Every person is unique, but when you face a challenge like your own impending death or the death of a loved one, you are never alone. Countless men, women and children have faced the exact same struggle and have survived. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your journey with the best information and resources that helped other survivors when they faced the same challenge.
TSC has scoured the Web to gather together links to the very best grief, mourning, and death resources: articles, blogs, forums, and tools that can help you make better decisions and take action to overcome the range of emotional,spiritual, and physical challenges that you're facing now.
As you’ll see, we always welcome your ideas and suggestions to make this loss and bereavement guide even more helpful to survivors like you.
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Survivors Say: Best Resources for Dealing with Loss and Bereavement
The Big Picture
Watching someone go through the process of dying; losing a loved one; and finding out you yourself are dying are, each in their own way, the most emotionally distressing events any of us will ever go through. The incalculable loss, deep sadness, fear, anger, and devastation you are likely to be feeling now are very often overwhelming. Here are some resources for a variety of situations in which death is imminent or has already come:
- Mayoclinic.com: Hospice care - An option when confronting terminal illness
- American Cancer Society: Helping Children When A Family Member Has Cancer - Dealing with a Parent's Terminal Illness
- National Funeral Directors Association: Death From a Terminal Illness
- The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
- Caring Connections: Planning Ahead - What Are Advance Directives?
Your World
If you have just lost someone you may need help grieving this loss, both now and in the months and years to come:
- GriefWatch.com: Normal Reactions to Loss - The Mourning Process
- About.com: Mental Health - Dying, Grief and Mourning
Total Comments: 1
Losing Mom too early
My mother died in 1981 when I was 20 and a mother myself of 2 small sons. My loss was that much greater due to the fact that I had no siblings, no aunts or uncles and my father had left before I was born. It was at least 10 years before I could even say the word 'mother' or 'mom' without crying. There were times even years later when I would feel the grief as if she had just died, including crying so hard no sound came out. Then a friend gave me a book called "Motherless Daughters". Sorry, I dont recall the author, but its easy to find if you want it. I discovered that my reaction was not abnormal, in fact it was very normal. The book describes the reactions of 4 different age groups that lose a mother. 1st is too young to really remember more than just fleeting images, then there is the child that remembers her but doesnt grasp death, then teen & young adult. The best part of the book were the letters from other motherless daughters. If you are stuggling with the loss of your mother I do reccomend this book. You are also welcome to contact me. I do know how it feels.