Tackling one of life's greatest mysteries, Rabbi Ben Kamin examines the diverse ways we mourn the death of a loved one. Drawn from his forty-plus years' of counselling the bereaved, Kamin uses parables and stories to provide thoughtful insights on how to encounter and endure grief. He further stresses the importance of not deferring the process of grieving at the risk of harming our physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Following on from her Forward prize-winning collection, Small Hands, Mona Arshi's new book continues in its lyrical and exact exploration of the aftershocks of grief. These extraordinary poems, which see Arshi continuing with her experiments with form, relocate experiences in both past and future feeling, in both the intimacies of ordinariness and the collective experience of myth. Moving and discomfiting, these poems tune, in their acute emotional awareness of individual pain, to the dangers and unsettling violences of the contemporary world. Nevertheless, at the centre of this book is an overarching commitment to hope, in whatever form it takes, to the earth's tiny creatures, and its 'churning, broken song'.

These 101 inspirational, compassionate, and empowering stories will help you cope with loss, regain your strength, and find joy in life again. You deserve loving support in your time of need, because it hurts-a lot. It helps to read stories from other people who have been through the same thing and who are passing on their advice and best tips. Losing a loved one, whether a child, a spouse, a parent or grandparent, a sibling, a friend, a pet... it's a process you have to work through. The same goes for losing the future you thought you had due to chronic illness. And with these 101 stories you'll find people just like you sharing what worked for them and helped them continue living, loving, and even laughing. You don't have to feel alone. Think of this as your portable support group, with 101 new friends who care about your situation and understand what you're going through. Chicken Soup for the Soul books are 100% made in the USA and each book includes stories from as diverse a group of writers as possible. Chicken Soup for the Soul solicits and publishes stories from the LGBTQ community and from people of all ethnicities, nationalities, and religions.

The sadness of losing a pet affects people from all walks of life, ages and situations. Pet ownership enriches people's lives, and so the loss of a pet - a member of the family - can be devastating. While there is an abundance of advice discussing pet care, training, the idiosyncrasies of particular animal breeds and celebrations of the lives of pets, the loss of a pet is often seen as 'inevitable' and left unaddressed. This can be a shattering experience and not always recognised by those with less understanding of the bond between humans and their animal companions. An Inevitable Journey seeks to reassure owners that it is perfectly natural to grieve the loss of a much-loved pet through a collection of prose, quotations and poetry through each stage of the process, for example: Grief, Missing, Strength, Guilt, Depression, Longing, Acceptance, Memories, and finally, Moving On. Each page is flagged for easy reference, depicting each particular stage of this journey. The greater the love we have for our pets, the greater our grief upon losing them. The aim of this anthology is to guide bereaved owners from despair through to hope.

'This book may on first glance appear to be about death and regrets, but is in reality about life and choices. It is warmly life-affirming ... A magnificent read that will inspire. I loved it' Sue Black 'So beautiful ... Perfectly written and judged ... A wonderful book that made me grasp life a little more firmly' Dr Chris van Tulleken A powerful, moving and hopeful book exploring what people regret most when they are dying and how this can help us lead a better life. If you were told you were going to die tomorrow, what would you regret? Ten years ago, without time to think or prepare, Georgina Scull ruptured internally. The doctors told her she could have died and, as Georgina recovered, she began to consider the life she had led and what she would have left behind. Paralysed by a fear of wasting what seemed like precious time but also fully ready to learn how to spend her second chance, Georgina set out to meet others who had faced their own mortality or had the end in sight.

When your life is suddenly full of questions, how do you move forward in faith? After being married for less than a year, country music legend Alan Jackson's daughter Mattie was faced with navigating a future that didn't include her young husband and the life they dreamed of together. Ben Selecman passed away twelve days after suffering a traumatic brain injury--and three weeks before celebrating his first anniversary with his wife. Suddenly, twenty-eight-year-old Mattie had to find a way to reconcile herself with a good God, even when He did not give her the healing miracle she prayed for. In Lemons on Friday, Mattie Jackson Selecman invites you to walk with her during the first years of grief following Ben's tragic death as she grapples with her loss and leans on a steadfast God. Mattie wrestles with questions that we've all faced in the midst of grief and loss, including: How did I get here? Will this always hurt? Who am I now? Where can I find the strength to keep going? Lemons on Friday will give you the encouragement you need to see life and love in a brand new light, no matter what you're facing. Praise for Lemons on Friday: "Mattie's story carries you through a valley of unbearable heartbreak, and in the very next moment, you are experiencing an ocean of peace that is the heartbeat of Jesus. Her honesty and vulnerability in this book are a beacon of light to any heart that has experienced total darkness. The courage and wisdom expressed through her words will inspire hope in readers, no matter their walk of life." -Lauren Akins, New York Times bestselling author of Live in Love

