This an amazing book that helps the reader deal with grief naturally and asks the reader to surrender to the pain. It describes the traumatic feelings in the form of simple poems with unbelievable accuracy and then gives ways of dealing with these profound feelings. There ARE no words to describe this incredible book. Highly recommended by clinical psychologists as well.

I've ploughed through a spate of self-help books on this topic lately, and have written some scathing reviews; because all of them appeared to have their own agendas, and none of them seemed to help.

Until I found this one.

This book described to me EXACTLY what I was going through. It did not seek to reframe the experience within the author's religious views. It did not seek to impose a decision or a philosophy on me. It did not try to get me to DO anything. It simply described exactly what was happening, and it did it in a way that made it okay for me to feel the way I was feeling.

The book is formatted in pairs of facing pages. On the lefthand page is straightforward prose; on the righthand pages (with a few exceptions) are short, original poems. This presentation I found extremely powerful. The poems connect in a way that the prose can't; and the prose lends strength and validity and concrete information to the fellings expressed in the poetry. The combined effect is one of knowledge and empathy.

In other words, reading this book is like sitting down and talking with a wise, kind friend.

The writing style is sparse yet complete. It would pass any test that E.B. White could put to it. It is, in itself, enjoyable.

Reading the above, I find that my description is inadequate. If you are going through the loss of a loved one, or, in fact, any kind of a loss at all, this book will give you comfort... it will put things in perspective for you, without demeaning or trivializing your feelings, and it will leave you in a place from which you can move on.

j michael rowland