Nationwise - Tips for dealing with bereavement

My son Pat died in 2008 of a liver complaint. He’d been poorly for some time but I didn’t realise the extent, and I didn’t realise it was quite so serious because he never told me. I don’t think there’s a proper of grieving at all. I went into my shell, I stayed indoors, I didn’t want to do anything I didn’t want to meet anybody. My daughter did the exact opposite. She’s a carer in the community and she just went straight back out to work. It’s however you can cope really. Grief is a different thing even if you’ve experienced it more than once. When my mum died, although it was a sudden death, I could accept that more. But when my son died, it was a completely different process altogether. I was reading the local newspaper, the Gazette, and I just happened to see this advert with the WRVS and they were saying about this new befriending system they were trying to get off the ground. I’d been to see Pam, I think it was on the third visit actually, that I found myself talking about my son. > You just sat there and listened to me. > And it all came tumbling out. Finding someone who wasn’t involved with the family, who didn’t know me, who didn’t know my son, was a great benefit and it helped me immensely. It’s about three and a half years now since my son died, and my feelings have changed. I’m able to think about him and I laugh at some of the things he did. I just remember all those things now, and it makes me feel happy to remember him.