When Grief Equals Love

When Lizzie Pickering's young son Harry died in 2000, she set out on a journey to understand how she could survive her grief and learn to live with it. In When Grief Equals Love, she details the lessons she’s learned from her own experiences and those of others, who share their thoughts in this moving and tender book. Lizzie opens her diaries, written in the early years after Harry’s death, revealing her observations on the grief of his siblings and family, what helped and what hurt. Revisiting those diaries, she reflects on time passing, and what has changed for her and her family since. Lizzie looks at the myth of closure, survivor’s energy and cumulative grief – when life experiences pile up and become too much to bear. She includes interviews with bereaved friends, who share their own insights, and she provides a toolkit based on what has helped her and what she recommends to those she now helps with grief guidance. In most lives, unfortunately, grief and loss are inevitable. But living with grief can still be living. This book is for those going through grief and anyone who might need to support them. There are no easy answers, but nobody should have to cope alone.

A trusted grief expert shares advice on how to navigate the loss of a loved one in this incisive and compassionate guide: “calm, lucid prose… humanizing exploration of coping with the life-changing tides of loss” (Kirkus Reviews). In Grief is Love, author Marisa Renee Lee reveals that healing does not mean moving on after losing a loved one—healing means learning to acknowledge and create space for your grief. It is about learning to love the one you lost with the same depth, passion, joy, and commitment you did when they were alive, perhaps even more. She guides you through the pain of grief—whether you’ve lost the person recently or long ago—and shows you what it looks like to honor your loss on your unique terms, and debunks the idea of a grief stages or timelines. Grief is Love is about making space for the transformation that a significant loss requires. In beautiful, compassionate prose, Lee elegantly offers wisdom about what it means to authentically and defiantly claim space for grief’s complicated feelings and emotions. And Lee is no stranger to grief herself, she shares her journey after losing her mother, a pregnancy, and, most recently, a cousin to the COVID-19 pandemic. These losses transformed her life and led her to question what grief really is and what healing actually looks like. In this book, she also explores the unique impact of grief on Black people and reveals the key factors that proper healing requires: permission, care, feeling, grace and more. The transformation we each undergo after loss is the indelible imprint of the people we love on our lives, which is the true definition of legacy. At its core, Grief is Love explores what comes after death, and shows us that if we are able to own and honor what we’ve lost, we can experience a beautiful and joyful life in the midst of grief.

This book provides invaluable support and practical guidance for those who are grieving. Focusing on uplift, it emphasizes the triumph of hope over grief. It touches the heart and spirit, revealing the mercy and grace of God.

Darrelyn Gunzburg explores how by using astrology we can learn to let go and encounter a changed future.

Real-world advice for caregivers of grieving children?from the founder of the nationally acclaimed, non-profit organization Kate?s Club. Kate?s Club is dedicated to empowering children and teens who have lost loved ones. Based on its founder?s down-to-earth philosophy on how to handle grief, A Healing Place aims to help parents cope with the realities and daily struggles grieving children face in a forthright, compassionate manner. The book is written from Kate?s own personal experiences after having lost, at the age of 12, her mother to breast cancer, as well as featuring experiences of the many families she has encountered through Kate?s Club. Chapter topics include: ? Embracing, not erasing memories ? Giving the child a voice ? How caregivers can be strong role models ? Handling transitions and traditions