Elizabeth Meyer’s “sweet, touching, and funny” (Booklist) memoir reads as if “Carrie Bradshaw worked in a funeral home a la Six Feet Under” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Good Mourning offers a behind-the-scenes look at a legendary funeral chapel on New York City’s Upper East Side—mixing big money, society drama, and the universal experience of grieving—told from the unique perspective of a fashionista turned funeral planner. Elizabeth Meyer stumbled upon a career in the midst of planning her own father’s funeral, which she turned into an upbeat party with Rolling Stones music, thousands of dollars worth of her mother’s favorite flowers, and a personalized eulogy. Starting as a receptionist, Meyer quickly found she had a knack for helping people cope with their grief, as well as creating fitting send-offs for some of the city’s most high-powered residents. Meyer has seen it all: two women who found out their deceased husband (yes, singular) was living a double life, a famous corpse with a missing brain, and funerals that cost more than most weddings. By turns illuminating, emotional, and darkly humorous, Good Mourning is a lesson in how the human heart grieves and grows—whether you’re wearing this season’s couture or drug-store flip-flops.
In this brief book Allan Hugh Cole explains the process of grief and what loss can do to us, identifies ways of coping, and reminds us of the hope that we can find in mourning. Ultimately, Cole offers a plan of "good mourning"--a way to work through the loss and rebuild life with new strength. Cole describes what it takes to be engaged in good mourning instead of endless suffering and demonstrates how faith and prayer can be practical tools in rebuilding life after loss.
Theresa Caputo, TLC’s Long Island Medium and the three-time New York Times bestselling author, teaches us how to ritualize and recover from the daily losses in our lives. Life on earth comes with losses that often go unrecognized, unacknowledged, and un-mourned. This invisible pain causes deeper emotional damage— devastation that Theresa Caputo has witnessed in many of her clients. Though they are suffering, they rarely understand where the anguish is coming from—or how to deal with it. Theresa’s clients often confuse their emotional distress with depression or anxiety. But it’s more than that. It’s grief, deep and profound, and it consumes the soul. The only relief, according to Theresa’s special gift she calls Spirit, is to pay more attention to how we experience, ritualize, and recover from the hurt in our lives. Once we name these feelings of grief, recognize the losses for what they are, and create mourning rituals around them, we can move through the pain and begin to heal. It isn’t just a good idea to mourn these types of upsets; it’s essential, so that we can then enjoy a fresh beginning.
"I love GOOD MOURNING...real love survives anything."--Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. "GOOD MOURNING will uplift your soul, & allow you to look at life & death differently."--Gerald G. Jampolski, M.D. "GOOD MOURNING should be immortal, like the vision & writing of Kahlil Gibran." Available through Bookmasters Distribution Center 1-800-247-6553 or Vivian Greene Inc. Collector Club, POB 4700, Miami Lakes, FL 33014.
The Good Mourning is a kid's support guide for grief and mourning death. The book helps other boys and girls deal with the loss of a parent, grandparent, other close relative, or friend. The Good Mourning is an easily read book that helps children process, from a peer's perspective, the broad range of emotions, thoughts, and pain experienced after the loss of a loved one. In a warm and conversational manner, the young author, whose mother died just before his 5th birthday, is supportive, uplifting, informative and transparent. This book was written by a kid who experienced loss and grief; for kid's who are experiencing loss and grief. The Good Mourning is a conversation among peers that adults are welcomed into, as it is also for invaluable to any adult who raises, cares for, or loves a child in grief and mourning. It is age-appropriate, understandable, relatable, and applicable. More importantly, it equips its readers with tools to help them take control of how they mourn. This book helps children grieving the death of a parent, grandparent, or other loved one, understand more, process better, become stronger, and Get to Their Good Mourning!
Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Priyanka Champaneri’s transcendent debut novel brings us inside India’s holy city of Banaras, where the manager of a death hostel shepherds the dying who seek the release of a good death, while his own past refuses to let him go. Banaras, Varanasi, Kashi: India’s holy city on the banks of the Ganges has many names but holds one ultimate promise for Hindus. It is the place where pilgrims come for a good death, to be released from the cycle of reincarnation by purifying fire. As the dutiful manager of a death hostel in Kashi, Pramesh welcomes the dying and assists families bound for the funeral pyres that burn constantly on the ghats. The soul is gone, the body is burnt, the time is past, he tells them. Detach. After ten years in the timeless city, Pramesh can nearly persuade himself that here, there is no past or future. He lives contentedly at the death hostel with his wife, Shobha, their young daughter, Rani, the hostel priests, his hapless but winning assistant, and the constant flow of families with their dying. But one day the past arrives in the lifeless form of a man pulled from the river—a man with an uncanny resemblance to Pramesh. Called “twins” in their childhood village, he and his cousin Sagar are inseparable until Pramesh leaves to see the outside world and Sagar stays to tend the land. After Pramesh marries Shobha, defying his family’s wishes, a rift opens up between the cousins that he has long since tried to forget. Do not look back. Detach. But for Shobha, Sagar’s reemergence casts a shadow over the life she’s built for her family. Soon, an unwelcome guest takes up residence in the death hostel, the dying mysteriously continue to live, and Pramesh is forced to confront his own ideas about death, rebirth, and redemption. Told in lush, vivid detail and with an unforgettable cast of characters, The City of Good Death is a remarkable debut novel of family and love, memory and ritual, and the ways in which we honor the living and the dead. PRAISE FOR THE CITY OF GOOD DEATH “In Champaneri’s ambitious, vivid debut, the dying come to the holy city of Kashi to die a good death that frees them from the burden of reincarnation…. In sharp prose, Champaneri explores the power of stories—those the characters tell themselves, those told about them, and those they believe. . . . This epic, magical story of death teems with life.” —Publishers Weekly “Brimming with characters whose lives overlap and whose stories interweave, Champaneri’s exquisite debut delves into the consequences of the past, and how stories that are told can become reality even when they contain barely a shred of truth. As Pramesh discovers, the bitterness of past wounds can bring hope for redemption and life.” —Bridget Thoreson, Booklist “Lush prose evokes the thick, close atmosphere of Kashi and the intricate religious practices upon which life and death depend. Rumor and superstition hold sway over even the most level-headed people, twisting what’s explainable into something extraordinary—with tragic consequences. . . . The City of Good Death is a breathtaking, unforgettable novel about how remembering the past is just as important as moving on.” —Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews, Starred Review "Champaneri’s Kashi is teeming and vivid . . . the book frequently charms, and it's as full of humor, warmth, and mystery as Kashi’s own marketplace." —Kirkus Reviews “The City of Good Death is the debut novel of Priyanka Champaneri but it has the confidence of a master storyteller. Drawing on the rich literary traditions of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, Champaneri’s epic saga will satisfy armchair travelers thirsty for adventure, and sick of looking out their windows.” —Chicago Review of Books "In intricate detail and with remarkable skill, Champaneri writes a powerful tale about the pull of the past and our aching need to understand the mysteries and misunderstandings that thwart our relationships. An atmospheric and immersive debut with a rich cast of characters you won’t soon forget." —Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop
The star of "Long Island Medium" shares inspiring, spirit-based lessons on how to work through and overcome grief, in a guide that also offers example testimonies about the experiences of her clients
A New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller “Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.” —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry—especially chemical embalming—and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.
