NFL quarterback Tim Tebow is grieving with fans after the passing of his minister Ravi Zacharias, who has been an integral part of the athlete’s life.
Zacharias, 74, passed away after a long battle with a rare bone cancer. Despite responding to chemotherapy treatments, the disease had spread in the minister’s body, and he was told that there were no more treatment options available. He is the founder of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), which Tebow has been a follower of since he was a child.
Read MoreUpon his passing, Tebow took to Twitter to thank Zacharias for his ministry work, and for being a friend to him for years. “To my friend, my mentor and a great hero of the faith @RaviZacharias Thank you. I know I'll see you again and I look forward to that day. Love you brother!,” Tebow wrote.
To my friend, my mentor and a great hero of the faith @RaviZacharias — Thank you.
I know I’ll see you again and I look forward to that day. Love you brother!
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) May 19, 2020
Resources For Handling Grief
Losing a loved one to cancer is an excruciating experience for many people. In order to help those grieving, SurvivorNet has talked to doctors and family members impacted by cancer to hear how they coped with grief.
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“Grief comes in waves,” Dr. Scott Irwin, a Director of Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, tells SurvivorNet. “It often gets better over time, but at certain days, it can look like depression. Other days, people look perfectly normal and can function. They’re grieving the change in their life, the future they had imagined is now different…Talk therapy really is the way to deal with these emotions.”
Dr. Scott Irwin explains how people can work through grief after a cancer diagnosis
For family members who have lost a loved one to cancer, therapy has proven to be extremely beneficial to work through grief and help mental health. This was the case for Camila Legaspi, who lost her mother to breast cancer. Legaspi told SurvivorNet that starting therapy helped her grieve the loss of her mother, and helped her move forward.
Related: Sadness Is Not Always A Bad Thing Coping After Losing A Parent To Cancer
Camila Legaspi says therapy saved her life after she lost her mother to cancer
“Going to a therapist helped me realize that there was still so much out there for me, that I still had my family, that I still had my siblings,” Legaspi said. “The reality is, is when you lose someone, it’s really, really, really hard, and it’s totally okay to talk to someone. I’m so happy that I talked to my therapist.”
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