Every once in a while there is a series that resonates with me and worth recommending so others can watch.

Going home is one such series as it is filled with stories of people who in the aftermath of their end of life diagnosis are processing pain they never shared with anyone in life.

In this episode, Randall is a former viet nam war veteran who was terribly traumatized by images seeing people die.One image he could not get out of his mind was the death of a boy in the deep jungles of Vietnam. "The mother of that boy would never again see her son", he lamented to the hospice nurse.

At one point, Randall was homeless. His grown daughter, Deb, brought her dad into her home where his nightly rituals of flashbacks got to the point where he would wake up and instantly throw things at the imaginary enemy.Deb could no longer care her dad that she bought him to a home to care for him.

Randall developed 4th stage cancer with no cure on the horizon and was brought to the Sunrise hospice program. It was in this program that the lead RN was able to win the trust and respect that enabled him to open up for the first time about the pain he never told anyone. It was as though the dam had broken, ushering decades of repressed tears into the open freeing his body of those toxins.

Although it is unhealthy, it is normal for people to want to bury their emotions deep down inside after the loss of a loved one. "I don't want to talk about " becomes the common reframe for most. For some who go decades avoiding the expression of their pain, drugs and alcohol become their 'friends'. For others, the repression of their emotional pain causes their bodies to develop various cancers and other health maladies. For Randall it was his 4th stage diagnosis that brought him to Sunset hospice.

When I think about grief share I see this as a safe community where people can come and share their story, some for the very first time. I've watched people shed a flood gate of tears when they share their pain, but with those tears, healing eventually comes. Each time they share, I notice it becomes a less daunting task for them to do so.

When Jesus came into the world, he came to die for each one of us, to whisper sweet encouraging things into us by way of the holy spirit. Like the nurse in Going home, we are to learn to listen to bereaved people, not to judge them, or give them silly platitudes.

Toward the end of this episode after Randall began talking about the death of this boy, he met his daughter for the first time. She asked him to come to her wedding. The staff of the hospice program got him dressed up in his Marine dress uniform he hadn't worn in decades and wheeled him to the gathering room where his daughter was marrying another Marine.

There is a verse in the bible that states that God makes all things new. In the 10 years I helped facilitate grief share God has shown me many ways how He makes all things new in the participants who come to griefshare.

If you only had money for one streaming service, I recommend the Great American Pureflix. As you watch the episodes of Going home, I know you will see the importance of openly expressing your emotions when life throws a curve ball and you lose a loved one.

In the event of such loss, I recommend you participate in a griefshare near you. It was in 2007 when I lost my 10 year old daughter that I began having flashbacks and nightmares that would cause me to awaken suddenly in the wee hours of the morning trying to second guess all of the decisions we made for her regarding her orthopeadic surgery. It wasn't until I started journaling and telling my story over again to trusted listeners that my flashbacks and nightmares diminished.

I urge you if you are battling issues like this from your sudden losses to cry out to God and express your pain to him. You will be glad you did.