Because I am a total bookworm and have been ever since I first learned to read, it would seem completely logical that I would definitely be poring over books about grief. It seems like after losing my mother, grandmother and spouse, I should be able to sprout a nice, long list of the best grief books. Most people assume that I have snatched up any and every book in order to make sense of these painful experiences my children and I went through.
Well, once again, here’s where grief has completely warped something within me and created the exact opposite reaction of what you’d logically expect. Despite the fact that I love to read and I still love to read, I cannot deal with books on grief very well at all. Every book that someone has given me to do with this subject is still sitting on my shelf untouched and unread. I don’t know what it is exactly but I run in the opposite direction within my soul at grief books.
I have been gifted many books on grief from well meaning people. I don’t blame them. If I knew someone loved to read the way I always have and was grieving the death of so many people in her life, I would immediately think of giving me a book, too. So, I’m not upset with anyone for doing this. Anyway, with all these grief book gifts, then surely by now, you’d think that I would have tons of recommendations on the best grief books. Especially to share with visitors on a grief related website.
I didn’t expect this until I was handed my first grief book back in 2016, the year that my husband died, and I found myself just staring at it with resentment and disgust (By the way, I only did that later at home. Not to the person who had given it to me. I had thanked them properly.) But I surprised myself when I felt an inner rejection of the book. Maybe it’s because reading has always been a source of enjoyment and/or escape for me and I didn’t want grief and loss intruding on that. Or maybe it’s something else. I don’t know. But this doesn’t mean that I have never cracked open a book on grief ever. Most of them, I just skim in a bookstore or through excerpts online if something happens to draw my attention. But there are several grief books that I have managed to read all the way through and I can honestly only fully recommend one because it spoke to something deep down inside of me where most of my pain resided.
It’s Okay That You’re Not Okay – by Megan Devine
*As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases. Links contained in this post are affiliate links for Amazon and I will earn a commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you. See affiliate disclosure for details.
Like many books on grief, Megan uses stories and tips and advice to explain the process we all go through when life as we know it changes forever. But Megan’s approach to the subject is different than how most authors seem to handle this type of experience. She’s not about healing your grief or getting over it or moving on and thus transforming your character to some kind of higher plane of existence. This book discusses the actual reality of this unpleasant journey and how grief is not something that you can get rid of or fix. With a calm, validating manner, Megan shows us how to continue on building a life that has to include this grief, rather than attempting to cut it out altogether.
Why I Recommend This Book
It’s Okay That You’re Not Okay validated my grief feelings from the title alone, which is why I decided to pick it up in the first place. I wish this book had been available when I first lost my husband, Charlie, in 2016, though who knows if I would have been in the right mindset to pick it up then. It made me feel like someone pulled up a chair beside me, held my hand, and went over every single shattered piece of my heart then started helping me try to glue some of the pieces back together. At the same time, I felt like the author was saying as we attempted to glue these pieces together, “We may not find them all, some of the pieces may be gone forever. But we’re going to try to work with what we have so that maybe, just maybe, you won’t feel like dying each and every day.”
I’m sorry if that sounds a bit dramatic but that’s the best way I can describe the book’s impact on me. Megan just flat out discusses the traditional society approach on grief (which is often not very helpful) and how even she, as a therapist used to think this way, that grief is something that should eventually just be swept under the rug. Instead, I like her way of dealing with the rawness of grief and not making me feel shamed over my grief triggers or that I’m not strong or enlightened if I feel so bad.
Basically, I was able to acknowledge fully to myself that it sucks, I’m not crazy, it makes total sense that we feel like crap and that we might be angry and bitter and resentful, and this thing that happened can’t be made right. No, it doesn’t mean, you’ll never feel good again or you’re incapable of ever feeling good again. But this loss is there and it’s always going to be there and you can’t make it unhappen. Some people are never okay after loss. For example, my grandmother’s mental health began to immediately decline after my mother’s unexpected death in 2013. And even though my grandmother lived another eight years after that, her dementia progressed more and more until eventually, she forgot that her daughter had even died.
