I Will Remember You: What to Do When Someone You Love Dies - A Guidebook Through Grief for Teens

An inspirational and accessible guide to coping with loss includes personal stories of death and life from real teens, advice from a renowned grief counselor, and dozens of hands-on, creative exercises to help teens move through their pain. Original.

New emotions, new friends, and physical changes make the teen years hard enough to deal with, but when someone close dies, life as a teen can seem almost unbearable. I Will Remember You encourages young readers to explore the "long, winding tunnel" of the grieving process, to keep going in the face of terrible loss and sadness. Through stirring words by well-known personalities (E.B. White, Emily Dickinson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Dr. Seuss, Mother Teresa, Woody Allen, even Pooh and Piglet!), as well as from fellow teens who have lost a loved one, grieving teens can begin to take comfort that they're not alone.

Each chapter helps readers explore different aspects of grief, such as denial, ritual, remembering, mourning a stranger, and anniversary "aftershocks." Renowned grief counselor Elena Lister, M.D., offers advice based on her many years of professional experience, and author Laura Dower presents dozens of creative, helpful exercises to move through the experience of loss. As Dower writes in her preface, this book does not provide "the 'right' answers or tell you how or what to feel." Instead, it's more like a "grief map. It helps you to see the path, but it can't tell you where to go." One of the most useful (and impressive) elements of the book is the very sensitive section on what not to say to someone who is grieving (and possible responses to these statements): "You'll get over it. Do you want to tell me when?" "Your mother/father lived a full life. How do you define full?" Of course, Dower also includes a list of more thoughtful, appropriate statements: "I am sorry. How can I help?" "What was your relationship like?" With the gentle help of this guidebook, grieving teens may just make it a little farther through that long, winding tunnel. (Ages 13 and older) --Emilie Coulter