Dr Bill Webster, Education and Resources Director for Learning2Cope, understands the needs of grieving people, not just in theory but from his own personal experience. In 1983, his young wife died suddenly and unexpectedly, and Bill struggled to come to terms with his feelings of grief, as well as coping with looking after two young sons, then only 9 and 7. At first, he seemed to be doing well, and many commended him that he appeared “so strong” at the time of the death. But that apparent strength was in fact numbness, and three months after his wife’s death, when the shock of her sudden death wore off, Bill felt like he was falling apart.
“That was probably the worst time of my whole life.” writes Dr Webster. “Three months after Carolyn died, I felt a thousand times worse than I had at the actual moment. And the worst thing was that people’s expectation seemed to be, by now, after three whole months, I should be ‘getting over it’. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I ‘pull myself together?’
"Nobody told me that this was grief. What I would have given for someone to say that while it was possibly the most difficult time of my life, grief is a natural human experience, and reassure me that I was normal.”
It was out of a desire to bring some comfort, direction and hope to grieving people in similar circumstance that Bill, some 5 years after his loss, began to offer grief support programs in his community. After his experience of loss, Bill completed two additional academic degrees, including his doctorate in 1990, and has developed his grief support program to a highly effective and widely recognised resource for people after a significant loss.
Dr Bill Webster has an interactive web site at www.GriefJourney.com
Learning2Cope offers effective strategies for assisting grieving people, whether on a personal, community, employee assistance or value added client service level.
Our course on Grief Awareness and the subsequent course on Grief Support Facilitation offer participants the knowledge and experience Dr Bill Webster has gained from his work in the hope that it will serve to enable others to offer effective and appropriate support to people grieving after a significant loss.