Title: When an Anniversary of Your Loved One’s Death Approaches – Willowgreen, Inc.
Headings: When an Anniversary of Your Loved One’s Death Approaches
When an Anniversary of Your Loved One’s Death Approaches
by James E. Miller
What You Can Do to Commemorate an Anniversary

Content: It’s that grief response that is triggered by a date or an event which reactivates the remembered experience of the death itself. This reaction may be felt in all parts of one’s self: heart, mind, body, and soul. Memories are heightened. Feelings may be intensified. If it’s the first anniversary of your loved one’s death, for example, it may seem as if you’re re-experiencing in vivid detail all you went through on those same days twelve months before. Your grief may be temporarily but strikingly reawakened. Most people respond only mildly or moderately to such an anniversary, while a few have a much stronger response. Feelings commonly include sharpened sadness, tiredness, jitteriness or anxiety, irritability or anger, sometimes guilt. You may experience headaches, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances or unusual dreams.