What Helps to Survive the Death of a Loved One?

On this twentieth anniversary of 9/11, the families of the nearly three thousand people who died will be catapulted back to the horrors of that dreadful day, as they have been every September in the intervening years.

I remember clearly watching the drama unfold on TV with my husband and three stunned children. We were lucky, we were safe in the English countryside, but what we didn’t know then was that in less than 5 years, my husband would be dead too – not as a result of a terrorist attack, but equally suddenly, equally out-of-the-blue, with no forewarning and in the prime of his life.

Source: plonk66, pixabay

How does anyone cope with a life event as traumatic as the sudden death of a close family member? It is known that people react in different ways to a significant loss, their reactions being influenced by their own history, support networks, and personal resilience.

How would I do? To begin with, I couldn’t cope at all, but as time went by and I began, very slowly, to get a grip on my life again, I started to reflect on what was helping. And then, being a psychologist, I decided to investigate other people’s reactions and coping strategies following a significant bereavement.

The majority of my survey participants had lost a spouse or partner. A few had lost a sibling, and the time elapsed since the death of the loved one ranged from 16 weeks to 30 years. Roughly half had loved ones who had died gradually, most frequently following a cancer diagnosis, and the rest had loved ones who had died very suddenly.

Almost all participants experienced the death as traumatic, even if it was expected, giving rise to feelings of numbness and shock. Words used to describe their feelings included shattered, distraught, overwhelmed, and devastated. More than half continued to attempt to communicate with their loved ones after their death, mainly by talking to them, and it was common for this to carry on for many years.

Almost half of the participants believed that their loved ones were around or trying to communicate with them. Many described concrete ‘signs’ or unexplained events as evidence for this: a magpie who appeared after a woman’s sister died; a smell of cigarette smoke where nobody was smoking; a white feather appearing on the floor when a woman was thinking intensely of her dead husband; an electric Sudoku (which had been a husband’s favorite game) suddenly switching itself on; a tree falling on her car on the day a woman’s husband died.

There was a strong link between these experiences and belief in life after death: of those who did not believe in life after death, none reported any attempts by their loved ones to communicate with them. Those who did report attempts at communication all believed that life after death was definite, or at least possible.

Almost every participant said that family and friends' support and kindness had helped them cope, several specifically mentioning their grown-up children as a source of support. Three-quarters mentioned the importance of returning to work or doing other things to structure their lives. This included voluntary work, decorating the house, travel, gardening, and different types of physical activity such as running, walking, or swimming. Some mentioned their religious faith, therapy or counseling, and talking to other bereaved people as helpful.

Source: kincate, pixabay

Feelings of sadness and loneliness were still prevalent even many years after a bereavement, with participants saying they still missed the person who had died. Only a quarter of participants felt that they had accepted their loved one’s death, and is not one of these cases had the death been sudden.

I found that I could identify with almost all of the feelings that my participants experienced following bereavement and the things they had found helpful in moving forward with their lives. In my case, the support of my parents, children, and friends, going back to work, and immersion in long walks, swimming, and therapy were all tremendously helpful.

Friends Essential Reads

When a Major Conflict With a Friend Is Unresolvable

How a Friend Group's Texting Can Turn Toxic

I also found myself amongst the significant minority of bereaved people who experience concrete ‘signs’ (smells, sounds, sights) in the outside world as evidence of ongoing communication from the person who has died. In my case, the ‘signs’ were white feathers that began to appear in all sorts of unexpected places after my husband died and still do fifteen years after his death. One possible psychological explanation for this is the need to ‘cling to the loved one after their death via some ‘sensory thread’ experienced as a link to the dead person.

Source: Annette Meyer, Pixabay

Not all bereaved people have these experiences, and it remains an open question as to why some people seem to be more prone to them. The strength of attachment or dependency on the lost loved one may be a factor, and pre-existing belief systems also seem to play a part in that those who concede that there ‘might be something after death seem to be more open to such experiences.

Many of those who report such phenomena find them comforting. Still, in their absence, the support of family and friends and a return to purposeful activity seem to be universal in helping to build resilience.

On the radio this morning, I listened to a woman whose daughter had been killed on Flight 93, talking about how she had coped all these years on. She spoke about the love of her remaining family and friends, the voluntary work she immersed herself in with the families of the 9/11 victims, and the hundreds of feathers she had collected over the past twenty years:

I suddenly realized, each time I saw a feather, that she was there, telling me that I was doing OK and sending her love, and it has been so comforting to know that she’s still around.