After a child dies, the parent's world changes entirely. Years later, this new world has changed the parents. The exact nature of this change—the long-term effects of the death—illuminates the nature of the bond between parents and children.
Ann Finkbeiner lost her son in a train accident when he was 18. Several years later, she noticed she was feeling better and wondered whether this feeling was what was meant by "recovery." As a science writer, she read the psychological, sociological, and psychiatric research into parental bereavement. And as a bereaved parent, she asked hard questions of thirty parents whose child had died at least five years before, of all causes and at all ages.
In this book, Finkbeiner combines the research and the parents' answers into a description of the parents' new lives. The parents talk about their changed marriages and their changed relationships with their other children, with their friends and relatives. They talk about their attempts to make sense of the death and about their drastically changed priorities. And most important, they talk about how they still love their children, how the child seems to see through their eyes and live through their actions. They move on through their grief, they get on with their lives, but they never let go of their children. Their wisdom is here presented to any in need of it.
The Johns Hopkins University Press
[W]ritten with warmth, depth, and sensitivity... it will be a comfort to those some way down the road, helping them understand their sorrow and pain, and affirming their own individual way of grieving.
The bravery that Ann Finkbeiner must have had to write this book is incredible... By using her own and other parents' experiences, the author makes the issues speakable, and a sense of peace through connectedness with these parents is conveyed to the reader.
Find a copy... It will exhaust and replenish you.
Enriching. One is struck by the mysterious power of attachment and love in the parent-child bond.
— June Gooch
— Marceil Bauman-Bork, MD
— Gary Grant
— Holly Perkins, M.D.
Like mourning itself, this powerful book, much of it in the words of bereaved parents, evokes a series of reactions... It illustrates the hard fact [of human suffering] but also our resilience.
The first book to examine the long-term nature of parental grief through the tales of those who suffer it. Although the book includes most current grief research, its authorities are parents.
| Introduction | ||
| 1 | At First | 1 |
| 2 | Marge Ford's Marriage | 24 |
| 3 | Fathers and Mothers, Husbands and Wives: Changes in the Marriage | 37 |
| 4 | Brandt Jones's Family | 54 |
| 5 | Brothers and Sisters, Sons and Daughters: Changes in the Relationship with Other Children | 63 |
| 6 | Leight Johnson and His Fellow Man | 86 |
| 7 | Janet Wright's Bad Friends | 94 |
| 8 | Changes Toward Other People | 98 |
| 9 | Chris Reed | 120 |
| 10 | On Guilt | 130 |
| 11 | Delores Shoda and the Uncertainty of Life | 142 |
| 12 | Job's Children: Changes Toward God | 150 |
| 13 | Diana Moores' World | 173 |
| 14 | The Zero Point : Changes in Perspective | 182 |
| 15 | Anne Perkins' Priorities | 198 |
| 16 | Surface Ditties and Carpe Diem : Changes in Priorities | 207 |
| 17 | Walter Levin | 219 |
| 18 | The Nature of the Bond | 226 |
| 19 | One Person Now: The Continuing Trajectory | 244 |
| Suggestions for Further Reading | 265 |
BarbieO
Posted February 20, 2010
I lost my 15 year old son 2 1/2 years ago in a tragic accident. Every feeling I have felt is in this book. It is a must read for every parent who has lost a child and a must read for every parent who knows someone who lost a child--it explains things to parents on how to act and how we, who are grieving and will grieve forever, can sometimes be hurt by the smallest things.
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Overview
After a child dies, the parent's world changes entirely. Years later, this new world has changed the parents. The exact nature of this change—the long-term effects of the death—illuminates the nature of the bond between parents and children.
Ann Finkbeiner lost her son in a train accident when he was 18. Several years later, she noticed she was feeling better and wondered whether this feeling was what was meant by "recovery." As a science writer, she read the psychological, ...