THE CONTENTS OF "SURVIVOR'S GUIDE TO GRIEF"

People have asked what this book includes. The most practical way to answer is, to post the contents. I apologize for the fact that all the separated lines and columns are here lumped together. Didn't expect the post to look like this! Hope you will take the time to make sense of the blur of lines. Working with blogs takes arcane skills.


CONTENTS

PROLOGUE
Learning about Vital Signs

CHAPTER 1. OUR LAST FIVE DAYS
At home
The hospital

CHAPTER 2. THE FIRST WEEKS
Immediate care for the survivor
Rituals
Notifying people

CHAPTER 3. AWFUL MONTHS
Lunacy 101: Administration of the estate
Taxes: Here a paper, there a paper,
Multiple personalities of grief
Time line: emotional trampoline

CHAPTER 4. GROWING LEGS
Part 1: IDENTITY: ½ x 0 = 0
Fail-safe rescues
Plans: drift with the tide
No-work food
No-work exercises
Maintenance of the grave
Part 2: SOCIAL LIFE
Parties
Dear Diary
Entertaining at home
Appearance
part 3: THE FUTURE FOR ME

APPENDICES

I End of Life Care:
Interview, Christopher Lucci, MD
"Vital Signs: Basic Functions of Life”

Notes, Pat Mason, LMSW, RN
"Will the Treatment Cure?"

II A Man's View
“Similarities and Differences”

III A Mother's Anguish
"You Need to Get Help"

IV Helen Fitzgerald
Certified Death Educator
“The Emotional Response to Grief”

V A Registered Nurse:
“Sharing, Counsel, and Practical
Information on Hospitals
and Terminal Illness”

VI "How Friends Can Help"
Patricia Luce Chapman

AMAZING MOVIES: "SEVEN POUNDS," AND, "THE READER"

I've just seen two amazing and unusual movies on DVD, both of which end in an unexpected way. I can't tell you how, because that would spoil the viewing for you. The acting in both is superb. In "Seven Pounds" Will Smith, never before one of my heroes, conveys most complex, contradictory emotions, and he leaves us crying, but for the right reasons. I didn't know he had such depth and discipline. Ralph Fiennes (how is that pronounced?) in his "The Reader" leaves us profoundly moved; and the story evokes questions I'll bet you never considered. Co-star Kate Winslet's performance is astonishing. and worthy of the Oscar she received.

My latest book Survivor's Guide to Grief is moving along. It is helping several people I know who are trying to live through sudden death in their families. I wish I could reach all the families of the victims; you are victims too. How will the family of Natasha Richardson survive the total shock--one minute the lovely young woman is alive and vibrant and skiing, the next minute, with no warning, she has gone into the silence of death and can't be reached. Her young children, her husband, need help in trying to understand and deal with what has happened to their lives, now forever damaged. I have a friend whose wife was playing polo and suddenly the horse stumbled, she was thrown off, and the horse fell on top of her, killing her instantly. Her husband and children have asked me to send my book to them.

I am trying to learn how to create hyperlinks so that people looking for help will find me and this particular book. It has proven to be valuable.

It is different from most other books on the subject, including the recent elite success by Joan Didion, because mine is a narrative AND How To; it is not introspective but outward reaching; it is like a friend sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee and talking over what on earth to do next. It isn't being reviewed by the "great" reviewers and media because it is self-published. However, it has had really remarkably good reviews in smaller outlets and in my next blog, I'll excerpt from them.

See you then!