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...

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 o...

  What is a  book jewel ? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Each month, we share near-daily, or as often as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is  Lamentations of the Heart   by Marti Wells-Smith. Description Lamentations of the Heart  soulfully combines contemporary free verse poetry and nonfictional prose to tell the story of one mother’s grief following the death of her only child. The author interweaves scriptural passages with the inevitable struggles to accept and make sense of her new reality. All of it reveals the unending love for family that remains. Written to reach out to o...

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 th...

  Valentine’s Day can feel unbearably loud when your love is now a memory. Whether you lost a spouse, a child, a parent, or a soul-deep friend — this day doesn’t just remind you of love. It reminds you of absence. But grief is love that has nowhere to go. And today, we honor that love. We honor the way you still set out two cups. The way you whisper goodnight to the silence. The way you carry their laugh, their scent, their quirks in your bones. We honor the way you survived the moment the world split in two — before and after. And the way you keep loving, even when it hurts. Valentine’s Day isn’t just for couples. It’s for anyone who has ever loved so deeply that the loss reshaped them. So if your heart is heavy today, know this: You are not alone. Your love still matters. And your grief is a sacred echo of a bond that death could not erase. Light a candle. Write their name. Tell their story. Let your tears be a tribute. Because love like that deserves to be re...