Grief Resources

A Guidebook for Grief Awareness & Understanding

Helping Yourself with Grief
The following articles provide many practical suggestions to help you move toward healing in your unique grief journey. The following articles are brought to you by the Center for Loss and Life Transition – Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D., Director. Dr. Wolfelt is a recognized authority on grief.

• Helping Yourself Heal When Someone Loved Dies
• Will I Befriend My Feelings Or Will I Deny, Repress, Or Inhibit Them?
• Helping Yourself Heal When Your Spouse Dies
• Helping Yourself Heal When Your Child Dies
• Helping Yourself Heal When Your Parent Dies
• Helping Yourself Heal When a Baby Dies
• Helping Infants and Toddlers When Someone They Love Dies
• Helping Children Cope With Grief
• Helping Children with Funerals
• Helping Teenagers Cope with Grief
• Helping a Friend in Grief
• Helping a Grandparent Who is Grieving
• Helping a Grieving Friend in the Workplace
• Helping a Suicide Survivor Heal
• Helping Your Family When a Member is Dying

Other Resources on the Internet

• AARP Grief & Loss
• Bereavement Magazine
• Center for Loss
• Compassionate Friends (Bereaved Parents)
• GriefShare

Grief-Related Books

• Good Grief by Granger E. Westberg
• Getting Through the Night by Eugenia Price
• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

The After Loss Credo

I need to talk about my loss.
I may often need to tell you what happened –
or to ask you why it happened.
Each time I discuss my loss, I am helping myself
face the reality of the death of my loved one.
I need to know that you care about me.
I need to feel your touch, your hugs.
I need you just to be with me.
(And I need to be with you.)
I need to know you believe in me and in my
ability to get through my grief in my own way.
(and in my own time.)
Please don’t judge me now or think that I’m behaving strangely.
Remember I’m grieving.
I may even be in shock.
I may feel afraid.
I may feel deep rage.
I may even fell guilty. But above all, I hurt.
I’m experiencing pain unlike any I’ve ever felt before.
Don’t worry if you think I’m getting better
and then suddenly I seem to slip backward.
Grief makes me behave this way at times.
And please don’t tell me you “know how I feel”,
or that it’s time for me to get on with my life.
(I am probably already saying this to myself.)
What I need now is time to grieve and to recover.
Most of all, thank you for being my friend.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for helping, for understanding.
Thank you for praying for me.
And remember, in the days or years ahead,
after your loss – when you need me
as I have needed you – I will understand.
And then I will come and be with you.

Barbara Hills LesStrang