Repast Facility

“Because We Care” Bereavement Aftercare

Join us for our monthly bereavement aftercare gatherings at 7:00 PM at the Funeral Home. We meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month from January through October. During the holiday season in November and December, we meet on the third Wednesday of the month.

Understanding Bereavement and Grief

Bereavement is derived from the root word “reave,” meaning to rob or forcibly deprive. It is the state an individual enters when they have been deprived of something valuable. Grief is the internal, emotional response to that loss—our body’s natural process for healing an emotional injury.

Death is a difficult and highly personal experience. Even if you have navigated loss yourself, consoling someone close to you remains a challenge. Understanding the grieving process is the first step in supporting the bereaved. Grief generally moves through several key stages.

The first phase is shock and denial. This begins with the news of the death and temporarily protects the survivor from the full emotional impact. The reality of the loss may set in within minutes, days, or even months. During this time, a person may experience a need to stay constantly busy, confusion, an inability to express emotion or function normally, and an overwhelming sense that something is wrong without fully grasping the reality of the loss.

The second phase involves the expression of grief, where the individual actively processes the loss through emotions like bargaining, anger, and depression. This phase can last from several days to several years. The bereaved may experience fluctuating mental manifestations, such as a preoccupation with the death, an inability to focus or remember, a lack of productivity, or inconsistent thoughts. They may also experience physical symptoms, including fatigue, weakness, insomnia, weight changes, headaches, vulnerability to stress-related illnesses, and discomfort with too much activity or too many people.