I am very tired of writing eulogies.

Shaping the entire life of someone you love into 10 minutes, standing up in front of people who also knew and loved them, and trying to do them justice while also praying you don’t lose the ability to speak as sobs take over – it’s not an ideal way to spend what is already probably the most traumatic week of your life. Especially when you’ve been here before, and you’d just like people to STOP DYING NOW PLEASE.

If grief counted towards CPD, my appraisals for the next decade or so would be sorted. I’ve clocked up the delivery of eulogies for two younger brothers and my 61-year-old father, and what I clearly lack in decent genetics, I make up for in my determination to get terrible jokes into sad speeches (it’s what they would have wanted).

As I now consider myself a bit of a pro at bereavement, and as an ambassador for The Good Grief Trust, here are some lessons for Grief Awareness Week (2-8 December):

1. Anticipatory grief is sometimes the hardest part; you may find that once someone actually dies, it’s easier to process their departure

My Dad was diagnosed with terminal appendix cancer out of the blue, just after his 59th birthday, having been ‘the healthy one’ all his life. We’d always been incredibly close, and having just begun to rebuild my life after a lot of pandemic-associated trauma, I didn’t take it well. I was signed off for three months with burnout, and struggled with the guilt of him having to see how devastated I was when he was already having to process his imminent death.

When he did then die, nearly two years later, after a lot of truly remarkable medical input (thank you, if you’re reading this), I was surprisingly OK. If anything, my then employers were the ones who told me to take more time. I wouldn’t recommend grieving when someone is still alive, but it’s not something that anyone chooses.

2. Grief is a unique experience for everyone, every time

I appreciate the irony in deigning to give advice on grief when everyone experiences it differently, but that in itself is useful to know. Like depression, grief is widely experienced and yet incredibly lonely when you’re going through it.

No one can understand your grief, because no two relationships are the same – how you mourn the loss of a relationship is going to be very different based on what that relationship was like for you. Some people will be devastated by the loss of their cat, but seem to struggle less with the passing of a parent. There is no one guaranteed route through.

I often tell patients who are recently bereaved that grief is like coming across a puddle on a Bear Hunt (we love Michael Rosen) – you can’t go over it, you can’t go around it, you have to go through it.

3. It doesn’t get easier with time

Depressing, I know, but it doesn’t get easier – it changes, it becomes all-consuming less frequently, but the tears will still hit.

If you’re neurodivergent, you may already struggle with ‘object permanence’: if something isn’t visible in front of you, your brain can forget it exists. This can have a huge impact on maintaining relationships anyway – I can love someone and forget they exist simultaneously – but if they die, it means reminders of their existence hit doubly hard, because you have guilt wrapped up in the sudden recollection of the trauma of losing them. The ‘ball in the box’ is a good way to understand this.

4. People will say the wrong thing

As a society, we’re terrible at talking about death. We prefer to pretend it doesn’t happen (if you haven’t come across the work of palliative care doctor Kathryn Mannix, please go and read everything she’s ever written – she’s incredible). Because we don’t talk about it, when it happens, we all struggle to know how to react.

There’s an entire industry of ‘With Sympathy’ cards and flowers out there to manage this – but lovely as the sentiment is, I’d rather a casserole on the doorstep and the offer to do some laundry. And it’s hard to believe someone is ‘in a better place’ when you know that being there with you, part of your family, was where he wanted to be.

5. Grief has a physiological impact

Research has repeatedly shown that losing someone in itself increases mortality rates, affecting your immune system and creating a prothrombotic response, among other sequelae. In itself, grief is a protective process that we’ve evolved to promote our own survival after trauma, and we know that ‘grief brain’ can take months, if not years, to resolve.

Grief is normal, but never easy. If you’re struggling with a bereavement, whether it was yesterday or over a decade ago, The Good Grief Trust is there to support you – and I’m sorry you’re here too.

Hannah Barham-Brown is a GP in NHS Tayside, and ambassador for the Good Grief Trust. She is a former member of BMA council.