Sometimes it's only in the movies that people get to say "I love you" and "I'm sorry" in time. It's only in Hollywood that the prodigal son always returns, forgiveness is given and received, and all loose ends are tied up before the credits roll.
Real life, or real death, says Christy Kenneally, is different. People die when they die - often suddenly and unexpectedly, and even if death is anticipated, it is always a shock, and there is always a coming to terms with real feelings, real regrets and real sadness, maybe real anger.
His book, Living After Loss, published last week, is written not so much for the grieving widow or parent, but more for the second circle of friends, neighbours and professionals who are no longer sure of the manners and ethics of death in these sanitised days.
"People often ask `What will I say?' says Christy. "What they really mean is `How will I fix it?' You can't. You can't offer consolation because no consolation is possible if someone very close and loved has died. What you can do it turn up, have a cup of tea and be there. "I often think of the woman who arrived to a bereaved neighbour with the packet of fig rolls. She sat and listened and nodded and ate the biscuits one by one herself. We have a famine of listeners. What people tend to do is try to bring the other's grief down to a size that they can handle, but accompanying someone in grief is just being with them."
He paints a picture of how grieving used to be acknowledged in Ireland. In the past, a death in the community halted the work. Everyone had a role, and neighbours took over the baking and lamenting so that the family had to do nothing but sit with their dead family member and let the feelings in, whatever they were.
"We were very wise in this, it was ritual, it was part of the culture," he says. "I'm not a Luddite, but I think we should look back to the past, not for the what but the why.
"The old way could be considered brutal, almost macabre. The wife was expected to throw the first fistful of earth on to the coffin, but there was no camouflage of real feelings. Then, after the year of mourning was up, the scaffolding of grief was gently dismantled, and life was expected to resume again."
The downside of the past was, he says, that it could straitjacket people into roles. "Wives were propelled to being widows, totally dedicated to their children. As one woman said to me, `They're telling me I must be there for my children. But I have lost my partner. My children have yet to meet theirs'."
Christy Kenneally is a former priest, now husband and dad to two young sons. He is a communications consultant and has done considerable work on the subject of bereavement. Whether or not we believe in an afterlife doesn't, he suggests, hugely affect how we mourn. In fact, a strong religious belief could impel people to accept "the will of God" and so deny real feelings of hurt or pain.
He understands why people are afraid of the uncontrolled grief of others. "It upsets our comfort zone, the insulating bubble we walk around with. We tranquillise people so that we won't be unsettled by their real feelings, they get the tranquillisers so that our feelings can remain dulled." But unexpressed grief doesn't go away and, undealt with, it seeps out in physical and emotional illness, possible addictions. "If it's not dealt with it stops us doing the essential things like reaching out again, being open to relationships, living," he says.
"But the good news is that you can begin grieving at any stage. It's about readiness. Maybe as a young person you had to look after everyone else and weren't allowed to express your own feelings. But I've seen people finally grieving after a gap of years. They were ready."
He feels, as do many others, that the outpouring of sadness at the death of Princess Diana was a vicarious affair. "I find it hard to believe that a woman in Castlebar cried for Diana. She was crying for something else, the death provided a mediator through which people could get in touch with their own grief."
His book acknowledges that death is not the only loss. Separation, divorce, miscarriage, family leave-takings are all little deaths - and many of them go unmarked and, therefore, ungrieved. He's a firm believer in the rite of passage, the initiation ceremony, the celebration. "My eldest son is being confirmed tomorrow and family will be coming to it from all over the country. As a people we don't celebrate enough. It's the same muscle that deals in happiness that deals in sadness. We need to strengthen that muscle on the up days so that it can cope on the down day."
Life After Loss: Helping the Bereaved by Christy Kenneally is published by Mercier Press, £6.99