When most of us think about the death of a friend we think about someone that we worked with, that we went to school with, or became acquainted with in some way. In short, we think about our human friends who have passed on. Dealing with the death of the people you know and love is difficult, but so to is the loss of a pet. Many people don’t realize that the loss of a pet can be as painful as the loss of a friend or family member. It sounds silly to those that do not have the love of that special dog, cat, bird, ferret, or another furry animal, but the love that you share with these animals is unlike the love that you will ever share with a human, making the loss of our animals difficult. Read More »
Having someone that you love commit suicide is one of the most painful human experiences imaginable.
As we grow up and get older there is an understanding that most of us have, and this is that children usually bury their parents instead of the other way around. There is just this understanding that we are going to lose our parents and though we know this, most of us are not prepared for the loss that we experience when our parents do pass on. Whether the passing is a shock or something that you know is coming, when your parent is gone it can be hard to deal with the wave of emotions that course through your mind. Dealing with these emotions are always a personal challenge and time does help us cope with our losses, but these trials can be softened by the support and understanding of family members and friends, and by similar experiences shared by acquaintances you may know online. 
The older you get the more loss you are going to experience and this loss will take many forms including friends, family, and even co-workers and people from around your neighborhood. Death is a part of life, but it doesn’t mean that grief gets any easier to handle. Losing those that you love and care about is difficult at any age but many seniors feel like they are losing everyone around them and this makes every loss even more profound. 
The notion of grief management lies in the ability to cope with a loss which is significant enough to elicit the emotion of grief itself. Grief is often erroneously thought of as synonymous with sadness, but grief is a much broader, multifaceted emotional reaction.
We all know that it is in one’s highest good to grieve the loss of a relationship. Healthy grief releases feelings rather than allowing them to get stuck in the body. Healthy grief allows the griever to heal the loss and move on with life.
Everyone gets to experience a moment of grief, loss and sadness at some point in their lifetime. Grief is something that follows a loss. Grief can take many forms: it can initially settle in as numbness and later evolve to become a mixture of sadness, anger, confusion, sense of being lost, frustration and desperation. Losing a child causes grief that can be very painful. A parent who is emotionally and physically close to the child finds himself losing a portion of his own identity along with the loss of a child. This puts the parent in a sort of psychological trauma. They may find themselves wondering how to bring back their child - searching for them or reminders of them. They may even hear their voice or think that they see them in familiar places. It takes a long time to gradually get accustomed to the great loss. The intense emotional pain that takes over the parents when they first hear of the loss of their child can make them feel if they can ever survive through this pain. Progress is made through grief slowly as the feelings are worked through. Freud called this grief work. 
Death, both to the living and to the dying, means many different things. To some extent the meaning is different from person to person but many times our thoughts are based on our religion. Each religion around the world has their own view on death, the process of dying, and what is done after death. These perspectives help those who believe make death more acceptable. Many credit their faith with helping them deal with a mortality issue and others look to their faith in order to help them understand the passing of those they love. Grief is a powerful emotion and how we deal with it may have much to do with our faith. 
Throughout time, mankind has been raised to produce, and re-produce. As generations and cultures have developed, aspects or behaviors of our past ancestors has been saved, discarded, or perhaps lost. For most North Americans, we have lost a sense of grief, what it is, and how we go about doing it. How often do we hear of our children being taught by their parents, the skill of how to grieve well? One thing we all experience in life is loss of the life of someone near and dear to us. We as human beings, as great as we are, scientifically speaking, begin to die the moment we are born, for our cells die continually from birth onward.