Comfort from Reading
Books Written by Grieving Parents
It's important to find books written by grieving parents - both fiction and nonfiction. They truly know the depth of our sadness: their words are what we need. At first, I could not find comfort in reading, but I soon discovered that moving into novels again enabled me to leave my own world for a short while, to take a small break from my sadness. I read fiction differently now. I look at the characters through the pain of loss, and I find myself trying to determine to what degree sorrow is a factor in their lives. I try to see if they really know anything about grief, and if they can tell me anything about coping with it. I remember how entering the world of Leah, a character in The Poisonwood Bible, helped me get out of my own world for a few hours. In that book Leah says, “One way of surviving heartache is to stay busy – making something right in at least one tiny corner in the vast house of wrongs.” As I closed that book, I wanted to thank Leah for her words. And I decided I would try to make something right in at least "one tiny corner of my world.”
• Ann K. Finkbeiner - After the Death of a Child: Living with Loss Through the Years
Sometimes, when I’m up at night, reading all night, I can feel the authors of books sitting with me and talking with me. In her book, Finkbeiner tells how her son died in a train accident when he was eighteen. She includes her grief research and shares interviews with thirty parents whose children have been gone more than five years. (I still can’t say dead.) She tells how parents move forward, but she emphasizes that you don’t have to let go of your child. I’m glad to hear somebody say that because I’ll never let go of Jon.
• Linda K. Maurer - Standing Beside You
From Maurer: "Your child was once your legacy. Now you are his."
• Ashley Davis Prend - Transcending Loss
From Prend: "Grieving is not a short-term process; it's not even a long-term process. It's a lifelong process... death doesn't end the relationship; it simply forges a new type of relationship - one based not on physical presence but on memory, spirit and love."
• Kathleen A. Brehony - After the Darkest Hour
From Brehony: “Open the door to your guest house. Say ‘yes’ to all of your life. Choose to live joyfully even in your pain. Love yourself and everyone else. Be present always – alive to each moment. Grieve when you should, fight when you can, accept when you must. But above all, say yes.”
• Candy Lightner - Giving Sorrow Words
From Lightner: “Grief is, in a sense, a gift that the dead give to the living, their final legacy. We gain something of what they were, we incorporate their values, and we continue to be influenced by them – in our actions, in our values, in the ways we treat others, in the way we see the world, and in our memory. Death changes the living. Grief is the journey you take from the person you used to be to the person you will become.”