Disaster grief expressed in different ways
Today many will experience grief and sorrow for those who have died in the truck bomb in Islamabad, Pakistan at the Marriott Hotel. Disaster grief rings out from the parliament building and the prime minister’s home to the smallest village far out in the distant lands of this proud country. Disaster grief and recovery starts today for them and for others around the world.
But it is not only those who live in Pakistan that are mourning and filled with shock and disbelief that their loved one has died due to terrorism. Individuals and families around the world are crying and starting the much dreaded process of funeral planning because their loved one was staying at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. .
A new page in the lives of these grievers is turning and now loved ones must choose funeral readings for someone who has died a long way from home. In the hours, days and weeks to come families around the world will walk from large and small cemeteries when they have buried the dead that they called, mother, father, brother, sister, friend, lover, daughter, son, neighbor, co-worker, husband or wife.
For those that are alive, they will begin dealing with grief. Violent deaths are most often complicated grief situations. For many mourners, grief support and grief counseling will help the anguish of coping with grief that they never got to say good bye to their loved one before the truck bomb blast destroyed lives and dreams.
Bomb victims are not only those who die directly from a truck bomb explosion. It also includes all those that now sit at funeral rites, listening to a funeral prayer or grief poems. After the funeral speeches are over, all those who are bomb victims will say good bye to a much too short a time together.
Soon the funeral parlors will be empty, the funeral cards will be put away and the funeral director will attend to the needs of others who grieve the death of a loved one for other reasons. Some who grieve these truck bomb deaths in Islamabad, Pakistan will seek out grief resources that can help to sort out the compounded and complex issues that include their own personal war on terrorism deep in their own hearts.
So how do people get through such difficult times of disaster grief? Many find it helpful to have traditional funeral services that have expressions of grief that are comforting and well known to all that attend with hearts full of sorrow.
Others will go on their own personalized funeral quest in more unconventional ways. Some will play funeral songs rooted in hundreds of years of tradition while others will quietly go to grave monuments touch the grave headstones with a familiar name newly etched in stone and hum or sing some of the favorite shared songs repeated so many times during the days of joy and laughter together.
There are as many ways to express grief as there are people and cultures. Some have funeral wakes before the Irish funeral, other will hear military taps and gun salutes at a military funeral. Many Catholics will have a funeral mass while others not so religious inclined will have a private home funeral or a cemetery funeral for just close friends.
During the various ways of saying good bye publicly to a loved one that has died, there can be flowers for funeral expressions of sorrow as well as memorial display boards with funeral pictures showing times of joy like weddings, holidays and vacations.
There is no one way to share grief at funeral memorials or to experience a ‘good grief’ just right. It all depends on the state of the heart of the person who grieves and the willingness at a funeral program to offer your love, share your sorrow and remember the gift of the loved one who has died so tragically.
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