‘The book to recommend to patients when they face coming to terms with unavoidable childlessness.' – British Medical Journal In Living the Life Unexpected, Jody Day addresses the experience of involuntary childlessness and provides a powerful, practical guide to help those negotiating a future without children come to terms with their grief; a grief that is only just beginning to be recognized by society. This friendly, practical, humorous and honest guide from one of the world’s most respected names in childless support offers compassion and understanding and shows how it’s possible to move towards a creative, happy, meaningful and fulfilling future – even if it’s not the one you had planned. Millions of people are now living a life without children, almost double that of a generation ago and the numbers are rising still. Although some are childfree by choice, many others are childless due to infertility or circumstance and are struggling to come to terms with their uncertain future. Although most people think that those without children either 'couldn't' or 'didn't want’ to be parents, the truth is much more complex. Jody Day was forty-four when she realized that her quest to be a mother was at an end. She presumed that she was through the toughest part, but over the next couple of years she was hit by waves of grief, despair and isolation. Eventually she found her way and in 2011 created Gateway Women, the global friendship and support network for childless women which has now helped almost two million people worldwide. This edition, previously titled Rocking the Life Unexpected, has been extensively revised and updated, with significant additional content and case studies from forty involuntarily childless people (mostly women) from around the world.

"Into My Life Unexpected, Transitioning" resumes the journey begun in Book One, Learning to Love Again. After his bitter sweet romance had ended, Mr. Kaufman began to come to grips with its aftermath. The pain, the anger, the growth, the acknowledgment and finally the healing were all necessary steps on his ongoing journey. Again, in narrative and verse, we share in his triumphant Transition.

In his most personal and powerful book yet, Mr. Kaufman continues his "Into My Life Unexpected" series with Volume 5, "Learning to Live Again, 2017." It had been two years since the end of the relationship that he believed would take him to the end of his life. Restarting his journey and with a new girl by his side, he received devastating news in May of 2016. This volume began as a diary of the year 2017 and It soon became clear that he had reached a point in his life where health, aging and relationships took on a whole new meaning. In so doing he understood that this would be the beginning of the process of learning to live again.

In Book 3 of the Into My Life Unexpected series, "Finding Love", Mr. Kaufman tells again in prose and poetry, the emotional and romantic story of the first year of the love affair he had been so long searching for. As he reveals more of his life story and how he came to this place and time, we share in the joy and power of "Finding Love"

About the Book “This story tells the good and the bad of my life.” Shirley Mae has been writing short stories, poems and songs most of her adult life but it became too difficult while having a career and raising a family. As she got older in years, she decided to write about the things that happened to her in life, hoping it might help other women who may have experienced some of what she went through. The author was abused by her first two husbands, but her third husband was the charm and when he passed away, it was totally unexpected, just like the rest of her life.

Into My Life Unexpected...Learning to Love Again and Transitioning, the first two books in the author's Into My Life Unexpected series, is the story in narrative and verse of one man's journey of rediscovery. Beginning at age 62, after years of failed relationships and unhappiness in his personal and professional life, the author relocated to a place he calls "Paradise". It was in this place, free to find the heart and emotion so long repressed that his life began anew. The beginning of this journey, which is one which continues today, found the author in a bitter sweet romance...bound to fail, but necessary for him to learn how to love again. Following its end, he had to come to grips with its aftermath. The pain, the anger, the growth, the acknowledgment and finally the healing were the necessary steps required for his triumphant transitioning.

"Into My Life Unexpected ... A Journey to Me" is SL Kaufman's expertly-crafted, serious, uplifting story about one man's journey toward rediscovering life's truest reward—love. This lovely tome of creative nonfiction is primarily aimed at men and women who are well-educated and enchanted with romance and true love, more than merely the idea of love.Kaufman's book is a narrative told in poems, each one logically and strategically placed to enhanced the overall story, but each able to stand on its own. Through the use of narrative and prose, the author details his odyssey in search of love. In his early sixties, after years of failed relationships and unhappiness in his personal and professional life, the author relocated to a place where he had no prior connection. And it was in that place, free to find the sense of heart and emotions so long repressed, that his life began to flourish once again. This book details the beginning of that long path. “I began my life as a sixty-two-year-old, twice-divorced father of two children. Prior to that I had lived my life for and through others and I believed myself to be a successful man. I was taught to measure success by the size of my bank account and, by that standard, I was. Yet, I was unfulfilled, unhappy, and lost. My children were grown, my career was at a crossroads, and my second marriage had failed. I felt alone and trapped without direction. I had been a good father and a good husband. My marriages had failed, not through indiscretion, but because they were without support, friendship and, most of all love.“This collection of thoughts, poems, and songs is not the story of that other life—for all that only led me to this time and place where I began to discover what my life was meant to be,” says Kaufman.Kaufman's moving work will forever echo in the heart of the reader.