Awaken to Good Mourning - An Essential and Practical Guide for Dealing With Grief.Rebuild your life after the loss of a loved one. Awaken to Good Mourning, which became an Amazon Kindle bestseller in less than 24 hours, is an essential guide for anyone struggling to cope with grief. The courage required to make it through such an intensely personal journey can be found in this book. After experiencing his own heart-wrenching grief, Mark E. Hundley created a life-saving road map designed to show readers how to deal with grief in dynamic ways. By using these effective strategies for grief reconciliation, you can learn to rebuild your life.Personal Experience With Grief. Mark wrote this book after his own personal experiences with death, mourning, and recovery. He, like so many others in our society, was not prepared to face the excruciating pain when his first wife, Christy, died after a car accident in 1989. He suddenly found himself the single father of a 7-year-old daughter. He was numb, angry, confused, and frightened as he searched for some kind of guidance and support to get through the tasks ahead.As he worked through his grief, he learned many practical principles and discovered some very helpful resources around which he rebuilt his life. He wrote Awaken to Good Mourning because he believed that individuals and families facing the devastating death of a loved one could also benefit from these resources and principles.Benefits For Readers * Contains sections to guide you through each of the three phases of mourning. * Offers essential encouragement throughout each grief phase. * Provides tips to help you with challenges and choices that are common for each grief phase. * Outlines how to cope with various emotional and physical feelings related to grief. * Helps you track your progress using a mourning assessment. * Includes a list of important paperwork and things to remember and consider when dealing with the loss of a loved one. * Features several personal worksheets focusing on topics, such as building an action plan and creating a life plan.Valuable Grief Resource. Awaken to Good Mourning * Has been given by life insurance companies and funeral homes as a gift to client families. * Has been referenced and quoted in scholarly articles and graduate level counseling textbooks. * Has been shared with friends and loved ones in the aftermath of death losses.About Mark E. Hundley Experienced Grief Counselor Mark and his wife, Vanessa, own McKinney Counseling Services in McKinney, TX and their main specialty is grief counseling. He is a Life Transition Specialist with a specific expertise in the field of grief. He works with individuals, families and corporations to create and implement strategies for powerful living despite obstacles faced. Mark is also a public speaker and has traveled throughout the country speaking to various groups regarding coping with grief. He is a co-founder of the Journey of Hope Grief Support Center in Plano, TX, a non-profit agency that provides free group grief support to children, adolescents and their parents or adult caregivers as they learn to mourn the death of a loved one. Education and Credentials Mark earned his B.A. in Sociology from Hardin-Simmons University and his Master's in Counseling from the University of North Texas. .He has worked with children, youth and families since 1971 in various capacities - ministry, education and private counseling practice.
“An honest, practical, as well as emotional guide to working through the processing of mourning” (Vogue), Grief Works is a lifeline for all of us dealing with loss and a handbook to help others—from the “expected” death of a parent to the sudden and unexpected death of a child or spouse. Death affects us all. Yet it is still the last taboo in our society, and grief is still profoundly misunderstood. Julia Samuel, a grief psychotherapist, has spent twenty-five years working with the bereaved and understanding the full repercussions of loss. In Grief Works, Samuel shares case studies from those who have experienced great love and great loss—and survived. People need to understand that grief is a process that has to be worked through, and Samuel shows if we do the work, we can begin to heal. “As a guide for the newly grieving, Grief Works succeeds on many levels, and the author’s compassionate storytelling skills provide even broader appeal…and consistently hit an authentically inspiring note” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). “Illuminating” (The New York Times), intimate, warm, and helpful, Samuel is a caring and deeply experienced guide through the shadowy and mutable land of grief, and her book is as invaluable to those who are grieving as it is to those around them. She adroitly unpacks the psychological tangles of grief in a voice that is compassionate, grounded, real, and observant of those in mourning. Divided into case histories grouped by who has died—a partner, a parent, a sibling, a child, as well section dealing with terminal illness and suicide—Grief Works shows us how to live and learn from great loss. This important book is “essential for anyone who has ever experienced grief or wanted to comfort a bereaved friend” (Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones’s Diary).
