The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents

Culture, Consolation, and Continuing Bonds in Bereavement

The Selected Works of Dennis Klass

Dennis Klass

Culture, Consolation, and Continuing Bonds in Bereavement presents Dennis Klass’s most important contributions to the scholarship of grief and bereavement. Journal articles, book chapters, and previously unpublished works cover more than 40 years of study and practice on the forefront of our understanding of individual, family, and community grief. The writings range widely, including explorations of continuing bonds and consolation, aspects of grief that were missing when Klass began his work, studies of grief across different cultures, and critical analyses of theories that were popular in grief scholarship but inadequately described bereaved parents’ experiences. The book ends with a previously unpublished case study of Charles Darwin, whose experience as a bereaved parent informed the worldview at the heart of his theory of natural selection. This collection of essays offers an integral understanding of how individuals move through grief and is a valuable addition to the library of anyone working with topics relevant to grieving adults, children, and adolescents.

The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents

Dennis Klass

How parents lose, find or relocate spiritual anchors are described by Dennis Klass. Descriptions are grounded in the scholarly study of comparative religions.

Dead But Not Lost

Grief Narratives in Religious Traditions

Robert Goss, Dennis Klass

The dead are still with us. Contemporary therapists and counselors are coming to understand what's been known for millennia in most religions and in most cultures outside the Western milieu: it's important to continue bonds between the living and the dead. Taking these connections seriously, Goss and Klass explore how bonds with the dead are created and maintained. In doing so, they unearth a fascinating new way to look at the origins and processes of religion itself. Examining ties to dead family members, teachers, religious and political leaders across religious and secular traditions, the authors offer novel ways of understanding grief and its role in creating meaning. Whether for classes in comparative religion and death and dying, or for bereavement counselors and other trying to make sense of grief, this book helps us understand what it means to feel connected to those dead but not lost.

Parental Grief

Solace and Resolution

Dennis Klass

Description unavailable for this volume in the current provider response.

Dead But Not Lost

Grief Narratives in Religious Traditions

Robert Goss

Description unavailable for this volume in the current provider response.

They Need to Know

How to Teach Children about Death

Audrey K. Gordon, Dennis Klass

Description unavailable for this volume in the current provider response.

Crying in H Mart

A Memoir

Michelle Zauner

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR). • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

The Other Side of Sadness

What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us about Life After Loss

George A. Bonanno

We tend to understand grief as a predictable five-stage process of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But in The Other Side of Sadness, George Bonanno shows that our conventional model discounts our capacity for resilience. In ...

How We Die

Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, New Edition (National Book Award Winner)

Sherwin B. Nuland

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The definitive resource on perhaps the single most universal human concern: death. Even more relevant than when it was first published, this edition addresses contemporary issues in end-of-life care and includes an all-embracing and incisive afterword that examines the state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus. How We Die also discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones. "Nuland's work acknowledges, with unmatched clarity, the harsh realities of how life departs… There is compassion, and often wisdom, in every page." —San Francisco Examiner

Promise Me, Dad

A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

Joe Biden

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller: From President Joe Biden, a deeply moving memoir about the year that would change both a family and a country. In November 2014, thirteen members of the Biden family gathered on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, a tradition they had been celebrating for the past forty years. But this year felt different from all those that had come before. Joe and Jill Biden's eldest son, Beau, had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor fifteen months earlier, and his survival was uncertain. "Promise me, Dad," Beau had told his father. "Give me your word that no matter what happens, you're going to be all right." Joe Biden gave him his word. Promise Me, Dad chronicles the year that followed, which would be the most momentous and challenging in Joe Biden's extraordinary life and career. As vice president, Biden traveled more than a hundred thousand miles that year, across the world, dealing with crises in Ukraine, Central America, and Iraq. When a call came from New York, or Capitol Hill, or Kyiv, or Baghdad—"Joe, I need your help"—he responded. For twelve months, while Beau fought for and then lost his life, the vice president balanced the twin imperatives of living up to his responsibilities to his country and his responsibilities to his family. And never far away was the insistent and urgent question of whether he should seek the presidency in 2016. Writing with poignancy and immediacy, Promise Me, Dad is a story of how family and friendships sustain us and how hope, purpose, and action can guide us through the pain of personal loss into the light of a new future.

Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt

Jan Assmann

"Human beings," the acclaimed Egyptologist Jan Assmann writes, "are the animals that have to live with the knowledge of their death, and culture is the world they create so they can live with that knowledge." In his new book, Assmann explores images of death and of death rites in ancient Egypt to provide startling new insights into the particular character of the civilization as a whole. Drawing on the unfamiliar genre of the death liturgy, he arrives at a remarkably comprehensive view of the religion of death in ancient Egypt. Assmann describes in detail nine different images of death: death as the body being torn apart, as social isolation, the notion of the court of the dead, the dead body, the mummy, the soul and ancestral spirit of the dead, death as separation and transition, as homecoming, and as secret. Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt also includes a fascinating discussion of rites that reflect beliefs about death through language and ritual.

