Van die oomblik wat ons gebore word, begin ons ook te sterf. Maar al is die dood een van die algemeenste menslike gebeurtenisse, vermy die meeste mense om daaroor te dink of te praat. Wreed En Mooi Is Die Dood – met bydraes deur gewilde Afrikaanse skrywers – probeer hierdie stilte te verbreek.

Deur hul diep persoonlike verhale oor verlies en heling te deel, bied die bydraers onbewustelik ook raad vir hoe om die hartseer van ’n geliefde se dood te verwerk en hoe om jou eie sterflikheid te konfronteer. So vertel Marita van der Vyver van haar babaseun se dood, terwyl Valda Jansen beskryf hoe sy lamgelê is deur die nuus dat sy kanker het en Kerneels Breytenbach deel sy ervaring van eensaamheid na sy vrou se dood. ’n Paramedikus beskryf sy daaglikse ontmoetings met die dood, daar is ’n lys van dinge wat ’n mens vir ’n sterwende moet sê en nie moet sê nie en ook ’n bespreking van die rituele om die dood. Daar is soms selfs ’n bietjie humor . . . soos die storie oor die jong dominee wat in ’n leë graf geval het en Annelie Botes se voorbereidings vir haar begrafnis.

Dit is ’n aangrypende boek wat beloof om lesers te roer en weer te laat dink oor hulle prioriteite in die lewe.

The worst thing that a parent can ever go through is the loss of a child. The pain, the emptiness, the guilt and the sadness that you feel, is like no other. Does it get any easier? Yes, it does. Will your heart ever mend? Yes, it will. But it does take time to heal. Jenny lost her little girl twenty-eight years ago - a long time. But had she healed? Not as much as she thought. That was until she decided to write this book and share her story with the world. "I'm sharing this heartbreaking time of my life to let other parents know that it's okay to feel the way they do. I want to let people know that talking about their feelings, their sorrow, their worries, their pain - but also their joy, could help them to grieve and be more at peace with themselves and the world around them - just like I have!" - Jenny Ford This book supports Child Bereavement UK by making a donation from every book sold. Please help Jenny to support this worthy cause.

Have you lost somebody close to you? This book can help you to deal with loss, grief and bereavement. "It's important to remember that everyone's journey of grief is personal and individual. However, there are similarities for everyone in the process of grief. My aim is to help everyone to understand that there really is some light at the end of the tunnel, and to help them on their journey towards it." The Grief Garden Path is easy to read, with plenty of practical advice, which you can dip into whenever you have time. Chapters include information about the 'grief path', and outlining the types of grief you might experience. You'll find simple exercises you can follow to help you going forward, with tips to help you feel better, even on your worst days. And you'll be able to share personal stories from people who have experienced the loss of people very close to them, including their own tips on how to cope with grief. At a time when you might not feel able to join a group in order to share your own feelings, we are sure that you will find it inspirational to hear about how others have coped with the pain of losing a loved one. Julie New is always happy to hear from anyone who is struggling to overcome personal setbacks. You'll find her contact details on her website: www.julienew.co.uk Linda Magistris, the founder of the Good Grief Trust (www.thegoodgrieftrust.org) has included a foreword.

’I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream. Actually, I can’t remember us speaking at all. Maybe because we never did.’

The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is one of the strangest creatures nature ever created. Remarkably little is known about the eel, even today. What we do know is that it’s born as a tiny willow-leaf shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe – a journey of about four thousand miles that takes at least two years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel and then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water. It lives a solitary life, hiding from both light and science, for ten, twenty, fifty years, before migrating back to the sea in the autumn, morphing into a silver eel and swimming all the way back to the Sargasso Sea, where it breeds and dies.

And yet . . . There is still so much we don’t know about eels. No human has ever seen eels reproduce; no one can give a complete account of the eel’s metamorphoses or say why they are born and die in the Sargasso Sea; no human has even seen a mature eel in the Sargasso Sea. Ever. And now the eel is disappearing, and we don’t know exactly why.

What we do know is that eels and their mysterious lives captivate us.

