Experiencing Bereavement

By Helen Alexander

As pictured; bookstore stamp inside front cover This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819823538
• ISBN13: 9780819823533
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Pauline Books & Media
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Reassuring & Broad in Scope

I purchased this book a few days after my wife passed away, and read it very quickly. It is not a difficult read, nor is it incredibly in-depth, but it covers a lot of territory, and its arrangement into general topics, with individual case studies, is very effective at communicating the central points. It is a very comforting book - I suppose the sharing of experience is a necessary part of grieving. Despite being surrounded by friends and family, none of them were experiencing exactly the same loss as me, so it was helpful to retreat into this book and find the common feelings of strangers. By the time I read the book, I had already made a lot of key decisions: whether or not to bring our daughter to the receiving of friends and the funeral, what to say to her about cremation, whether or not to have an open casket, etc. I was reassured that the book offered advice supportive of the decisions I had already made, subsequently affirmed by my daughter's school counselor. Consequently, I recommend this book not just to those who have lost someone close to them, but really for everyone. You can't be "prepared" for the death of your wife in a substantial way - all my certainties outside of my faith have been demolished - but you can get assistance in the decisions you have to make. And this book provides that assistance in full measure. I should point out that I question the value of this book to people who aren't nominally religious. Most of the "stories" in the book are from people who were either lapsed or practicing believers, and there is a strong Catholic bent to the stories sampled here. While this resonated strongly with me, I suspect it might be alien to lifelong agnostics. I am only three weeks into this cold, new life, and experiencing the terrible array of emotions that comprise loss. But in this brief time, I can say that this book helped a little, which is about as much as I can reasonably expect.