Grieving: A Beginner's Guide

By Jerusha Hull McCormack

Book Overview

"McCormack covers so much ground in such a little book that the reader could devour it quickly in hours or spend weeks reading it slowly, savoring each bit of wisdom. Anyone who is grieving or anyone who knows a grieving person will find hope and support in this small book." --Publisher's Weekly, starred review

There is no sure route through grieving. Jerusha McCormack provides instead a series of signposts by which we may find our own path to a new life.

"We are all amateurs at grief," she writes, "it comes to us all; we must all go through it. To treat grief as a problem to be fixed, or (worse still) to medicalize it, is to rob us of the extraordinary privilege of encountering this experience on our terms: for each of us has our own way of grieving, and each of us has something special to learn from the process."

"Every loss is unique. Each person grieves in his or her own way. The world is full of invisible sufferers -- those who have lost someone through any manner of catastrophes. Perhaps nothing draws as deeply on individual creativity as grief does. It is a time to rally your own resources, to use them in such a way as to express your grieving as your own, and thus to take possession to it."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B002SB8NFS
• ISBN13: 9781557254931
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Paraclete Press (MA)
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Helpful

This book is a help for the newly grieving, especially a widow. Makes a nice gift for someone who has recently lost a spouse. The author wrote from her own experience; it is not the regular stages of grief.

very helpful book

I recommend this book to every young widow. My husband died 4 months ago and I thought my life was over. This book really helped me see that I will survive and will actually be a better person because of my terrible loss. I have marked certain parts of the book that I read and reread on those days that I need help just to get out of bed in the morning. As the title indicates, it really is a guide at a time when a person needs guidance.

Finally a Helpful Book on Grief

Three months after my husbands suicide I came across this book at the local library. Most of the books I've read on the subject of grief and being a widow all say the same things, or say what I already know and understand. The author of this book talks very plainly and frankly about her grief, and tries very hard to find a different perspective to view this whole horrible process from. I really appreciated the approach, as I too have tried to make sense and understand how to deal with the loss of my husband and what that means for my future. After reading it I thouht "finally a helpful book about grief". Hence the subject title for this review.

I found meaningful help for me as a bereaved person

I write as a man whose wife died of cancer after 36 years and 10 months of marriage. This book appeals to me as an honest, tough look at what it means to grieve. I have gained a lot from its models on how grieving can be turned around - if one is willing to work with it - so that loss can be made into something positive. This kind of down-to-earth guidance I found nowhere else. For someone in pain - or trying to help someone suffering from bereavement - this is an invaluable book, short and readable but full of practical advice with rich spiritual implications. Without a doubt the best book I have found on the subject.