HOW TO RECOVER FROM GRIEF is a book I co-authored with my wife, Nicola Steele. The book grew out of grief recovery seminars we did while we were in Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Memorial Park. That became the basis for my PhD dissertation, which evolved into the book. It’s available on Amazon.com, and by clicking the image you can read some excerpts on Amazon. It’s been through several printings, and been revised over the years, but it is still helping people.
I’ll let Y.M. Kostka from Pennsylvania plug the book.
“I acquired this book 20 years ago when my husband passed away in a tornado that passed through our town. We had only been married 28 days and I was only 28 years old. I went to my church for guidance and answers and of course found none, but one of the nuns there gave me this book -HOW TO RECOVER FROM GRIEF- it took awhile to pick it up and read it, but when I did I found answers and comforting words. This book helped me tremendously, along with family, friends and my church. As years went by I became stronger and passed it on to a friend of my mothers. I now have a friend who within two years has lost her son and her husband, I intend to buy her this book, hopefully it will help her the way it has helped me. I know grief is individual, but this book puts grief at ease for people. It lets people know that its ok to cry, laugh or what ever it takes to get through this difficult time in ones life. I cant say enough about this book. “
Why?
by Richard Detrich & Nicola Steele
Excerpt From How To Recover From Grief
It was a sultry summer evening. A thunderstorm had swept across the mountains, and lightening was streaking over the foothills. Thunder was crashing, and hail was noisily bouncing off our cedar-shake roof. Our little girls, Noelle and Becky, jumped into bed with us at the first crash of thunder. Noelle, the theologian in the family, wanted to know, “Why does God make the thunder and the lightning?” Nikki tried an answer. Then Noelle asked, “But if God loves us, why does he let the thunder and lightening happen? Why?”
Later, Dick received this letter from a white-haired man who attended one of our seminars:
Dear Dr. Detrich:
I want to thank you and Nikki for the time and understanding you have shown me. I will never forget the time after one of the sessions when I stood by my wife’s grave and Nikki came over and talked to me. I thing she is the most kind and understanding person in the world.
I wish I could get something out of my mind. You say that Jesus loves us all. I think he has an odd way of showing it. After living, working, fighting, and loving my wife for thirty-nine years, when things should slow up for us to enjoy, “bang!” she is removed from this earth. Why?
The Haunting Question of Our Grief
Why? You ask that question over and over again. You ask your closest friends. And in your lonely moments at night, you shout it at God: “Why? If you love me, why have you taken my loved one?” The question isn’t always asked consciously because many people are afraid to question God. But it’s a question that needs to be asked as part of our grief.
When Noelle was about two, in the “why” stage of life, when everything was “why” this and “why” that, she and Dick were taking an evening walk. Noelle had bombarded Dick with every “why” in the book. “Why is the grass green?” “Why is the sky blue?” On and on. Finally she asked, “Daddy, why does the sun go down?” By this time Dick was close to exasperation, and he replied, “Honey, so you can go to be and get up tomorrow and ask why all day!” Noelle didn’t appreciate that answer. She put her hands on her little two-year-old hips, turned to Dick, and said, “Daddy, if I not ask why, I not know why. You know why.” So, if we don’t ask, we’ll never know. And we need to know. It’s part of our healing.
Why is such a wonderful question. It gives us direction. In struggling to find answers, we find a road map to lead us to our own understanding. That’s why the answers of others frequently seem too easy for us, no matter how hard they have struggled to find their answers. We all need our own answers. It’s a journey, our struggle, and we need to find our why.
The Search for Meaning
We all need to see some cosmic significance and meaning in our lives and in the lives of those we love. Part of the normal grief process is the search for that meaning. We are looking for meaning in life and meaning in death, meaning in our lives and in the lives of the persons we loved and meaning in their deaths. Viktor Frankl said, “The striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” Perhaps never before has your search for meaning been as intense as it is right now.
Don’t be afraid to ask the questions. Don’t be intimidated or discouraged if the answers are had to find and long in coming - or if you never find all the answers. Dr. John Piet, a friend and professor of Dick’s in seminary, always said, “The important thing in life is not to have all the answers, but to ask the right questions.” Some people go through life and never know what the questions are, let alone the answers! Now is the time to ask the questions!
In one of our seminars, Bea blurted out, “Now that my husband is gone, who am I anyway?” She was discovering the right questions. Someone else said, “Yes, and what’s the meaning of my life anymore?” Another one of the right questions. “Why?” is also one of the right questions. It begs to be asked as part of your grief recovery.
This excerpt is just part of Chapter 8, “Why?”
Chapter Titles:
1. Take My Hand Through The Valley
2. Stages of Grief Work
3. Anger and Grief
4. Guilt and Grief
5. The Best Is Yet to Come
6. What’s Normal and Abnormal in Grief
7. Growing through Grief
8. Why?
9. Under Reconstruction
10. How to Mourn
11. How to Help Another in Grief
12. How to Develop a Grief Recovery Group
How To Recover From Grief is available for purchase from Amazon.com and can be ordered at most bookstores.
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