Death always seems to come to soon or when we don’t expect it. No matter how long someone has lived or how they’ve died, it is impossible to fully prepare for the moment and the days that follow.

Our relationships don’t end with death. We are always connected. Death changes the way in which we can communicate, but our feelings, thoughts, memories and experiences live on.

We can say goodbye to a loved one, as we knew them, but we don’t have to say goodbye forever. We can choose to say “hello” to them, as the days pass, how we want them to be. We can stay connected to the love and potential that existed or was possible, when they lived and let go of the rest.

Grieve it all. Don’t leave out anything; the good, the bad, the confusion, pain, joy and compassion. Then, as time goes on, decide what you want to hold on to and what you don’t need any more. What parts of the relationship do you still cherish? How do you want to stay connected?

You can now have it as you like it.
It’s their death and your life.
Let them go and hold them close.
How do you choose to keep living with the person who has died?

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Gabriel Constans

Gabriel Constans, Ph.D., continues to discover and share the most effective exercises and insights he has found in his work as a grief, trauma and mental health counselor for over three and a half decades in North America and Africa. His work includes time as a hospice bereavement counselor, social worker, hospital chaplain, responder with the coroner's office for sudden death, mental health consultant and adviser for Santa Cruz Integrative Medicine and Rwandan Orphan's Project and is presently in private practice. He has 12 books published in the U.S. (see below), 5 children and 2 grandchildren. Books by Gabriel Constans related to grief: 12 books published in the U.S. Those related to grief and loss include: Just a Heartbeat Away - When a Mother Dies of AIDS. The Goddess of Cancer. Picking Up the Pieces - A program about violent death for use with middle school students. Good Grief - Love, Loss and Laughter The Skin of Lions - Rwandan Folk Tales Don't Just Sit There, Do Something! Grief's Wake Up Call. Paging Doctor Leff - Pride, Patriotism and Protest.

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