Grief happens when an individual experiences a loss. It could be about losing a love one, a job, or any other similar event. It is a natural response to loss and it is important to acknowledge and allow grieving to happen because it will initiate the healing process. Grief affects an individual’s emotional, physical, and psychological aspects, and while individuals have various experiences when it comes to expressing grief, common reactions include anger, fatigue, helplessness, disbelief, preoccupation, confusion, lack of energy, trouble sleeping, breathlessness, and nausea, among others (McSpedden, 2011). Grief is normal and an expected reaction to loss. Grieving individuals must learn to accept and embrace the grieving process in order to heal and transition to the new normal.
Coping with Perinatal and Adult-Child Deaths
Death of any child within the family is painful to parents, especially since children do not usually die ahead of the parents. But when they do, the pain is intense, long-lasting, complex, and causes anxiousness (McSpedden, 2011). Perinatal death is devastating for parents. It pertains to “the loss of any pregnancy through miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth, or neonatal death” (Lamb, 2002, p. 33). When a baby dies, mothers typically experience mixed emotions, such as guilt, feelings of sadness, loss of hopes and dreams, decreased self-esteem, and fear of one’s incapability of bearing another child, among others (Lamb, 2002, p. 33; McSpedden, 2011). Due to these fears and insecurities, couples suffer in silence and may harbor feelings of isolation and resentment.
On the other hand, when an adult child dies, parents also suffer so much especially when the relationship between the parent and the child has already developed from a parent-child relationship into a more mature relationship, resulting to over protectiveness towards the surviving children or a new baby in the family, called vulnerable child syndrome (Lamb, 2002, p. 36). This is especially true for parents who have reared their children and have seen their children grow into what they have become now. For fear of losing the subsequent child, parents succumb to over protectiveness to ensure the child’s safety, as they are used to deal with “unresolved grief issues” (Lamb, 2002, p. 36) parents have with the older child. When the child has reached adulthood and dies, parents “feel unsupported and uninformed by medical professionals, and excluded from the decision-making process related to their adult children’s illnesses and death” (Cacace & Williamson, 1996). The pain of losing a child, regardless of age, will not go away easily. The only way to manage the pain is to accept what happened and draw strength from remaining love ones, especially the grandchildren (Cacace & Williamson, 1996).
Support from Healthcare Professionals and Chaplaincy Workers
Williams et al., (2012) asserted that healthcare professionals, such as nurses and caregivers, as well as chaplaincy workers, can provide support to grieving parents by keeping the family informed about the goings-on while a patient is being treated, describing the patient’s condition, and advising them about the patients’ health status periodically. Williams et al., (2012) further declared that it also helps when nurses display attentiveness to the needs of the patient and the family in terms of understanding the nature of the health problem and providing whatever information the nurse could provide the family. This is especially important when a patient is dying and the family wants to know what exactly is happening to the patient. This act shows how compassionate nurses can be when faced with tragedy.
These healthcare professionals also facilitate final acts of goodbye and private time after death (Williams et al., 2012) to prepare the family about the impending death. Thus, nurses have the necessary perception skills to understand if family members need more time with the ill or dead relative or they need to be led away from the scene. They provide reassuring attentiveness to the needs of the family and the patient, giving the family the sense that the healthcare professional is “sensitive to the needs of the dying and the concerns of the living” (Williams et al., 2012). It also helps if the nurse knows how to honor the dead by respecting the deceased’s body (Williams et al., 2012).
Losses Experienced by the Bereaved When a Spouse Dies
Nihtila & Martikainen (2008) point out that when an individual loses a spouse, that person’s world changes because the individual may feel shocked and fearful of the future. Gone is the person whom he or she spends time with, the anchor who helps run the household (p. 1233) , and decreased to no spousal financial support (p. 1229). It could generate feelings of numbness, guilt, and anger all at the same time. All these are normal reactions to losing a spouse as there are no specific guidelines that tell how an individual must mourn the dead. However, this could result to sleeplessness, loss of appetite, problems on concentration, inability to make fast decisions, depression, anxiety, and fear (p. 1228). The issue on security crops up as there would be a question on how one can proceed with life with all the expenses associated with the loss and the future of the children, which is reason enough why bereaved individuals need “social and instrumental support” (p. 1228) at all times.
De Vries & Rutherford (2004) asserted that the grieving process differs now from how it was in the past considering that bereaved families now opt to create web memorials for their deceased family member as they take advantage of computer technology. A high prevalence of those who adhere to this form is the children (33%), followed by friends (15%), and the rest are from other family members who speak about “missing the deceased, rarely spoke of the cause of death, or made mention of God or religion” (De Vries & Rutherford, 2004).
There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There are no specific ways on how to manage grief regardless of the nature or reason for grief because people are thinking individuals whose coping mechanism varies. Thus, pre-conceived notions about grief should be removed as it does not help in managing the emotions of family and friends.
References
Cacace, MF., & Williamson, E. (1996). Grieving the death of an adult child. Journal of Gerontol Nurs, 22(2), 16-22. Abstract retrieved from Abstracts in PubMed database. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8632124
De Vries, B., & Rutherford, J. (2004). Memorializing loved ones on the world wide web. Journal of Death and Dying, 49(1), 5-26. Abstract retrieved from Abstracts in Omega database. Retrieved from http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,8;journal,75,267;linkingpublicationresults,1:300329,1
Lamb, E. H. (2002). The impact of previous perinatal loss on subsequent pregnancy and parenting. The Journal of Perinatal Education. 11(2): 33-40. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1595109/pdf/JPE110033.pdf
McSpedden, M. (2011). Perinatal grief: A poignant form of bereavement. In Psych December 2011, Australian Psychological Society. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.org.au/Content.aspx?ID=4090
Nihtila, E., & Martikainen, P. (2008). Institutionalization of older adults after the death of a spouse. American Journal of Public Health, 98(7): 1228-1234. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424099/pdf/0981228.pdf
Williams, B. R., Lewis, D. R., Burgio, K. L., & Goode, P. S. (2012). Next-of-kin’s perceptions of how hospital nursing staff support family presence before, during, and after the death of a loved one. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing, 14(8): 541-550. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/774685