'Essential reading for anyone who has been through the sadness of a lost pregnancy' The Times 'Sensitive and insightful' Sunday Times Style 'This book will be a godsend to any woman going through the murky devastation that is called miscarriage but feels like something else entirely: the loss of a baby' Ariel Levy 'A compassionate, nuanced book that does this very complicated grief justice' Pandora Sykes 'This book will be the friend to hold your hand while you navigate your own pathway of grief. I'm so glad it's here' Elle Wright Beyond Grief also contains interviews with experts and other women who have experienced losses of their own, including Elizabeth Day, Leandra Medine Cohen, Melissa Odabash, Jools Oliver, Alexandra Stedman and Latham Thomas. Pippa Vosper tragically lost her son Axel in 2017, when she was five months pregnant, and has since written about miscarriage and baby loss online and in a series of pieces for Vogue. Beyond Grief: Navigating the Journey of Pregnancy and Baby Loss is the book she wishes had been available when her son died. It covers every aspect of pregnancy and baby loss at any stage, from the practical to the emotional, with advice from experts and stories from women who have been through it themselves. Beyond Grief offers both an inclusive perspective and a guiding hand to anyone who has experienced any kind of pregnancy loss, as well as those who are trying to support them through it.

The day her fiance died suddenly of a heart attack, Katie Swenson retreated to "Bohemia," the third-floor loft that the couple had renovated in their home in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and began to write. A visceral account of grief and the profound kindness that resonates around it, this is also the story of her hundred-year-old house, named the "Scarab" after the Egyptian symbol for rebirth, and the two courageous women who built it a century earlier-Wellesley College professors Katharine Lee Bates, author of "America the Beautiful," and her partner Katharine Coman. Parallel lives unfold in the magical Bohemia, where Coman died, where Bates mourned, and where Swenson wrote and wrote through that first searing year, held up by their spirits. Told with rare emotional power, In Bohemia is a meditation on love, family, and community, and inspires us to be our best selves.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Last Christmas I almost killed myself. Almost. I've had a lot of almosts. Never gone from almost to deed. Don't think I ever will. But it was a bad almost. Living Better is Alastair Campbell's honest, moving and life affirming account of his lifelong struggle with depression. It is an autobiographical, psychological and psychiatric study, which explores his own childhood, family and other relationships, and examines the impact of his professional and political life on himself and those around him. But it also lays bare his relentless quest to understand depression not just through his own life but through different treatments. Every bit as direct and driven, clever and candid as he is, this is a book filled with pain, but also hope -- he examines how his successes have been in part because of rather than despite his mental health problems -- and love. We all know someone with depression. There is barely a family untouched by it. We may be talking about it more than we did, back in the era of 'boys don't cry' - they did you know - and when a brave face or a stiff upper lip or a best foot forward was seen as the only way to go. But we still don't talk about it enough. There is still stigma, and shame, and taboo. There is still the feeling that admitting to being sad or anxious makes us weak. It took me years, decades even to get to this point, but I passionately believe that the reverse is true and that speaking honestly about our feelings and experiences (whether as a depressive or as the friend or relative of a depressive) is the first and best step on the road to recovery. So that is what I have tried to do here.

After Homicide describes the collective responses of bereaved people to the aftermath of violent death, a subject not dealt with in any detail in the literature that is currently available. The book concentrates particularly on the birth, development and organization of the self help and campaigning groups that emerged in the last decade. The author examines these as attempts to give institutional expression to interpretations of grief.

In addition, the author had special access to a number of groups and uses the infomation that he gathered through this access to discuss the practical and political importance of the work of these groups, and their affects on policing, the media and the law.

A taboo subject in today's society, death is something that we do not like to talk about and especially do not like young people talking about. Yet, without opportunities to talk, young people's anxieties about death can manifest themselves in all sorts of self-destructive and socially-destructive ways. In this book, Nick Luxmoore explores the problems that arise when death is not openly discussed with young people and offers invaluable advice about how best to allay concerns without having to pretend that there are easy answers. He covers all of the key issues from the physicality of death to the fear of not existing to the way young people's morality develops and he provides expert insight into the impact these subjects have on young people's behaviour. This book presents a wealth of information for professionals, parents and others working with young people, providing the skills needed to ask young people the difficult question, Do you think much about death? and to support them as they begin to find their answer.

More than thirty years ago, David Loftus’s cherished identical twin, John, passed away. Ever since, a day hasn’t passed without David feeling the loss.

In 1987, after recovering from a brain tumour, John contracted meningitis and found himself back in hospital for treatment. David, as always, was by his side. They were opening their twenty-fourth birthday presents when a fatally miscalculated routine injection forced John into a coma. He died within two weeks.

Over the past year, David has spent an hour every day remembering John and recording his story by hand. Diary of a Lone Twin is the product of that daily ritual – a powerful and deeply personal account that covers everything from enchanting and charmingly evoked childhood vignettes to the acute loneliness and raw pain that followed John’s death.

In sharing this beautifully written diary, award-winning and internationally acclaimed photographer David Loftus provides a rare insight for anyone who wishes to understand the bond between identical twins, and the unique bereavement of a lone twin that few people will ever experience.

