Getting to the Other Side of Grief

Ed.D Zonnebelt-Smeenge Susan J. R.N.

Description

There is little in life that rocks us like the death of a husband or wife. Whether you're feeling alone, drowning under an ocean of emotions, or you've worked your way through to the darkest nights of the soul and are now wondering how to get on with your life, you'll find comfort and guidance from the authors of this book. One a clinical psychologist, the other a pastor and professor, both suffered the loss of a spouse at a relatively young age. Their empathy, valuable psychological insights, biblical observations, and male and female perspectives will help you experience your grief in the healthiest and most complete way so that you can move forward to embrace the new life that is waiting for you on the other side.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 06 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493417681
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“Universal understanding coupled with compelling practical advice. All will benefit from the authors’ valuable insights and guidance in the agonizing challenge of spousal loss.”
Rabbi Dr. Earl A. Grollman , author of Living When a Loved One Has Died
“This book is specifically written with young widows and widowers in mind. Yet it would be beneficial reading to anyone who has lost a spouse through death. Readers will sense that the authors are walking alongside them as they journey through their own grief and find comfort and support in their pain and loneliness. Counselors, pastors, and friends who assist their grieving will find this volume a useful addition to the support they offer.”
American Journal of Pastoral Counseling
“I cannot think of a better book for the recently bereaved. I would go out of my way to give a copy to someone whose spouse has died. This book is simple, true, practical, honest, and wise. It avoids nothing and covers everything.”
Presbyterian Record
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1998, 2019 by Susan J. Zonnebelt-Smeenge and Robert C. De Vries
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www. bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1768-1
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Dedication
In loving memory of our deceased spouses
D . RICHARD SMEENGE
and
CHARLENE K . DE VRIES
whose living and dying taught us so many things.

With appreciation and dedication to our children
SARAH
and
BRIAN , CHRISTINE , and CARRIE
and dear parents
NORMA (now deceased) and BILL ZONNEBELT
for their love and support in our writing and speaking.
Contents
Cover 1
Endorsements 2
Half Title Page 3
Title Page 5
Copyright Page 6
Dedication 7
Mourning into Dancing 11
Preface to the Second Edition 13
1. Why Grieve? 17
Do I Have to Go on This Grief Journey?
2. What Is Grieving Like? 33
Understanding the Ins and Outs of My Grief Journey
3. How Does Gender Impact My Grief? 55
Being Myself on the Journey
4. Help! I Don’t Want to Be Stuck in Grief! 83
The Important Stuff I Need to Know to Avoid Complications
5. Taking Charge of My Grief 107
Understanding the Goals of My Journey
6. Meeting the Challenges on My Journey 135
Working My Way through the Obstacles
7. Dealing with My Children’s Grief 157
The Challenge of My Grief alongside That of My Kids
8. Figuring Out the Practical and Necessary Parts of My Life Now That I’m Widowed 175
Looking at My Finances, Employment, and Housing
9. What Does the Other Side of Grief Look Like? 191
Completing My Journey and Moving Forward
Notes 211
Index 215
Back Ads 221
Back Cover 225
Epigraph

