Grief Loss and Bereavement

From Wife to Widow
Widowed
by Dr. Joyce Brothers
Six years ago I devised an exercise I called "the widow game" to help Trudy, a woman I had known for several years. Trudy complained that her husband was so unutterably dull that she was considering divorce or, at the very least, taking a

On Grief and Dying: Understanding the Soul's Journey
by Diane Stein
This is a book for all who grieve, and for all who die. It is also a book for all who live: women and men, widows and widowers, those who have lost a child, a lover, a parent, a grandparent, a pet. It is a book for all who have felt loss, who have lost a

Finding Your Way After the Loss of a Loved One
by Eugenia Price
Most of us greet a bright, cloudless day with a cheer. Most of us, at one time or another, fear the dark. Oh, nights can be beautiful if our world spins along upright, if those we love are nearby, if we are in a familiar, safe place. As long as there are

How It Feels When a Parent Dies
by Jill Krementz
Laurie Marshall, age 12 My father died two months ago in a plane crash. He was a sports-medicine doctor and he and a few of his associates were going up to the U.S. Olympics in Lake Placid. I found out about it around four o'clock in the morning. I had

Closer to the Light
by Melvin Morse, M.D.
With the publication of Life After Life more than a decade ago, I issued a challenge to the people in the medical profession to continue researching the marvelous phenomenon of the near-death experience. Many physicians and researchers accepted

Surviving the Death of a Sibling: Living Through Grief When an Adult Brother or Sister Dies
by T.J. Wray
It's amazing that after more than fifty years of reflection upon the psychology of bereavement, there has been almost no attention to adult sibling loss. This omission is another glaring example of disenfranchised loss as described by Kenneth E. Doka. A

How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies
by Therese A. Rando
Learning about Grief: Knowing More Can Help April 1st was a beautiful, sunny day that year. I vividly recall sitting in the dentist's chair in the late afternoon, waiting for my annual examination, and wondering whether there was enough time left in the

Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life
by Jane Brody
Most readers know me as a staunch advocate of a healthy life - a life filled with nutritious food and regular physical exercise designed to help people live life as fully as possible. But even the healthiest of lives eventually must come to an end. In

It's Time to Get in Line
Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying
by Maggie Callanan, R.N., Patricia Kelley
LAURA Joe paced anxiously - back and forth - at the foot of Laura's bed. There was an odd stillness in the room. He edged around the nurse's aid and the corner of the dresser so he could sit by his wife's side on the bed. Deeply concerned, he picked up

Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death
by Joan Halifax, Ph.D.
In many spiritual teachings, the great divide between life and death collapses into an integrated energy that cannot be fragmented. In this view, to deny death is to deny life. Old age, sickness, and death do not have to be equated with suffering; we can

Is There A Way To Mend A Broken Heart?
by Margarita Nahapetyan
Having a broken heart can be really dangerous for health, and in fact, it can lead to a deadly outcome, report U.S. scientists who found why some individuals do suffer from the condition.

Just Another Widow
It Must Have Been Moonglow
by Phyllis Greene
This afternoon, Mt. Carmel Hospice called for my six-month "checkup." How am I doing? they wanted to know. "Well," I said. "I am doing well." Am I telling the truth, I wondered; what is "well"? What sorrowing widow

The Most Difficult Decision
Final Exit : The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying
by Derek Humphry
This is the scenario: You are terminally ill, all medical treatments acceptable to you have been exhausted, and the suffering in its different forms is unbearable. Because the illness is serious, you recognize that your life is drawing to a close

Regret and Denial
The End Is Just the Beginning
by Arlene Churn, Ph.D.
For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing. PSALM 31:10a My mother! She was my personal possession. I would never have another mother — only one biological mother per lifetime — and mine was gone, suddenly, at the age of

The First Night
Embraced by the Light
by Betty J. Eadie
Something was wrong. My husband, Joe, had left my hospital room only a few minutes before, but already a foreboding feeling was enveloping me. I would be alone through the night, alone on the eve of one of my most frightening challenges. Thoughts of

