I looked around the kitchen, I could hear all the familiar household sounds the purr of the refrigerator, the tick of the wall clock, the television in the living room.  In that moment when the world around me seemed oblivious to my emotional death, I desperately tried to locate something that would offer a harbor or relief from the pain.  Anything I just wanted to stop hurting.  Then I saw it: the bottle of scotch behind the toaster.  I stared at it for a long moment, imagining its burning taste and longing for the tranquil sea of numbness I would find at the bottom of the bottle.  I also looked at the telephone.  “Or I could call Jean.”  I called Jean.  She said she’d be right over-or I could grab a toothbrush and come to her house.  I went to her house.  I will believe for the rest of my life that the power of grace and my willingness to reach out for help kept me from taking a detour in life down the road toward alcoholism and hopelessness.  I recall that moment with tremendous humility and gratitude-the night grace and friendship took my hand to steady me through intense grief emotions toward the path of healing.  In addition to friends and loved ones, people in grief support groups are some of your best allies when you experience intense grief emotions.  These companions are treading the same painful path you are.  The details of their stories might be different, but the emotional void and struggle they face every day are basically the same as yours.  Unlike anyone else, they can hear your anguish and identify with what you are enduring.  Margo Steinberg, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., notes that bereavement groups have a strong, positive impact on participants and provide a “safe haven…for emotional expression and release of feelings.”  Reaching out to the members of a grief support group is not an act of weakness; it is a choice for healing.  Over time, you will find that the give and take of sharing with others in a bereavement group is one of the greatest satisfactions along your healing path.

Take Heart

In companion through the Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief, Stephanie Ericsson names grief as the “constant reawakening that things are now different.”  The loss of a loved one leaves everything different -except love.  Our intense grief emotions are the result of equally intense grief emotions of love.  We would not feel the pain of loss had we not loved deeply.  Rita had given life to her daughter.  She had cradled her precious child in her arms, held her hand as she took her first steps, guided her through school, and wept tears of joy at her wedding.  Like Rita’s experience, your intense grief emotions are normal and natural result of your love.  And the power of that love lives on to help you heal and grow strong.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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You are never prepared for the death of a loved one, even when that death comes after a long and serious illness.  And when the loss is sudden and unexpected, as it was for me, the shock can be overwhelming.  No matter the circumstances of loss, there is always sadness, heartache, and emptiness.  As you struggle to go on with life after your loved one has died, you face painful questions.  How can you handle the anguish of grief?  How can you find peach and joy and meaning in life?  How can you learn to trust life and love again?

Working Your Way Through

One fateful day years ago, a state trooper told me that a car accident had taken the lives of my wife, Chrissie, our oldest daughter, Christine, and my wife’s parents, who were visiting at the time.  After the accident, in trying to help my two surviving understand what had happened, I realized that I was utterly vacant, unsure, and angry.  I experienced deep depression for the first time in my life.  In a real way though my need to help Aimee and Katie sort through their feelings and questions helped me sort through my own.  Although I have never come up with any simple answers or solutions to the pain of loss.  I do have some thoughts about grieving.  I hope they will bring you strength and aid as you cope with the loss of your loved one.

Accept Your Feelings

Whether your loss has come in a swift and dramatic fashion or was long expected, your feelings are no doubt intense and painful.  Along with sadness, you may be hit by a flood of other, sometimes conflicting feelings: anger, helplessness, fear, guilt, regret, loneliness, despair.  I discovered that it does no good to fight such feelings.  Pushing them down only seems to make them come back with even greater fury.  Instead, I had to learn to respect these feelings as part of me-a testimony to my intense love and loss.  And I needed to give them time and space to express themselves.  Only when I was able to accept and even embrace such feelings as natural and normal and an integral part of my healing process was I able to work through them.  Remain open to the hurt within you.  At times you may want to suppress or avoid it with distractions and busyness.  That’s understandable, and may even be necessary sometimes, but eventually your emotions will surface; grief will demand your attention.  Give it that attention willingly and you will make the process easier.

Let People Know What You Need

In their efforts to comfort me, well-meaning people sometimes actually caused me discomfort.  Their words about “God’s will,” or about how they knew “just how I feel,” or about how things “always work out for the best,” rang hollow.  I found that the best solution was to tell them gently abut honestly what I needed from them: “Thank you, but I need to grieve in my own way and on my own timetable.  Mostly, I want you to just be with me.”  When someone’s attempt to comfort you only deepens the hurt, remind yourself of that person’s good intentions and forgive him or her for not understanding.  If you find yourself overwhelmed by life’s daily responsibilities, as you surely will at this stressful time, call on those around you for assistance.  Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need-people will respond with amazing generosity.  Friends and family often want to help, but don’t know how.  If you let them know specific ways they can help, you will be doing them, as well as yourself a favor.  “Be open to the pain of your broken heart.  God enters through its brokenness.”