I didn’t really know just how much I agreed with Megan’s presentation of grief until I read this book. It was already hovering in the back of my mind and heart that I was not finding the kind of relief in general society. My grief support groups and individual counseling were the only source of comfort I was having. But I felt like this book really pushed it all further into the light. Some people may not like that but I ended up being comforted by it.
There were no well meaning words of, “Oh, you’ll get past this, you’re strong, it’ll make you a better person.” Or “Everything happens for a reason.” Or “Be grateful for the time you did have.” Megan doesn’t present any of it as sunshine and rainbows once you get to the other side. Because ultimately, there is no other side. You can’t escape the loss. This is about learning to live again but alongside it. And that process, that result, is going to be different for everyone. And no matter what that is? IT’S OKAY.
This book also has a whole chapter on art and the creative process and doing it alongside grief. Megan doesn’t like to present it as a cure for grief, which hopefully, I don’t do here on this website, because I don’t want anyone thinking that doing art in any way, shape or form, will cause you instaneous healing. I am not healed from the grief that I carry by doing art or doing this website. I am using creativity simply to cope with an ongoing pain and I share that process and expression with you.
Excerpts I Like
Telling the truth about grief is the only way forward: your loss is exactly as bad as you think it is. And people, try as they might, really are responding to your loss as poorly as you think they are. You aren’t crazy. Something crazy has happened, and you’re responding as any sane person would. (pg. 4-5)
Words of comfort that try to erase pain are not a comfort. When you try to take someone’s pain away from them, you don’t make it better. You just tell them it’s not okay to talk about their pain. (pg. 21)
The new model of grief is not in cleaning it up and making it go away; it’s in finding new and beautiful ways to inhabit what hurts. It’s in finding the depth of love necessary to witness each other’s pain without rushing in to clean it up. It’s in standing beside each other, offering companionship. (pg. 60-61)
What I’ve outlined in this book is not about fixing your grief, nor is it about the future that awaits. It’s meant to help you survive – right here, right now. May you find something useful in these words. (pg. 66)
If you can’t tell your story to another human, find another way: journal, paint, make your grief into a graphic novel with a very dark storyline. Or go out to the woods and tell the trees. It is an immense relief to be able to to tell your story without someone trying to fix it. The trees will not ask, “How are you really?” and the wind doesn’t care if you cry. (pg. 71)
And it’s not just when you go looking for distraction: everyday life is full of reminders and grief land mines that the non-grieving wouldn’t even think of. When someone you love dies, you don’t just lose in the present or in the past. You lose the future you should have had, and might have had, with them. They are missing from all the life that was to be. Seeing other people get married, have kids, travel – all the things you expected out of life with your person – gone. Your kids never get to know their brilliant uncle; your friend never gets to read your finished book. Whatever the relationship, seeing evidence of those same relationships going in the rest of the world is brutal, and unfair, and impossible to withstand. (pg. 72)
Grief itself won’t make sense, loss itself will not rearrange into something orderly and sensible, but your mind, and your heart, will adapt. This loss will be absorbed and integrated. (pg. 130)
All creative practices can help you see your life, see your heart, for what it is now. For some, especially those outside your grief, that might sound like a terrible thing. But really, hearing your own self speak, seeing your true reality out there, on the page – in writing, in painting, in photographs – shifts something. (pg. 162)
Your Suggestions?
I feel like I was only somewhat helpful in providing a recommendation for the best grief books because I just admitted that I don’t really like grief books and I run away from them and I can only give you one. Which, depending on the timing of your own grief, you may not even like the one I gave. Why? Because grief is weird, remember? You never know how you might react to certain things until they happen. Just like I am a big reader, books are my buddies, yet I run away from grief books.
Sure, I could provide a list of grief books at random, which you could also do by a quick Google or Amazon search. But I prefer to write as directly from my heart as much as possible on this site and this is what I have to offer you at this time. If that changes in the future, I’ll write another. But in the meantime, do you have any suggestions? Any grief books that touched you in some meaningful ways that you can recommend to visitors? Always happy to hear your thoughts on this subject. Please let us know in the comments below!
Take care!