A Broken Heart Still Beats: When Your Child Dies

By Anne McCracken and Mary Semel

Book Overview

While nothing can mute the pain after the death of a child, this compilation of poetry, fiction, and essays about the pain, stages, grief, and coping offer inspiration and comfort in the wake of tragedy.

While nothing can mute the pain after the death of a child, this compilation of poetry, fiction, and essays about the pain, stages, grief, and coping offer inspiration and comfort in the wake of tragedy.

How Two Grieving Mothers Found Inspiration and Comfort. There are few, if any, events in life as traumatic, heart-wrenching, and crushing as the death of a child. While nothing can mute the pain of such a life-shattering loss, others who know this experience can help those suffering articulate the chaos of their feelings and see that they can, eventually, feel whole again. Organized by a journalist and a psychotherapist, each of whom has lost a child, A Broken Heart Still Beats is a remarkable compilation of poetry, fiction, and essays about the pain, stages of grief, and the coping and healing process that follows the death of one's child. The chapters are organized thematically and chronologically, from "Thunderstruck," the point at which parents first learn they have lost a child, to "The Legacy of Loss," wherein the authors and the anthology selections speak to the "steely hard and cold" life lessons this type of bereavement brings. This compilation of poems and excerpts draws from short stories, novels, biographies, and autobiographies that focus on the death of a child as relayed through classic and contemporary world literature. It is made up of works by some of the best writers and thinkers present and past, many of them bereaved parents as well, ranging from Mark Twain, Isabel Allende, William Shakespeare, John Edgar Wideman, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Anne Tyler, and Sophocles to Eric Clapton and Winston Churchill. Biographical introductions personalize the excerpts, often offering new insights into well-known writers like William Faulkner and Rudyard Kipling. This book's anthologized selections make it truly exceptional. A Broken Heart Still Beats-- expresses the universal themes of grief--and the common points of these experiences and feelings--in language and imagery that goes straight to the heart. The fact that each of the authors has lost a child brings a powerful authenticity to the book. Bereaved parents and family members as well as mental health professionals, bereavement counselors, and those interested in grief literature will all find this book extremely valuable. "As one who has experienced the tragic, untimely death of a child, I have found this anthology of similar experiences an excellent source of comfort and healing." --George McGovern, former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate. "By putting words to what is surely the most unspeakable of life's losses, this eloquent and painfully honest book may help make the darkness a little less dark, the loneliness a little less lonely." --Judith Viorst, author of Necessary Losses Born and raised in new York, Mary Semel graduated from Goucher College in Baltimore. She is a psychotherapist who, after working for many years at Sheppard Pratt Hospital, now has a private practice. Her sixteen-year-old son, Alexander, was killed in a car accident in 1991. Anne McCracken is a former newspaper reporter and feature writer. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Hollis. She lost her five-year-old son, Jake, in 1989. The authors have appeared on "The Today Show" and National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568385560
• ISBN13: 9781568385563
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Hazelden Publishing & Educational Services
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Out of all the books I have read, I come back to this one again and again. Both of the authors lost their children and the true accounts, the stories and the quotes touched me in a way no other book had done. It is real and it cuts to the bone. When my son died, the ground fell away from me. I felt alone and in darkness. There is so much light in this book. Simply reading what others have felt made me realize that they lived through the most dreadful, mind boggling experience of their lives. As bereaved parents, we are left to somehow pass the torch, to light the way where another is struggling in the dark. We have become the educators of death and it's up to us to "say their names" and help those who are afraid to talk to us know we cannot leave our children behind. This is a book of beauty, bravery, love, compassion and truth. Thank you Anne McCracken and Mary Semel. Peace to us all......

The most helpful book so far...

I lost my precious daughter Hannah Caguiat last December in an accident that injured me and her little sister Emily as well. Along with an outpouring of love, support, and sympathy from our family and community, I received dozens of books about bereavement in general and loss of a child in particular. I received _A Broken Heart Still Beats_ as a gift recently and reading it has been so helpful. Despite the variety of experiences and the fact that some of the pieces in here are fiction, this is the first time I have felt like there are people out there who truly would understand what we are going through. It is not a self-help book, but does explore various aspects of being a bereaved parent -- from relationships with spouse/partner/child's other parent, to anger, to sibling issues. I highly recommend this for anyone who has lost a child or is close to someone who has.I was saddened, too, by how many people out there in the arts and literature have been in this situation. So many that I never knew had experienced this.

My story

I lost my seventeen year old son in a auto accident this year.Alot of people have their religion and faith to fall back on, others (like me) find their faith has been shaken when the worst that can happen, happens. There are no answers for the neverending questions you have after you lose your son or daughter, especially the hardest one is why? You won't find the answers in a book or in any place on earth, it has to come from inside you. This book is just a guide to help you, a collection of stories from other people, famous and not so famous. It's like getting a personal letter from someone who understands, as if they wrote it just for you and your child without getting lost in any one belief or philosophy. It comes from the heart.

Very Very Helpful Book

Although it has been 15 years since the terrible loss of my very much loved daughter this book helped me very much. I have read many, many books since she passed away but find I am still searching for answers as well as ways to cope. I am glad to find there are other people who have suffered this loss and are much better at putting their feelings into words that I am. So many times I found myself thinking, "Yes!!!!!!!! that is exactly what I have been feeling". I recommend this for anyone experiencing this loss but only to read after a couple of years have passed. I know it takes that long to read something like this with a different perspective. I don't know that it would have helped the first couple of years, although nothing could help then.

Shared experiences ease the pain of loss.

I grew up knowing that my grandfather experienced the loss of a child, but I never gave it much consideration. One thing I wish I could do today, six years after the death of my 10-year-old son, is bring my deceased grandfather back to tell him my story and listen to him talk about the death of his only son during World War Two. Anyone who has lived through the loss of a child will feel a lightening of the heart as they recognize their own experiences and thoughts in the words of others. This book is a valuable collection of work from gifted writers who had those experiences and thoughts.Rabindranath Tagore's poem, "The End", reaches so deep it's painful, but I find myself reading it over and over because it puts my feelings to words in a way I can't. So now, because I read this book, eight simple words, artfully arranged by Tagore, will always be with me when I think of my son; "He is in my bones and in my soul."Thank you, Anne and Mary, for giving me something like talking to my grandfather.

Rich, moving anthology of fine literature on grief

This is not, it's refreshing to say, a self-help book. (Neither is it exclusively for those who've lost a child.) The authors have put together something much deeper and more complex. Drawing on literature throughout the ages and throughout the world--from Sophocles to Mark Twain to Rita Dove to Abraham Verghese--McCracken and Semel take the reader on a journey that is at once inspiring and heartbreaking. They, and the writers whose work they present, are unfailingly honest and vivid in their portrayal of grief. They shun the simplistic "just follow these steps and everything will be okay in the end" approach-- nobody here will try to convince you that you have to "get over" it. Some things in life, these writers point out, you don't get over; you just learn to live with them. And it's no failure or weakness or unwillingness to "do the steps." Read this book--whether you've suffered the catastrophic loss of a child or another kind of loss--to see what great writers have to say about learning to live again. And the next time you pick up a poem by Robert Frost, remember that he lost not one, but four, of his children.