UK Helpline: 0345 123 2304 | tcf.org.uk remember our child and build a memory we can look at when we feel the need in years to come. It can be especially useful if we have other children who need help with their grief and can encourage them to share their painful but important memories. The TCF leaflet Our surviving children provides further information. Many people, whether they have religious beliefs or not, find their thoughts turning to profound questions of existence at this time. Meditation, attending a place of worship, or talking to a religious leader or elder may help to bring spiritual comfort. Conversely, some people lose their faith after a bereavement. We may seek, or be offered, professional help. This one-to-one support can provide the time to focus on our own emotional needs, rather than the needs of those we care for. Friends, family and others If we have an extended family they may come to our aid at this time, although not always in the form we wish for. We need to be open to new approaches, to try to accept good intentions from wherever they come, and not to allow past conflicts to prevent us from accepting sources of help. Sadly, it’s not uncommon for rifts to develop at this time. We can feel that our family just don’t understand us and can feel their comments or actions are hurtful. At times like this, we need all the support that we can get and things that may have seemed important in the past can often seem trivial in comparison to the situation in which we now find ourselves. Friends can be a lifeline in these difficult times, but they often need help in understanding how they can best support us. We might need to explain that we need them just to be there, maybe not even talking much, and that we do not necessarily want to be taken out and ‘cheered up’. We may welcome their practical help with household chores and so on, but we also need our friends for more than that: we need them to be alongside us and to be accepting of our current feelings, whatever they are. For some people this is too hard; they want us to be ‘better’ and back to our old self. They may be fearful for their own family or have suffered losses in their own pasts, which make our present state of grief too painful for them to bear. Some of these friends will return later, and we will probably discover some important new ones in the meantime. Most of us find that it really helps to have someone to talk with, but it might be that our family or friends cannot fulfil this role for some reason. Instead, talking to other bereaved parents can bring us comfort. If we have
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