Working in drug prevention can be likened to working in a field hospital in a war zone. There are many, many serious injuries and casualties and they just keep coming. It is not, however, the War Against Drugs that is taking the lives of 16,000 individuals a year, most of them youngsters, it is the drugs themselves.

Death is sometimes expected due to advanced age or disease, but losing a loved one, particularly a child, due to completely preventable circumstances is never expected, and is always shocking and horrifying. The lives of the survivors in such circumstances are forever altered. For months and years after such a loss, just getting through each day and doing the things that must be done requires incredible strength. Time can remove the sharp edges of a parent’s or sibling’s grief, but the pain is always there, just beneath the surface.

Recently I came across an article entitled “Family Matters: What Friends Are For” that is the most comprehensive discussion of bereavement and the needs of the bereaved, that I have ever seen. I hope you will find it helpful. Here are some excerpts:

“Her friend…showed up at her house every day at 4 P.M. for an hour or two of listening, massage and grief counseling. Another good friend called every day since [her son's] death” …”She never let go of me. She just let me be in pain and didn’t try to make me feel better. She focused on what I needed….The thing that was fantastic about my friends is that they didn’t try to put my pain into words, to define it for me or to label it…they just accepted it.”

“It was very important to me to talk when it happened, especially at first…I spent many hours talking to my good friends. And a lot of things were difficult to hear. That was their job-to listen. It was an enormous help to me.”

“One thing that even well-meaning friends might not realize is that people do not get over a sudden and shocking loss quickly - if at all….Even after a year the pain is constant…You think about your loved one all the time unless you become really involved in a task or a conversation that requires concentration, and I think people around us don’t realize that. People think after a few months, definintely a year, you put it aside.”

“Often when someone is in grief, you send a card or make a call and you feel you’ve fulfilled your obligation. But with this kind of horrible death, you need more. You need ongoing support. It’s going to take years to feel human again…..Even five years down the road it’s important for them to know they’re not forgotten, that their son or daughter or husband isn’t forgotten.

“There are people who say, How are you doing? But they never wait for an answer. It would be much better for me-if they aren’t interested or not able to hear-that they wouldn’t ask, that they would just give mea hand or a smile. Nobody can relieve the burden or lessen the pain-but they can help you carry it.”

“Some of the bereaved say that those who help them most are others with similar losses. “One bereaved mother says that her closest friends now are those who have also lost children….At the beginning, the only people whom I felt understood and supported me were people who had gone through the same thing… Two weeks after our loss there were those who would see me crying and say Don’t cry. That doesn’t’ help. You have to cry….Some people couldn’t talk but they did my laundry. They didn’t have words but they were there, sharing in my grief…It’s not what you say, you can say anything you want as long as you’re there for the person.”

The above excerpts are from an article by Ruth Mason entitled “Family Matters: What Friends Are For.” Hadassah Magazine, February 2003, Vol. 84

“There is not one ailment of society that isn’t caused or worsened by the use
of psychoactive and addictive drugs”

Source: Northwest Center for Health & Safety