Thank you for posting this article - there should be more like this.

When my mother died, it felt suddenly like I had become a member of a club I really didn't want to belong to. I remember feeling awful about how little support I had given friends in the past when they had lost a loved one because I just didn't realise what they were going through.
I also thought I was having a nervous break down shortly afterward my mother died because I kept feeling really anxious about silly things like driving alone at night and I also was quite angry some of the time. Luckily I had a really good counsellor who explained to me that these were all symptoms of grief and everything I was feeling was quite normal.
I make sure I tell friends who lose loved ones about my experience because it is something that we don't talk about very much but I try to force it into the open. I do think we should have mourning periods so people remember that we are coping with a loss.
My dad died last year and I felt like putting some kind of sign in my front yard so people would know. It's been a few months now and I'm still surprised by people becoming embarrassed if I talk about my sad moments/days ... as if I should be over it by now.

A couple of stories on death and dying. Some marvellous descriptive and analytical passages in this story. Moving.

Bereavement is intensely personal. I think maddens us for a while. We become delusional as our thinking bashes it's head again and again againt the gates of mortality.

I think we're aloud to be mad when a loved one dies and to be mad until the madness subsides in to resignation or 'as good as it's going to get'. Colin Parkes book 'Bereavement' is good as is Bridge's book 'Transition'.

We are changed by death of a parent or sibling. A little limb of contact to our childhood is cut off as if to properly understand ourselves, we still need mum and dad alive. Death makes is truly adults.

I think women cope with death better. They can discuss it with friends. Men are more isolated and therefore when death strikes a loved one, their isolation is compounded.

Yes, a great article. We are all scared by grief.

My darling sister has helped me understand the way people think.

No sooner do we get the words out 'My husband died" than there is a rush to fill the void

"When MY husband died".
Husband, wife, mother... other people don't know how to listen to our loss. I was shamed when one of my friends doing the same thing. We are all scared by the troubles of another.

Many men (and women) feel impelled to find a solution. And so after telling of our feelings we hear "You should.."
Are men better at helping others through grief? Can women cry together? Maybe.