Treasure Your Relationships

Death makes life all the more precious.  I felt so fortunate to have my daughters to hold onto through the pain.  But I know that many people who lose someone close feel abandoned and alone-as if they have no one or nothing to live for.  If you feel this way, try being with people who are also grieving, in a  bereavement support group, for example.  As you tell your stories, you will share and understanding of the heart deeper than words.  The survival of those who have found healing after loss is reassurance that you, too can endure.  Find people with who you can laugh and cry and share new experiences.  They will help you mend your shattered life.  They will reflect back to you your own goodness.  And they will plant new seeds of love for you to harvest.  It’s hard to take the risk to get close to people again.  Many times I just wanted to be alone, to grieve privately.  Yet I know that my family and friends have been priceless.  I have thrived simply on the fact that they have been there for me, and we have kept good company.

Draw On Faith For Healing

Life now may seem unreal and terribly wrong.  You may feel cheated.  As you struggle to make sense of your tragedy, reassure yourself that it’s okay to be angry with God.  But also realize that your loss is not God’s punishment or an attempt to test you.  God shares punishment or an attempt to test you. God shares the hurt in your heart and wants to lead you to new hope and peace.  I can’t say what it was that gradually dissolved my own bitterness toward God.  Time?  My angry “prayers”?  God’s own workings?  I only know that God’s goodness-visible in other people, in the world, in myself-became too apparent for me to ignore or deny.  And I began to trust life again.  That, after all is what it comes down to trust.  Trust that life doesn’t end with death.  Trust that loved ones who have died are forever with God and that God is forever with us, too. A supportive faith community, pastoral leader or spiritual counselor may be able to help you, over time, to reconcile your loss and pain with your belief in loving , faithful God.

Be Patient With Yourself

Grieving has many stages, which might include shock, numbness, denial, depression, confusion, fear, anger, bitterness, guilt, regret, acceptance, hope.  These stages may come in any order, and number of times.  Give yourself time to move through grief at your own pace and in your own individual way.  Anniversaries and holidays-times that used to mean joy and celebration-can be among the toughest days of the year.  You may want to forgo certain traditions or obligations if they seem too burdensome or possible create new traditions that memorialize your loved one.  You may feel overwhelmed as you try to adjust to the day to day changes the loss of a loved one can bring.  My wife’s death thrust me into new, awkward roles and responsibilities.  I tried not to expect too much of myself too soon, just to start with the small tasks first, to be patient with myself and my mistakes.  I discovered that the routine tasks of maintaining my job and family helped restore in my life that familiar structure with the chaos of grief threatened to destroy.  Maybe you feel like you don’t have anyone who needs you anymore.  Maybe you don’t have young children or a job to give you an anchor in life.  But whatever personal attributes you have that made you so dear to your loved one are still there, waiting to be trapped to bring joy to others.  The world needs the gift of you!

Take Heart

This one that you have loved and lost will always be with you, in memory and in prayer, for the love between you is a spiritual bond that death cannot sever.  As impossible as it may seem right now, a time will come when you will be able to think of your loved one, and feel the sacred connection between the two of you, without the pain and emptiness you feel right now.  A time will come when you will want to laugh and live and love again.  Let yourself heal-in your own time and your own way.  The one that you have loved and lost would want it that way.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Mary hangs up her phone and sits down exhausted.  She had just broken the news to her brothers and sisters that their mother had passed away.  After the initial shock, everyone had asked the same question: “When is the service?”  Arranging family events had always fallen on Mary’s shoulders.  Normally she enjoyed the task, but this time she felt completely overwhelmed with her own grief.  However, she knew that her family was counting on her.  She needed to call a funeral home and start the process, but which one should she call?  She had attended services at a few of the local funeral homes and didn’t have a favorite.  She was concerned about spending too much and was even more concerned about making a bad choice for her family.  Mary didn’t feel like starting at Websites so she pulled out the Yellow Pages hoping that the ads would give her some insight into which funeral home she should call.  Sadly, the ads all looked the same.  Everyone said they were “caring” and they all seemed to offer the same things.  But one ad stood out.  Big letters across the top of the ad said “are you concerned about paying too much for an unfulfilling funeral?”  This attracted her attention.  The rest of the ad said “call the area’s only 24-hour prerecorded information hotline and learn the four key issues related to a funeral before talking to a funeral director.”  Mary hated feeling unprepared so she liked the idea of learning more before she had to talk to someone.  Mary called the toll-free number and spent the next 10 minutes listening to a message prepared by one of the local funeral homes.  She learned more in those 10 minutes than she had in years of attending funeral services.  More importantly, she learned that at least one funeral home in the area really was “caring” because it took the time to give her information that would help her regardless of which funeral home she selected.  They really seemed to be trying to help her, and she appreciated that.  Armed with new information, Mary felt a little self confidence and decided that she was ready to make the call that she had dreaded.  She picked up the phone and called the funeral home that had created the information hotline.  She hadn’t committed to using them yet, but she felt confident that they were a good starting point.

