Grief Marriage

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moments", A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period.

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother's death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong's poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicentre of the break.

Planet Claire is the story of the untimely death of the author's wife and a candid account of the following year of madness and grief. With Claire's death, Jeff Porter tries to imagine life without her but struggles with the bewilderment that follows. There was no gradual transition, no chance to say good-bye or resolve unfinished business. The grief is crushing, her death the psychological equivalent of Pearl Harbor. But as Jeff's life unravels, he analyzes his sadness with growing interest.

When Jonathan Pitts took his wife of 15 years into his arms for their anniversary dance, he had no idea that within a month he would be on a completely different journey, navigating life after Wynter's sudden death at the age of 38. Without warning, the future his family had planned together dissolved, leaving Jonathan trying to answer the question that echoed through his daughters' hearts and his own. My Wynter Season is Jonathan's story of losing the most wonderful gift he had ever been given and his journey toward understanding life without her.

New York Times best-selling author Firoozeh Dumas is used to making people laugh, but in 2022, she found herself drowning in tears of sadness. After her 2022 Los Angeles Times article "What I needed was a rest break on the Island of Grieving and Useless Folks" went viral, she was inspired to write Sob, a one-hour audio story about grief, healing, and miracles that will leave you spellbound. In this unflinching story, Firoozeh Dumas, author of the international best seller Funny in Farsi, takes you into the worst year of her life, which she describes as “a bouillon cube of grief”.

A stunning blend of the personal and professional, The Archaeology of Loss is Sarah Tarlow’s first memoir. An accomplished archaeologist, much of Sarah’s work is concerned with the ritual and belief behind the practice of grief. In 2012, she was awarded the Chair in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. But in the years that followed this appointment, Sarah’s husband, Mark, would begin to suffer from a progressive but undiagnosed illness, finally resulting in his inability to drive, to walk, to taste or to care for himself.

Nobody is immune to disappointment. Unfortunately, at some point all of us will face that horrific moment when the bottom completely drops out of out of our life, leaving us broken, devastated, and desperately searching for God's grace. Pastor and theologian Robert Bugh has experienced unthinkable pain and disappointment firsthand, having lost both his wife and his best friend to cancer within a year and a half of each other.

When Kristin Meekhof lost her husband to cancer, she discovered what all widows learn: the moment you lose your partner, you must make crucial decisions that will impact the rest of your life. But where do you begin? This inspiring audiobook shows grieving widows what to expect and how to deal with the challenges of losing a life partner.

Secrets shared can bind hearts, but secrets concealed? That's a tale of its own. The year is 1884. Robert Cooke and his pregnant wife Freya tragically lose their two sons to scarlet fever, sending Freya into self-imposed isolation for the safety of their unborn child. Cut off from each other, their shared grief becomes a silent, destructive foe. A decade later and now a successful businessman, Robert conceives a poignant tribute to his lost sons - a pleasure garden. But in withholding his vision from Freya, he widens the gulf between them.

When Melissa Gould’s husband, Joel, was unexpectedly hospitalized, she could not imagine how her life was about to change. Overwhelmed with uncertainty as Joel’s condition tragically worsened, she offered him the only thing she could: her love and devotion. Her dedication didn’t end with his death. Melissa soon realized that her and Joel’s love lived on. Melissa found she didn’t fit the typical mold of widowhood or meet the expectations of mourning. She didn’t look like a widow or act like a widow, but she felt like one. Melissa was widowish.

When NPR's Scott Simon began tweeting from his mother's hospital room in July 2013, he didn't know that his missives would soon spread well beyond his 1.2 million Twitter followers. Squeezing the magnitude of his final days with her into 140-character updates, Simon's evocative and moving meditations spread virally. Over the course of a few days, Simon chronicled his mother's death and reminisced about her life, revealing her humor and strength, and celebrating familial love.

Leslie Gray Streeter is not cut out for widowhood. She's not ready for hushed rooms and pitying looks. She is not ready to stand graveside, dabbing her eyes in a classy black hat. If she had her way she'd wear her favorite curve-hugging leopard print dress to Scott's funeral; he loved her in that dress! Looking at widowhood through the prism of race, mixed marriage, and aging, Black Widow redefines the stages of grief, from coffin shopping to day-drinking, to being a grown-ass woman crying for your mommy, to breaking up and making up with God....

James Runcie’s wife Marilyn Imrie died in August 2020. Their thirty-five year marriage had been miraculously happy – until, in the last two years of Marilyn’s life, she descended into the pain and humiliation of motor neurone disease. In the wake of her death, Runcie stumbled in the dark. How do you make sense of the decline and death of the most alive person you have ever met? And how do you go about building a life worth living in their absence?