This is the basis for The Gospel of the Eels, Patrik Svensson’s quite unique natural science memoir; his ongoing fascination with this secretive fish, but also the equally perplexing and often murky relationship he shared with his father, whose only passion in life was fishing for this obscure creature.

Through the exploration of eels in literature (Günter Grass and Graham Swift feature, amongst others) and the history of science (we learn about Aristotle’s and Sigmund Freud’s complicated relationships with eels) as well as modern marine biology (Rachel Carson and others) we get to know this peculiar animal. In this exploration, we also learn about the human condition, life and death, through natural science and nature writing at its very best.

For those who have a friend that has been devastated by the loss of a loved one. When others care enough to rub shoulders with grieving friends and are willing to be inconvenienced. It requires someone to care enough to put aside cliche condolences and stick close through a long grieving process. An individual's grief can never be 'fixed'. But friends can wash a sink full of dishes, listen, go along on a cemetery visit. Sharing another's grief is not about 'fixing-it'- it's about showing up.Harold Ivan Smith, popular speaker and grief educator, guides others to respond with their heart. He shows tangible, meaningful ways to make a significant difference as one journeys through grief with someone they care about.

A quest is never what you expect it to be.

Elizabeth Madeline Martin spends her days in a retirement home in Cape Town, watching the pigeons and squirrels on the branch of a tree outside her window. Bedridden, her memory fading, she can recall her early childhood spent in a small wood-and-iron house in Blackridge on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Though she remembers the place in detail – dogs, a mango tree, a stream – she has no idea of where exactly it is. ‘My memory is full of blotches,’ she tells her daughter Julia, ‘like ink left about and knocked over.’

Julia resolves to find the Blackridge house: with her mother lonely and confused, would this, perhaps, bring some measure of closure? A journey begins that traverses family history, forgotten documents, old photographs, and the maps that stake out a country’s troubled past – maps whose boundaries nature remains determined to resist. Kind strangers, willing to assist in the search, lead to unexpected discoveries of ancestors and wars and lullabies. Folded into this quest are the tender conversations between a daughter and a mother who does not have long to live.

Taken as one, The Blackridge House is a meditation on belonging, of the stories we tell of home and family, of the precarious footprint of life.

After losing his wife to cancer and suffering mental health problems, Jamie Rogers knew that things could be made better. Sharing stories of other bereaved fathers, interleaved with information regarding hospice help, this book is designed to dispel some of the myths surrounding hospice care.

With this compassionate book by respected grief counselor and educator Dr. Alan Wolfelt, readers will find simplified and suitable methods for talking to children and teenagers about sensitive topics with an emphasis on the subject of death. Honest but child-appropriate language is advocated, and various wording and levels of explanation are suggested for different ages when discussing topics such as death in general, suicide, homicide, accidental death, the death of a child, terminal illness, pet death, funerals, and cremation. An ideal book for parents, caregivers, and counselors looking for an easy resource when talking to youths about death, this book can be used for any setting, religious or otherwise.

Grief is a natural reaction to the loss of a treasured person. In time, the loss is usually assimilated, but, for some, the mourning process becomes disrupted or stuck. Grief remains long-lasting and unresolved, and the death as painful as if it had happened yesterday. This book looks at how to cope with this kind of reaction to bereavement, so that it becomes possible to accept the death and master its impact. Topics include: The difference between 'normal' and 'complicated' grief; Links with other conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression; Understanding the impact of grief; How to manage related emotions such as anger and guilt; Identifying unhelpful thinking; Using memories and visual imagery positively; Moving your loved one from your mind to your heart; How to create a lasting memorial.

Whether from a sudden accident or a slow, terminal illness, the death of a parent is devastating to adults and children alike. In "Losing a Parent," Fiona Marshall helps readers understand the process of coping with a parent's death, from preparing for death to recognizing the different stages of grief, from nurturing the relationship with the surviving parent to harnessing new strength to carry on with life. Wise, compassionate, and practical, "Losing a Parent" is an invaluable source of support for a time of overwhelming loss.

