A memoir of a journey through mourning a parent's sudden passing from ALS, and finding faith and guidance in the process. Kevin P. Martin, Sr. was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease, better known as ALS, in August 2019. He died only a month later. A thousand people would attend the funeral--Kevin Sr. father was a leader in the South Boston community, in the Catholic church, as a professional and a family man. But Kevin Jr. struggled with a bottomless grief; neither his father's example nor Kevin's faith as a deacon in Archdiocese of Boston equipped him to cope with the loss. All Is Well is the story of Kevin Sr.'s well-lived life and how his son regained his faith in God after his father's death. It is a memoir that offers a roadmap out of grief, taking a path whose landmarks are beatitudes, Bible verses, and lessons and insights into leadership, taken from the life and career of a consummate leader. It paints a portrait of a consummate professional and family man, and sheds light on the up-close realities of ALS. It offers one exceptional father's example for how we can better live our lives, how we can make the best of the time we have, and how we can do the most good with what we're given. Part Tuesday's With Morrie and part Townie, this memoir offers solace and a path for those who are experiencing or have experienced grief from losing a parent, especially to terminal illness. Those that believe in a higher power, especially but not limited to the Catholic community, and those from Boston and elsewhere in New England, will readily find themselves in All is Well.

No one should be left to grieve alone

Even with the help of friends and family, grieving the death of a loved one can be a complex, sometimes overwhelming, process. The Mourning Handbook is written as a companion to those mourners in need of practical and emotional assistance during the trying times before and after the death of a loved one.

Having counseled thousands of people who have experienced loss, Helen Fitzgerald gives special attention to the complex emotions that can accompany especially traumatic situations, such as when a loved one has been murdered, when there have been multiple deaths, when a body has not been recovered, or when the mourner has been the inadvertent cause of death.

Designed to conform to the special needs of the bereaved, The Mourning Handbook is written and organized in an accessible style punctuated by real stories of people who have experienced every kind of loss. With many subchapters and cross references, it can be consulted for a specific problem or read at length.

The English language has no specific word for the parent that has lost a child. There exist words for orphan, widow and widower, but there is no word that captures and conveys this tragic type of loss.

It has been eleven years since Diane Foley's son, the American journalist James Foley, was kidnapped in northern Syria, and nearly ten since that day in August 2014 when she would learn that he had been murdered by ISIS in a public beheading that would ricochet in video around the world. A whole decade. Time rushes past. And yet, for Diane, that moment is unending.

In American Mother, legendary author Colum McCann tells Diane's story as she recalls the months of his captivity, the efforts made to bring him home and the days following his death, in which Diane came face to face with one of the men responsible for her son's kidnapping and torture. A testament to the power of radical empathy and moral courage, American Mother takes us inside one woman's extraordinary journey to find connection in a world torn asunder, and to fight for others as a way to keep her son's memory alive.