Grief, Loss, and Finding Meaning and Purpose Essay

Death is something that is out of human’s control, and it can produce all kind of feelings, and attitudes. The following paper discusses critical issues associated with understanding and facing death. There are various feelings and emotions that a person can experience after they loss someone special in their lives. Through out this paper we will try to identify, express, and find what had been discovered through out grief, and loss. There are several major issues associated with death, but we will focus only on two of them. For instance when a person is facing death, that person would experience denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance; but the two major factors that will be discussed on this paper are depression and anger. According to the Merriam-Western Dictionary Death is the act of dying, the end of life, and there are several ways of coping with the emotional reaction when facing death. We all experience many losses through our lives, and when the loss is the death of someone really close to us, someone who we love and care about—perhaps a family member, a coworker, neighbor etc. That loss can cause a grieving process that can surely affect the way se see things and continue our lives. One of the issues associates with understanding coping and facing death is anger. Lets say for instance that if the cause of death of a family member was something unexpected, anger feelings can take control over that person. Anger is a wide range of emotions, is a strong feeling of displeasure, and belligerence aroused by a wrong, wrath, ire. (Dictionary.com). On the other hand, when facing an early death of a love one, the dominant feeling present on the rest of the family is anger, leading them to a bitter indignation at having been experience the unfairly death of one of their family members. The anger of a person who is experiencing a loss, can be targeted many things, or persons—perhaps anger at God for allowing that situation, anger over what seems unfairly and unjust. Another issue associated with understanding, coping, and facing death is depression. Individuals who are depressed use to isolate or withdraw them selves, they feel hope less and they are not ready to go back to their usual activities; they feel hopeless. A person’s attitude, beliefs, and values about death are according to  his/her cultural influence, and this will contribute with the way they respond when facing death and grief. An individual’s culture would influence the way that individual will respond when phasing death. Culture can influence a person on the way they perform the ceremonies or rituals when grieving. For instance in some countries, when a child died the parents are allow to bath and dress the child with their own cloths, when in different countries it is not permitted even to cry. These two different ceremonies show the different ritual people have according with their culture, values and beliefs. Finding meaning and purpose can be part of the grief process for those who faced a loss. Even though is not an easy process, that crisis can be turn into an opportunity to find true meaning. Many people can grow through grief, and learn to appreciate the value of life, and become better persons. In many cases the grieving process can be an opportunity to unify the family who is suffering. There is always family issues that could separate a family, but the death of a member can be an opportunity to reunite that family, and that is when meaning and purpose take place in the grief process. Grief and loss are universal, and it cannot be controlled by any human kind. The stage of grief and loss occurs in respond to the death of a value person—emotions and attitudes take control of those who are facing it. Loss is an unavoidable part of life, and grief is the healing process of those wounds that a loss could leave an in an individual’s life. References Kubler-Ross, E. Death: The Final Stage of Growth. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1975. http://cogprints.org/9155/ Developmental theory. (2006). In Elsevier’s dictionary of psychological theories. Retrieved from http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?qurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com.library.gcu.edu%3A2048%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Festpsyctheory%2Fdevelopmental_theory%2F0