“Loss cannot be escaped - it is a universal experience, although how we grieve is unique to each of us.”

Last Saturday, I attended a workshop on ‘Losing & Grieving’ by Rev Alister Hendry, author of 'The Grief Walk' and 'Earthed in Hope'. Alister Hendry is an Anglican priest presently serving in Hawkes Bay. He has worked in the Wellington Diocese and was the Christchurch Diocese Ministry Educator at one time. He has had a special focus on loss and grief for over 40 years.

The workshop was held at St. Christopher’s and I was joined by a number of St. Barnabas folk. Loss and grief can be a heavy subject but somehow Alister presented it in such a way that it was not depressing or burdensome. I came away with a number of new insights.

One of those insights is that grief is not a nice, tidy straight line of going through different emotions. As Alister pointed out the reality of grief is that it is messy. It can come and go in waves and may even hit us years after the loss. It can affect every facet of our being - our physical body, emotions, behaviour, cognition and even our spirituality.

“Grief never makes sense. It is cruel and grief is so complex. How do you face it, how do you support another, how do we lead people through these dark valleys?”

Not all grief is associated with death. It can be caused by the loss of a job, retirement, moving house or towns, loss of friendships, etc.

Alister talked to us about not judging other’s emotions or reactions to loss and grief. We all grieve differently and in our own way. We must not impose our own expectations on others who are grieving. Each of us chooses how we deal with our own grief and loss in our own way, whether that be quietly, loudly, for a short while, or for a long time. Ultimately the choice is ours.

I think that Viktor Frankl says it well

“Everything can be taken from us but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Alister Hendry’s book ‘The Grief Walk’ is available from his publisher as an ebook or in print form via this link: https://pgpl.co.nz/ebooks/the-grief-walk-ebooks/on