Upheavals of Thought

The Intelligence of Emotions

Martha C. Nussbaum

In this compelling new book, Martha C. Nussbaum presents a powerful argument for treating emotions not as alien forces but as highly discriminating responses to what is of value and importance. She explores and illuminates the structure of a wide range of emotions, in particular compassion and love, showing that there can be no adequate ethical theory without an adequate theory of the emotions. This involves understanding their cultural sources, their history in infancy and childhood, and their sometimes unpredictable and disorderly operations in our daily lives.

The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents

Dennis Klass

This book describes how parents lose, find, or relocate spiritual anchors after the death of their child. It describes how ordinary people reconstruct their lives after their foundations have shifted, and how they make sense of their world after one of their centers of meaning has been removed. Klass grounds his descriptions of spirituality in his scholarly study of comparative religions, and in his two decades studying the lives of bereaved parents. He argues that continuing bonds with their dead children can give parents a new transcendent reality. Deceased children, like saints or bodhisattvas, can offer a bridge between the profane and sacred worlds, support parents as they find meaning in a world made forever poorer, and bind together a community adequate to parents' grief. The book reports Klass's clinical practice and his work as advisor to a bereaved parents self-help support group.

The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents

Dennis Klass

This book describes how parents lose, find, or relocate spiritual anchors after the death of their child. It describes how ordinary people reconstruct their lives after their foundations have shifted, and how they make sense of their world after one of their centers of meaning has been removed. Klass grounds his descriptions of spirituality in his scholarly study of comparative religions, and in his two decades studying the lives of bereaved parents. He argues that continuing bonds with their dead children can give parents a new transcendent reality. Deceased children, like saints or bodhisattvas, can offer a bridge between the profane and sacred worlds, support parents as they find meaning in a world made forever poorer, and bind together a community adequate to parents' grief. The book reports Klass's clinical practice and his work as advisor to a bereaved parents self-help support group.

Life to Afterlife - Helping Parents Heal, the Book

The Black and White Edition

Suzanne Giesemann, Irene Vouvalides, Mark Ireland, Jeffery Olsen, Ernie Jackson, Jason Durham, Brian Smith, Carol Allen, Elizabeth Boisson

In November 2019, Craig McMahon released the first documentary in his Life to Afterlife Spirituality Series, "Mom, Can You Hear Me?" The documentary reached a circle far wider than any anticipated. The parents who participated had all experienced the passing of a child and had moved forward towards healing. All were members of Helping Parents Heal, a nonprofit organization that provides support and resources for parents and families who have experienced the unthinkable. They shared their stories with Craig to allow others to know that they can also heal. However, there was more to these parents' stories than made it into the film. In Life to Afterlife - Helping Parents Heal, The Book, these parents join forces again to relate precisely what has helped them on their healing journeys. This book is not a sad one. Instead, it is filled with magical signs and validations that our children send us every day. Our kids in spirit are still right here. They are with us every step of the way and hold our hands as we walk this healing path. If you have a child who has transitioned, please join us as we navigate this new way of living, one filled with gratitude, compassion, and love. We are all in this together, and together, we will heal. Our Contributors by Alphabetical Order: Carol Allen, Elizabeth Boisson, Kim Camacho, Kim Courtney, Jason Durham, Glenn and Nita Erickson, Suzanne and Ty Giesemann, Jeff and Lynn Hollahan, LeAnn Hull, Mark Ireland, Kristine and Ernie Jackson, Zoe Kharpertian, Linda McCarthy, Craig McMahon, Doryce Norwood, Jeffery Olsen, Laurie Savoie, Brian Smith, Irene Vouvalides, and Michelle Ziff. With Forewords by Suzanne Giesemann and Maureen Hancock Edited by Zoe English Kharpertian Note: every penny earned from the sale of this book benefits Helping Parents Heal. Our Mission: Helping Parents Heal is a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting bereaved parents to become Shining Light Parents by providing support and resources to aid in the healing process. We go a step beyond other groups by allowing the open discussion of spiritual experiences and evidence for the afterlife, in a non-dogmatic way. Affiliate groups welcome everyone regardless of religious (or non-religious) background and allow for open dialog.

Holding on and Letting Go

The Spiritual Assumptive World of Bereaved Parents

Jodie L. Elder

Description unavailable for this volume in the current provider response.

Children and the Spirit World

A Guide for Bereaved Families

Linda Williamson

Linda shares her understanding of the afterlife and the communications she has received from those who have passed on. She gives advice on how you can learn to explore and trust your own intuition and begin to build a bridge of communication with your child. Going to a medium, having a private sitting or attending spiritualist meetings, forms an important part of the book. Linda also describes children's natural spiritual awareness and relates the near-death and past-life experiences that some children recall. Linda tackles difficult issues that trouble parents such as abortion, miscarriage, the death of a baby and childhood suicide before demonstrating that a new spiritual awareness and peace can eventually grow from the darkness following the death of a child.

Healing Your Grieving Soul

100 Spiritual Practices for Mourners

Alan Wolfelt

Compassionate advice and simple activities to help you through the loss of your mother or father.