Description

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This Group Study and Personal Reflection Guide is written to accompany my book on loss and grief, When the Northern Lights Went Dark; My Journey through Loss and Grief to Healing and Hope. That book is not a book "about" grief, but rather a book "of" grief. I tell the story of losing both of my parents to death in high school and then my wife, Pauline, to death when we were both 32. This narrative includes journal entries written by Pauline as she was facing death, and by me the year after she died as I struggled with grief. Throughout the book I share insights about the process of grieving and the search for new meaning in life. The purpose of this study guide is to highlight those insights and offer observations and questions--as one moves through the book alone, or as a group-- for further reflection and discussion. It also offers an opportunity to do your own journaling as you reflect on your own experiences of loss and grief as you continue to search for healing and hope. As I wrote in the Introduction to my book: "In what follows I share the losses that have shaped me, and what I have learned from them, not so that you can get to know me, but so that you can get to know yourself. I believe that the most particular is also the most universal, and that my story will lead you deeper into your own story as you try to understand who you are and why you are the way you are. As you do that, I am pretty sure that you will love yourself even more." (11-12)