The best book I have ever read on grief. The author, Dr Joanne Cacciatore, gets to the heart of everything important about grieving. Anyone who is grieving and going through the deep valley needs to read this. This book was written and "created" by a woman who has herself experienced the deepest grief at the loss of her child and is able to put into words what she herself has experienced and what she has experienced with other mourners. She can also put into words what others are afraid of. The book is a MUST read for people who are grieving. It's a shame that this book wasn't available earlier. This book is sensitive, overwhelming, indescribable! It summarises everything you can feel when going through grief, no matter how deep. It gives strength and blessing, relaxation, comprehensive understanding, time and allows the wound to heal slowly. And it takes a lot of courage to write so personally about grief. The author really appreciates every single emotion that you may have to go through. However, I would like to emphasise that every person experiences a different kind of grief; men, for example, often grieve very differently to women, as the author also describes. Of course, this is ultimately independent of gender, but it is an observation of mine. As a therapist, I recommend this book more than many others I have read on the subject of grief in recent years. And I have read many in order to be able to offer my grieving patients help that they can always have with them alongside psychotherapy and grief counselling. This book is something very special because it shows the whole range of grief reactions that are possible. The book contains many stories of mourners that are not too long and that touched me deeply. I have to say that I was in tears most of the time while reading because I was so touched and therefore had to cry along with them. Tears are something precious. I would therefore like to end with a quote that the author has included alongside other quotes on the subject: "May we be so much one that when one cries the other tastes salt". Incidentally, I think we Germans could also become a little more relaxed when it comes to grieving and cry out loud when a good friend loses a loved one. I myself sobbed and cried loudly when my mum was laid out there and it was very liberating. Crying together can also be very helpful, not just at a funeral or other mourning ritual. In southern countries, this still happens in some rural areas.

The unexpected death of her newborn daughter, her 4th of 5 children, confronted the author, Dr Joanne Cacciatore, with a grief of enormous proportions. Traumatic loss, in her view, causes traumatic grief. Her own years of dealing with her emotions led her to specialise in providing process support for traumatised mourners. In this book, she describes her own experiences and interweaves them with various stages of grief of universal validity, through which one's own grief can not only be explored, but also understood and healed. The grief experienced by parents mourning the loss of a child is certainly different from that experienced by people when, for example, a partner or their own parents die. Nevertheless, this book is not only aimed at grieving parents or parents. Grief is not a linear process, but something that can catch up with a person again and again. And yet - consciously facing up to what you have experienced is the seed of healing. I think this book is a good aid for people who want to better understand (their) grief and that of others, especially as mourners cannot always count on deep understanding from those around them and a book like this can help them to create time and space for themselves and their feelings.

...that I have ever read. Full of compassion! Recently lost my father and always feel a warmth when reading this book and know that many out there feel the same way. Can only recommend it!!!

The book is very helpful in coping with grief