Help along a hard path It is hard work to grieve. This book and its exercises help on this difficult process. Through 60 journaling exercises, you are asked to express how you feel, based on the belief that painful emotions and sorrowful feelings can't change unless they are expressed. This book helped me in the expression of that feeling. The other realization from this book is that you still have a relationship with the person that is gone. Like any relationship, this one is special (perhaps the most special relationship) and needs work so you don't idealize nor the reverse. It is not necessary to be Jewish to use this book. But do perform the exercises and the rituals (including the Kaddish). My only criticism is that the book should have included complete Hebrew and English versions of the Kaddish and others key prayers. May you find peace.
Comfort after a loss When my spouse was taken I found myself entering a deep depression. My life, my very existance was turned updide down. I did not understand the oath taken so many years ago at our marriage - "Until death do we part". Now I do.
My Rabbi gave me a copy of Anne Brener's book and after about a month I started to browse through it. It only took a few hours to realise this book was a friend - it addressed my feelings and has helped me continue my life. I hope that in time I will heal - I know so much more about our relationship now.
I bought Rabbi a half dozen copies so he could give them to others who need this guidance.
Thank you Anne!GET THIS BOOK-KEEP COPIES ON HAND Get this book. Can be: read out-of-order; in small chunks; worked through mentally or on paper; put down for a few days/weeks while you're processing your grief; appreciated by Jewish folk as well as by the non-Jewish person, by the spiritual as well as those who are not so inclined. In the most difficult of situations, Mourning and Mitzvah offers comfort for the bereaved. The author speaks from her own experience: her sister died in an accident only months after their mother's suicide. Mourning and Mitzvah helped me to cope after the deaths of my father- and mother-in-law (hers was a suicide; both died the same day). I've given copies as gifts to others in my Survivors of Suicide group, to a woman whose brother-in-law murdered her sister by running the sister down with his car, and to a family whose young son was killed in a freak accident while on vacation. Almost all have let me know what a help this book has been. Since I give away my personal copies, I now order two at a time. Please get this book for yourself and/or for your loved ones who are grieving; keep extras on hand. Mourning and Mitzvah will be appreciated much more than any covered dish you could get or give.
