Hook Home Help is supporting people with bereavement and grief

This week is National Grief Awareness Week. We all experience grief differently, but at some point we will all experience it. The older people in our lives will be experiencing grief and loss more often as they lose their family and friends. When we are younger we often like to live in denial, hoping that the people who are important to us will always be there. As we get older we inevitably start to lose people who we treasure dearly. 

Since starting Hook Home Help, I have felt touched by those who have shared their grief so honestly with me. Two clients in particular had lost their most special people. They had both lost their spouse and their first born sons. They both kept the order of service from the funerals close by, sometimes having many copies of them in each room. They both had their photos on display and liked to talk about them often. 

One of them was a lady who shared the details of both her son and husband’s illness and passing. She didn’t like to talk about this with her remaining children who were both grieving for their dad and older brother. Every week she told me about the sadness of living without her husband and son. She also told me about the birth of her babies and the happiness of their childhoods. She told me about the warmth of her extended family and her in-laws. Her stories went from council houses in Newcastle to London and across the world as they travelled for her husband’s work and back to Hook where they retired. I loved hearing these stories, they were all new to me, and I listened and laughed even when they weren't. Each week I helped her with practical things in the house that her husband would have done for her and she admitted how hard it was to live alone. 

This time my job was just to be company and another pair of hands to change lightbulbs and do little household jobs, and report back to her son how she was doing. Mainly I was listening to someone who needed to feel heard.

Sometimes it can be easier to talk to someone who is not in the family. She knew she could admit to her sadness and didn’t have to try to be brave. She knew she could tell her stories as many times as she liked. She could talk about it all without feeling like a burden or a problem to be solved. 

We laughed together and cried together. I cried for people who I had never met and never would. Her sadness touched my heart and all I could do was try to help by listening and understanding. Hoping that the sharing of the pain would lessen it eventually.