When my son died, the best thing for me was to keep busy doing something, pretty much anything, that kept my mind occupied. If I didn't stay busy, I had too much time to think, which was not a good thing.
My advice to people who ask usually is, find people who will be there for you when you feel like connecting with people - in this day and age we connect with each other in so many and varied ways. Have friends/family you can call or visit if you feel like it, or connect with online friends. Don't feel like you have to behave in a certain way. Grief is an emotion that is shared throughout the human race, but not everyone grieves in exactly the same way, so you aren't doing it wrong if you don't experience it in the same way as the next person. I had family members who thought I handled it too well and are probably still waiting for me to have a total breakdown, even 17 years later, because they just "know" that's what would happen to them, even though they've never experienced it themselves.
Disregard anyone who tries to tell you that you will "get over" losing someone; in fact I wouldn't want to get over losing my son because that would diminish who he was and the impact he made on the lives of everyone who knew him in his relatively short time with us (he died at 24). I think about him every day, generally with a smile on my face remembering things he said or did. My favorite saying about a lost loved one is something I found shortly after he died: "Mourn not too long that he is gone, but rejoice forever that he was".
My advice to people who ask usually is, find people who will be there for you when you feel like connecting with people - in this day and age we connect with each other in so many and varied ways. Have friends/family you can call or visit if you feel like it, or connect with online friends. Don't feel like you have to behave in a certain way. Grief is an emotion that is shared throughout the human race, but not everyone grieves in exactly the same way, so you aren't doing it wrong if you don't experience it in the same way as the next person. I had family members who thought I handled it too well and are probably still waiting for me to have a total breakdown, even 17 years later, because they just "know" that's what would happen to them, even though they've never experienced it themselves.
Disregard anyone who tries to tell you that you will "get over" losing someone; in fact I wouldn't want to get over losing my son because that would diminish who he was and the impact he made on the lives of everyone who knew him in his relatively short time with us (he died at 24). I think about him every day, generally with a smile on my face remembering things he said or did. My favorite saying about a lost loved one is something I found shortly after he died: "Mourn not too long that he is gone, but rejoice forever that he was".
