Mourning Break

Everybody is destined to take this journey. Brothers, mothers, lawyers, teachers, spouses, pastors, children each will come to a day when suddenly a loved one dies and the grief journey begins. This is a trip nobody looks forward to taking. It is a lonely, one-way road that must be traveled by placing one foot in front of the other. There are no shortcuts, U-turns, or express lanes. In the beginning, the road is so clouded over with emotions, we cannot see the end or how anything good can ever come from our loss. Fortunately, God can. Mourning Break offers hope through personal stories and scriptural guidance for how to move forward with life. You will be able to reflect on God's Word as it applies just to you. Take a break from your grief, and be reminded that joy, indeed, comes in the mourning.

From the host of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking—called “a gift” by The New York Times—a raw and humorous essay collection in the spirit of Jenny Lawson and Samantha Irby. Nora McInerny does not dance like no one is watching. In fact, she dances like everyone is watching, which is to say, she does not dance at all. A bestselling author and host of the beloved podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, she has captured the hearts of millions with her disarming and earnest approach to discussing grief and loss. Now, with Bad Vibes Only, she turns her eye on our aggressively, oppressively optimistic culture, our obsession with self-improvement, and what it really means to live authentically in the online age. In essays that revisit her cringey past and anticipate her rapidly approaching, early middle-aged future, McInerny lays bare her own chaos, inviting us to drop the façade of perfection and embrace the truth: that we are all—at best—slightly unhinged. Socrates claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living. Bad Vibes Only is for people who have taken that dictum a bit too far—the overthinkers, the analyzers, the recovering Girl Bosses, and the burned-out personal brand—reminding us that a life worth living is about more than just “good vibes.”

Real stories and real feedback on what should be said, what should be kept to yourself, and what can be done when trying to support someone you care about as they navigate loss. Breaking Sad helps us start conversations through its pages of personal stories and suggestions from everyday survivors—bringing us all to a place where we can more comfortably offer support and caring to people when they need it most. Featuring stories from Montel Williams, Olivia Newton-John, Scott Hamilton, Giuliana Rancic, Valerie Harper, and more!

When a loved one dies we mourn our loss. We take comfort in the rituals that mark the passing, and we turn to those around us for support. But what happens when there is no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer's patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding this kind of loss? In this sensitive and lucid account, Pauline Boss explains that, all too often, those confronted with such ambiguous loss fluctuate between hope and hopelessness. Suffered too long, these emotions can deaden feeling and make it impossible for people to move on with their lives. Yet the central message of this book is that they can move on. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Boss suggests strategies that can cushion the pain and help families come to terms with their grief. Her work features the heartening narratives of those who cope with ambiguous loss and manage to leave their sadness behind, including those who have lost family members to divorce, immigration, adoption, chronic mental illness, and brain injury. With its message of hope, this eloquent book offers guidance and understanding to those struggling to regain their lives. Table of Contents: 1. Frozen Grief 2. Leaving without Goodbye 3. Goodbye without Leaving 4. Mixed Emotions 5. Ups and Downs 6. The Family Gamble 7. The Turning Point 8. Making Sense out of Ambiguity 9. The Benefit of a Doubt Notes Acknowledgments Reviews of this book: You will find yourself thinking about the issues discussed in this book long after you put it down and perhaps wishing you had extra copies for friends and family members who might benefit from knowing that their sorrows are not unique...This book's value lies in its giving a name to a force many of us will confront--sadly, more than once--and providing personal stories based on 20 years of interviews and research. --Pamela Gerhardt, Washington Post Reviews of this book: A compassionate exploration of the effects of ambiguous loss and how those experiencing it handle this most devastating of losses ... Boss's approach is to encourage families to talk together, to reach a consensus about how to mourn that which has been lost and how to celebrate that which remains. Her simple stories of families doing just that contain lessons for all. Insightful, practical, and refreshingly free of psychobabble. --Kirkus Review Reviews of this book: Engagingly written and richly rewarding, this title presents what Boss has learned from many years of treating individuals and families suffering from uncertain or incomplete loss...The obvious depth of the author's understanding of sufferers of ambiguous loss and the facility with which she communicates that understanding make this a book to be recommended. --R. R. Cornellius, Choice Reviews of this book: Written for a wide readership, the concepts of ambiguous loss take immediate form through the many provocative examples and stories Boss includes, All readers will find stories with which they will relate...Sensitive, grounded and practical, this book should, in my estimation, be required reading for family practitioners. --Ted Bowman, Family Forum Reviews of this book: Dr. Boss describes [the] all-too-common phenomenon [of unresolved grief] as resulting from either of two circumstances: when the lost person is still physically present but emotionally absent or when the lost person is physically absent but still emotionally present. In addition to senility, physical presence but psychological absence may result, for example, when a person is suffering from a serious mental disorder like schizophrenia or depression or debilitating neurological damage from an accident or severe stroke, when a person abuses drugs or alcohol, when a child is autistic or when a spouse is a workaholic who is not really 'there' even when he or she is at home...Cases of physical absence with continuing psychological presence typically occur when a soldier is missing in action, when a child disappears and is not found, when a former lover or spouse is still very much missed, when a child 'loses' a parent to divorce or when people are separated from their loved ones by immigration...Professionals familiar with Dr. Boss's work emphasised that people suffering from ambiguous loss were not mentally ill, but were just stuck and needed help getting past the barrier or unresolved grief so that they could get on with their lives. --Asian Age Combining her talents as a compassionate family therapist and a creative researcher, Pauline Boss eloquently shows the many and complex ways that people can cope with the inevitable losses in contemporary family life. A wise book, and certain to become a classic. --Constance R. Ahrons, author of The Good Divorce A powerful and healing book. Families experiencing ambiguous loss will find strategies for seeing what aspects of their loved ones remain, and for understanding and grieving what they have lost. Pauline Boss offers us both insight and clarity. --Kathy Weingarten, Ph.D, The Family Institute of Cambridge, Harvard Medical School

