[Alffe]

Grandy's Cooking Tips

- Grief is the process you go through as you adjust to the loss of anything or anyone important in your life.

- The loss of a job, a move, divorce, death of someone you love, or a change in health status are just a few of the situations that can cause grief.

- Grief is both physically and emotionally exhausting. It is also irrational and unpredictable and can shake your very foundation.

- The amount of "work" your grief requires will depend on your life experiences, the type of loss, and whatever else you have on your plate at that time.

- A sudden, unexpected loss is usually more traumatic, more disruptive and requires more time to adjust to.

- If your loss occured through violence, expect that all the normal grief reactions will be exaggerated.

- You may lose trust in your own ability to make decisions and/or to trust others.

- Assumptions about fairness, life order, and religious beliefs are often challenged.

- Smells can bring back memories of a loss and a fresh wave of grief.

- Seasons, with their colors and climate, can also take you back to that moment in time when your world stood still.

- You may sense you have no control in your life.

- Being at work may provide a relief from your grief, but as soon as you get in the car and start driving home you may find your grief come flooding back.

- You may find that you are incapable of functioning in the work environment for a short while.

- Because grief is distracting it also means you are more accident-prone.

- The object of grieving is not to get over the loss or recover from the loss but to get through the loss.

- Over the years you will look back and discover that this grief keeps teaching you new things about life. Your understanding of life will just keep going deeper.

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Tear Soup by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen

is an excellent book and a good gift to give to grieving friends.