"One-third of all women who conceive will have at least one miscarriage. This important book offers guidance for the sorrowing and helps them move on. It tackles the tough questions, including "Why did this happen?" and "Should we try again?" as well as exploring options for treatment and emotional healing. Free to Grieve has helped thousands of couples since it was first published nearly twenty years ago."
Though one in four pregnancies ends in loss, miscarriage is shrouded in such secrecy and stigma that the woman who experiences it often feels deeply isolated, unsure how to process her grief. Her body seems to have betrayed her. Her confidence in the goodness of God is rattled. Her loved ones don't know what to say. Her heart is broken. She may feel guilty, ashamed, angry, depressed, confused, or alone. With vulnerability and tenderness, Adriel Booker shares her own experience of three consecutive miscarriages, as well as the stories of others. She tackles complex questions about faith and suffering with sensitivity and clarity, inviting women to a place of grace, honesty, and hope in the redemptive purposes of God without offering religious clichés and pat answers. She also shares specific, practical resources, such as ways to help guide children through grief, suggestions for memorializing your baby, and advice on pregnancy after loss, as well as a special section for dads and loved ones.
In this new approach to understanding the impact of grief, Susan A. Berger goes beyond the commonly held theories of stages of grief with a new typology for self-awareness and personal growth. She offers practical advice for healing from a major loss in this presentation of five basic ways, or types, of grieving. These five types describe how different people respond to a major loss. The types are: • Nomads, who have not yet resolved their grief and don’t often understand how their loss has affected their lives • Memorialists, who are committed to preserving the memory of their loved ones by creating concrete memorials and rituals to honor them • Normalizers, who are committed to re-creating a sense of family and community • Activists, who focus on helping other people who are dealing with the same disease or issues that caused their loved one’s death • Seekers, who adopt religious, philosophical, or spiritual beliefs to create meaning in their lives Drawing on research results and anecdotes from working with the bereaved over the past ten years, Berger examines how a person’s worldview is affected after a major loss. According to her findings, people experience significant changes in their sense of mortality, their values and priorities, their perception of and orientation toward time, and the manner in which they "fit" in society. The five types of grieving, she finds, reflect the choices people make in their efforts to adapt to dramatic life changes. By identifying with one of the types, readers who have suffered a recent loss—or whose lives have been shaped by an early loss—find ways of understanding the impact of the loss and of living more fully.
Welcome to the Grief Club - a place where one human who experienced a terrible loss, Janine Kwoh, is at the door to welcome other humans who are grieving. It is not an instruction manual, or a step-by-step playbook, or a memoir. It is, rather, a fresh, empathetic approach to all of the surprising, confusing, brutal, funny, and downright bizarre parts of grief. Combining her own experiences with grief - the author's partner died when both were in their late 20s - with what she learned from others in her 'grief club', Kwoh uses brief writings and observations, hand-drawn illustrations, and diagrams to explore all the different ways grief happens. Plus, wisdom and understanding in every line - there is no right or wrong way to grieve - and permission to grieve in whichever ways you need, for however long you need to. What to do when the world is your grief trigger. Signs you have grief brain. And gentle assurances: Grief isn't linear, but it does change and will soften over time. It is a book to put into the hands of anyone who is grieving, because from its very first page, that person will know they are no longer alone.
“A touching and provocative exploration of the latest research on animal minds and animal emotions” from the renowned anthropologist and author (The Washington Post). Scientists have long cautioned against anthropomorphizing animals, arguing that it limits our ability to truly comprehend the lives of other creatures. Recently, however, things have begun to shift in the other direction, and anthropologist Barbara J. King is at the forefront of that movement, arguing strenuously that we can—and should—attend to animal emotions. With How Animals Grieve, she draws our attention to the specific case of grief, and relates story after story—from fieldsites, farms, homes, and more—of animals mourning lost companions, mates, or friends. King tells of elephants surrounding their matriarch as she weakens and dies, and, in the following days, attending to her corpse as if holding a vigil. A housecat loses her sister, from whom she’s never before been parted, and spends weeks pacing the apartment, wailing plaintively. A baboon loses her daughter to a predator and sinks into grief. In each case, King uses her anthropological training to interpret and try to explain what we see—to help us understand this animal grief properly, as something neither the same as nor wholly different from the human experience of loss. The resulting book is both daring and down-to-earth, strikingly ambitious even as it’s careful to acknowledge the limits of our understanding. Through the moving stories she chronicles and analyzes so beautifully, King brings us closer to the animals with whom we share a planet, and helps us see our own experiences, attachments, and emotions as part of a larger web of life, death, love, and loss.
To watch a child grieve and not know what to do is a profoundly difficult experience for parents, teachers, and caregivers. Yet, there are guidelines for helping children develop a lifelong, healthy response to loss. In When Children Grieve, the authors offer a cutting-edge volume to free children from the false idea of "not feeling bad" and to empower them with positive, effective methods of dealing with loss. There are many life experiences that can produce feelings of grief in a child, from the death of a relative or a divorce in the family to more everyday experiences such as moving to a new neighborhood or losing a prized possession. No matter the reason or degree of severity, if a child you love is grieving, the guidelines examined in this thoughtful book can make a difference.
Children and teenagers with autism can struggle to cope with the loss of a loved one, and the complicated and painful emotions of bereavement. This book explains death in concrete terms that the child with autism will understand, explores feelings that the child may encounter as a part of bereavement, and offers creative and expressive activities that facilitate healing. With illustrations throughout, this interactive book begins with a simple story about what happens when people die. Each chapter then expands on the issues that have been raised in the story and offers a variety of coping skills exercises including writing, art and craft, cooking, movement, relaxation, and remembrance activities. Encouraging children with autism to express their loss through discussion, personal reflection, and creative activity, the book is ideal for children and teens to work through by themselves, or with the support of a family member or professional.
Shares the stories of men who have had to deal with grief and loss, and discusses the feelings of denial, anger, bitterness, and despair that can appear
Close to one in four American women experience the silent grief of pregnancy loss. Loved Baby offers much-needed support to women in the middle of psychological and physiological grief as a result of losing an unborn child.