A poetic picture book about being able to say goodbye to those we love, while holding them in memory.

A thousand years after Hawaiians first paddled long wooden boards into the ocean, modern surfers have continued this practice, which has recently been transformed into a global industry. Pacific Passages brings together four centuries of writing about surfing, the most comprehensive collection of Polynesian and Western perspectives on the history and culture of a sport currently enjoyed by millions of people around the world. The stories begin with Hawaiian legends and chants and are followed by the journals of explorers; the travel narratives of missionaries and luminaries such as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and Jack London; and the contemporary observations of Tom Wolfe, William Finnegan, Susan Orlean, and Bob Shacochis. Readers follow the historical transformation of surfing’s image through the centuries: from Polynesian myths of love to Western accounts of horror and exoticism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to modern representations of surfing as a character-building activity in pre-World-War II California and the quintessential expression of disaffected youth. They explore the sport’s most recent trends by writers and cultural critics, whose insights into technology, competition, gender, heritage, and globalism reveal how surfing impacts some of today’s most pressing social concerns. Aided by informative introductions, the writings in Pacific Passages provide insight into the values and ideals of Polynesian and Western cultures, revealing how each has altered and been altered by surfing—and how the sport itself has shown an amazing ability throughout the centuries to survive, adapt, and prosper.

A book in which some of our best writers address their own losses — and help us endure our own… A heartbreaking, comforting and beautiful collection of true stories about grief and mourning from some of Canada’s best known writers. When Jean Baird’s daughter, Bronwyn, died suddenly, Jean’s deep instinct was to turn to books to help her in her time of sudden loss. Although she found that the thoughts of counselors, psychologists, Buddhists, and self-help gurus were perhaps some help, the works that truly reached to the heart of the matter were by literary writers, largely from the UK and the US. Scanning the Canadian landscape, Jean and her husband George Bowering found elegies and tributes, but little from our writers about the person who is left behind to mourn or what it takes to endure grieving. The Heart Does Break — an anthology of twenty original pieces — sets out to fill that gap.

Life is both wonderful and devastating. It graces us with joy, and it breaks our hearts. If your heart is broken, this book is for you. Whether you're struggling with a death, break-up, illness, unwanted life change, or loss of any kind, this book will help you both understand your predicament and figure out what to do about it. Loss may be an unavoidable part of human life, but it doesn't have to prevent you from living well. You can and will survive this. Actually, if you adopt this guide's basic principles, revealed and tested by one of the world's most beloved grief counselors, you will even go on to thrive. Let's get mending.

This book focuses on the kind of grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially validated, or publicly mourned. It addresses the unique psychological, biological, and sociological issues involved in disenfranchised grief. The contributing authors explore the concept of disenfranchised grief, help define and explain this type of grief, and offer clinical interventions to help grievers express their hidden sorrow.