Megan Devine is a former therapist and now writer and speaker on the topic of grief.  She herself suffered the tragic accidental loss of her partner of many years.  Through her own painful experience of grief, as well as, the experiences of many she has worked with, she now provides a discussion of how to care for oneself during this most difficult time and how others can support people in their grief.  She makes it clear that grief and the pain it brings is a normal and natural response to loss of a loved one.  In the same way that each love is different, each experience of grief is different as well.  The pain of grief is not something to be fixed.  It is not a problem to be solved.  While others cannot fix it or diminish it, we can be present to love and support the grieving person and help them bear their pain and loss.

        The book is written for both those that grieve and those that want to help.  Besides describing the author's own experience, the book provides the written experiences of others through the author's "Writing Your Grief" workshops.  She also includes many "Try This" questions as tools to help people dealing with their own grief.

        Devine devotes several chapters to our society's culture of grieving.  Our culture is full of misunderstandings regarding grief which more often than not make the grieving person suffer more, not less. These misunderstandings include seeing grieving as a problem that needs fixing, finding blame for someone's loss, and expecting people to get over their grief and return to normal.  Society also has expectations about how long one should grieve.  Indeed from a medical standpoint longer than six months of grieving becomes a problem.  It is so unkind to have expectations about the length of grieving.  Just as the depth of love is immeasurable so is the depth of pain of grieving.  Indeed, for many there is no time limit.  Life never returns to what it was before.  It is forever changed.  I'm also glad that Devine addresses the issue of stages of grief.  Dr. Kubler-Ross wrote about the stages of dying.  People then extended this to grief and developed an inappropriate expectation of stages in grief.

        Devine spends several chapters on the experience of grief and how to live with and through pain.  One cannot take the pain away but one can try to reduce the suffering that goes with it.  She describes the normal physical, psychological, and cognitive effects of grief.  She talks about the importance of caring for yourself and being kind to yourself.  "Caring for yourself, showing up with love and tenderness for your own excruciating pain."  Every person must choose for themselves how they will deal with grief.  With so much pressure from outside in regard to how to handle your grief, you must have "authority over your own life, making decisions based on your own knowledge of yourself...Staying true to yourself, holding fiercely to your own heart, your own core- these are the things that will guide you."

        The last section of the book discusses the role of friends and family.  The important thing is to provide support, companionship and love- not  answers and solutions.  The griever needs "support to live what is happening.  Support to carry what they are required to carry."  Acknowledge the pain that they are living with and be ready to be in it for the long haul.  "Show up.  Listen.  Don't fix."  Don't give up.  "Your evenness, your steadiness of presence, is the absolutely best thing you can give...It's companionship inside pain.  It's the power of presence, and of bearing witness.  It's not magic; it's love.  Love that doesn't turn away." 

        The appendix to the book is an essay by the author titled "How to Help a Grieving Friend."  If you wish, it can be found on the internet at refugeingrief.com/help-grieving-friend.  Better to pick up the book and read it.  It is truly valuable.