Grief Support

Acute Loss Period

The Acute Loss Period

When you experience the loss of a family member or friend, it feels like a lot of things happen all at once. 

At Mueller Memorial our staff is trained not only to gently guide you through all the decisions for making  final arrangements, but to also help frame how you’re going to experience grief.  So, any gathering or service we recommend always has a purpose that serves your family.

There is a reason we recommend a private or public final viewing of the person who died.
There is a reason we recommend you gather in some way with family and friends.

To understand why we offer the services we do and to provide you and your family with compassionate care that is second to none, our team receives advanced training in the acute loss period. 

The acute loss period occurs during the first 10-14 days following the death of a family member or friend. It’s the time after a loss that people often later refer to as a “blur.” You’ll find that the experiences you have during that time are nearly universal and follow an almost identical pattern. This is how we experience acute loss:

1. Hearing
   The first way you encounter a loss is through the physical and psychological process of hearing. Even if you’re expecting a loss, the moment you hear someone you care about has irrevocably died your brain and body respond. People often experience light-headedness, nausea, pounding heart, reduction of hearing, and shaking. Hearing about a loss is traumatic and with varying severity, your body responds.
2. Sharing
   Immediately after hearing about the death of a loved-one you reach out to share the news. Think of how we all responded to a collective loss on 9/11, the first thing most of us were compelled to do after hearing was to call our families and closest friends. Even if they were nowhere near New York we needed reassurance that they were okay and that they knew. The sharing also validates the loss—it makes it real and offers the first opportunity for sharing feelings.
3. Seeing
   Humans rely heavily on vision to understand their environment, we have a need to visually confront what was happening. The same is true when a friend or family member dies. Though it may be uncomfortable at first, seeing that person after they’ve died allows you to truly validate the news we had otherwise only heard. 
4. Gathering
   As word gets around that someone has died, the first question people will ask is, “when’s the funeral,” which is another way of saying “when can I see you?” Gatherings happen quickly, beginning usually with the most intimate family and friends coming together at the time of death, then soon after at a visitation or service which gives extended relations a chance to offer support and experience grief of their own. 
5. Connecting
   Though many land on simply saying “I’m sorry for your loss,” what’s really happening is one person is physically present with another and saying “I see you. I see your pain,” and that is an important connection to make at an emotionally vulnerable time. This is also a time of connecting what we’re experiencing now with feelings from past losses.
6. Reflecting
   When someone you love dies, your thoughts fix on them for some time. You consider how that person impacted your life, how that played a part in leading you to where you are today, what they meant to you, and how that will shape who you are in the future. As you move through your grief experience you’ll find that this reflection is the first step toward “meaning-making.”
7. Celebrating
   Through grief, you find a way to celebrate the things, big and small, that that made your loved-one distinctively them. This isn’t to say that you’re gleeful, but rather that you have moments of appreciation for the unique relationship you shared, and the good things they brought to your life. You celebrate the things that made them who they are.