My dad died in July of 2009. It was a great loss for me, as I had lost my mom 6 years earlier.

He was in declining health, but nothing seemed life threatening. Then he had a sudden aneurysm in his stomach, and was gone less than 2 hours after being taken to the hospital.

My dad was a Christian and ready to go. We sang gospel music for over 45 years and my wife, children and I will carry on with that ministry.

The emotion that surprises me the most from the loss of my dad is that I feel alone because I have lost both my parents. Even though I have a wonderful wife and 3 great children, I feel like since I am the head of the Einert family now, that I am alone at the top, having to steer the ship all by myself.

Now, I know this is not really the truth, but as long as I had a parent or grandparent alive, I always had someone above me to go to and ask advice. I have talked with others who have lost both parents and they agreed that they had the same feeling.

I have been studying grief recovery for children lately, and know that young children who lose both of their parents must totally feel lost in the world. Can you imagine being a young child and having to go through the loss of both parents. Not knowing who to turn to, and not knowing who will take care of your needs, or whom you can confide in.

And as great as the loss of my dad was to me, I have not had a lot of emotional pain from grief. I think what I have gone through has been normal. I had a month or two right after his death where I would be reminded of him in some way and I would cry.

One instance I remember, I was going out to get in the car and go to the store, and my wife and I were watching country music videos on CMT. They played a video by Alan Jackson about him eating bologna. One of the things Dad always joked about at our singings was that I had survived all these years on bologna and crackers. Well, I listened to that song and just broke down and cried my eyes out. That was good for me, as it helped me to get over a lot of the emotional pains from the loss of my dad.

I really haven’t cried over Dad much since that time, but just a couple weeks ago, I lost my great-aunt. She had been in the rest home, and did not know that Dad died, or didn’t remember it. She had asked that Dad sing at her funeral, so we played the same songs, sung by my dad, that were played at his funeral.

I knew that would bring out some painful emotions while setting in the same funeral home and hearing those same songs I heard at my dad’s funeral. So I had a chance to hear the songs again the day before the funeral, and I used Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and tapped on the grief. When the funeral started I knew when the first song would be played, so just before they started playing it, I used mental tapping on myself, and had no problem with the songs causing me emotional pain during or after the funeral.

I am so glad to have this wonderful tool to be able to stop the emotional pain of grief. I still have all my wonderful memories of my dad and my great-aunt, but none of the emotional pain. And if ever in the future something should trigger this pain, I will be able to use the EFT to cut short the heavy emotional pain of my grief and leave only the good memories.

If you would like to know more about EFT, you can look it up on Google, or check my website for a video explaining how to use it for grief at http://www.griefrecoverythatworks.com/video.htm.