Grief Science

Too often, the public abortion debate depicts the experience of ending a pregnancy in falsely simplistic terms. Anti-abortion activists falsely contend that abortion is always emotionally damaging for the pregnant person, while pro-choice activists focus on honoring bodily autonomy and personal conscience. In particular, the pro-choice movement fails to acknowledge that some people experience abortion as a kind of loss. A Complicated Choice addresses the fact that abortion stigma is ubiquitous, even among those who identify as pro-choice.

Worried about your ability to cope after the death of a beloved friend, family member, or partner? Author and longtime Buddhist Margaret Meloni, PhD, has walked this path. With elder parents and a husband with cancer, Meloni knew death was coming. She worked to be as prepared as possible. When the inevitable occurred, she tapped into her practice and strength to keep moving forward. “I’m not the one who died” is the mantra she used to face her overwhelming grief and rebuild her life. She openly shares her wisdom with you as an advocate for death awareness.

Vanessa's husband, Paul, dies suddenly and tragically on their regular Sunday morning swim. How will she cope with her dilapidated house, her teenage children, the patients who depend on her? Will therapy help? Why do mysterious white feathers start appearing in unexpected places? Beautifully written and honestly relayed, Vanessa uses her professional skills to explore the many questions posed by unanticipated death and to try to find a way forwards.

In life, high school classmates Caroline Davison and Kenny Zhou existed in separate universes-Caroline in one of softball practices and family dinners; Kenny in one of NASA photo books and late-night shifts at his parents' Chinese restaurant. But after their deaths, they find themselves thrown together as roommates in a mysterious white room-one that seems to exist outside of time and space, shows them their loved ones' lives on a large hi-def TV, and grants their wishes with a sardonic sense of humor.

This is a book of stories and inspiration. And it’s a little more than that. It’s a collaboration of 25 end-of-life experts, coaches, healers, therapists, and practitioners who’ve trained in modalities to assist the dying, and their caregivers. This is a powerful book with glimpses into what’s next for us. It’s a collection of brave authors who share, not only what death means to them, but how life has changed with their deeper understanding.

Thomas G. Long, one of America's most trusted and thoughtful pulpit voices, provides a much needed theological and cultural critique of today's Christian funeral. Long begins by describing how the Christian funeral developed historically, theologically, and liturgically and then discusses recent cultural trends in funeral practices, including the rise in number of cremations and memorial services.

As late as the 1960s, the Wari' Indians of the western Amazonian rainforest ate the roasted flesh of their dead as an expression of compassion for the deceased and for his or her close relatives. By removing and transforming the corpse, Wari' death rites helped the bereaved kin accept their loss and go on with their lives. Drawing on the recollections of Wari' elders who participated in consuming the dead, this book presents one of the richest, most authoritative ethnographic accounts of funerary cannibalism ever recorded.

Award-winning journalist J. Malcolm Garcia's essays highlight the struggle, survival, and endurance of average people affected by the injustices of America's remorseless mammoth institutions and public indifference. They include families and small businesses still recovering from the BP oil spill; the man sentenced to life in prison for transporting drugs to save his son's life; the widows of soldiers who died, not in war, but from toxic fumes at their bases; and the Iraqi interpreter who was promised American asylum, only to arrive and be forced to live in poverty.

Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down is the memoir of 104-year-old world-record-holding runner Ida Keeling. Miss Ida, as she’s known throughout her Bronx community, isn’t your typical runner. Her fierce independence helped her through the Depression and the civil rights movement. But her greatest trials were yet to come.

After experiencing two rare heart attacks at the age of 33—and a third a decade later—Michele DeMarco knows trauma intimately. Trauma breaks your relationship with time by upending your expectations, fracturing your memories and identity, and destroying your innocence. With poignant wisdom and refreshing insight, DeMarco explodes traditional myths of resilience and shows what it takes to thrive through any of life's challenges.

In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation speech—not for others, as had always been done, but for himself. And it worked. Cicero's Consolation was something new in literature, equal parts philosophy and motivational speech.

Death might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn't meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints—and death is the ultimate constraint—make our actions meaningful. In Life Is Short, Rickles explains why the finiteness and shortness of life is the essence of its meaning-and how this insight is the key to making the most of the time we do have.

Barton Rubenstein had a picture-perfect childhood—a loving family, idyllic summers at the beach, and a particularly close kinship with his progressive, charismatic, and devoted mom. When she died after a brutal five-year battle with cancer, Barton, just 18, found himself confronted by unbearable heartbreak. He was also saddened that his mother had not realized many of her dreams, and felt terrified that he could meet the same fate. This fear sent him headlong into a life of unexpected adventures and achievements, feeling that tomorrow could be too late.

An escaped madman is heading toward Chicago, leaving behind a trail of corpses. The victims are savagely torn apart - and partially eaten. Is the killer merely a cannibalistic psychopath - or a creature from the darkest pits of superstition?

Mati’s mother is dead; her father has withdrawn; her sister, Chichi, is acting out; and her young brother, Tana, is desperate for any sign of love and normalcy. When Chichi pulls her worst stunt yet, Mati’s father uproots the family from their home in England for an extended camping holiday in their native Zimbabwe. Along for the trip is Meticais, a talkative, fabulously attired gender-neutral spirit—or ghost? or imaginary friend?—whom only Mati can see and speak with.

A wife struggles to make sense of her husband’s sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother’s wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy—and vulnerability—of fatherhood. And, in the masterly opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.

Since her sister’s tragic death, 17-year-old Callie Ryan has basically given up. Her grades have plummeted, she’s quit her swim team, and she barely recognizes the people her parents once were. When she returns to her aunt’s run-down coastal Victorian one year after Chloe’s death, Callie resigns herself to a summer of guilt and home renovations. She doesn’t expect to be charmed by the tiny coastal town or by Tucker Morgan, a local boy brimming with sunshine. But Callie’s nights are crowded with chilling dreams, unanswered questions, and eerie phenomena....

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care - nearly 44 percent of all deaths - and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape.

Left all alone after her mother passes away, 12-year-old Louisa LaRoche watches the sky for her father. Long ago, a powerful gust of wind swept through town, stealing him away on the wings of his untamed magic - the same magic that stirs within Louisa. As if she is made of hollow bones and too much air, her feet never quite touch the ground. But for all her sky gazing, Louisa finds her fortune on the leaf-strewn street when she spots a gleaming black-and-gold invitation - a ticket to the Carnival Beneath the Stars.

Death is a fact of life, but the experience of grief is unique to each of us. This timely collection brings together a range of voices to offer reflections on death and dying, from individual losses to large scale catastrophes. Karin Schimke revisits her troubled relationship with her late father, a Second World War survivor ‘whose brain had been broken by violence’. Madeleine Fullard, the head of South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team, draws us into the search for activists who were ‘disappeared’ or went missing in political circumstances between 1960 and 1994.