Losing Mom

Sometimes it takes a child to guide a family through the crisis of losing a parent. Stella is a charming, witty, insightful, articulate youngster who has an uncanny way of describing the dynamics of her family. From ages eight through twenty-one, Stella shares her most private thoughts, emotions, and struggles, allowing us an intimate look into the developmental challenges of growing up following the death of a parent. Through a series of interviews, which Stella conducts with her four older siblings, the family learns to deal with their mother's illness and death from cancer. However, as the years go on, these interviews take this amazing family of five siblings by surprise. They offer the opportunity for them to learn how to talk to one another about their grief, develop insights into how their mother's death affected their life choices and decisions, and share the importance, strength, and comfort found in the letters that Momma left for each them. Losing Mom is an excellent resource for relatives and friends who want to be of help but are unsure of what actually is helpful. Losing Mom is the perfect resource for teenagers and young adults who are looking to find some sense of normalcy after a devastating loss. Losing Momprovides physicians, mental health professionals, and educators an opportunity to enhance their appreciation of the journey these children are on. As painful as this journey is, Losing Mom is filled with hope, helpful hints, suggestions for coping, and the deep insight into children growing up under extraordinary life circumstances. Dr. Frances Wollman Baumgarten is a clinical psychologist and cancer survivor. She maintains a private practice and is the co-founder of Center for Cancer Counseling, a nonprofit cancer counseling program in Newport Beach, California.

Author Cynthia Ryan offers a heartfelt glimpse into the experience of losing a parent to Alzheimer's disease. She shares the realities and heartbreak of her mother's experience, one that was both enhanced and complicated by their complex mother-daughter relationship and family dynamics. Shy and distant, but also independent, her mother didn't often find joy in the roles of wife and mother. The trials of a scarred childhood, marked by poverty and an alcoholic father, made true happiness elusive for her mother. On Christmas Eve of 2000, Cynthia started to see noticeable changes in her mother. A devoted grandmother, she had never forgotten to buy presents for one of her grandchildren-until that day. What's more, she spent the day pouting, because the family was celebrating Christmas one day early. Over the coming months, her behavior grew increasingly erratic and forgetful; she became agitated more and more easily. Cynthia finally took her mother to the doctor, where everyone's worst fears were confirmed: Alzheimer's. In this memoir, Cynthia shares their journey of understanding, forgiveness, blessings, healing, and renewed love. She celebrates her mother's life, even as it spiraled out of her control.

Motherless Daughters examines the profound effects of the loss of a mother on a woman's identity, personality and life choices, both immediately and as her life goes on. Hope Edelman, who lost her mother at seventeen, searched for a book like this, and wh

Author Cynthia Ryan offers a heartfelt glimpse into the experience of losing a parent to Alzheimers disease. She shares the realities and heartbreak of her mothers experience, one that was both enhanced and complicated by their complex mother-daughter relationship and family dynamics. Shy and distant, but also independent, her mother didnt often find joy in the roles of wife and mother. The trials of a scarred childhood, marked by poverty and an alcoholic father, made true happiness elusive for her mother. On Christmas Eve of 2000, Cynthia started to see noticeable changes in her mother. A devoted grandmother, she had never forgotten to buy presents for one of her grandchildrenuntil that day. Whats more, she spent the day pouting, because the family was celebrating Christmas one day early. Over the coming months, her behavior grew increasingly erratic and forgetful; she became agitated more and more easily. Cynthia finally took her mother to the doctor, where everyones worst fears were confirmed: Alzheimers. In this memoir, Cynthia shares their journey of understanding, forgiveness, blessings, healing, and renewed love. She celebrates her mothers life, even as it spiraled out of her control.