This is a book about Covid-19 as it happened, with all the fear, horror, losses, grief, chaos, revelations, frustrations and sheer heroism. It is also a book about the future - what we learned and didn't learn; what we hoped for when the lockdowns eased and we could believe there could be a future. It is a vivid, sometimes distressing, often uplifting and powerfully moving account of a nation's journey through a nightmare, told in the words of individuals describing their own and others' experiences and how they and their families and communities coped. We hear stories from many perspectives: the bereaved; the frontline workers; those still battling the long and disabling tail of the virus; the marginalised and vulnerable; the children and young people. These are voices that are rarely heard, talking of small acts of generosity, courage, private suffering and quiet endurance. Alongside, expert commentaries draw the themes together and offer further reading and resources. So many of us swore we would learn from the pandemic. This book will help us do so.

Diary, memoir, poem, fiction? Autopsy, crime scene, hagiography, hymn? The chronicle of an obsessive love. In the middle of the night between the 25th and 26th of November, Vincent fell from the third floor playing parachute with a bathrobe. He drank a liter of tequila, smoked Congolese grass, snorted cocaine... -from Crazy for Vincent Crazy for Vincent begins with the death of the figure it fixates upon: Vincent, a skateboarding, drug-addled, delicate "monster" of a boy in whom the narrator finds a most sublime beauty. By turns tender and violent, Vincent drops in and out of French writer and photographer Herve Guibert's life over the span of six years (from 1982, when he first met Vincent as a fifteen-year-old teenager, to 1988). After Vincent's senseless death, the narrator embarks on a reconnaissance writing mission to retrieve the Vincent that had entered, elevated, and emotionally eviscerated his life, working chronologically backward from the death that opens the text. Assembling Vincent's fragmentary appearances in his journal, the author seeks to understand what Vincent's presence in his life had been: a passion? a love? an erotic obsession? or an authorial invention? A parallel inquiry could be made into the book that results: Is it diary, memoir, poem, fiction? Autopsy, crime scene, hagiography, hymn? Crazy for Vincent is a text the very nature of which is as untethered as desire itself.

Grief is a normal, instinctive response to loss or impending loss. Grief changes whoever it touches without discrimination. Embracing the change is key for healing and positive transformation. Introspection or reflection can be a useful, perhaps therapeutic, process when you are grieving. Indeed, silence, reflection, love and humility are the most precious offerings on the sacred altar of the soul. Soul Comfort is the first book to examine grief holistically through concise insights into the related concepts of consciousness, death and love for healing and positive transformation. Death does not extinguish consciousness. Death transforms and distils consciousness. And the grief you feel for someone is proportionate to the love you feel for them - the deeper your love, the deeper your grief. Uplifting, unique and thought-provoking insights from the author of The Audible Life Stream: Ancient Secret of Dying While Living will offer comfort to your soul and may profoundly change your perceptions of grief, death, consciousness, love and transformation. If your perceptions are changed, you will know that your own transformative journey has begun.

Death remains a difficult topic to address openly, left to professionals in hospitals and hospices. Talking About Death aims to equip ministers and pastoral carers to enable individuals and families to say and do the important things on their minds. It includes: Learning How To Die: How the medicalisation of death has affected thinking around death; the role of Christian faith. Talking about death positively: exploring the string feelings around death; how theories of loss can be helpful. Christian Approaches to Talking About Death and Dying Societal Attitudes To Talking About Death And Dying What is to be gained by talking about death and Dying Practical examples and stories Contemplating our own death - resources for end of life conversations

A heartfelt expression of a personal encounter with grief and how a wise old tree healed and soothed the author's broken edges. Tales from the Wishbone Tree is a personal story about love, loss and survival. Former award-winning journalist, editor and complementary health practitioner, Helly Eaton, moved to rural West Dorset. When her beloved husband was diagnosed with cancer, she found herself treading the fragile line between being wife, lover, friend and carer. After his death she discovered the wishbone tree, high on a hill near her home and it has become her friend and confidante, sharing its wisdom and comfort when she needed it most. It's taught her many valuable lessons about living and surviving life's traumas. The book reveals how an increasingly common experience that affects millions of people can have deep and far-reaching effects. It is surprising and a testament to how nature can save the day in often small, but profound ways. Heartbreak and humour, the ups and downs of losing someone you love. Thank heavens for the wishbone tree. Everyone should have one...

Contents:
Part 1 The Child's Perspective of Death: Children's Understandings of Death - Striving to Understand Death; Grieving Children: Can We Answer Their Questions. Part 2 The Child's Response to Life-Threatening Illness: Talking to Children About Illness; The Child and Life-Threatening Illness; Children and HIV: Orphans and Victims. Part 3 Children Mourning, Mourning Children: Grief of Children and Parents; Children and Traumatic Loss; How Can We Help; The Role of School. Part 4 Innovative Research: World of Dying Children and Their Well Siblings; The Empty Space Phenomenon: The Process of Grief in the Bereaved Family; A Sampler of Literature for Young Readers: Death, Dying and Bereavement.