Grief Explored (article) by Aubrey Hammack on AuthorsDen

Grief Explored (article) by Aubrey Hammack on AuthorsDen

Grief Explored

By Aubrey Hammack



Dealing with the death of someone we love is extremely painful and we find out quickly that most people do not feel comfortable with talking with those that have just experienced a loss. Part of that reason I believe is that it makes people get in touch with their own mortality. It is also a lot harder to deal with grief when it involves sudden, unexpected death.

Of course, if it is an older person the blow will be softened somewhat because we can rationalize it better and say that they lived to be an older adult and after all death is expected when one is older.

But what are some things that can help us through some of these depressing times when we have lost that special someone.

I heard a good example a few years ago that we need to allow folks to peel off layers of grief like we are peeling an onion. It is going to be a slow process and we are told that the usual time period in dealing with grief is roughly two years give or take some months.

It absolutely helps when we are able to talk about the person that has died. Sometimes people will need a therapist or other professional to help with this process when there is more complicated grief issues, but it is my feeling that under normal circumstances we have a God given way of dealing with grief and can do this without outside help most of the time.

Some things that help besides talking to people about that loved one are: looking at pictures of the person deceased, remembering the happy times and usually there were many, thinking of things that you did with them, visiting the grave site as many times as you feel like you would like to and talking to them there and sharing what you feel like you missed saying to them, writing a letter to the deceased if there were things that you felt like you didn’t get to say to them before they died, visiting places that you went with that person, touching items that you have that might have been given to you by the deceased, and calling that person by their name when you are telling someone about them.

Also, a great healer is laugher and I am convinced that if we can think of some funny things that we experienced with that person that this will help.

It is okay to get in touch with negative things that happened between us and the deceased. This is part of the overall process to work through grief.

The funeral is extremely important in the grief process. It is healthy if one feels they can do it to help plan the service. It is recommended that spending some private time with that special person that has died is good.

Also, spending time with family members and the deceased helps. These suggestions are just a few of the things that can be of assistance to anyone that has lost a loved one.

Also, we need to cry. Crying is so important. When I hear people that have loss a loved tell me that they can’t cry, I feel someway that this is shutting the door on grief. Of course there are reasons sometimes why people can’t cry. We do know that crying is cleansing and healthy for us.

As we know there are stages that we go through when we grieve. The first one is shock or disbelief that we have loss someone and this is usually even stronger when it is a younger person that we’ve lost and it has been sudden. We are told that this period will usually last for about 3 weeks. This is the natural way that we deal with death. Our brain has a built in mechanism to protect us from going crazy. This is why we refuse to believe that this person has left us. We need time to accept this.

The second stage is reality. We wake up and realize that we will never see this person again on this earth. Here we experience a terrible lonely, blue, sad feeling. This usually occurs after the funeral. This stage can take more time.

The third stage is the reaction one. You start displaying anger. Anger is the natural feeling you have to any hurt. Some people in this stage may feel you are getting worse but actually you are getting better. Ministers and doctors many times get the brunt of this anger. Why couldn’t the doctor do something to save this person? We feel many times the minister should have been able to intervene directly with God.

The fourth and final stage is the recovery stage. People do get better and they do recover. It is not that we get over missing this loved one. We just learn to cope with the loss of that person and live in the world without them. It’s is not that we get to the point where we do not miss them and think about them. We accept the fact that they are not with us any more and realize that we are still alive and we will live in this world without them.

It is possible to get hung up in any one stage and sometimes it might take professional help to move through them.It helps tremendously, I believe if we have a strong spiritual side. Then we can have the assurance that we will see this person again one day when we die.

Death is hard to handle but we need to remember that we will get through the depression and yes it will be hard, but God will take us through it.


There is a lot of information on this topic out there. For anyone reading this today that needs help in this area, find someone to talk to. If you have a good friend, minister, therapist, or another person seek them out and ask if you can borrow their ears.

And for the person that is sought out, remember this. Many times all this person needs is to be heard. They need someone with compassion to let them talk. For those that say I don't know what to say to that person that has loss a loved one. Just say I love you, I care, or I am so sorry. Nothing else needs to be said.

There is much more to this topic than what is seen in this article. The intention of this pen is to be an introduction to exploring grief.



