Life Is Goodbye Life Is Hello: Grieving Well Through All Kinds Of Loss

by Alla Renée Bozarth, Alla Bozarth-Campbell

Dr. Bozarth show us how to make grieving a positive action that's part of the healing process.

Dr. Bozarth show us how to make grieving a positive action that's part of the healing process.

Genres: Nonfiction, Grief, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[JJ Waggy]

This was recommended to me when I was doing a summer internship as a chaplain at a hospital, but I didn't get around to reading it until after I lost a friend to suicide this past year. There isn't really anything in the book that's earth-shatteringly new, but it is a quiet reminder of what grief can be as well as permission to grieve in whatever way you need. Bozarth's poems wrap around her prose to give you breathing space in reading; not all of the poems are stellar, but they are thought-provoking and peaceful, in their way.

There are some great, concrete suggestions of how to handle grief, which is awesome considering a lot of treatises on grief just tell you to feel things until you can handle them and that's utterly unhelpful. But here's an example: "Choose a second affirmation and work on it at the same time in this way: Each day, go to a favorite safe and pleasant place with a glass of water or something else pleasant to sip. Use good paper and different colored pens that please you, and write this affirmation seventy times a day for seven days. Then it is yours." (66)

I haven't yet done that, but I get that I should, that it would be helpful. Here's another that I have done: "Allow yourself to talk out loud to whomever or whatever you have lost, describing what that person or thing meant to you and means to you now through the experience of loss." (72)

Also, this generous comfort: "Do not worry or be frightened if an aftershock occurs--if after all this, five or twenty years from now, you have disturbing thoughts or dreams of the same old loss...You will have experience and faith to help you." (96)

I'll re-read this for myself but also keep it on hand for parishioners in the midst of all kinds of losses (which I love how broadly Bozarth defines that; loss is more than death). Recommended.

[Christine]

This book was given to me as a gift during a particularly low point in my life. It gave me honest information about the grieving process, and some ideas that I could use to get through it. In fact, over the last few years I have read this book several times. I go through it when I have a bad time, and somehow the words reach out to me and help me find a way to make things better again.

There are some great poems in this book. I think they complement the book very nicely.

[Timothy Cameron]

Got this book about 29 or 30 years ago when I started speaking for MADD. It's a keeper.

[Tori]

Borrowed from Mary Ann Macklin at UU. Sections of it were informative and helpful in dealing with loss. Typos- I hate that.

[Sav]

IT'S SO GOOD.

[Covenant Presbyterian Springfield Ohio]

Call Number: 152.4 BOZ

Available.