Those human beings who have come to grips with their own anger, and anguish, and who have reached peace with themselves, can do this better than anyone else. Learning from grieving people is part of sharing and helping. By sharing in the life of the grieving person, others begin to experience the stages of grief too. This helps them begin the process of accepting their own inevitable death. Consider Anticipatory Grief Today, with a longer period of time from the diagnosis of a terminal disease to the time of death, people often have time to consider death and grief before the loved one dies.
Anticipatory grief lowers the degree and intensity of grief at the time of death of a family member.
Family members may work through their grief without a death having occurred. They may emancipate themselves from the emotional bondage to the deceased and subsequently develop new emotional attachments. Anticipatory grief can have positive and negative effects on the family. Accepting death as a natural part of life is positive. This is not to say the elderly person is not valued, but has to do with expectation and the reality of death.