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NATIONAL DATABASE TO MATCH UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS AND MISSING PERSONS INFORMATION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, September 12, 2007
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ Office of Justice Programs
Contact: Summer Duncan
Phone: (202) 307-0703
TTY: (202) 514-1888

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DEMONSTRATES NATIONAL DATABASE TO MATCH UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS AND MISSING PERSONS INFORMATION


New System Will Help Bring Answers to Families of the Missing

WASHINGTON - Assistant Attorney General Regina B. Schofield of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) today joined nationally renowned medical examiners and other prominent speakers in exhibiting a new national database for matching unidentified human remains with records of missing persons.

"Thousands of people, children and adults, vanish under suspicious circumstances every year," said Assistant Attorney General Schofield. "The remains of thousands more sit in coroners' and medical examiners' offices waiting to be identified. This new Internet-based tool will enable investigators, forensics professionals, and the public to cross-reference these records and bring answers to families of the missing."

The database showcased today is the foundation of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) announced by the Justice Department on July 2, 2007. NamUs will address two of the Department's priorities: assisting investigators in solving missing persons cases and helping medical examiners and coroners identify human remains. The NamUs database, which is viewable at http://www.namus.gov, was developed by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), OJP's research, development, and evaluation component. Ultimately, medical examiners, coroners, law enforcement officials, forensic professionals, and the public will be able to use the database to search and match missing persons records and information about unidentified human remains. Today's meeting at the National Press Club began an OJP outreach effort to solicit the participation of medical examiners and coroners across the United States and inform the public about the resources available through the system.

More than 100,000 missing persons are listed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center, a computerized index of criminal justice information from local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Almost half of these individuals have had no known contact for over a year. A recent report from OJP's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that, on average, some 4,400 unidentified human bodies are received in medical examiners' and coroners' offices each year and about 1,000 remain unidentified after one year. In establishing a central reporting system for unidentified remains, NamUs enhances the potential of investigators to solve cases by matching those remains with missing persons records.

The creation of NamUs is part of a major effort by the Department of Justice that began shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The recovery effort, and NIJ's work to assist the New York City Medical Examiner's Office in identifying the victims, underscored an ongoing problem in matching missing persons with human remains. In April 2005, NIJ convened a summit of law enforcement officials, medical examiners, coroners, forensic scientists, policymakers, victim advocates, and families of the missing. As a result of the summit, the Department created a National Missing Persons Task Force, which recommended improved access to information about these cases through a national database. The work of the task force complements the President's DNA Initiative, under which the Department is supporting the use of DNA evidence to identify missing persons. The new NamUs database serves as a repository for information such as height, weight, tattoos, scars, and clothing, all of which, like DNA, can be vital to the identification of remains.

"Solving these difficult cases depends on the ability of professionals to access information about physical characteristics," said Assistant Attorney General Schofield. "I hope that medical examiners and coroners across the country will work with us to use the NamUs database to its fullest potential."

Joining Assistant Attorney General Schofield were David Hagy, Acting Principal Deputy Director of NIJ; Jan C. Garavaglia, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner for Orange and Osceola Counties in Florida and host of the Discovery Health Channel's "Dr. G: Medical Examiner;" Randy Hanzlick, M.D., Medical Examiner for Fulton County, Georgia; and Debbie Culberson, a victim advocate from Blanchester, Ohio and mother of Carrie Culberson, who was murdered 11 years ago and whose body has never been found.

The Office of Justice Programs, headed by Assistant Attorney General Regina B. Schofield, provides federal leadership in developing the nation's capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP has five component bureaus: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the Office for Victims of Crime. Additionally, OJP has two program offices: the Community Capacity Development Office, which incorporates the Weed and Seed strategy, and the Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking Office (SMART). More information can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov.


I wanted to share this article with you all. Debbie Culberson and Todd Matthews of the Doe Network are currently in Washington DC supporting a new program that is designed to help possibly bring closure to many families to continue to wait for answers for their missing loved ones. The program is designed to match unidentified human remains with a database of entries submitted. This is very important and very much needed across the world. I'm very proud of this program and the fact that Debbie Culberson, Todd Matthews and others have stepped forward to help create this system to help the hundreds of families who could quite possibly have an answer now if this system was already in place. Please take a look at this. Thanks to all who took time to read this.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DEMONSTRATES NATIONAL DATABASE TO MATCH UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS AND MISSING PERSONS INFORMATION

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/2007/OAAG07072.htm