Coping With Loss The grieving process: Ty Alexander of Gorgeous in Grey is one of the top bloggers today. She has a tremendous personal connection with her readers. This is never more apparent than when she speaks about her mother. The pain of loss is universal. Yet, we all grieve differently. For Alexander, the grieving process is one that she lives with day-to-day. Learning from her pain, Alexander connects with her readers on a deeply emotional level in her debut book, Things I Wish I Knew before My Mom Died: Coping with Loss Every Day. From grief counseling to sharing insightful true stories, Alexander offers comfort, reassurance, and hope in the face of sorrow. Coping with loss: In her early 20’s reality smacked Ty in the face. She was ill equipped to deal with the emotional and intellectual rollercoaster of dealing with her mom’s illness. Through her own trial and error, she found a way to be a caregiver, patient advocate, researcher, and a grieving daughter. She wrote Things I Wish I Knew before My Mom Died: Coping with Loss Every Day to help others find the “best” way to cope and move on, however one personally decides what that means. Mourning and remembrance: In the chapters of this soul-touching book, mourners will find meaning and wisdom in grieving and the love that will always remain. Each chapter is a study and lesson in coping with loss: • Chapter 1: We’ve been duped, everyone dies! • Chapter 2: The truth about my moderately dysfunctional family • Chapter 3: The Art Of Losing • Chapter 4: The how of grieving • Chapter 5: How to be obsessively grateful • Chapter 6: Dear Mama

Written by a grief counselor and educator, this book is for those who have loved and lost their mother. Losing a mother is a difficult transition in life. No matter the status of the relationship, grieving the loss is a process--one that sometimes begins before the physical loss has occurred. Drawing on his own experience of loss, as well as on the experiences of others, Harold Ivan Smith guides readers through their grief, from the process of dying through the acts of remembering and honoring a mother after her death. This book provides a way forward. By shifting the grief process from something to rush through, Smith encourages readers to embrace their grief as a natural response to loss and to give themselves time to work through the sadness, pain, memories, and reality of living without their mom. All of us will experience the loss of our mother at some point. A mother's last breath inevitably changes us. Through wise counsel, Smith speaks gently to people who have gone through this loss and helps those yet to face it. This edition includes a new foreword from the author.

Inspired by the website that the New York Times hailed as "redefining mourning," this book is a fresh and irreverent examination into navigating grief and resilience in the age of social media, offering comfort and community for coping with the mess of loss through candid original essays from a variety of voices, accompanied by gorgeous two-color illustrations and wry infographics. At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it’s clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let’s face it: most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We’re awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit. Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and—above all—empathize. Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN’s Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message. Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.

Daddy comforts and reassures a very young boy after Mommy dies.

Kate Spencer lost her mom to cancer when she was 27. In The Dead Moms Club, she walks readers through her experience of stumbling through grief and loss, and helps them to get through it, too. This isn't a weepy, sentimental story, but rather a frank, up-front look at what it means to go through gruesome grief and come out on the other side. An empathetic read, The Dead Moms Club covers how losing her mother changed nearly everything in her life: both men and women readers who have lost parents or experienced grief of this magnitude will be comforted and consoled. Spencer even concludes each chapter with a cheeky but useful tip for readers (like the "It's None of Your Business Card" to copy and hand out to nosy strangers asking about your passed loved one).

After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong “hill women” who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region. “Destined to be compared to Hillbilly Elegy and Educated.”—BookPage (starred review) “A gritty, warm love letter to Appalachian communities and the resourceful women who lead them.”—Slate Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County, Kentucky, is one of the poorest places in the country. Buildings are crumbling as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women find creative ways to subsist in the hills. Through the women who raised her, Cassie Chambers traces her path out of and back into the Kentucky mountains. Chambers’s Granny was a child bride who rose before dawn every morning to raise seven children. Granny’s daughter, Ruth—the hardest-working tobacco farmer in the county—stayed on the family farm, while Wilma—the sixth child—became the first in the family to graduate from high school. Married at nineteen and pregnant with Cassie a few months later, Wilma beat the odds to finish college. She raised her daughter to think she could move mountains, like the ones that kept her safe but also isolated from the larger world. Cassie would spend much of her childhood with Granny and Ruth in the hills of Owsley County. With her “hill women” values guiding her, she went on to graduate from Harvard Law. But while the Ivy League gave her opportunities, its privileged world felt far from her reality, and she moved home to help rural Kentucky women by providing free legal services. Appalachian women face issues from domestic violence to the opioid crisis, but they are also keeping their towns together in the face of a system that continually fails them. With nuance and heart, Chambers breaks down the myth of the hillbilly and illuminates a region whose poor communities, especially women, can lead it into the future.