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Grief Counseling

We provide you with comfortable neighborhood surroundings and a homelike environment and atmosphere. Pride in our family-owned funeral home, and treating your family like our own, is the key to EXTREME personal attention, and exceptional service. This is pride that has been passed down through five generations since 1866. 

Grief is a personal experience. No one can predict his or her reaction to the loss of a family member or friend. Any death results in a change for the survivors. Life is no longer the same.

Father Ken Czillinger is the Bereavement Specialist for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and the initiator of twenty support groups in the Cincinnati area. He reports that the intensity of grief usually occurs six or seven months after the death, when bereaved persons are expected by others to have accepted and recovered from the loss. Grieving has no time limit.

A Support Group can begin with one parent, one couple, or one family who needs to speak with other persons having experienced a similar loss. By sharing their grief, these individuals can communicate with other bereaved persons who understand their pain, anger, and related feelings.

Informal Meetings may be scheduled at a home, church or meeting hall on a regular basis, usually once a month. No agenda is necessary, although some groups prepare programs and plan social activities. The emphasis is on flexibility and creativity.

Bereaved Parents usually meet together as a specialized group, as do widowed persons, teenagers and children. Support groups have been formed by persons who have experienced a loss through:

Accidental Death

Suicide

Death of a spouse

Newborn Death

Death of a child

Terminal illness

Murder

Sibling death

Benefits derived from Support Groups may include:

Bereaved persons have the opportunity to talk about the details of the death repeatedly, to cry, to laugh, and to discuss problems they may be experiencing in managing their grief.

Individuals may find their own grief diminished as they reach out to help other bereaved persons. They can offer hope to the recently bereaved that life, however different from the one previously lived, can be enjoyed after the death of a loved one.

Many Groups have been established throughout the country on a local, state and national level. Some chapters publish monthly newsletters at no charge to members.

YES.

Learning to accept death is a natural experience in life. It is most important that children not be excluded from participating in the funeral service. If exposed to a death, a child should be prepared for and guided through the period of mourning and grief.

WHY?

Surprisingly, the "protection-philosopy" with regard to a child's knowledge of death is a current trend, stemming from our own death-denying culture. Similarly, parents often isolate children from the pain of growing old. They remove grandma or grandpa to a nursing home or hospital. When death occurs, the child is frequently assigned to a babysitter while the rest of the family participates in the funeral. Allowing the child to be a part of the ceremonies, and even the conversation, helps relieve his fear of the rest of the world crumbling.

The "mystery" of death may be avoided with roper explanation. Each time a child inquires and is denied adequate information, he delves into his own memory bank to create and answer. The longer such mysteries persist, the more difficult they are to correct.

Children may experience adverse emotional reactions. They may become angry, hoping that their tantrums will restore normality. They may neglect playing and eating because of guilt - not realizing that their own actions had nothing to do with the death. These reactions are quite normal, but continuation may indicate maladjustment.

HOW?

HONESTY should frame discussion of death with children, as in all "life-forming" subjects. Since the purpose is to reduce fear and induce trust, all information should be factual, and therefore not easily discounted by "playground buddies." There is nothing worse than being the lat to know the secret and being given the excuse, "Honey, we didn't think it best to tell you."