MSI Press Blog

MSI Press Author Joanna Romer has made a unique contribution to the bereavement literature. Interviewing widows and widowers, she has written three books: The Widower's Guide to a New Life . A Book of the Year finalist and receiver of fine reviews. Click on the title to learn more and to access reviews at Library Journey, Foreword Reviews, MidWest Book Review, US Review of Books, Library Thing... Widow: A Surival Guide for the First Year . Click on the lin https://msipressblog.blogspot.com/search?q=bereavement k to read reviews such as those at Midwest Book Review, Goodreads, and US Review of Books. Wudiw: How to Survive -- and Thrive! -- in Your 2d, 3rd, and 4th Years . Click on the link to read more about this book. See more of Joanna's books HERE . Read more about Joanna and her work HERE . See more works on bereavement and grief HERE .

  I have written a bit about the process of pets dying before, along with the ways in which vets can be (or not) helpful. In that post, I shared a book by Barbara Karnes on understanding the pet-dying process, which I had found very helpful and which would have provided me with a fair amount of relief and guidance had I known about while Murjan was still alive. It explained much about his dying process and death that was comforting in retrospect. You can read that post HERE . In this post, I want to share the emotional aspects not only of the dying itself but also of the role of the support community (which should be supportive but in our case was not so, at least not to the extent that we needed and that could have been). As a result, my experience with Murjan's dying days were traumatic--more traumatic than they should have been because of lack of support from the veterinary hospital that should have been my source of support.  As I explained in the earlier post, Murjan had been

From the site: Julie Potter is a certified social worker who has experience in home care, hospice, nursing homes and hospitals. For 20 years, she turned her expertise toward coordinating a spousal bereavement program, as well as a hospital-based wellness program for people 60 and over. She has recently released the book “Harnessing the Power of Grief”. In this podcast we talk about being a social worker, burnout in the field, starting a spousal bereavement program, the death of her parents, her book, and grief dreams of her parents. Click HERE to listen to the podcast. For more posts about Julie and her book, Harnessing the Power of Grief , click HERE .  

Extracted from photo by M. Katherine Shear, M.D. See original photo with words and blog article at aspire.com .   Whether they die in war, from illness, by suicide, or as a result end-of-life issues, their loss affects relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues in  devastating ways. The following books are gentle but helpful treatments of the issues of bereavement and grief. Damascus amid the War by Muna Imady Written by popular author, Muna Imady, whose book, Syrian Folktales, has delighted an uncountable number of readers outside of Syria, Damascus amid the War tells the very human story of the devolution of a society. The book containts 29 pre-war poins, vibrant with imagery of daily life in a robust Damascus. The 100 war poems that follow show the devastating affect on the people who navigate a daily existence after war came. This is a posthumous publication, containing Muna’s very last works and an introduction by her mother, Elaine Imady, author of Road to Dama

Name: Patricia Young Book: Life after Losing a Child   Date of Interview: August 5, 2018 Who are you? What do you want readers to know about you? Pat Young has written for the Daytona Beach News Journal, South Bend Tribune, Flint (Michigan) Journal, Clarkston (Michigan) News, New Mexico Magazine, Silver City (New Mexico) Life Magazine, and other publications. She earned numerous awards for her writing, including National Newspaper Association and Michigan Press Association awards. She earned two media awards while at the South Bend Tribune. One of her stories (Giant Wind Harp in Tune with Nature) in New Mexico Magazine was chosen for inclusion in SIRS Discoverer data bases. Why are you qualified to write this book? Pat, and her late co-author Joanna Romer, are both widows. Though neither has lost a child, both women understood the painful bereavement process one goes through after the loss of a loved one.   What is the message

  Recently, MSI Press received word that three of its authors' books have won their categories in the 2021 Best Indie Book Award competition. Congratulations to the following: Bertha Cooper: Women, We're Only Old Once . Winner, Nonfiction: Self-Help. Bertha also won the 2021 Phoenix Award for Best New Voice in Health and Fitness. Read posts about Bertha and her books HERE . Julie Potter. Harnessing the Power of Grief. Winner, Nonfiction: Grieving & Bereavement. Read posts about Julie and her book HERE . Arthur Yavelberg. A Spirituality for the Rest of Us . Winner, Nonfiction: Theology. Read posts about Arthur and his book HERE .

  The Christmas season has become a mixed set of emotions for us. My grandson was born Christmas Day 20 years ago -- extra annual joy! The brother of a young man we took for 6 years died Christmas eve this year of covid. This is the first year that our family is observing the holidays without our patriarch, Carl , and Murjan , our beloved cat. So, for sure, grief has wrapped itself around our holiday activities. Here, then, is an excerpt from Julie Potter's book, Harnessing the Power of Grief , that we have found insightful... Beginning to adjust You are not a stranger to this process. There are many times during your life when you have to adjust to and make your way in a new world: the first day of school, going away to college, getting a new job, marrying, moving to a new neighborhood, retiring and living in a new world with no colleagues and no 9-to-5 schedule, becoming ill or disabled at any age and living in a slower world with people surging on ahead of you, emigrating to a n

  Excerpt from Harnessing the Power of Grief : What other cultures can teach us   Proximity to other cultures offers opportunities to adopt much of their wisdom into our own culture. Paul C. Rosenblatt, a psychologist, tells us that cultures are not static. They are in a state of change (some more than others) with many individual differences. [Rosenblatt] [1] A Buddhist, a Jewish person, an African American, a Protestant, will grieve in the unique ways of their cultures. Variations exist among subgroups (based on lifestyle and income, religious variations within and between denominations), intermarriage, and cross-cultural influences. Consequently, we all are bumping into one another, learning from one another, loving one another, reading about one another, and interacting with one another.   Funerals and memorial services in Western culture tend to stand alone, like shooting stars in the night. They may be memorable and beautiful, but then we are left with the rest of the ni