This Vast Being: A Voyage Through Grief and Exaltation

By Ann Kreilkamp

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1934023205
• ISBN13: 9781934023204
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: Tendre Press
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Grief Explored

This Vast Being contains a beautifully-written description of Ann's grief journey after her husband Jeff's sudden death. Because of the deaths of five of my own loved ones, I'm aware that the most important work we will do after a major loss is our grief-work. Ann used journaling to explore the depths of her sorrow and the heights of their love. I learned so much from Ann's willingness to share the intimate details of her first year without Jeff. Like Ann, my own experience teaches me that grief hollows us out inside, to prepare us to be ever-more-open channels of joy and love. Melody LeBaron, author of up-coming book Make Room for Death: Preparing Sacred Space when a Loved One is Dying www.transformingspace.com

A Remarkable Portrait of Love and Death

The level of truth portrayed in This Vast Being: A Voyage through Grief and Exaltation by Ann Kreilkamp PhD draws the reader deeply into her wondrous portrait of a relationship and the two most important people in it. These two come together on many levels all of which are explored and set before the reader with a brilliant pen. When they are parted by death the relationship continues and we are drawn deeply into the author's grieving process and its effects on her and her surroundings. The author's honest portrait of herself is engaging and enjoyable. Her chronicle of her grieving process calls out to anyone who has experienced loss. By turns fierce and gentle, poetic and profane this book creates for the reader an experience that will be remembered long after the last page is turned. Certainly it takes the concept of "death" and changes it into something much less final than we normally conceive it to be. Yet over and above the comfort it offers and the glorious portrait of a relationship it is a testament to love--how it grows and how it flowers. You will not soon forget this tale or the participants who lived it, made so real and vivid on the pages of This Vast Being. Tasha Halpert, Author of Heartwings: Love Notes for a Joyous Life

A unique and valuable contribution

Not only is this book a profound tribute to the "vast being" and extraordinary man who was the author's husband, but it is a deep exploration of her own "vast being" as well, as she continues to find her own unique way to work through her grief and find meaning in her loss. I especially appreciated Ann's description of what she learned "about important communication with Jeffrey," as I think she captures so accurately and vividly the unconscious fear of separation that keeps so many of us women from speaking our truths to our men. I loved her story about her stuggle to use the lawnmower for the first time, as it shows not only how immobilized and helpless we feel when faced with how to fill the roles once held by our loved ones who have died, but also how triumphant we feel when we are determined enough to keep trying until we succeed, as we discover how capable we really are. As a hospice bereavement counselor who also works with bereaved animal lovers, I understand completely Ann's reactions to losing her cat Lukas, and I'm so grateful to her for having the courage to include that experience as part of her grief story. I agree completely with her observation that our culture is so busy that either we've lost our ability to find our own internal resources to work through grief, or we use our busy-ness to avoid the pain of it ~ but I think her book argues beautifully and forcefully that there is better way. I am happy to include Ann's book on my Grief Healing Web site as one that I've read and personally recommend. I've listed it on both my Articles ~ Columns ~ Books page and my Death of a Spouse or Partner page, and it is one that I will recommend it to my clients and my hospice colleagues as well.