Heidi Horsely: Franklin is our friend. He's also somebody that we work with, and our worlds just keep crossing, and we keep connecting. His father died by suicide in 1978. Franklin is a consultant, speaker, and trainer in peer grief support. After volunteering as a support group facilitator, he became an advisor to the Suicide Prevention Action Network and National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and he is now developing suicide survivor services based on life coaching principles. He is also one of our Open to Hope authors. Welcome to the show Franklin.

Franklin Cook: Thanks so much for having me. It's so good to be with you both.

Gloria Horsely: Franklin, tell us about your journey. Tell us about your dad dying and how old you were, and that kind of thing, to start.

FC: My dad died a long time ago now, in 1978. He was 49 years old, and I was 24 years old. Unfortunately, he suffered a very, very severe depressive episode, which included psychotic features and suicidality, and he wound up finally being hospitalized. In fact, my dad died in a psychiatric hospital. So that's how our journey began. My mom, and I have three brothers, and it truly changed our lives -- shattered our lives at first -- and we can take that anywhere you'd like to go with it.

Ashley Davis Bush, in a post on HuffPost Healthy Living, outlines "seven principles ... on grief intelligence":

1. Grief is a normal reaction.
2. Grief is hard work.
3. Grief doesn't offer closure.
4. Grief is lifelong.
5. Grievers need to stay connected to the deceased.
6. Grievers are changed forever.
7. Grievers can choose transcendence.

Laura McMullen of U.S.News & World Report offers "7 Ways to Help a Loved One Grieve," which features advice from a handful of renowned grief experts, including Ken Doka, Marty Tousley, and Robert Neimeyer:

1. Open a line of communication.
2. Listen more than you talk.
3. Choose your words wisely.
4. Offer your help.
5. Say the deceased's name.
6. Check in weeks and months later.
7. Share memories.

Clinical and social science researchers have paid little attention to the experiences of parents grieving the loss of children to suicide, despite the fact that suicide is one of the leading causes of death for adolescents ... The large study reported on in Devastating Losses ... represents a substantial and important response to this call, with findings that are both clinically relevant and likely to inspire future research related to grieving parents.

Devastating Losses is a testament to the important role of meaning-making in grief work, in this case the power of scholarly inquiry in the context of profound personal loss.

... a bereavement-specific syndrome characterized by distressed yearning for the deceased, hopelessness about the future, waves of painful emotion, and preoccupation with memories of the deceased.

"Most striking to us was the ease with which individuals with complicated grief were able to imagine the future with the deceased relative [compared] to their difficulty imagining the future without the deceased ... They frequently imagined landmark life events -- such as the birth of their first child or a 50th wedding anniversary -- that had long since become impossible. Yet, this impossible future was more readily imagined than one that could, at that point, realistically occur."

Like many who have debated this issue for the past several years (for an overview of the debate about the bereavement exclusion and links to comprehensive background information, see this blog post), Zisook's colleague was worried that not keeping bereavement as an "exclusion" from a depression diagnosis indicated that, in Zisook's words, psychiatrists' "goal was to diagnose every grieving person with major depressive disorder." In his colleague's words,

"How dare they label me with depression, as though I should have been over my grief months ago? How dare they imply I should take medications to drown my sorrow?"

To make sure clinicians and patients understand that major depression can occur in someone who is bereaved, just as it can occur in someone who is going through a divorce, facing a sudden disability or terminal illness, or struggling with serious financial troubles. There are no known clinically meaningful differences in the severity, course or treatment response of major depressive episodes that occur after the death of a loved one compared to those occurring in any other context. According to the best research available, any very stressful life event can trigger a major depressive episode in a vulnerable person; [and] regardless of the context in which it occurs, prompt recognition and appropriate treatment can be life-promoting and even life-saving. (Emphasis added.)

In "Compassion's Edge States: Roshi Joan Halifax on Caring Better" (American Public Radio, On Being), program host Krista Tippett interviews Halifax, Abbot of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, N.M., who has devoted a lifetime of work to palliative care. In the program, Halifax offers her insights on the nature of grief and on the effects caregivers experience from working with the bereaved.

The experience of grief is profoundly humanizing and ... we need to create conditions where we are supported to grieve and where we're not told, "Why don't you just get over it?" Or, "It's time" ... [There is a] loss that all of us will face in anticipation of death. It is something that brings great depth and meaning into our lives and also helps us to articulate internally our priorities. What is really important for us? So for me as a human being and not identified as a Buddhist or a woman or a Western person, but as a simple human being, I value the experience of grief.