Lessons on Living from People Preparing to Die
Mrs. Hunter's Happy Death
by Reverend John Fanestil
All quoted passaged by J. Wood are taken from "An Account of Mrs. Hunter's Holy LIfe and Happy Death." 1. Whatever Degree Of Grace: Sharing God's Greatest Gift Whatever degree of Grace is communicated by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the

The Empty Room
by Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn
The movie The Big Chill begins with the death of a character you never meet, except for a few shots of his body being dressed for burial. As it turns out, this faceless individual is instrumental to the plot. His funeral brings his old circle of friends

The Grieving Teen
by Helen Fitzgerald
In an earlier book, I wrote about a fifteen-year-old named Laura, whose unhappy situation as a young person whose needs were ignored continues to haunt me, for stories like hers remain largely unaddressed in the many books that have been written about

Finding Hope When a Child Dies: What Other Cultures Can Teach Us
by Sukie Miller, Ph.D.
We Have No Language When your husband dies, you become a widow. When your wife dies, a widower. Children who lose their parents are called orphans. But we have no name for the parent who loses a child, nor for the brothers and sisters of a child who

Psychology and Religion: What Is the Heroic Individual?
by Ernest Becker, Ph.D.
When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is dishear

Survivors of Death
Death, Grief and Mourning: Individual and Social Realities
by John S. Stephenson, Ph.D.
Through our examination of the grief process, we have been able to develop an understanding of the psychological ramifications of death. In discussing mourning, we examined contemporary American society's response to loss, including its normative

Why Is It So Hard to Die?
Death
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D.
Dying is an integral part of life, as natural and predictable as being born. But whereas birth is cause for celebration, death has become a dreaded and unspeakable issue to be avoided by every means possible in our modern society. Perhaps it is that

The Book Of Eulogies
by Phyllis Theroux
The Creators If there is any one reason to single out artists as being more necessary to our lives than any others, it is because they provide us with light that cannot be extinguished. They go into dark rooms and poke at their souls until the contours

The Collapse
A Life That Matters
by Mary Schindler, Robert Schindler, Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, Bobby Schindler
The phone call woke us. I watched my husband, Bob, stumble to the living room of our small condo, a matter of fifteen steps, where he picked up the receiver. It was around 5:30 a.m., February 25, 1990. Calls at that hour could only mean bad news

'As Soon as You Die, You're Mine' - Human Remains Trade
by Annie Cheney
In Miami, Augie Perna stood in the conference room of the Trump International Sonesta Beach Resort. Looking out the picture window, Perna studied the swimming pool, where children were playing and women were tanning, and gazed at the pale blue ocean beyon

The Five Stages of Grief
On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., David Kessler
The stages have evolved since their introduction, and they have been very misunderstood over the past three decades. They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not

The Death of Innocents; Wrongful Executions
by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ
Dobie Gillis Williams When I first met him I was struck by his name, Dobie Gillis, and then when I heard he had a brother named John Boy, another TV character, I knew for sure his mama must like to watch a lot of TV. Betty Williams, Dobie Williams's

A Story of Love, Death, Grief and the Afterlife
by Mary Allen
I'm sitting here trying to picture Jim Beaman, to conjure up his physical presence, tune him into memory like an image on a TV screen. I can almost but not quite see him. What I get is vague, hazy. Some dial needs to be turned to bring the picture into fo

Bearing the Burden - Families in Distress
by Marilyn Webb
Even families with the best intentions and the greatest resources find themselves exhausted trying to tend to the rigorous needs of the dying. They need help in making good medical or care decisions, they need help interacting with physicians and sorting

Mother: The Call to Connection
by Patricia Commins
Death does not end a relationship. Spiritually or psychologically, a thread remains, stretching from this world to the next. Through this connection, we feel the pull to understand our deceased mothers, to put into context not only their lives but ours. T