Adults

What influences you?

The responses to loss are never orderly and entirely predictable and they are influenced by the following:

  • Age
  • Current health situation
  • Relationship with the person who has died
  • Concurrent losses
  • Life experience
  • Personality
  • Support systems
  • Ability to communicate feelings
  • Cultural background and upbringing
  • Spiritual and religious belief

Grief is a healthy, natural response to loss. Grief is an individual journey, and your way of grieving is the "right way" for you to grieve.  You may experience a wide range of emotional and physical responses, including denial, anger, physical distress, helplessness, guilt, sadness, even depression or despair.  There is, in fact, no "correct" sequence of feelings.  Your journey is personal, reflecting your realities and perspectives.  In general, the intense emotions diminish with the passage of time and with support from family, friends, and Hospice companions.

Our Community Benefits from AHS frontline services

  • Offers a complimentary service that is an essential part of our health care system.
  • Promotes strong partnerships with the local health care providers.
  • Reduces emotional suffering and the risk of harmful behaviours.
  • Connects individuals who are dying or grieving alone.
  • Creates a larger support network by connecting families, children and caregivers with others who are facing end of life and its challenges.
  • Teaches skills and provides educational opportunities in hospice care and the death and dying process.

AHS Services for Adult

Volunteer Companions

Trained Abbotsford Hospice Society (AHS) volunteers provide one to one companioning support for bereaved clients in a variety of settings.

Counselling

AHS may offer counselling to people whose grief is more complex.

Facilities visitation

AHS volunteers provide bereavement support for individuals in hospital or long term care facilities.

Community Crisis Support

AHS staff can assist community groups by providing group or individual support in times of crisis related to a death.

Support Groups

Adult Grief Support Group

Facilitated support group for adults who have experienced the death of someone significant. The group meets for ten weeks.

Perinatal Loss Support Group

Facilitated by a registered clinical counselor, this group offers sharing and mutual support for parents who have lost a child to miscarriage, stillbirth or within the first year of life. The group meets monthly and is ongoing.

Suggested Reading for Adults

  • When Life Hurts: A three-fold path to healing.
    Dr. Brian Stiller (Herald Press., PA: 2000)
  • The Grief Recovery Handbook.
    John James, Frank Cherry. (Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York, N.Y: 1988)
  • Conversations at Midnight: Coming to terms with death and dying.
    Herbert Kramer, Kay Kramer. (William Morrow & Company Inc., New York: 1993)
  • Death: The final stage of growth.
    Elizabeth Kubler Ross. (Prentice-Hall., Englewood Cliff, New Jersey: 1975)
  • Dying: A book of comfort.
    Pat McNees. (Warner Books, New York, N.Y.: 1998)
  • What Dying People Want.
    David Kuhl. (The Bukowski Agency, Toronto, Ontario: 2002)