When to Be Concerned

There are times when the grief experience can be overwhelming and individuals and/or families may need more extensive counseling and support. Clues to more complicated grief and mourning include:

• Lack of basic self-care
• Unusual and alarming behavior patterns
• Suicidal threats or attempts
• Multiple losses that can be overwhelming
• Severe withdrawal and/or depression
• Substance abuse
• Radical lifestyle changes.

Healing Strategies for Helping Families Grieve

It is important when working with anyone who is grieving to do the following:

• Become aware of your own personal issues around grief. This means becoming aware of your own fears, attitudes, and beliefs about grief. For example, if an individual were raised to believe that “We don’t air our dirty laundry in public,” then that individual may have difficulty helping a family who needs to vent and share their pain openly and/or with great emotion.
• Acknowledge the family’s grief. Label their experience as one of grief. Let them know they have a right to have their feelings.
• Be there. One’s presence can be the greatest gift given to a grieving individual. Sometimes holding someone’s hand, offering a hug, or just acknowledging, “This must be so hard for you,” can be enough to support someone in their grief process.
• Listen. Grieving people need to share their pain with another person who will not judge them or give them advice and suggestions. Listening to someone tell their story over and over can often be an invaluable gift to them in helping them sort through their feelings and release their pain.
• Offer “permission to grieve.” Teach grieving families that it is important to express the emotions of grief, but that there are ways to express the pain that are more healing than others. For example, an angry parent can learn to express their anger through physical activity such as yard work, tearing up old phone books, writing letters, or screaming in a pillow. The key is to help grieving people find constructive ways to release their feelings of grief rather than to take it out on others or themselves.
• Help families create a memory book. This might include photos, drawings, funny things someone said or did, etc. This is especially helpful to families who have experienced a death.
• Develop and encourage support groups. Support groups give families a chance to share their pain with others experiencing loss.
• Children love, therefore they grieve. Encourage children to participate in all of the above suggestions. By teaching children how to deal with the pain of loss early in life, we can teach them how to grieve the losses that are an inevitable part of their future lives, losses such as moving, divorce, the break-up of a relationship, or the death of a friend, loved one, or pet. Children can draw pictures or write letters to an ill sibling or grandparent as a way to express their love and concern.
• Encourage families to write letters to someone who has died or is ill. Frequently they can express many unresolved emotions in letters that need never be sent. Writing a letter or note to a family member who is in crisis respite may offer a caregiver a healing release of feelings of frustration and despair.

Emotions of Grief

People experience the pain of grief with a variety of emotional responses which include shock (“it can’t be true”), denial (“the tests were wrong”), anger (“why did she get AIDS and not someone else?”), guilt (“why did I smoke [or drink alcohol] during my pregnancy”), fear (“how will I manage to care for him?”), exhaustion, depression, confusion, and bargaining (“if only we could have a miracle”). These are just a few of the myriad of emotions people in grief experience. It is also important to understand that people experience these emotions in a roller-coaster fashion: sometimes feeling up and hopeful, other days feeling deeply depressed, other days coasting along and feeling virtually no emotion. All of these emotions are a normal part of the grief and mourning process.

The Bereavement Director Is Experiencing Grief

Over the years, I have taken care of many Patients, Families, and Medical Personnel. Now as the years continue to pass by many of my own Advisors and Mentors have made the ongoing transition to the Final Analysis of Life.

Now I pray each one of these Holy Priests will Intercede for me as I proceed towards the Final Analysis of Life.

Rev. Jeremiah Boland....................................................................January 9, 1991
Most Rev. Alphonse Gallegos, O.A.R., D.D. ................................... October 6, 1991
Rev. Msgr. Cornelius P. Higgins.........................................................May 11, 2001
Rev. Tobias Vereker..................................................................September 4, 2001

Rev. Msgr. Andrew V. Coffey ........................................................August 12, 2010

Rev. Msgr. Patrick O’Neill.............................................................. October 4, 2011
Rev. Monsignor Felix A. Losito.......................................................November 3, 2011, 

Father Giancarlo Mittempergher, C.S.S…......................................December 11, 2017

Rev. Martin Brusato...................................................................... January 1, 2018

Msgr. Edward Kavanagh................................................................March 17, 2018

Rev. E. Francis Lawlor...................................................................... May 17, 2018

Rev. Kevin Scallion, CM.................................................................... June 25, 2018

Rev. Nicholas Duggan.................................................................. October 3, 2018

Is miscarriage considered bereavement leave?

A bill currently being considered by the country's parliament is proposing that women 

who have a miscarriage at any stage in their pregnancy should be entitled to three days 

paid bereavement leave. It would also apply to their partners.

Bereavement Leave. Bereavement leave is leave taken by an employee due to the death of another individual, usually a close relative. The time is usually taken by an employee to grieve the loss of a close family member, prepare for and attend a funeral, and/or attend to any other immediate post-death matters. 

Who qualifies bereavement? 

Immediate Family Defined for Bereavement Leave: Immediate family members are defined as an employee's spouse, parents, stepparents, sisters, brothers, children, stepchildren, grandparents, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, or grandchild.

What I have done to provide Improved Crisis Interventions

As a crisis intervention specialist, I have consult with clients in their own personal offices and have traveled to schools, offices, and areas in which a traumatic event has occurred to help affected people respond to a crisis. I have trained others in crisis intervention and coordination of services to help individuals receive the care they need. I have also referred-affected individuals for long-term counseling

I have followed these Principles each time I take on a new assignment

·         Simplicity: The response should be as simple as possible to avoid exacerbating the situation.

·         Brevity: The response should be brief, keeping the intervention within a one-month window or less.

·         Innovation: When necessary, the intervention must adapt to the surroundings.

·         Pragmatism: The response should be based on a common-sense attitude.

·         Proximity: The response should take place within the vicinity of the crisis, not from a remote office or facility.

·         Immediacy: Gathering resources and meeting with affected individuals should occur quickly.

·         Reliability: Those in crisis should feel as though their needs will not only be addressed immediately, but also on an ongoing basis while the crisis runs its course.

·         Understanding: The individual in crisis should receive help in understanding what is happening, why it is happening, and what to do about it.

·         Problem solving: The specialist should provide the patient with the tools necessary to help him cope on his own once the crisis has passed.