Resources
Websites
What’s Your Grief
Smart, zippy, real Grief Relief
The Dougy Center
Founding children’s bereavement program with an unbeatable library of resources
For people who are grieving, and those who know someone who is grieving.
Helping Parents Heal is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting bereaved parents by providing support and resources to aid in the healing process. They are different than other groups by allowing the open discussion of spiritual experiences and evidence for the afterlife, in a non-dogmatic way.
National Alliance for Grieving Children
How do we talk to young people about death?
A text-messaging service that provides a year of personalized grief support for you, as well as helpful tips and reminders for people who want to support you, but may not be sure how. Because no-one should grieve alone.
Candid conversations about grief. Beginners welcome.
Music, Art, Creative Expression opportunities for grieving young people and adults.
Books
Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief
Joanne Cacciatore, Ph D
This book and this woman were recommended to me (JRB) by one of the pillars of the grief and loss community, Amy Leibman Rapp. As usual, Amy was right. This is a powerful meditation on the depth of love and the depth of pain we feel when we grieve the loss of that which we poured our heart into. I’ve linked the title of Dr. Cacciatore’s book to her website, another rich resource.
Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Your Grief
Martha Whitmore Hickman
Every day is a new thought about loss. I think this book brings comfort in that it immediately helps us feel understood in our grief, and over a longer time brings perspective.
Never the Same: Coming to Terms with the Death of a Parent
Donna Schuurman
This book is a straight-forward, accurate and moving portrayal of what it’s like to lose a parent. Donna Schuurman is a bereavement expert and thought leader in the field of grief support for children, families and communities.
Jade Richardson Bock + Craig Pierce, Ph D
Of course we’re going to suggest this, because our founder helped write it. Focused on providing practical information to parents of children and teens coping with a death in the family.
Swallowed By a Snake - The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing
Thomas R. Golden
Newsflash: men and women are different. Sweeping generalizations aside, grief can be experienced differently by individuals with masculine vs. feminine traits. These traits matter - because in families we often accuse those who aren’t grieving like we are of being wrong.
Healing Through the Dark Emotions- the wisdom of grief, fear and despair by Miriam Greenspan
A nice segue to the topic of Post Traumatic Growth, Healing Through the Dark Emotions invites us to consider that it’s not the painful response to loss that turns us inside out, but our efforts to numb that pain that does us the most harm.
Post Traumatic Growth
What happens after the tuna casseroles stop coming? We are the most alone we’ve ever been. Struggling through the pain of those all of those “firsts” is like walking through a very personal hell - while the world around us somehow keeps spinning. Nearly 100 years ago Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran wrote, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls, the most massive characters are seared with scars.” More poetically, he also wrote, “Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?”
We are all familiar with the life-long consequences of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This more probable outcome of trauma is a collection of disturbances that keeps us from living life. There is another path - the path that Gibran describes - of holding our wine in the very cup burned in the potter’s oven. Psychologists call it “Post Traumatic Growth.” Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) is characterized by a renewed appreciation for life, reordered priorities, deeper and more intimate relationships, and gratitude.
Most of us would give all of our “character” and PTG right back to have more time with the loved one(s) we have lost. That being said, these two texts can spark our own PTG experience:
Super-Survivors: The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success
David B. Feldman, Phd D and Lee Daniel Krafvetz
What Doesn’t Kill Us: The New Psychology of Post Traumatic Growth
Stephen Joseph, Ph D.