Tools & Resources

by Therese A. Rando

1. All losses are the same
2. It takes two months to get over your grief
3. All bereaved people grieve in the same way
4. Grief always declines over time in a steadily decreasing fashion
5. When grief is resolved, it never comes up again
6. Family members will always help grievers
7. Children grieve like adults
8. Feeling sorry for yourself is not allowable
9. It is better to put painful things out of your mind
10. You should not think about your deceased loved one at the holidays because it will make you too sad
11. Bereaved individuals only need to express their feelings and they will resolve their grief
12. Expressing feelings that are intense is the same as losing control
13. There is no reason to be angry at people who tried to do their best for your deceased loved one
14. There is no reason to be angry at your deceased loved one
15. Only sick individuals have physical problems in grief
16. Because you feel crazy, you are going crazy
17. You should feel only sadness that your loved one has died
18. Infant death shouldn’t be too difficult to resolve because you didn’t know the child that well
19. Children need to be protected from grief and death
20. Rituals and funerals are unimportant in helping us deal with life and death in contemporary America
21. Being upset and grieving means that you do not believe in God or trust your religion
22. You and your family will be the same after death as before your loved one died
23. You will have no relationship with your loved one after the death
24. The intensity and length of your grief are testimony to your love for the deceased
25. There is something wrong if you do not always feel close to your other family members, since you should be happy that they are still alive
26. There is something wrong with you if you think that part of you has died with your loved one
27. If someone has lost a spouse, he or she knows what it is like to lose a child
28. When in doubt about what to say to a bereaved person, offer a cliché.
29. It is better to tell a bereaved person to “Be brave” and “Keep a stiff upper lip” because then they will not have to experience as much pain
30. When you grieve the death of a loved one, you only grieve for the loss of that person and nothing else
31. Grief will affect you psychologically, but in no other way
32. If you are a widow, you should grieve like other widows
33. Losing someone to sudden death is the same as losing someone to an anticipated death
34. You will not be affected much if your parent dies when you are an adult
35. Parents usually divorce after a child dies
36. It is not important for you to have social support in your grief
37. Once your loved one has died it is better not to focus on him or her, but to put him or her in the past and go on with your life
38. You can find ways to avoid the pain of your grief and still resolve it successfully

by Therese A. Rando, How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies, 1988, pp. 7-9.
With permission of the author