Hotline Marketing

Scenes similar to this play out across America every day.  Loved ones pass away and the burden falls on the family members to make the dreaded phone calls, select a funeral home and plan the service.  Since the majority of funeral home ads are basically identical, the prospective family usually can’t tell the difference.  These ads break one of the basic rules of marketing: when a consumer cannot tell the difference between choice A and choice B, the deciding factor is always price.  However, forward-thinking funeral home owners are adopting a powerful marketing tool that has proved to be effective in hundreds of other industries: information hotline marketing.  In 2003 I worked with a local funeral home to implement what we believe to be the first information hotline in the funeral home industry.  Our primary goal in creating the hotline was to give families information that would help them make a good choice regardless of which funeral home they selected.  Our secondary goal was to make sure that the entire community knew how we were different from our competitors.  The hotline became the cornerstone of all our marketing efforts.  We created a whole series of ads to get as many people as possible in our local community to call our hotline.  Every communication we sent to the local clergy and hospice reminded them that we created the hotline to help their families.  In the first three years, 6,327 people called our hotline.  Our market share increased by more than 40 percent, and out competitors were struggling needless to say, the hotline far exceeded our expectations.

Hotline Benefits

A hotline benefits families in the following ways: educates prospective families on the value of a funeral service, helps them to understand that price is not the only issue they should consider when choosing a funeral home, helps to clarify the process so that they are more comfortable working with you to design a meaningful memorial service, allows them to learn from the privacy and comfort of their own home, positions you as the person who is willing to educate the family and guide them through this difficult time.

Hotline Benefits For Funeral Home Owners

Separates you from the local competition, builds a relationship with prospective families earlier in their buying process, customizing the message allows you to directly target the weaknesses of your competitors, turns price shoppers into educated prospective families, creates a stronger and more professional image within your community, helps create an excellent relationship with clergy and hospice workers.

How A Hotline Works

The concept is fairly simple.  First you sign up with a specialized service company that provides you with a telephone number.  It’s usually toll-free, but not always.  Next, you record a  message just like you would record a greeting message on your voice mail, only longer.  You then use traditional advertising methods to influence people to call your toll-free number and listen to your message.  Typically, the message is broken up into different topics and the caller selects what he or she wants to learn about.  This gives the caller begins to trust you.  As opposed to a Web site, which appeals to the computer savvy crowd, the information hotline is for everyone else.  It’s aimed toward senior citizens who may not be comfortable on the computer but still need the information.  An information hotline has two main components: technology and content.  Five years ago, the technology was the hardest part of the project, but that is no longer the case.  Today you can outsource the entire technology part of the hotline and pay just a modest monthly fee, typically $60 to $100 per month.  If you do a google search for “prerecorded message service providers” you’ll find a handful of companies that can provide this service.  Check them out carefully and never go with the lowest price provider.  Just like in the funeral business a discount hotline service provider is rarely going to meet your true needs.  The “make or break” part of the project is the content.  In other words, exactly what are you going to say on your hotline?  You’ve promoted the hotline’s toll-free number and people called—now what?  What are you going to say to them?  How are you going to hold their attention?  How are you going to educate them?  Start out with a copyrighted baseline script that covers four key topics related to a funeral.  Then customize the script based on your business and your competitive situation.  Then create a series of audio recordings using the script.  After editing, these recordings will be uploaded to the technology company that assembles the new hotline.

