In the autumn of 1973, Willie Steelman and Douglas Gretzler embarked on a murderous drug-fueled rampage across Arizona and California. Steelman was little more than a petty thief, an addict, a dreamer, never able to unleash the man he thought himself to be, but that changed earlier that summer when he met Gretzler. And it was in that Denver, Colorado crash pad where they formed a pact, a third person, created out of their collective souls, someone capable of the unthinkable, together achieving what neither could ever imagine doing on his own. Authorities were soon following the trail of their dead, coming up just hours short of catching them before their final evil act. Hidden in the closet of a farmhouse near Lodi, California, they found the last nine victims. Two entire families shot point blank, including children as they slept, all executed in a violent display of power and paranoia. Days later, when the count was complete, Willie and Doug had killed seventeen, and they could never honestly say why. Of those final nine, four were the author's aunt, uncle and cousins, and haunted for two decades over the mystery of what happened, he retraces the killers' steps, following their ghosts into the darkness, slowly piecing together the puzzle of this deadly odyssey. Where Sadness Breathes chronicles their day by day road trip, told from the inside perspective of a family member who for twenty years was consumed by the randomness of such unexplainable loss, and who along the way uncovers a true American tragedy, as well as the cleansing power of forgiveness.

Written by two clinical psychologists with nearly a century of combined experience, this book explains how people who suffer from depression, anxiety, or undue anger can overcome these difficulties by allowing the normal process of grieving to occur. Sadness is generally characterized as a negative emotion, yet experiencing sadness plays a positive and key role in achieving and maintaining mental health and in avoiding anxiety, depression, and anger. Indeed, sadness can be understood as a normal and necessary feeling that always occurs when one loses something that is loved. The Positive Power of Sadness examines the experience of sadness, taking into account the personal, relational, and neurological factors of sadness; explains the cultural reasons that many resist feeling sad and consequently displace sadness into secondary processes; and provides a practical and systematic way to overcome anger, anxiety, and depression by allowing the normal process of being sad to occur. This simple paradigm of love and loss causing joy and sorrow in tandem is founded on solid research, carefully considered theory, and extensive experience and will serve to stimulate further thought and writing. Professional therapists, psychologists, counselors, teachers, and clergy who work with people in various settings will find this enlightening reading, as will general readers seeking self-help or possessing an interest in psychological functioning or relational difficulties.

"Elizabeth is still reeling from the death of her husband that took place a year prior. She and her young daughter, Emma, took a year to stay with Elizabeth's mother. When the time has come, Elizabeth and Emma choose to return to their hometown of Meadows Creek, Wisconsin. On the drive back into town, Elizabeth accidentally hits a dog, and the owner grumpily dashes into the street and demands Elizabeth takes him and the dog to the vet. Tristan is the owner of the dog. He's cold and distant, but Elizabeth connects to him in some odd way, even if they didn't have the best first meetings. It is later discovered that Tristan Cole is Elizabeth's new neighbor, and he is tagged as the town's grumpy jerk who is closed-off to everyone around him, outside of Mr. Henson, Tristan's odd and quirky boss who owns the shop Needful Things. While Tristan tries his best to keep his distance from Elizabeth, their paths keep crossing in the small town. The townspeople warn Elizabeth to keep her distance from Tristan, as he's a bad seed, but she cannot help but feel drawn to his darkness. During one of their crossings, Tristan snaps at Elizabeth, telling her that he doesn't want to get to know her, or be her friend, even though she keeps insisting on that happening. He ends up kissing her, which throws them both for a loop, and after said kiss, he accidentally makes her fall down the hill they are standing on, making her get scrapped up and injured. During their next crossing, Tristan finds Elizabeth wandering drunk in the wooded area behind their homes, and he helps her to his house after realizing she's too wasted to be outside alone. They have a heart-to-heart and learn about one another's losses. It is after that connection that they come up with the bad idea to use one another to feel again. They began having a fling, using sex to feel connected to another, to make believe that their loved ones are still around, yet it goes sideways once Elizabeth's grief becomes too loud. It is at that point that Tristan decides that being friends with Elizabeth would be the right option instead of using sex to forget. While the two are building their friendship, and are falling more and more for one another, the best friend of Elizabeth's late husband, Tanner, makes it known that he has feelings for her. Elizabeth explains to Tanner that she cares for him, but not in that way. After Tanner takes the rejection, he is livid to find out that she is seeing the town's jerk, Tristan. Tanner threatens Tristan, and tries to trigger him from time to time, to make him snap in front of Elizabeth. After none of Tanner's tricks works, he goes the extra mile by notifying Elizabeth that it was her late husband who was in the car accident with Tristan's late wife and his son, which led to their deaths. Elizabeth doesn't handle this news well but keeps it to herself because she knows it will destroy Tristan. That was when Tanner took the news and revealed it to Tristan, making Tristan harshly end things with Elizabeth. He leaves town and goes to see his parents, where he falls apart. It is then in those conversations that he learns the night of the accident, after Elizabeth loss her husband, she found Tristan's mom in the lobby of the hospital alone. Elizabeth comforted her, and then went and sat with Tristan's wife so she wouldn't be alone while Tristan's mom went to check on his son. The story concludes with Elizabeth learning that Tanner was the one who messed with her late husband's car, which in turn caused the accident. She learns how obsessed he had been with Elizabeth for years. Tanner caused the accident in order to get Elizabeth's husband out of the picture, so he could be the man in her life. Once Tristan connected those dots, he returned to town to protect Elizabeth and Emma from the craziness that was Tanner. After making sure everyone was safe, Tristan confesses his love for Elizabeth, who loves him fully back, and they begin to build a new life together, while still honoring their loved ones from the past. The Air He Breathes is a story of hope, of compassion, and the true meaning of love"--

Kelly Kittel didn’t know the true meaning of the phrase “in the wrong place and the wrong time” until she fell victim to just such a circumstance—and lost her infant son as a result. In the wake of their son’s death, Kittel and her husband are overcome with grief—and they’re still trying to make sense of their loss when, a mere nine months later, their family doctor makes a terrible mistake during Kittel’s pregnancy and they are forced to bury a second child. And when they decide to press malpractice charges, things only get worse: they end up having to battle not only the medical system but also their own family in a court of law, all while raising their other three children and trying to heal from the pain of living through the deaths of two sons. Achingly raw and beautifully narrated, Breathe is a story of motherhood, death, family, and conflict—and, ultimately, how to embrace love, honesty, and joy even in the face of tragedy.

Buddhist meditation, while attracting less popular attention than some other meditative disciplines, has given rise to a particularly rich literature in recent years. Despite differences in style and terminology, these modern writings on Buddhist meditation serve much the same purposes as did the manuals and commentaries of the classical masters: to explicate and interpret the Buddha's teachings on meditation, to clarify the nature and value of the various meditative techniques and attainments, and/or to offer advice on the actual practice of meditation. Meditators are increasingly inclined to compare and evaluate critically what the different contemporary meditation masters have to say, to weigh up the results of relevant scientific studies, or to consult translations of the primary texts in search of the Buddha's 'original' teachings on meditation. Writers on meditation are also increasingly adopting an appropriately critical approach, particularly as regards the reliability of textual accounts. Relatively few still commit the old error of assuming that the Pali canon is a complete and faithful record of what the Buddha said on the subject, or that the classical commentators were infallible authorities. The present collection of twenty-eight readings is designed to give meditators, researchers, and general readers ready access to representative samples of those writings, and to the principal relevant texts.