Synopsis:
Do you have a friend who is in the depths of grief from a loss of someone they love? Do you sometimes find yourself at a loss--wondering how to be there for her or him in a meaningful way? Or perhaps you are coping with sorrow and grief and would like those you love to be there for you in a way that is not intrusive or evasive, but healing.
Being There For Someone in Grief is a book filled with stories--stories that teach a few basic skills used in grief counseling yet can be safely practiced by ordinary people. Common-sense things like listening and seeing someone just as they are. Allowing their unique way of grieving to be just as it is without an overlay of fear, pity or judgment. Bereavement is a challenging time, and therapists are extremely helpful, but we also need our friends and family to be there for us through the stages of grief and healing.
Being There For Someone in Grief reveals the authors own insights as a childhood survivor of trauma as a result of a violent crime. She knows the value of a true friend, a trauma therapist or counselor and victim advocates, all playing a role in healing grief. Being There for Someone in Grief offers essential lessons for supporting someone grieving from death, loss and trauma in a way that can be appreciated by lay people; respected by grief counselors and others in the healing arts; and treasured by those living with grief.
In the pages of this book, you will learn how to be present for another in the unpredictability that death brings. Through storytelling, it offers a general map of the landscape you will journey as you learn to gaze into the face of suffering without running away. You will become skilled at being present for yourself, noticing your own fears and losses while being available to another. The stories and insights offered in this book will assure you that we are all on a journey from birth to death and that the person you love who is grieving will return from their dark night, although both of you may be changed. This book will help you learn to stay, even when it's hard. And if you should decide to be there authentically and intimately for someone who's grieving, a remarkable thing can happen - love can heal grief's wound.
From the Author:
Susan Brady and I were inseparable--best friends from the moment we met. A few days before Christmas in 1965, Susan disappeared. Just like Susie Salmon in the novel and film The Lovely Bones, weeks of anguish passed before police found her dismembered body.
But my Susan was not a fictional character in a book. She was real. Her murder left me with a penetrating ache so deep that it became a pivot point in my youth, forcing me out of innocence overnight. At age eleven I trusted no one enough to reach out and ask for help. There was no one to listen to the roiling thoughts in my head or bear witness to the terror I felt. No one protected me from the nightmares that came each time I closed my eyes.
Twenty-three years after Susan's murder, my childhood experience inspired me to create Children to Children, a support center for grieving children and adults. Being There for Someone in Grief begins with my journey through grief, and unfolds into the lives of the many people with whom I've worked. Each story of healing is accompanied by introspective insights that offer up the essential things we must know in order to be there for someone in their darkest hour.
... From the Author's Introduction
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