Hotline Pricing

Consumers don’t just want to know your prices, and they definitely don’t want to hear you read off your General Price List.  Instead, they want to know how pricing works when buying a funeral service.  What are the components?  What should they expect to pay?  They want to know the normal price range for a service.  They want to know how to interpret this price.  Is it too high or too low?  What are they going to get for their money?  This is also a great time to take a shot at the pesky discount service provider that’s always taking your calls.  Simply come up with a list of questions that a family should ask any discount provider before trusting them with their loved one’s remains.  Don’t say the competitors name, just give the person the right information and trust that they’ll connect the dots.  Creating a good information hotline is not easy, cheap or quick, but it is an effective way to educate potential families, and it can become the cornerstone of a marketing campaign that positions you head and shoulders above your competitors.  One of the great benefits for you is that it gives a way to measure the effectiveness of your advertising.   Just by checking the logs on your hotline you’ll be able to tell whether the campaign you are running is generating any calls.  Thanks to today’s caller ID technology, you will even know the phone number from which they called inevitably, the day will come when your local competitor calls your hotline, and for some reasons every business owner seems to enjoy that moment.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Kay gave me words for what my heart already knew; she gave directions to my life.  She was my spiritual mother; I looked to her for guidance.  She was my friend.  And her death tore a great gaping hole in my world.  If you’ve recently lost a close friend, such a hole lies in the center of your world.  The death of a close friend leaves an aching emptiness that will not go away; it cannot be avoided or ignored.  How are you going to get on with your life without the company of that loving companion?

Working Your Way Through

Whether a friendship develops slowly over many years or begins with a thrill of recognition-love at first sight-it plays a role no other relationship can fulfill.  For one thing, unlike relatives, friends are chosen.  As with anything consciously chosen and cultivated, the loss of a friendship cuts very deep.

Name Your Loss

Exactly what was your friend to you?  The work friend covers a wide range of people: playmates and co-workers, neighbors and folks who are barely more than casual acquaintances.  “To make a friend, be a friend,” popular wisdom advises.  But some friends are more than “just friends.”  They are found treasure, soul mates.  To lose a close friend is to lose someone who not only plays a special role, but also fills a need at a particular time in your life.  My daughter, still in her 30’s gained a keen sense of her own mortality from the death of a young woman one of the circle with whom she and her husband fully discovered their adult selves.  My 90 year old mother grieves the death of a new friend, a neighbor in the retirement home to which she moved just a year ago.  “T my age you have more friends in heaven than on earth,” she tells me.  The accidental death of a newlywed-a neighbor’s daughter, our one time baby sitter who had turned to me for advice during her college years-left me weeping with her parents over the promise left unfulfilled.  When you lose a friend, you grieve not only the passing of a marvelous person, but also the passing of a unique and precious relationship.  You lose the ability to call at any time and know that you can talk to someone who understands.  You lose someone who lets you be yourself-silly or serious-without judgment or condemnation.  You grieve the passing of the Saturday matinee, the few hours squeezed in for an afternoon of shopping and a cup of coffee, the annual  weekend fishing trip to the lake, the casual chat in the backyard, the summer picnic and outdoor concert.  When a friend dies, those unique moments are gone as well, except for the precious memories.

Claim Your Right To Grieve

No one will hand it to you.  When your friend died, it was the friend’s family who received the cards, the casseroles, the condolence notes.  The family occupied the front rows at the funeral, leaving the rest of the church to everyone else.  Your employer would have given you time off to bury a family member, but you probably went to your friend’s funeral on your own time.  No one will call to ask how you’re doing a few weeks after the death or invite you over for the holidays the first year.  If you produce a sudden flood of tears, they will be met by an awkward silence from others.  “I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.”  You will, nevertheless experience the same storm of emotions that sweep over family members: disbelief, anger, sorrow, guilt, depression, loneliness.  There are support groups where bereaved parents and widowed people can be reassured that these storms are normal.  There are support groups for families trying to make sense of a murder or a suicide.  There are however, no ready-made support systems for grieving friends.  You’ll have to create your own.  Begin at the library.  Search the shelves for books and articles on grief, for it wears much the same face in any loss.  Understanding the grief process doesn’t make it one whit easier to live through, but it does restore your faith in your own sanity.  Search for people who have been there.  Share memories, laughter and tears with other friends who were close to the one who has died.  Spend some time with members of your dead friend’s family.  Whether or not you were ever close to them, they share your need for people who will help them sort out their memories and allow tears to flow when they will.  Seek out others who have buried close friends.  Be your own best friend.  Allow yourself to cry, to rage, to remember-all the freedoms your friend allowed you.  Treat yourself to a little time off from life as usual.  Life isn’t “as usual” anyway and the chores you leave undone today will still be there tomorrow.  Be especially gentle with yourself when the calendar slaps you with a reminder of your loss-your friend’s birthday, the monthly or annual recurrence of the death date.

