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 Noel's and Blair's book actually had some unique features that I thought would be helpful as a new widow, but the many errors in editing, grammar, spelling, and organization were distracting and, after a while, offensive to me, considering the subject matter.
The second part is mainly the sharing of the stories of various people who have experienced the sudden loss of a loved one. The stories include the loss of a friend, a parent, a child, a partner, and a sibling. This section examines the various related problems that sometimes exist as a result of a loss. For example, losing a partner but having surviving children, dealing with a suicide, and the difficulties of couples surviving the loss of a child are all discussed. The third section discusses some of the pathways that people take through grief. Of particular importance is that is clearly dispels the myth that we all have a particular pathway that we use to move on past a loss. Each one of us is different and we all have our ways of dealing with grief. What may take one person six months to recover from may take another ten years, some may cry, some may not, some may experience forgetfulness, some may not, we are all different. Throughout the book the authors discuss how to be a helpful friend for those who are going through the grieving process. The book finishes with a listing of support and resource contacts. For those dealing with the loss of a loved one, or for those who want to help someone who is, this is a highly recommended read.
I wanted to read every word, I felt we were joined, in a lot of ways, in our losses and I wanted the insight. The book is organized for easy handling and easy reading. You benefit from the experiences of the writers as they each experienced losses in their lives, and due to their losses, I find myself more apt to believe what they are writing about. A lot of practical advise, personal anecdotes, and references / citing to other works make for a full coverage and very helpful work. You may decide to want to explore a certain area more than others, great, they provide references for additional reading. This is a good book for counselors to have available for their own reference and to provide people with loss. When you have a loss of this nature, you will want the information covered in this book. When our son died, he went to be with God. My wife, other son and daughter all know that. We STILL needed to grieve. In the book, it covers the "loss" from various perspectives, I benefited from this section in that it made me more sensitive to how non-family people treated my son and daughter. We all lost Roman, not just his mother and I. Simple inquiries made to our children started isolating them from their own grieving. After reading the book, I focused on correcting and mending areas of communications between my children and "well meaning" people. If you have experienced loss, you need a book that gives you information and is readable at the same time. This book is it.
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The death of a loved one is always an emotionally difficult experience. When it comes suddenly and unexpectedly it is even more difficult. In "I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye" the authors take you through the grieving process as well as learning how to deal with such a tragic loss. The first part of the book deals with issues from how to survive the first few weeks to understanding the emotional and physical aspects of grief to dispelling myths about the grieving process.