This unusual self-help book about surviving grief offers the reader comfort and inspiration. Each of us will face some loss, sorrow and disappointment in our lives, and The Courage to Grieve provides the specific help we need to enable us to face our grief fully and to recover and grow from the experience. Although the book emphasizes the response to the death of a loved one, The Courage to Grieve can help with every kind of loss and grief.

Judy Tatelbaum gives us a fresh look at understanding grief, showing us that grief is a natural, inevitable human experience, including all the unexpected, intense and uncomfortable emotions like sorrow, guilt, loneliness, resentment, confusion, or even the temporary loss of the will to live. The emphasis is to clarify and offer help, and the tone is spiritual, optimistic, creative and easy to understand. Judy Tatelbaum provides excellent advice on how to help oneself and others get through the immediate experience of death and the grief that follows, as well as how to understand the special grief of children. Particularly useful are the techniques for completing or "finishing" grief--counteracting the popular misconception that grief never ends. The Courage to Grieve shows us how to live life with the ultimate courage: not fearing death. This book is about so much more than death and grieving'it is about life and joy and growth.

The perennial classic: this intimate journal chronicling the Narnia author's experience of grief after his wife's death has consoled readers for half a century; this edition features responses from authors like Hilary Mantel, Francis Spufford, Rowan Williams, Jenna Bailey ... 'An intimate, anguished account of a man grappling with the mysteries of faith and love ... Elegant and raw ... A powerful record of thought and emotion experienced in real time.' Guardian 'Raw and modern ... This unsentimental, even bracing, account of one man's dialogue with despair becomes both compelling and consoling ... A contemporary classic.' Observer 'A source of great consolation ... Lewis deploys his genius for vivid imagery ... It is a relief for the reader to find that he or she is not alone in the intense loneliness or feelings of anguish that bereavement brings.' Henry Marsh, The Times 'Testimony from a sensitive and eloquent witness [on] 'The Human Condition'. It offers an interrogation of experience and a glimmer of hardwon hope. It allows one bewildered mind to reach out to another. Death is no barrier to that.' Hilary Mantel 'Here, sorrow and despair, the tiredness and numbness and petulance and nightmarishness of grief, all have their full, uncontrolled, experienced force ... [Such] radical openness ... Brilliant.' Francis Spufford *** No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. Narnia author C.S. Lewis had been married to his wife for four blissful years. When she died of cancer, he found himself alone, inconsolable in his grief. In this intimate journal, he chronicles the aftermath of the bereavement and mourning with blazing honesty. He grapples with a crisis of religious faith, navigating hope, rage, despair, and love - but eventually regains his bearings, finding his way back to life. A luminous modern classic, A Grief Observed has offered solace to countless readers for decades. This companion edition combines the original text with personal responses from Hilary Mantel, Rowan Williams, Francis Spufford, Maureen Freely, Kate Saunders, Jessica Martin and Jenna Bailey. *** What readers are saying: 'A truly great book - inspirational and untold help.' 'Every human being, living or dead, understands what Lewis means ... One of the most valuable books ever written.' 'Lewis, as always, sits down next to you and validates your grief like a true friend. He lets you rage, and cry, and even be furious with God, just as he did.' 'If you are grieving an enormous loss, you may find comfort here ... A great mind and wonderful writer who understands your grief well enough to put words to it.' 'His journal was also my journal as I worked through my own grief. Reading this book was actually comforting in that I knew that someone else understood my situation and offered insight and hope ... I highly recommend this book for anyone who has gone through the death of a loved one or who wants to comfort." 'This little book has had me in floods of tears [and] shows a real understanding of grief ... To read the words of this great man who shared and understood my pain and is a life affirming and faith affirming experience.'

Acts of caring and compassion can make all the difference in a grieving child's life. Adults can often worry about saying and doing the right thing, too often giving children quick answers instead of the support they really need.Widely-recognized grief specialist Harold Ivan Smith explains that quick answers are not what children need when they are grieving. They need support, and most of all they need to be allowed to grieve-for as long as it takes.With an ABC-like approach, Smith offers insights and activities for the parent, teacher, or friend-anyone that loves a child and wants to offer his or her support. This new and revised edition of When a Child You Love is Grieving will help ensure that the child is receiving the healthy and necessary outlets during the loss of a loved one.