Find Ways To Memorialize Your Friend

Keep reminders of your friendship where you will see them often.  Yes they will provoke tears now and then, but they will also serve as a kind of shrine where you can seek your friend’s company.  I keep my friend Kay’s photo in my dictionary, that indispensable writer’s tool I consult frequently.  Over the years my feelings on seeing her face have evolved from a stab of pain to ongoing thanks for her inspiration to astonishment at how young she was-we were!  Keep a journal of your feelings and your memories.  There you can write the things no one wants to listen to.  And there you can hold the good times and rediscover the importance of the friendship.  You can also strive to be a living memorial to your friend.  Make a conscious effort to keep him or her alive in what you do and who you are.  Maintain the interests you shared, even when doing so brings pangs of loneliness.  Contribute your efforts to the causes you both cared about.  It will keep you close together.  (The first time I sat down at my typewriter after Kay died, I was sure she was standing right behind me.)  Make the goodness you loved in your friend your own.  Cultivate his patience, her passion for justice.  Lend the same understanding ear you relied on.  For you yourself are the most lasting memorial to your friend.  That person’s thumbprints are visible in your clay.  You are living testimony that your friend’s life made a lasting difference.

Nurture Other Friendships

Not long before Kay’s death, we spent an afternoon poring over memories of time spent with mutual friends.  “You know,” she said.  “I’m not afraid of dying.  It’s just that you know what you have here, and it’s hard to leave.”  Know what you have here.  The hole your friend’s death left in your world will remain empty.  No one else can fill it, for every friendship is a unique gift; each friend plays a special role.  The void will in time cease to throb as you claim the heritage of your friendship.  Meanwhile, nurture your other friendships all of them, whether close or casual.  You never know when a long-time acquaintance will develop into something deeper, or when you will find yourself again falling into friendship with a stranger.  And continue to nurture the friendship that death has shattered not only in the ways suggested above, but also in your prayers.  For the friendship you relied on its part of God’s plan for your life; it is securely tucked away in the divine heart.  Speak to God with and for your friend; speak to your friend in God.

Take Heart

The death of your friend is a painful loss, and the pain you feel today will linger for a surprisingly long time.  Nevertheless, death has no power to end a friendship.  It can only interrupt it, for love is a force more powerful than death.  And friendship is surely a lasting testament to love’s power.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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The suicide of someone you care about is a devastating tragedy.  It happens in the best of families and to the best of people, shattering the lives of the shocked survivors.  In many ways, suicide is one of the most difficult deaths to mourn.  As you mourn the death of your friend or loved one, you probably feel a sense of betrayal.  You have invested years of caring, loyalty and patience with the deceased.  Suddenly you are abandoned and rejected.  Perhaps you have had such thoughts as “How could she do this to me?”  “Couldn’t he think about the children?  Weren’t we enough for him?”  Because you are bewildered by what has happened, you search for whys.  A message left may help interpret what went on in the person’s mind before the suicide.  Yet the painful questions remain: “Why did he do it?”  “Was she angry at me?”  You may also be filled with guilt, for suicide seems like not just a loss but also an accusation.  You may feel that somehow you did not love enough, or that your relationship was not good enough.  You keep rehearsing all the “if onlys” “Why didn’t I realize how sick he was?”  “If only I had been home on time.”

Working Your Way Through

Recovery from the suicide of someone close is a monumental task, for the process of mending a broken heart is painful and slow.  The road to recovery requires you to accept your feelings, to draw from your inner resources, and to develop positive attitudes toward the past, present and future.  The journey of healing starts with small steps leading from darkness to hope, from death to a renewed commitment to life.

Lean To Live With Unanswered Questions

We do have some clues about why people choose suicide.  We know that suicide is often the response to some kind of loss; to real or perceived failure, to physical, psychological or spiritual pain.  The person’s problem becomes the only thing that exists, and he or she cannot conceive that life will ever become any better.  But even knowing all this intellectually, you can still feel very confused emotionally.  Behind your questions is a broken heart that can’t be healed with simple answers.  Struggling through the not knowing is extremely difficult.  Your whys may never be answered, the puzzle never resolved.  People who commit suicide often take with them the mystery of their life and death.  You must gradually let go of the whys, accept what has happened, and go on living.

