There’s a specific kind of loss that doesn’t warn you first. A call at 2 a.m., a knock at the door, an accident report you end up reading three or four times because your brain just won’t hold onto it. If you’ve lived through something like this, you already know it doesn’t grieve the same way a long illness does. Your heart never gets the runway.
Dr. Lakesha Dean at For Your Smile Christian Counseling works with people through exactly this — the sudden kind, the kind that leaves you standing in your kitchen wondering how the world is still spinning normally when yours just stopped.
Why sudden loss hits so differently
When someone’s been sick for a while, there’s usually time to prepare, even if it’s painful preparation. Sudden death skips all of that.
A lot of people go numb at first. Then, weeks later, something completely ordinary — a coat still on the hook, a voicemail they haven’t deleted — undoes them completely. If that’s happened to you, it doesn’t mean you’re grieving wrong. It just means your mind needed longer to catch up with what already happened.
If the death was traumatic in some way, an accident, something violent, something witnessed firsthand, there’s often a whole other layer sitting on top of the grief: replaying the moment, feeling unsafe, not sleeping right for a while.
What counseling looks like, practically speaking
There isn’t a script. Nobody’s handing you a five-step plan and a deadline.
Most sessions start with just talking, about the person, about what happened, about what the days since have felt like. Dr. Dean brings faith into it for clients who want that piece included: prayer, Scripture, real conversation about where God fits into something this painful. For a lot of people, that’s not separate from the healing — it’s a big part of it.
As things go on, a lot of the work is untangling what’s actually underneath the grief. Guilt. Anger. Sometimes even relief, which people often feel ashamed to admit. Naming these instead of letting them pile up on top of each other tends to make the whole thing more bearable.
Things people don’t expect
Sleep usually goes first — either you can’t, or you’re sleeping constantly just to avoid being awake.
Guilt shows up even when there was genuinely nothing anyone could’ve done. Minds look for reasons, and sometimes they land on blame that was never fair to begin with. Anger comes too, at doctors, at God, at the situation itself. And if faith wavers during this stretch, that’s not a sign something’s broken. It’s usually just what it looks like to wrestle honestly with something this size.
Why doing this alone doesn’t work well
Your family and friends love you, but they are grieving as well, so it will be hard for them to hold space for yours on top of their own.
A counselor isn’t mourning the same loss, so there is space to express things that you might want to hold back from people who were near it. However, grief does not just disappear into nothingness — it has a way of returning, and often more powerful than if it had been acknowledged at the time. Having a place to put those harder days, the first birthday, the anniversary you never thought you’d still be dreading – it helps.
When to reach out
There’s no correct timing here. Ssome call in a week. Some will wait a year, or more.
Having grief that feels stuck rather than the gentle movement of grief or noticing yourself pulling away from people you once were able to turn to.
Moving forward isn’t the same as letting go
When one experiences a loss like this, healing does not mean that the pain just disappears. It more often means learning the memory of that person without having it overshadow life completely.
Dr. Lakesha Dean walks through that process with clients, one honest conversation at a time, with faith and real presence built in.
If you’re holding something too heavy on your own right now, reach out. Call (912) 891-4000 or email careteam@foryoursmile.org.
Dr. Lakesha Dean provides Christian counseling and guidance rather than licensed clinical psychotherapy. Clients needing clinical mental health treatment are referred to a licensed provider.
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