The death of a loved one

Death is the most natural and inevitable thing in life. But that still can't prepare us in any way for living through the loss of someone close.

Accepting the inevitability of death, its arrival and its consequences.

In the Harry Potter universe there are creatures called thestrals. In the story, only those who have seen death can see them. It's an image of how unique the experience of loss is.

Everything you know about death, everything you prepare yourself for, turns out to be a small fraction of what you will have to go through. This experience truly divides life into before and after. The childlike carefreeness — the sense that life is a celebration that lasts forever, that bad things happen to someone else — ends at that moment.

Stages of grief

1. The crisis of grief

It begins at the moment of death, or when we learn that death is coming soon. We find it hard to accept the fact of the loss and the new reality. We feel panic, numbness, anxiety, anger, fear, splitting (in any order). It seems that it's all a dream, and that when we wake up everything will be as before. This stage ends when we accept reality — it has happened. And that's when the second stage begins.

2. Adapting to the loss

This is the longest and hardest process. We re-evaluate the relationship, what it meant to us, and move it into our memories.

How to live through the loss of a loved one?

1. The most basic advice is to ex-pe-ri-ence it. Not to hide it, suppress it, smother it or bury it inside yourself. Even if it seems that once you start, there will be no end.

We don't know how much time it will take to get through it. Don't set limits or deadlines, but remember that it will end — just in its own time.

Imagine that grieving is a pool full of quagmire. However hard it is to sink into, it has a bottom. It won't swallow you up or drag you under.

2. Ask for help, talk to the people close to you, look for support. There's no shame in it, and it's really needed.

3. Come up with rituals connected to the person you've lost.

Different religions have their own ways of honouring the dead. They help grieving by bringing the feelings to the surface and not letting them get lost.

Talk about the person who died, remember the good moments and, contrary to the well-known saying, the bad ones too. Anger that they left you, unspoken grievances, worries, irritation — all negative emotions need time and space to come out. Living through them doesn't dishonour the person's memory and shouldn't make you feel guilty, while suppressing them only makes the loss harder to bear.

When does grieving end?

Over time, your reactions to the loss will become less acute, but they won't disappear completely.

The image of this person, our memories of them, will always live in our minds. On the anniversaries of their death, on birthdays, when important things happen in our lives or, for example, when we ourselves approach the age at which our loved one died, we may go through grief again.

This is inevitable and normal. After all, we want the person who mattered so much to us to share our experiences with us.

The end of grieving doesn't mean you will forget the person you lost.

"And you vanished — not to be found in the emptiness or in the dark

You merged with the air, you turned into smoke

All that's left are letters in documents, on bills

And those letters were your name"