Addressing the inevitable grief that accompanies the loss of a loved one, this encouraging and supportive reference provides comfort in the midst of overwhelming sadness. Preventing mourners from becoming tangled in a web of despair, this guide shows how the smallest amount of hope can be nurtured into a confident sense of being, lighting the path towards a future of love, joy, and meaning. Featuring a series of reflective passages and quotations, this handbook makes it possible to roll up one's sleeves and make healing a reality.

At the First Baptist Church of Maeby, Arkansas, the sins of the child belonged to the parents until the child turned thirteen. Sarah Jones was only eight years old in the summer of 1964, but with her mother Esther Mae on eight prayer lists and flipping around town with the generally mistrusted civil rights organizers, Sarah believed it was time to get baptized and take responsibility for her own sins. That would mean sitting on the mourner’s bench come revival, waiting for her sign, and then testifying in front of the whole church. But first, Sarah would need to navigate the growing tensions of small-town Arkansas in the 1960s. Both smarter and more serious than her years (a “fifty-year-old mind in an eight-year-old body,” according to Esther), Sarah was torn between the traditions, religion, and work ethic of her community and the progressive civil rights and feminist politics of her mother, who had recently returned from art school in Chicago. When organizers from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) came to town just as the revival was beginning, Sarah couldn’t help but be caught up in the turmoil. Most folks just wanted to keep the peace, and Reverend Jefferson called the SNCC organizers “the evil among us.” But her mother, along with local civil rights activist Carrie Dilworth, the SNCC organizers, Daisy Bates, attorney John Walker, and indeed most of the country, seemed determined to push Maeby toward integration. With characters as vibrant and evocative as their setting, Mourner’s Bench is the story of a young girl coming to terms with religion, racism, and feminism while also navigating the terrain of early adolescence and trying to settle into her place in her family and community.

Comprehensive volume on Jewish death and mourning. Question-and-answer format explores the laws, observances and customs that relate to Jewish mourning. Includes a special inspirational section and readings for the bereaved.

There is no doubt that the death of a loved one has a profound - and unpredictable - effect on the lives of those left behind. Mourning is the price we pay for love. But how does anyone survive those first weeks, months, and even years after a death, and then eventually return to normal life? When her daughter's fiancé died suddenly, Katherine Ashenburg found herself drawn into the world of mourning customs. Finding little comfort in the stripped-down North American approach, she sought solace, and shaped the core of this much-praised book, by exploring the rich traditions that have sustained mourners in cultures around the world and across centuries. Intertwining anecdotes from past and present with her own story, Ashenburg uncovers the wisdom and creativity embedded in mourning rituals and their value in rebuilding those unravelled by loss. Somehow, as Ashenburg so deftly reveals, we find strength and go on living. With a new afterword by the author.

No matter when or where they are fought, all wars have one thing in common: a relentless progression to monuments and memorials for the dead. Likewise all art made from war begins and ends in mourning and remembrance. In The Mourner's Song, James Tatum offers incisive discussions of physical and literary memorials constructed in the wake of war, from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the writings of Stephen Crane, Edmund Wilson, Tim O'Brien, and Robert Lowell. Tatum's touchstone throughout is the Iliad, not just one of the earliest war poems, but also one of the most powerful examples of the way poetry can be a tribute to and consolation for what is lost in war. Reading the Iliad alongside later works inspired by war, Tatum reveals how the forms and processes of art convert mourning to memorial. He examines the role of remembrance and the distance from war it requires; the significance of landscape in memorialization; the artifacts of war that fire the imagination; the intimate relationship between war and love and its effects on the ferocity with which soldiers wage battle; and finally, the idea of memorialization itself. Because all survivors suffer the losses of war, Tatum's is a story of both victims and victors, commanders and soldiers, women and men. Photographs of war memorials in Vietnam, France, and the United States beautifully augment his testimonials. Eloquent and deeply moving, The Mourner's Song will speak to anyone interested in the literature of war and the relevance of the classics to our most pressing contemporary needs.

Laceys Sister, 3/29/13 Davids Sister, 10/26/12 Bella, 8/21/12 A sibling loss to suicide is even more unique because the sibling(s) left behind are often forgotten mourning the loss of their brother or sister alone in the shadows of their parents grief. This book discusses some of the challenges sibling survivors of suicide will face, both individually and as a family unit, including: -- What can I expect during the grieving process as a sibling survivor of suicide? -- How can I set boundaries to take care of myself? -- Will my relationship with my parents change? -- How do I answer questions about my now-departed sibling? -- What can I do to get through the holidays and anniversaries? -- How do I keep my brother or sister alive in my life, without him or her physically present? These questions and more are answered directly from the authors experiences following the loss of her eighteen year-old brother to suicide in November 2001. Hopefully, her experiences will give sibling survivors of suicide a bit of strength, hope, and peace in navigating the long road to healing ahead.