A month into 2022, how do you feel at the prospect of the year ahead?
- Excited about the new opportunities it will bring?
- Hopeful for life and the wider world to improve?
- Indifferent – it will be another year just like the rest?
- A mixture of all these things, and more?
Or are you filled with a heavy heart, finding it hard to move on from the losses and pain of the past year or years?
If someone close to you has died, it can be hard to look forward with hope or enthusiasm.
Other losses might also make us feel dejected. These can take many forms and for some people the pandemic has been a direct cause: loss of companionship due to enforced isolation, loss of self-confidence, loss of security, to name but a few.
Sometimes it helps to talk about these things, or to have a listening ear.
The Grief Support Café, which had its first meeting in December, aims to support people suffering bereavement and loss, whether recent or from long ago.
At their first Café a small group of met together, drank tea, ate delicious cake, and chatted informally about a range of things. Here are some of the things they touched on:
- stars and angels
- how children cope with death
- the loss of a pet
- the different ways we cope with grief
- the loss of freedom during periods of lockdown
Grief Café will be open again on Saturday 26th February in the Albert Hall (behind Grove Street Methodist Church) from 2.00pm to 4.00pm. If you would like to join them please feel free to drop in at any time. You can be sure of a warm welcome.