(for children) WHAT IS GRIEF?

Grief is the horrible way we feel—which affects both our bodies and our minds—when we love someone, or something that was irreplaceable.

Sometimes the loss is so big, the hole we feel in our hearts and in our lives is so huge, we have trouble eating or sleeping, or even thinking.

People may grieve—have grief or, as we say, suffer with grief—for a long time after a loved one dies. If you feel that way, it’s very normal. It may help you to talk about how you feel. It may help to remember him in a special way. It may help to get busy sometimes doing something you used to enjoy doing.

Over time, the grief isn’t so intense, it isn’t so strong. It will go down a notch or two and then, you’ll start to feel like your old self. You’ll still be sad when you think about him, but it won’t be a sadness so deep and so powerful you almost feel paralyzed, you almost feel like you can’t even move.

It may not seem possible right now, but, with time, things are going to be OK.

Page 58. "Your Grieving Child - Answers to Questions on Death and Dying" by permission of the author, Bill Dodds. Published by Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division. Copyright 2001.