Job
30:26-27 But when I hoped for good, evil
came, and when I waited for light, darkness came. My inward parts are in
turmoil and never still; days of affliction come to meet me.
Grief is paradoxical; it is
both a universal and an individual reality. No one is exempt from emotional
suffering or grief, it is universal. Yet, only the one stricken can resolve
their grief, it is an individual experience.
While grief occurs in a
variety of situations there is an element that transcends its diversity. This
element is loss or deprivation. Grief can be defined as emotional suffering
resulting from the loss of someone or something.
Grief is common among our
shelter clients. They experience grief as a result of losing custody of
children, entering the shelter due to the loss of family, the loss of freedom
to drink or drug, the loss of their material possessions or any hope for
employment. Often times we fail to recognize the trauma of these events and the
emotional impact they have caused in our clients. We fail to address grief as a
source of their initial state of being.
The symptoms experienced by
someone suffering with grief include: shock, panic, anger, bargaining, despair,
depression, numbness, and hopelessness. These symptoms are common with clients
and often discounted as merely rebelliousness that needs correcting. However, a
careful consideration of the life losses these men and women have had will help
to separate the truly rebellious from the grieving.
Grief is seen as a cycle
that seems to move from denial to shock, panic, anger, bargaining, despair,
depression, numbness, hope and concludes with acceptance of the loss. The
experience of grief is not as linear as this description. A “spiral” that moves
up and down through these emotions is a better analogy. Grief is an illness
that heals itself when the lost object is replaced and hope for the future is
established.
