Books About Grief for Adults
StarShine Hospice of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center suggests books for adults to help deal with the death of a child.
Final Gifts, by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelly
Two hospice nurses wrote this book after tending to the terminally ill for a decade. It's a good resource book for hospice team or families.
Good Grief Rituals: Tools for Healing, by Elaine Childs-Gowel
(Station Hill Press, 1992)
This book contains practical tools for healing and recovery from the most difficult human experience: loss. It provides rituals for dealing with forgiveness and ultimately, with gratitude.
Give Sorrow Words: A Father's Passage through Grief, by Tom Crider
(Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1996)
When Tom Crider's only child Gretchen died in an apartment fire her junior year in college, there seemed to be no way to assuage his pain or to find meaning in his daughter's death. His book explores spiritual issues related to death and documents the inward progress of his search for solace in nature and in children, good friends, and family.
I'll Love You Forever, Anyway, by Edith Kunhardt Davis
This book is an account of the author's 27-year-old son's premature death, their relationship before, and her finding a life after. It grew out of a diary she started after he died. She had been an alcoholic parent and felt intense guilt, fearing that she had caused her son's heart illness and dyslexia. Her faith in God made it possible to come to terms with this devastating burden, and her story of anger, confusion, guilt, and redemption shows us that to be a parent is to be merely human.
Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby, by Deborah L. Davis
(Fulcrum Publishing)
This book offers reassurance to parents who struggle with anger, guilt, and despair after miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The author encourages grieving and makes suggestions for coping.
Recovering from the Loss of a Child, by Katherine F. Donnelly
(MacMillan Publishing, 1982)
This book uses firsthand accounts to show bereaved parents, siblings, and others how to cope. It emphasizes that the reactions parents deal with -- anger, guilt, and depression -- are normal. Of special note are chapters on the male point of view and on husbands and wives.
After the Death of a Child: Living with Loss through the Years, by Ann K. Finkbeiner
This book examines the possibility that there is no total "recovery" from losing a child. Based on interviews and grief research, the author explains how parents' lives are different up to 25 years after the loss. The first half discusses short and long-term affects on relationships with others. The second half discusses the parents' internal world: guilt, the need to place the death in a larger context, facing new priorities, and preserving the bond with the lost child. The central theme examines not how parents grieve, but how they love.
You Can Help Someone Who's Grieving, by Victoria Frigo, Diane Fisher, and Mary Lou Cook
This book is filled with common-sense advice and ideas to help friends or loved ones comfort those who have experienced the death of someone close to them.
I will Not Leave You Desolate: Some Thoughts for Grieving Parents, by Martha W. Hickman
(The Upper Room, 1982)
This a short book with thought growing out of the author's Christian beliefs, which were important in her own grieving. It includes its own listing of resources and support groups.
Being Brett, by Douglas Hobbie
(Published by Henry Holt and Co. Inc.)
The author begins this book with the harrowing account of his daughter's struggle with Hodgkin's Disease. Through every setback, she was determined to prevail, even as her death grew closer, her inextinguishable love of life. Without sentimentality or self-pity, Hobbie confronts the dying of a young woman and examines what it means to live, lose, leave this world and be left behind.
The Morning after Death, by L.D. Johnson
(Published by Smyth and Helwys)
A former chaplain at Furman University, Johnson tells his own story as a father who lost his daughter at an age where she was just beginning to fulfill the considerable promise people saw in her. It also deals broadly with a father's view of many issues facing human existence.
When a Baby Dies: The Experience of Late Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Neonatal Death, Nancy Kohner and Alix Henley
This book compiles stories from parents who have experienced the death of a baby. It offers insight and information for parents whose babies have died, for their families and friends, and for professionals who care for them. It also contains information about why babies die, the process of grieving, sources of support, and the care parents need in future pregnancies.
Our Children and Death, by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
(MacMillan Publishing)
From the author of the well-known work On Death and Dying, this book offers help and hope specifically for families of deceased or dying children.
When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner
(Schocken Books, 1981)
In this book, the author tries to answer the question of why bad things, such as the death of a loved one, happen in the lives of people who try to be so good. The author's own son died at a young age.
Gentle Closings: How to Say Goodbye to Someone You Love, by Ted Menten
This book is about finding a way to say goodbye to a loved one who is dying. It covers making memories, having courage, and letting go with honor and emotional honesty. It is about joy, wishes granted, and tiny miracles. It's about remembering the times you shared and sharing the time that's left.
After Goodbye: How to Begin Again after the Death of Someone You Love, by Ted Menten
This short book is a guide to ways of moving forward with honesty and grace. It shares the insights gained from others who have confronted the pain of loss and embraced the memories and joys of life with strength, love, and laughter.
Surviving the Death of a Child, by John Munday with Frances Wohlenhaus-Munday
This book describes one mother's struggle to survive grief, her faith in God as a source of comfort, and her discovery of love as a key to healing. It tells how reaching out in love for others, placing others ahead of ourselves, brings healing. Its story will bring comfort and understanding to those who don't know the pain of bereavement.
The Bereaved Parent, by Harriet S. Schiff
(Crown Publishers, 1977)
This book is a guide for grieving parents. The author uses her own experience and insight about the grief that is unique to bereaved parents and leads them through the grieving process.
The Courage to Grieve, Judy Tatelbaum
(Harper and Row Publishers, 1980)
This book is helpful to those experiencing grief and to those who counsel grieving people. It is an excellent tactical document on all aspects of grief and grief resolution, including ideas about self-help, "unfinished business," and letting go. It inspires readers to acknowledge that every ending is a new beginning.
For more information about the StarShine Hospice, please call 513-636-4663, or email starshine@cchmc.org.