Mourning into Dancing
I should dance in God’s presence, they say,
though my heart is burdened with grief.
I should revel in God’s mercy, they say,
though my life is shattered with pain.
My partner has died.
This is the dark night of my soul.
Days and months press on.
Evenings and mornings lumber past.
My grief is great; my soul cries out,
“Why me, O God? Why me?”
“Not you, my child. Not you.
Your spouse has died. Not you.
I gave you life. I gave you joy.
I can give again.”
Sabbath.
Rest now, and begin again.
The sun burns brighter—so slightly brighter.
The pain of the grave becomes the power of grace.
Step by step, God works his miracle.
“You shall dance again, my child.
You shall dance again.”
You, O God alone, can turn
My mourning into dancing.
r. devries
Preface to the Second Edition
Death is not unusual. People die every day. But each death is unique. Lives woven together are now torn apart.
The death of a spouse is especially difficult. Your partner has died. Feelings of abandonment or loss can overwhelm you. Perhaps some feelings of guilt or regret crash in, coupled with powerful feelings of anger, loneliness, and confusion.
This book is written for those who are grieving because of the intensely impacting death of a spouse. We are writing for the widowed of all ages, for those who are younger as well as mid-life and in retirement. The death of a spouse is very difficult regardless of age, although in every age group and phase of marriage there are different challenges to face. That’s why your age and length of marriage are both factors that make your grief unique.
We are writing for both widows and widowers. Gender plays a role in how you manage the grieving process because women and men often address the goals of grief in gender-specific ways. That is a significant reason we decided to collaborate on this book: to examine grief from both the male and female perspectives.
We also write out of our own professional and personal experiences. Susan is an RN and a licensed clinical psychologist who helps others face the issues of grief and loss regularly in her practice. Bob is an ordained minister and a seminary professor emeritus who deals with the issues of grief in the pastoral context. Both of us have experienced the death of a spouse. The writing of this book was in part motivated by our desire to share what we learned on our personal journeys toward wholeness as well as to impart our clinical and professional expertise. We do very much recognize the importance of credibility in that we have each walked the walk too, so this book is not only our professional insights but also the experiences of our challenging journeys through grief.
We found that our Christian beliefs combined with an accurate understanding of all that the grief journey entails following the death of a spouse provided us a helpful platform for dealing with our grief in a healthy manner. This does not imply, however, that persons from other backgrounds or no religious affiliation cannot benefit from what we say here. Death is common to all. Grieving a death is a natural consequence of loss when attachment has occurred, and what we discuss with you on these pages can help—no matter where you come from spiritually—as you are seeking to deal with your own grieving process.
Each chapter addresses specific issues of the grieving process from both the psychological and the spiritual perspectives; however, these two sections are kept separate. Susan is primarily responsible for “The Psychologist Says” sections that deal with healthy goals and behaviors for managing the grieving process. Bob is primarily responsible for “The Pastor Says” sections that deal with spiritual beliefs about your spouse’s death and your grief journey. In the chapter on gender differences, we have woven our personal stories of our grief journeys with a broader perspective of cultural similarities and differences of how men and women tend to look at the death of their spouse.
The primary metaphor of this book is that of a journey . We are not focusing on stages or phases of the grief process that tend to be descriptive of what occurs for many who are widowed, but rather we take more of the prescriptive approach, discussing essential goals to work toward on your journey and incorporating helpful tasks and behaviors in order to move to the other side of grief. Like a volume of a major journalistic work, your marriage has come to an end, bound in its own volume, and placed on the shelf, but still available to you through your memories whenever you want to pull them out. Your own life continues; you are beginning a new volume!
You should note that the first writing of this book was done after completing our own grief work following the deaths of our spouses. At the completion of our individual grief journeys and the writing of that book, we began to cautiously date and eventually married. In no way do we believe marriage is a preferred outcome for those who are widowed. We address remarriage at the end of this book as one option, but we want you to know that remaining single is an equally healthy choice for beginning a new volume in your life once you have completed grieving, and that it can be as fulfilling as remarriage.
Our original vision was to create a book that would give support and guidance to the thousands of persons who experience the death of their spouse each year. We sincerely believe God brought us together as psychologist and pastor, female and male, both having been widowed, to use our experiences and knowledge to bring comfort, encouragement, and direction to our fellow travelers on their grief journeys. In 1998 that vision came into reality with the publication of Getting to the Other Side of Grief: Overcoming the Loss of a Spouse . Over the years, individuals, counselors, therapists, churches, hospices, funeral homes, professional organizations, and countless other professionals and organizations have used this book as an important resource in their work with bereaved spouses.
But twenty years have elapsed, and while many of the fundamental principles and the multitude of “helpful suggestions” are still valid, a revision was needed because of advances in the field of grief and bereavement and our own growth from extensive and intensive involvement in speaking, writing, and counseling bereaved widowed persons. For more than fourteen years we facilitated a Younger (pr e-retirement) Widowed Support Group for the Greater Gra nd Rapi