Supporting you in bereavement

Our unique bereavement service could help you through the difficult time when you have lost someone close to you.

At The Co-operative Funeralcare, we understand how hard it can be to lose someone close to you. Although everyone mourns in different ways at different times, there are recognised stages of grief. Not everyone will go through them all, but the following are the most common:

Denial may be your first reaction to the loss of a loved one. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as you can handle, acting as a defence mechanism from immediate shock. Your mind refuses to accept what has happened in an attempt to reject the painful reality of grief.

Anger and resentment are common stages of grief. The anger is a need to find someone to blame for your loss. You may feel that the world feels cruel and unsafe, making you react with fear, anger and irritability to the most trivial happenings.

Bargaining – during this stage you may wish that you could go back in time and bring your loved one back. You may continuously ask yourself ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ and promise significant changes to reverse what has happened.

Depression can last for a long time and usually appear when you accept the reality of your loss and react to it. Depression may take the form of crying bouts, tiredness, and disturbance of normal sleep rhythms, loss of interest in things around us and loss of concentration.

Acceptance is the stage when you start to come to terms with, accept and adapt to your loss. You may still feel pangs of grief prompted by a photograph or a particular memory, but can begin to enjoy good memories too.

The Co-operative Funeralcare has developed a unique bereavement service to help and support you through this difficult time. This free service provides access to one to one bereavement counselling, friendship/social and support groups, walk and talk groups, life coaching and memorial services.

People can come along and talk to one of our qualified counsellors in a safe, confidential, and private environment. This service is also available via Skype for those that would prefer counselling from the comfort of their own home.

One of our customers said, “I found the sessions very helpful and I learned from listening to others in the group that the feelings I was having were very natural. I continued with the group and felt that I was getting stronger and understood my feelings more each month.”

Find out more about our support groups at:

http://www.bereavementsupportgroups.co.uk

Or call The Bereavement Centre on 07834 449 069.

We have listed other contacts who can help you here.