The Path Through Grief: A Compassionate Guide

I taught the first "Death and Living" course in the Los Angeles City Schools. It was a class designed to help teens learn how to experience loss. It was, perhaps, the most popular elective at U. S. Grant High School. I used no text for no book embodied all the different ways we suffer loss in our lives; obviously, the greatest loss is death, but also moving from one place to another, getting fired from a job, or breaking up wih a girl or by friend -- all of these are major losses in one's life -- and there are others.Along comes The Path Through Grief and with it the first book which could well serve as that missing text. The book is written simply and directly. And, its main strength is the sections written by the person who experienced the loss directly. The person writes his story effectively, intelligently and with knowledge and feelings that come from his own personal awareness and suffering.None of the book is maudlin, depressing nor explotative. The author is writing to offer hope, sustenance and sensitivity to an arrreea of life that is usually kept under wraps. My major purpose in creating the class was to lead my students from darkness into light in an area alwaays present in our midst but usually kept remote and silent.The author succeeds admirably and beautifully in conveying the idea that death, like any major event of one's life, could be a source of creating a new beginning for ourselves.The book offers a powerful antidote to those who believe deaath is the end for, in fact, it could be the start of self-discovey in ways that were never before revealed.I recommend The Path Through Grief to you, without reservation, as a valuable tool in dealing with loss and its aftermath.

I found this to be of some help to me. I've read a lot on grief, and this book wasn't bad.