A Portrait Of Grief

"Surviving the loss of a child is the hardest of journeys. There is only one way, and that is through. But how? What does that even mean? I can only show and tell you my experiences along the way, pointing out mistakes, dangers, and miracles." -Cheryl Christopher While many books on grief provide helpful but heady information, A Portrait of Grief provides acute care for those devastated by loss. The author holds readers' hands through the early stages of grief and provides guidance for sustained healing into the future. A Portrait of Grief simply and truthfully tells about the God who reveals Himself gently, but surely, through His compassionate care and loving presence for those traveling through the "valley of the shadow of death." In concise chapters, this book points fellow grievers toward hope and renewal through personal stories, teachings, and music selections for healing.

Publisher Description

Presents in alphabetical order more than nineteen hundred profiles of the people who were killed on September 11, 2001 that appeared as "Portraits of Grief" in the New York Times between the attack and February 3, 2002.

Griefland. It’s a place no one wants to visit—a place without borders where language is inadequate and pain is constant. It’s a place where every morning one awakens to the stark reality that a loved one will never be seen, heard—or embraced—again. This is a place that Armen Bacon and Nancy Miller know all too well, for when they met, both of them had lost a child—a son, Alex, and a daughter, Rachel. Griefland provides an intimate portrait of what tragedy does to the human soul, how it changes one’s life, and most important, how it can be survived. With achingly beautiful language, this book explores the acute moment-to-moment experience of grief. But it also transcends that and speaks to the redemptive power of friendship, trust, intimacy, and love. Together they discover a will and desire to move forward, recognizing that life is the ultimate prize for those who survive this excruciating journey.

Help kids start to heal after grief and loss—for ages 5 to 7 Why Do I Feel So Sad? is an inclusive, age-appropriate, illustrated kid's book designed to help young children understand their own grief. The examples and beautiful illustrations are rooted in real life, exploring the truth of loss and change, while remaining comforting and hopeful. Broad enough to encompass many forms of grief, this book reassures kids that they are not alone in their feelings and even suggests simple things they can do to feel better, like drawing, dancing, and talking to friends and family. Why Do I Feel So Sad? is: Practical and compassionate―Written for early childhood-aged kids, this book touches on common sources of grief―everything from death to divorce or changing schools. Different for everyone―This book normalizes the confusing thoughts and physical symptoms that come with grief, so kids know there’s no one right way to feel or heal. Tips for grownups―Find expert advice and simple strategies for supporting grieving kids in your life. Children don’t have to go through grief alone; this book provides the tools to help them.

A validating new approach to the long-term grieving process that explains why we feel "stuck," why that's normal, and how shifting our perception of grief can help us grow--from the New York Times bestselling author of Motherless Daughters "This is perhaps one of the most important books about grief ever written. It finally dispels the myth that we are all supposed to get over the death of a loved one."--Claire Bidwell Smith, author of Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief Aren't you over it yet? Anyone who has experienced a major loss in their past knows this question. We've spent years fielding versions of it, both explicit and implied, from family, colleagues, acquaintances, and friends. We recognize the subtle cues--the slight eyebrow lift, the soft, startled "Oh! That long ago?"--from those who wonder how an event so far in the past can still occupy so much precious mental and emotional real estate. Because of the common but false assumption that grief should be time-limited, too many of us believe we're grieving "wrong" when sadness suddenly resurges sometimes months or even years after a loss. The AfterGrief explains that the death of a loved one isn't something most of us get over, get past, put down, or move beyond. Grief is not an emotion to pass through on the way to "feeling better." Instead, grief is in constant motion; it is tidal, easily and often reactivated by memories and sensory events, and is re-triggered as we experience life transitions, anniversaries, and other losses. Whether we want it to or not, grief gets folded into our developing identities, where it informs our thoughts, hopes, expectations, behaviors, and fears, and we inevitably carry it forward into everything that follows. Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of early loss, as well as on interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and regular people who've been bereaved, New York Times bestselling author Hope Edelman offers profound advice for reassessing loss and adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about its impact on our identities. With guidance for reframing a story of loss, finding equilibrium within it, and even experiencing renewed growth and purpose in its wake, she demonstrates that though grief is a lifelong process, it doesn't have to be a lifelong struggle.

Beyond Grief explores high-style funerary sculptures and their functions during the turn of the twentieth century. Many scholars have overlooked these monuments, viewing them as mere oddities, a part of an individual artist's oeuvre, a detail of a patron's biography, or local civic cemetery history. This volume considers them in terms of their wider context and shifting use as objects of consolation, power, and multisensory mystery and wonder. Art historian Cynthia Mills traces the stories of four families who memorialized their losses through sculpture. Henry Brooks Adams commissioned perhaps the most famous American cemetery monument of all, the Adams Memorial in Washington, D.C. The bronze figure was designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who became the nation’s foremost sculptor. Another innovative bronze monument featured the Milmore brothers, who had worked together as sculptors in the Boston area. Artist Frank Duveneck composed a recumbent portrait of his wife following her early death in Paris; in Rome, the aging William Wetmore Story made an angel of grief his last work as a symbol of his sheer desolation after his wife’s death. Through these incredible monuments Mills explores questions like: Why did new forms--many of them now produced in bronze rather than stone and placed in architectural settings--arise just at this time, and how did they mesh or clash with the sensibilities of their era? Why was there a gap between the intention of these elite patrons and artists, whose lives were often intertwined in a closed circle, and the way some public audiences received them through the filter of the mass media? Beyond Grief traces the monuments' creation, influence, and reception in the hope that they will help us to understand the larger story: how survivors used cemetery memorials as a vehicle to mourn and remember, and how their meaning changed over time.