Nothing can prepare you for the death of a loved one. Here, Gaynor Turley tells us how her experience of grieving led her to train to be a bereavement counsellor

Everything that happened around the time of my brother's death is deeply imprinted in my mind. I had coped quite well with my parents' deaths, but this was different. This was not supposed to happen. Graham was my younger and only brother. He would not see his fortieth birthday.

The call telling me he was very ill had come out of the blue. My sister and I left on the next train to London and headed straight to the hospital. When we arrived, the nurses would not let us in to see him until we had spoken with his partner. We found out later that the reason for this was his appearance. He was very swollen with jaundice - even the whites of his eyes were yellow. The nurses had obviously wanted to prepare us for the shock. However, nothing could.

We spent our days sitting at Graham's bedside. I don't know if he knew we were there, as he drifted in and out of consciousness. The impressions that stick in my mind about that time were silly little things, like seeing The London Eye through the window opposite his bed, the fact that he was on a large ward, and the hustle and bustle going on around (which seemed so strange) when he was dying. Also, the nurses kept calling him George, his middle name. I never found out the reason for that.

Three days later, Graham died. We'd been staying in his flat with his partner and, the night before he died, I seemed to sense that he was going to die very soon. I slept badly and kept waking to see a green light on the bedroom wall. Very early the next morning the hospital phoned to say he had gone. The three of us just held each other and cried. When I asked my sister if she had slept OK, she told me she, too, had seen a green light. Another mystery we never solved.

After the initial shock I went into autopilot and took control of the situation as best I could. We had Graham's funeral to arrange - the last gesture we would make for our beloved brother. The funeral was huge, so many of his friends came. It was all so unreal at the time. I got through it, but I felt as though it was happening to someone else, not me.

My sister and I returned home to Wales shortly after. I went back to work, but I just couldn't cope. Fortunately, I had an understanding boss and he arranged for me to have bereavement counselling. My counsellor was a very warm, caring lady, who listened and empathised as I went over and over what had happened. The counselling helped me to accept that my brother had died. On her advice, I also took up art therapy. Most days I would get my paints and brushes out and do watercolours. Then one day I packed up all my art things. That was the turning point for me. I had gone through the whole grieving process, and now it was time to move on with my life. I haven't felt the need of art therapy since.

Desire to help others
I firmly believe that during this period of great sadness and grief a tiny seed was sown. Though I would not act on it for a couple of years, the seed eventually grew into a desire to help others come through what I had gone through. My bereavement counsellor gave me the inspiration to become a counsellor myself and, when an opportunity appeared to train as a Cruse Counsellor, I grasped it. (Cruse is the leading bereavement counselling charity in the UK.)

The course was a wonderful experience, and it helped me make better sense of what I had experienced when Graham died. I learnt that there is a grieving process which each of us needs to go through when we lose someone we love, and this process has four parts to it - the four tasks of mourning.

Task One: Accepting the reality of loss
When someone you love dies, even if the death is expected, there is always a sense of sheer disbelief. The first task of grieving is to face the reality that the person you love is dead; they are gone and will not return. Some people refuse to believe that the death is real, and get stuck at this first task.

Coming to acknowledge the reality of a major loss takes time, since it involves acceptance on intellectual and emotional levels. Traditional rituals such as the funeral help many people move towards acceptance.

Task Two: To work through the pain of grief
It is hard but vitally important that a bereaved person goes through the pain of grief. Not everyone experiences the same intensity of pain or feels it in the same way, but it is impossible to lose someone you have been deeply attached to without experiencing some level of pain. Many people experience acute physical as well as emotional pain while mourning. It is necessary to acknowledge and work through the pain you feel, or it is likely to manifest with psychological symptoms or, possibly, find outlet in destructive or aberrant behaviours.

This task is a difficult one and many people will instinctively attempt to bypass it in a number of ways: the most obvious is to cut off their feelings and deny the pain that is present. Sometimes people hinder the process by avoiding all painful thoughts. Others handle it by thinking only pleasant thoughts of the deceased, trying to protect themselves from the discomfort of unpleasant thoughts. Idealising the dead, avoiding reminders, and using alcohol or drugs are other ways that people keep themselves from accomplishing this key task - opposed as they are to experiencing the pain of loss, they take comfort in the knowledge that it will eventually pass.

Sooner or later, a person who is desperately trying to avoid conscious grieving will break down, usually with some form of depression. One of the aims of grief counselling is to help people through this difficult task, so that they do not carry the pain for the rest of their life. If Task Two is not properly completed, therapy may be needed later on, at which point it can be more difficult for the person to go back and work through the pain he or she has been avoiding. Though it is difficult, it is far healthier to deal with the pain of loss when it actually happens.

Task three: To adjust to life again
Adjusting to life after the loss of a partner, spouse or parent, means different things to different people. Most people who have lost a spouse find it takes a considerable period of time to realise what it is like to physically and emotionally exist without their partners. This realisation often begins to emerge around three months after the loss, and involves coming to terms with living alone, raising children alone, facing an empty bed, and managing finances independently.

Many survivors resent having to develop new skills and taking on roles that were formerly performed by their partners. Bereavement can lead to intense regression, where the bereaved see themselves as helpless, inadequate, incapable and childlike. Attempts to fulfil the deceased person's roles may fail, and this can lead to a sense of low self-esteem. However, over time, these negative feelings usually give way to more positive ones, and the survivors are able to carry on with their lives, acquire new skills and learn new ways of dealing with the world.

Task Four: To emotionally let go and move on with life
You never forget someone you love who has died. A survivor's readiness to enter new relationships depends not on 'giving up' a deceased spouse or partner, but finding a suitable place for the spouse to 'live' in their heart, so that there is room for the bereaved to go on with life and continue to love others.

Bereaved parents often have the most difficulty grasping task four and understanding the dangers of emotional withdrawal. The task for the bereaved parent is to express their feelings of grief and anguish, until they are able to move to a psychological space where they can think about their child and talk about him or her, and not shut down emotionally or withdraw. Possibly, their healing really starts when they fully accept that their lives will continue but their child's will not.

The fourth task requires profound time and courage, as it demands the bereaved to be willing to live - to move on. For many people this is the most difficult task to accomplish. They often get stuck in their grieving, and realise later that their life somehow stopped when they lost the person they loved. Nevertheless, moving successfully through the fourth task can often be achieved by realising that there are always others to love in life and that, by loving them, you are not in any sense betraying or being disloyal to the one who has died.

Completing the cycle of grief
When is mourning over? One benchmark of a completed grief process is when the person is able to think of the deceased without pain. There is always a sense of sadness when you think of someone that you have loved and lost, but it is a different kind of sadness. You can think of the deceased without intense crying or feeling tightness in the chest. Also, mourning is finished when a bereaved person feels strong enough to re-invest his or her emotions back into life and living.

A personal journey
I realised during my bereavement counselling course that it had taken me two years to complete my grieving process after the loss of Graham. It was difficult at times, as the course brought back all the feelings and emotions I had gone through, but something inside urged me on. I desperately wanted to pass my assessments and work as a counsellor so that I could help others with their suffering. I wanted others to know what I had learnt - that though grief is incredibly painful, the suffering will ease eventually. I completed the course successfully and I am now a probationary counsellor for Cruse UK. After all the sadness I have experienced through grief, this is such a positive outcome for me.

Today, life is good. I have a new baby grandson who was born ten days ago, and although I feel sad that my mum, dad and brother are not around to see this little chap, I take comfort in my belief that they are all up there together looking down at him and feeling as proud as we are.