Helen FitzGerald - The Mourning Handbook: The Most Comprehensive Resource Offering Practical and Compassionate Advice on Coping with All Aspects of Death and Dying

Thank you for downloading this Scribner eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Scribner and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

We hope you enjoyed reading this Scribner eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Scribner and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

Touchstone

Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 1994 by Helen Fitzgerald

All rights reserved,

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form whatsoever.

First Touchstone Edition 1995

Touchstone and colophon are registered

trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by Hyun Joo Kim

Cover design by Cherlynne Li

Cover photograph by McConnell Studios, Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fitzgerald, Helen.

The mourning handbook: the most comprehensive resource offering practical and compassionate advice on coping with all aspects of death

and dying/ Helen Fitzgerald.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Grief. 2. BereavementPsychological aspects. 3. DeathPsychological aspects. 4. Counseling. I Title.

BF575.G7F57 1994

155.937dc20 94-4833

CIP

ISBN: 0-671-86972-8

ISBN: 0-684-80161-2 (Pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4767-6448-1 (Ebook)

Where case studies appear, names, professions, locations, and other biographical details about the people have been changed to preserve their privacy and anonymity.

C ommunicating with others takes many forms. In my case, it began with the spoken word; I was a lecturer before I was a writer. Through the years my lecturing has turned into magazine articles and now books, thanks in part to the help and loving support I have received from my second husband, Richard Olson, who has encouraged me to put my words on paper and helped me to do so through editorial suggestions and advice. It was he who gave me the concept for this book and persuaded me to write it.

Starting a book is never an easy task, but starting this one was made easier by our friends Bill and Barbara Chapp, who offered my husband and me the use of their lake home for two weeks. It was a very productive time that produced the first outline and a rough draft of the first chapter or two.

As the project progressed I was encouraged once again by my gifted agent, Anne Edelstein. She supported the book and convinced me that my editor at the time, Sheridan Hay at Simon & Schuster, would respond favorably, which she did. Later I had valuable support from Sheila Curry, who did the final editing of the book.

All this while my work was continuing at the Mount Vernon Center for Community Mental Health, part of the social services of Fairfax County, Virginia. I want to thank particularly my supervisor, Dr. Maria Mancusi, director of the Springfield Outpatient Unit at the center, who has always supported my program and has the vision to allow me to try new and innovative ways to help grieving people.

And finally, I want to thank my friends at the Haven of Northern Virginia, an outreach program for the dying and the bereaved, for their continuing support over the many years we have worked together.

This book is dedicated to my father, John Cihak, Jr., who introduced me to learning, not just from books but from observing the world around me. And it is dedicated as well to all the people who trusted me enough to share their stories with me.

L ife is fragile. We know it but we live our lives as if nothing really bad could ever happen to us and as if all those we love will live out normal lives. What else can we do? We have to make the most of what life offers; dwelling on the prospect of pain, suffering, and death is hardly the way to live a full life.

When tragedy strikes, however, we are brought face to face with the fragility of life and of the persons and things we love. Very often this collision with reality finds us unprepared, shaken to the core. It is at such times that we find the need for help, often from people we dont even know. This book is a splendid example of help that is becoming available today through the new profession of death education and counseling.

With this book Helen Fitzgerald, a certified professional death educator, has expanded the literature available to grieving people in a very significant way, assembling a comprehensive handbook on the subject of grief and mourning. There is nothing else available to the lay reader that comes close to its breadth.

If you are mourning the death of a loved one, you are likely to find in this book the stories of people like you who have suffered similar losses. If you are wondering what kind of future you can have following some personal tragedy, you are likely to find new hope in the experiences of the people who were able to rebuild their lives with Ms. Fitzgeralds help.

What makes a good therapist? A psychiatrist once wrote that for a therapist the important thingthe really crucial thingis not a medical degree, or any degree at all, but rather empathy . I have known Helen Fitzgerald for many years, and if there is one quality that stands out in her, it is empathy. This book is a reflection of her empathy: her concern for and identification with others.

I recommend The Mourning Handbook to any reader in search of a path out of the wilderness of despair. It is a compass, pointing the way to recovery.

Earl A. Grollman,

author of Living When a Loved One Has Died

Belmont, Massachusetts

October 1993

G rief and mourning are not subjects people usually want to read about. Few people other than professionals want to become experts in the subject. The Mourning Handbook is not intended to make you an expert, either, but rather to give you a source of ready information to help you in time of need.

Of course, this is a book that you can read like any other book, but basically it is a handbook to help you find answers to specific questions that may be troubling you. You can decide, based on your need for information and your ability to absorb it, how you want to approach the book.

If you are mourning the death of a loved one, it may be impossible to concentrate long enough to read the entire book, much less comprehend what you have read. For this reason, the book is arranged in a manner that will enable you to go directly to those topics of greatest importance to you. If you are mourning the accidental death of a husband, the unexplained death of a small child, the suicide death of a mother, the murder of a daughter, or the loss of several loved ones at once, you may need immediate help in dealing with your intense pain. Arranged as it is by topics, subtopics, and many cross-references, this book has been planned to give you help now in your search for solace and comfort. It is filled with stories of people like you who have had to rebuild their lives after a wide range of personal tragedies. Just knowing that others have experienced similar losses and survived can give you some measure of hope.