By Dawn Cruchet

Funeral ritual and interment mark the beginning of the long journey of coming to terms with the reality of a loved one's death. Grief doesn't end with the funeral . . . it begins. By providing aftercare support, education and resources, we are offering a valued service that validates an individual's and a family's loss.

In my role as grief educator, I have developed a funeral home aftercare program to meet the needs of families by providing support, education, and resources in a community context. Perhaps it is my skills as a former nursing teacher as well as my educational background in grief and bereavement that have led me to broaden the scope of death education to include the ideas that talking about death and dying teaches us about life and living and empowers us to live more fully in the present.

Grieving, an individual's response to loss, is a process that is never over. Indeed , many people may experience fresh surges of grief years after the death of a special person. Emerging consensus about the resolution of grief involves a continuing bond that the survivor maintains with the deceased. It is now acceptable to encourage grievers that their relationships with special people, who have died don't end, they change. This is reassuring to grievers . . . to know that although their lives are changed forever when a special person dies, the connection to this person can always be present. In effect, we need to relearn our world as we continue our lives without that special person.

Our Growing through Grief Aftercare Program incorporates five areas; bereavement support, commemorative services, public education, community outreach, and staff education.