Allow Time For Bad Memories

In the early stages of grief, survivors often experience playback of the suicide scene in their thoughts or in nightmares.  You may feel robbed of pleasant memories and oppressed by this replay of the details surrounding the final event.  You need to own and deal with these negative images before you can get in touch with your good memories.  As the hurt gradually becomes less intense, positive feelings will surface and become more frequent and longer lasting.

Acknowledge Your Feelings Of Anger

Instinctively survivors tend to reject the way their loved one chose to end his or her life.  They may resent the deceased for checking out the relationship on his or her own terms.  They may also resent God for having allowed this to happen or others for not preventing it.  Anger is an investment.  We never get angry at someone we do not care about.  Anger therefore is not the opposite of love but a dimension of it-a sign of love deeply wounded.  Your anger can help you survive and reenter life of it can become destructive.  It depends on how you channel it.  You might try discussing your anger with an understanding friend.  Or talking about it with God.  Or writing a letter expressing it to the deceased.  Ultimately anger needs to be healed through a willingness to forgive.

Turn Guilt Into Forgiveness

Most survivors blame themselves for what they did or did not do.  They have the sense of something left unfinished something suddenly interrupted.  They find it hard to let go of their rescue fantasies.  Guilt accompanies many of our experiences of powerlessness and imperfection.  It can paralyze and demoralize us, or we can transform it into self forgiveness and a greater capacity of loving those that are still around us.  Healing takes place when you realize that you cannot judge your yesterday with the knowledge of today, that love alone may not be enough to save another’s life, that there are limits to your power and responsibility, that you were not the only influence in the life of the deceased.

Accept The Loneliness

Loneliness is the price we pay for loving.  When a loved person dies, a part of us dies too.  To some degree, the loneliness may last a lifetime, because no one can ever replace that person.  An anniversary, a place, a song, a flower may bring back the memories, the aching pain.  We feel the keen disappointment of not having that special person there to share in the family’s changes, surprises, sorrows.  Loneliness can help you realize the depths of your love.  From it you can learn to become more sensitive to others’ losses and to turn to God, who is always there.

Draw From Your Own Spiritual Resources

You may be struggling with questions like “Will God forgive her, or has he condemned her to hell?”  While the act of suicide continues to be objectively wrong, contemporary theologians emphasize that individual circumstances may make it subjectively guiltless.  Those who take their life may be so disturbed that they act compulsively; their perception of reality may be so distorted that their responsibility is greatly reduced.  Only God knows what is in the heart of each person.   Obviously it does not take your grief away simply believing that God will view your loved one’s action compassionately.  But faith will help you live with your loss and grieve it well.  And it will help you discover redeeming values in the midst of your suffering.  Trust that God will sustain you through the stages of your bereavement.

Rebuild Your Self Esteem

The suicide of a friend or a loved one is a terrible blow to one’s self image.  Rationally or irrationally, the survivors may feel judged by the community for having failed.  They may feel that the suicide is a disgrace to the family or the school or even the community.  Some have a strong urge to escape to a place where they are not known.  And unfortunately the shame many survivors feel keeps them from acknowledging the suicide and talking about it-an important part of the recovery process.  After the shattering experience of a suicide, you need to pick up the pieces, reaffirm your commitment to life, and rebuild confidence in yourself.

Be Patient With Yourself

Remember that time, by itself does not heal.  It is how you use the time that’s important.  When you can stare less frequently at the past and can recognize the value of small steps you develop a framework within which the passage of time makes the loss not easier, but at least less hard.

Reach Out To Others

You can choose to let your brokenness defeat you or you can decide to get up and get going.  Once you have the courage to place your hurt, your sensitivity and your compassion at the service of others, you have discovered the key to help yourself.  For when pain is used to reach out to others, if becomes creative and transforming love.

Take Heart

Suicide leaves deep scars on the survivors.  But there is no turning back: You cannot change what has happened.  You can however change your outlook-from backward to forward from death to life.  Those who have experienced the suicide of a loved one can learn to let go of blaming themselves or the deceased for their unhappiness.  They can learn to live for themselves, and to take responsibility for their own future.  They can emerge from their sorrow with a profound appreciation for the solidarity they have experienced with others, and with a deep awareness of the beauty and fragility of life.  And they can begin to see life not so much as a problem to be solved but as a mystery to be discovered each day.

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