Peace on the Willamette copyright 2005 Holly Chandler Bolane Miller

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart

…live in the question.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Voices of Grief

Voices of Grief

A remarkable documentary film available on DVD explores the discouragement in our culture for the normal grief and mourning process while at the same time offering a new perspective on how to honor, transform and integrate our grief. The film is based on the interplay of teachings from contemporary authors, poets, and spiritual teachers coupled with the stories of our group participants as we companion one another in our group support work.

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Supporting Family or Friend Through Illness & Grief

There is No Good Card for This
What to Say & Do When Life is Scary, Awful, & Unfair to People You Love

by Kelly Crowe, PhD and Emily McDowell
Just as the title describes the two authors guide us through our own views of death and dying to learn how we can be of genuine help to a grieving person. Light hearted, contemporary style. Effective advice when we do not know what to say and do.
Find the book at your local library or order it online

How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick

by Letty Cotton Pogrebin
This highly regarded journalist and author provides insights and direct advise on how we can meaningfully enfold grieving friend or loved one who is suffering from serious illness.
Find the book at your local library or order it online

Grief as Grist for Healing Loss & Living Fully

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final

Rainer Maria Rilke

Graceful Passages
A Companion for Living and Dying

A book and 2-CD Set created by the Companionate Foundation
An elegant blend of music and the spoken word created to help listeners come to terms with loss and death as a part of life. Conversations about life and death, acceptance and forgiveness guide listeners to open to letting go and being in the present moment. Messages recorded come from diverse spiritual traditions.
Find it at your library or order it online

Face to Face – a Poetry Collection
by Julie Cadwallader Staub
Moving through her own grief over the loss of her husband to cancer, the evocative poetry found here provides a full measure of the power of faith in our path to healing loss.
Find the book at your local library or order it online

Comfort for Grieving Hearts:
Hope and Encouragement for Times of Loss
by Gary Roe
Award-winning author, hospice chaplain, and grief counselor Gary Roe has wisdom to share whether you’ve lost a spouse, child, parent, sibling, relative, or friend, Gary’s desire is to meet you in your grief and walk with you there. Composed of brief chapters, Comfort for Grieving Hearts is designed to be read one chapter per day, giving you bite-sized bits of comfort, encouragement, and healing over a period of time.
Find the book in your local library or order it online

A Matter of Life and Death

by Ann Neumann.
Read the article

Grief: Coping With the Loss of Your Loved One

American Psychological Association
Read the article

The Good Grief Project United Kingdom

Films, and photography projects reflect understanding that grief is an active and creative process. Excellent films you can view online.
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Compassionate Friends Illinois

A world-wide charity dedicated to supporting bereaved parents, grandparents and siblings at all stages of grief. Helpful support articles and resources Spanish language option.
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Grief – a Part of Living

Grief support for the family who has lost a loved one is part of Hospice Care

Watch this video from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization

When Pain is the Doorway
Finding Freedom in Our Most Difficult Circumstances – Audio CD
In these intimate audio learning sessions, Pema Chödrön helps us distinguish the triggers or external events that we blame for our suffering from the deeper habitual patterns that feed our anger, fear, or sadness. From this understanding, we learn how to free ourselves from our propensity to suffer through the transformative awareness of impermanence—the dynamic and ever-shifting nature of both joy and suffering, self and selflessness—and the absolute and eternal flow from which all of it arises. Find it HERE

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family & Place
by Terry Tempest Williams
In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. This book interweaves the narratives of dying and accommodation. Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace. Find it at your local library or buy it online.
Find it at your local library or order it online

Bearing the Unbearable:
Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

by Joanne Cacciatore
Organized into fifty-two short chapters, Bearing the Unbearable is a companion for life’s most difficult times, revealing how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore—bereavement educator, researcher, Zen priest, and leading counselor in the field—accompanies us along the heartbreaking path of love, loss, and grief. Find the book at your local library or order it online

The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

by Francis Weller
In this handbook for mastering the art of grieving, noted psychotherapist Francis Weller reveals the new vitality we encounter when we welcome rather than fear, the pain of loss. Those who work with people in grief, who have experiences the loss of a loved one…or who suffer the accumulated trauma of a lifetime will appreciate the transformative insights provided here through story and poetry. Find the book at your library or order it online

Healing a Spouse’s Grieving Heart
100 Practical Ideas After Your Husband or Wife Dies

Alan D. Wolfelt Ph.D
A guide for widows and widowers to mourn well so they can go on and live well and love well again.
Find the book at your local library or order it online

Grieving Dad’s
To the Brink and Back

by Kelly Farley and David Dicola
Survival stories of hope in the midst of gut wrenching despair over the death of a child. Guidance for living with unimaginable loss
Find the book at your local library or order it online

The Compassionate Friends

Through a network of over 600 chapters with locations in all 50 states, as well as Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam, The Compassionate Friends has been providing support to bereaved families after the death of a child for four decades
Be sure to check out their excellent resource page of other organizations dedicated to help those who are grieving.
Learn more

Release

Gullah – Carry Me Home
Performed by Dr. Marlena Smalls and the Hallelujah Singers

The Lord is My Shepherd
Composed and arranged by John Rutter
Performed by the Atlanta Master Chorale, Conductor: Dr. Eric Nelson
Organist: Jonathan Easter, Oboist: Rebecca Collins

A Song for All Beings – Jennifer Berezan

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