Coping with loss: The work of grieving

By PAUL BINZ

The Valley Catholic

McALLEN  —  As Advent approaches, we first encounter two special days of the Church in which we remember and commemorate those we have lost, those who have gone before us: All Saints’ Day, Nov. 1, and All Souls’ Day, Nov. 2.

All Saints’ Day is dedicated to all the faithful who have attained heaven, while All Souls’ Day is dedicated to all those who have died and not yet reached heaven and is an opportunity to remember in prayer and solemnity those who have passed away.

This time of year has special significance in the Rio Grande Valley and in Mexico in its commemoration as the Day of the Dead.

But this time can also bring on, or bring back, feelings of sorrow and loss, triggered perhaps by memories, photos and the approaching holidays.

The website HelpGuide.org says, “Few things compare to the pain of losing someone you love. While there’s no way to avoid intense feelings of grief, there are healthier ways to come to terms with your loss.”

HelpGuide defines bereavement as “the grief and mourning experience following the death of someone important to you. While it’s an inevitable part of life — something that virtually all of us go through at some point — losing someone you love can be one of the most painful experiences you’ll ever have to endure.

“Whether it’s a close friend, spouse, partner, parent, child, or other relative, the death of a loved one can feel overwhelming. You may experience waves of intense and very difficult emotions, ranging from profound sadness, emptiness, and despair to shock, numbness, guilt, or regret. You might rage at the circumstances … your anger focused on yourself, doctors, other loved ones, or God.”

One aspect of our Catholic faith is the hope that we will be reunited with our loved ones in heaven in the presence of God, the legacy of the death and resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, as our own earthly journey continues, we can find help along the way.

“I think it’s really important that people find something that’s going to assist them in working through their grief,” said Lydia Pesina, director of the Family Life Ministry of the Diocese of Brownsville. “Depending on family members looking for support, sometimes seeking support from someone like a pastor, a priest, a counselor.”

Many parishes of the diocese have facilitators that Pesina trains in a San Juan Diego Ministry Institute class called Good Grief.

“It’s set up as a six-weeks course for catechists … interested in assisting in their parish to facilitate a 10-week program for persons who have lost a loved one through death,” she said. “In a program such as this … the role of the facilitator is to facilitate that people do their own work of grieving.”

The diocesan and parish programs employ a book called The New Day Journal, subtitled “A journey from grief to healing for people coping with the loss of a loved one.”

“The New Day program really emphasizes … that every person has to do their own work of grieving,” Pesina said. “And each person who grieves cannot anticipate how they’re going to grieve. And how they grieve at that particular time is going to be different than how they grieve at another time.”

“The program is for 10 sessions in the parish that has Scripture readings, information, questions for them to share in smaller groups, and also some journaling questions for them to do their own personal reflections for every one of the sessions,” Pesina said. “That can be helpful to people who are in the process of grieving a loved one who has died.”

The New Day book notes that God is not to blame for a tragedy; he’s there to help the survivors get through it.

“Some people are angry at God because that’s what they feel at the moment. And God knows why they feel that at the moment,” Pesina said. “It’s helping people work through those feelings and those steps, so that they can eventually have some peace in their life and keep moving.

“It’s something that pretty universally we can say: The people who have left before us — they loved us, we loved them; but they want us to keep living.”

The book also contains tools like journaling pages, and questions from the readings with space for written responses.

“A parish program such as this is to set up a structure where (mourners) have time for reflection … to help them understand maybe in just the small ways that grief is a natural part of life, that there are stages of grieving … but to understand that those are normal stages of grieving, and the stages of grieving are not sequential.”

“Part of it is helping individuals facing a loss to have an idea that those are normal things, and they’re not sequential stages. They kind of cycle in and out of all of them. But the important thing is that people do their own work of grieving, and that’s going to be very unique to every person.”

Pesina said that during an encounter with someone grieving, the most important thing is to listen.

“Often people, when I ask the first class, ‘What is your goal?’ people often say, ‘I want to know what to say to someone who's lost someone.’ And the reality is that words are always very limiting. It’s not about knowing what to say.

“When we encounter someone, sometimes we want to offer something. That can be limiting because people are hurting. …

“More than anything, people need to be listened to.”

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For the website HelpGuide.org, visit Help Guide.