Planning funerals at funeral homes in Adelphi, MD is never easy. When you lose someone you love to death, the grief, the pain, the sorrow, and the sense of loss you feel can make this time feel rougher than almost any other time in your life.

It can be almost impossible to imagine life without your loved one. What will you do without them? How will you live without them as part of your life? Where – and how – do you go from here?

Although the death of your loved one is very hard and there will be dark days and moments now and in the future as you move through their loss into new and unchartered territory without them, there are many things along the way that you can be grateful for.

Being grateful is a choice to see the good things around you. Even when your loved one has died, there are many things about them and your relationship with them that you can be grateful for. Gratitude has an encouraging effect, and as you focus on the things in your life that you are grateful for, it can help you move more easily through the grieving process without getting bogged down in it.

It’s easier to be grateful when your life is running smoothly. It can be much harder to be grateful when it’s not. But, ironically, that is the time you need gratitude and appreciation the most. So, here are some things you should look for and focus on as you mourn the loss of your loved one and you start a new life that doesn’t have them in it.

One thing you should pay attention to is the acts of kindness that other people do for you. These don’t have to be big and grand gestures and they don’t always have to come from people you know. In fact, one of the mysteries of life can often be that we are more kind to strangers than we are to our friends and family.

Perhaps someone you don’t know holds the door open for you as you are walking into a building. Maybe somebody you don’t know smiles at you when you need it most. You might have an uplifting conversation with another person while you’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store or waiting to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.

Those are acts of kindness that you should write down and keep as a remembrance of things you can be grateful for. Here’s an unexpected benefit of this: it will make you more conscious about practicing kindness toward people you don’t know. You will remember how these generous gestures made you feel and you will want to pass that experience on to others as you go through life.

Another thing you can do to promote gratefulness as a daily habit is to begin the day by listing several specific things you are grateful for. Include your loved one in this list. What things about them are you grateful for? What did they add to your life that you’re grateful for? What would you have never known without them that you are grateful for?

Not only will this encourage you in your loss, but it will also help you to focus on good memories with your loved one that make you feel encouraged and comforted.

If you’d like to know about funeral planning at funeral homes in Adelphi, MD, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A.