Resources
We get lots of questions about resources that we found helpful in the aftermath of losing Jackson. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few of our favorite books, articles, podcasts, etc. that got us through hard times.
Books
General books on coping with grief:
Option B (Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant)
It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok (Megan Devine)
Welcome to the Grief Club (Janine Kwoh)
The Modern Loss Handbook (Rebecca Soffer)
Resilient Grieving (Lucy Hone)
Memoirs/books written by parents who have lost children:
A Heart that Works (Rob Delaney)
Once More We Saw Stars (Jayson Greene)
Bearing the Unbearable (Joanne Cacciatore)
Other memoirs about death and dying:
When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi)
The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying (Nina Riggs)
No Happy Endings (Nora McInerny)
It’s Ok To Laugh (Crying is Cool Too) (Nora McInerny)
Two books from Buddhist perspective on loss:
No Death No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life (Thich Nhat Hanh)
When Things Fall Apart (Pema Chödrön)
Articles
Articles by Jayson Greene, an opinion writer for the New York Times, about the sudden loss of his 2 year old daughter:
The bittersweet balm of Father’s Day as a bereaved dad, and how you can help
His book: Once More We Saw Stars (also mentioned above)
Other articles:
Having a Child after Losing a Child (Amber Scorah)
When Sturdy Love is What You Need (Michelle DuBarry)
Their baby died during his nap. Then medical bureaucrats deepened the parents’ anguish (Eric Boodman) A very informative article explaining what we really know (and don’t know) about unexplained categories of death (like SIDS and SUDC), and how it impacts families.
Halloween and Grief: When the nightmare is real (Megan Divine)
Podcasts
We follow Nora McInerny, a writer who lost her pregnancy, husband, and father all in the span of 6 weeks. She has an amazing podcast focused on "real talk" with people who have been through hard times. It’s successfully and simultaneously heavy and lighthearted, will make you laugh and cry at the same time.
Other podcast episodes:
“To Hell and Back” (DBT podcast), with Natalia as guest ~8 months after Jackson died
Surviving the Death of a Child (1 of 3): May 31, 2018
Surviving the Death of a Child (2 of 3): June 10, 2018
Surviving the Death of a Child (3 of 3): June 16, 2018
“To Hell and Back” (DBT podcast), with Natalia as guest again for the “5 year update”
Instagram Accounts
@optionb, @modernloss, @thelossfoundation, @andthatsgrief
Support Groups
The Dinner Party (in-person and online, young adults, matched to specific loss experiences and/or identities)
Seattle Children’s Journey Program (Seattle-based, for families who have lost a child)
Compassionate Friends (national online support groups for families who have lost a child)
Healing Center (Seattle-based support groups: spouse/partner loss, young adult support groups, and children’s groups)
Grief Share (national in-person and online grief support groups, church-affiliated)
Perinatal Support Washington (in-person and online monthly support groups for parents in WA state who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss)
Therapy
You can search for a therapist with this tool: Psychology Today. Search by zip code and you can filter for any of the following: therapist gender, specialties, insurance, types of therapy, language, faith, etc.
Read about evidence-based treatment for Prolonged Grief Disorder: Columbia Center for Prolonged Grief
Read about evidence-based treatments for PTSD: APA clinical practice guidelines recommend Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), and Prolonged Exposure (PE) as gold-standard interventions for PTSD.
Poems & Excerpts
The Thing Is (Poem by Ellen Bass)
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again
Except from A Grief Observed:
“There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all... I was happy before I ever met H… One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this “common sense” vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.” - C.S. Lewis
Excerpt from The Rabbit Hole:
[Becca]: “Does it ever go away… this feeling?”
[Nat]: “No, I don’t think it does … it changes though.”
[Becca]: “How?”
[Nat]: I don’t know. The weight of it, I guess. At some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under, and carry around — like a brick in your pocket. And you forget it every once in a while, but then you reach in for whatever reason and there it is: “Oh, right. That.” Which can be awful. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s kinda ... not that you like it exactly, but it’s what you have instead of your son, so you don’t wanna let go of it either. So you carry it around. And it doesn’t go away, which is ...
[Becca]: What.
[Nat]: “Fine … actually.”
Cards
We love these empathy cards made by Emily McDowell, specifically made for times you want to say something but don’t know what to say.