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by Melody Beattie
I knew for years I would write a book on grief, one other than the Lessons of Love. I had just signed a four-book contract with the publisher, and they asked me to write about my son Shane's death. It was my coming back to life book after my son's death. The problem was, I wasn't completely back to life yet. But I'd made progress: I had decided I'd opt for being alive rather than being dead. That commitment was huge.
Most of us have heard stories about people--a close married couple who has been married for many years, or a parent of a child--and shortly after the death of the spouse or the child (shortly meaning two to three years), the surviving spouse or parent also dies. The death isn't suicide but often it's caused by a complete loss of the will to live. I'd come as close as I could and stopped short of passing the point of no return. I knew I had to make a conscious commitment to life. The only way I knew to do it was by using the power of words. I wrote a written agreement, an unconditional one, to live as long as I was alive and not to hasten by death by shutting down my functions and willing, or hastening, death.
I also knew by then that a how-to book on grief was out. We all go through many kinds of losses. But when we experience a big one, the kind that rips out our heart, we don't want to hear and instructions about what to do and how to do it from anyone. Besides that, nobody has the answers or instructions for us, anyway. Most people want to make themselves more comfortable by us not being in pain. There's a huge difference between that, and comforting someone in deep grief. People don't understand loss, grief, the feelings, unless they belong to that particular "club." For instance, when I found out thirty years after I got clean and sober that I had a little reminder of my using days--Hepatitis C--I was furious. I tried to control it. I did everything I could to get "it" out of me. Finally I surrendered. It was about the time that someone else with the disease listened to me tell my story of having it, resisting having it, and surrendering, and then said, "Welcome to the Club."
That's where the title of the book on grief--not a how to but a you can do it book, came from. Becky Post, my editor at Hazelden for many years, is a master at titles. She can pick them out of all the thousands of words in a book. She came up with Codependent No More, Language of Letting Go, and after much pleading and begging on my part, The Grief Club. The sweet thing about Becky is she doesn't understand how gifted she is at titles, and sometimes doesn't even recognize when she's discovered or come up with a gem.
Basically, that's what that book is about--welcoming people to whatever elite club Life has forced them to join: bereaaved parents, homeless person, daughter of an abusive or drunken parent, spouse of a wife with a fatal illness, and oh that list goes on. Many of us go through much more loss than we thought should fall on anyone. Some people experience less. But before we leave this earth, we are all going to face at least one big crushing moment when the rug of life gets pulled out from under us.
I wrote The Grief Club not to avoid the fall, but as something to hold on to when our world gets turned upside down. The thing that surprised me is when i wrote it: I thought I'd save it for maybe the last book in my career, the one I wrote right before I died. I also dreaded it, thinking it would be a time of mourning, depression, sadness--seeing and feeling the pain in people's eyes as they shared their experiences of loss, death, disappointment, betrayal, and grief with me but surprised again! The opposite occurred. People were happy to tell me their story. I was happy to listen. i realized then how little we get to be heard when we talk about our pain (unless we pay a therapist), and how much we want our losses to mean something, to count. That's what this book did for all the people who so gladly shared their stories of loss with me. It made them happy, and was perhaps the most joy-filled, or joyful book, of my writing career, to-date.
The Featured Release is (and will continue to be) The Grief Club. A chapter at a time, the book will be published on its own site, http://www.melodybeattie.net. Sorry, no downloading or archiving. But it's still a generous gesture. That site, MelodyBeattie.net, will be a safe, sacred space for people going through grief. It doesn't have to be grief because someone we love died. There are many losses we can and do endure, grieve, and suffer through in a Life where the only thing that's guaranteed is change. All change brings loss of the old--even welcomed change--which means change brings grief. I'm not suggesting we spend our lives wearing black. But we live in a country that doesn't like to take time out to acknowledge or even feel our pain. the purpose of the book and the site is to help our hearts heal so we can make room in them for joy again. With that, I'm officially inviting you--if you feel you need it--to register and participate in the featured book site, www.melodybeattie.net and join me as we look at how to treat ourselves and others when we're going through that thing we call grief.
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