Resources

Books & Booklets

Books:

When Worlds Collide: Hope and Healing for First Responder Grief 

ICISF Press (in progress)

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Grief on the Road to Emmaus: A Monastic Approach to Journeying with the Bereaved

Liturgical Press (in press)

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Supporting a Grieving Workforce

ICISF Press, 2021

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Good Words: Memorializing Through a Eulogy

Westbow Press 2014

originally published in Grief Illustrated Press, 2011

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More Good Words: Practical Activities for Mourning

Westbow Press 2014

originally published in Grief Illustrated Press, 2011

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Booklets with Workbooks:

• Good Words: Eulogies for Children

• Good Words: Eulogies with Children’s Voices

• Good Words: Nontraditional Eulogies

• Good Words: Eulogies and Religious Settings

• Good Words: Eulogies and Difficult Situations

• Good Words: Writing and Delivering a Eulogy

Documents & Publications

What to Look for in a Grief Companion

Grief and Protest

Socially Present Grief in a Time of Physical Distance

The Grief of Bereaved Parents

Disenfranchised Grief after Drug Overdose

Revitalizing Aftercare in an Age of Minimized Ritual

Addiction: The Love, The Loss, the Grief, The Hope (Kimberly Doyle; Preface by Beth Hewett)

Selected Bereavement Resources

Selected Music for Grief and Grace

Audio

Father and Sibling Loss on Open to Hope Radio

Coping with Grief and the Mourning Process on Maryland Morning with Sheila Kast WYPR

Video

Sibling Loss

Delivering a Eulogy

If you’re not used to public speaking, you may feel nervous or anxious about delivering such an important speech. Reading Good Words: Memorializing through a Eulogy can help! But listening to someone deliver a speech also can be helpful.

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Here are three short videos that you can use as you practice the four key public speaking skills of pace, pitch, volume, and rhythm. Each video provides some instruction on what good delivery sounds like through. Parts 1 and 2 use poems and Part 3 uses a eulogy to demonstrate strong public speaking skills.

Bead Blessings©

Bead Blessings© are designed to be a beautiful mourning aid. Although made of natural stone, the beads are surprisingly soft and  fit easily into your hand. Use these beads to focus your attention while saying a prayer, blessing, or mantra. Or, use them as “worry beads” when the anxieties of grief are strong.

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Why use beads?

Beads have been used for thousands of years across all faith and belief systems to help people calm themselves, ponder life, pray, meditate, honor, and bless. People of all ethnic backgrounds, races, religions, and creeds can use beads to help connect with their feelings about their loved ones, their belief in a higher power, and to heal within.

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What do beads have to do with grief?

Grief is a powerful emotion that comes on us when we are bereaved from the loss of a loved one. Being bereaved actually means to be robbed of or deprived of someone or something. In the case of grief, usually we have lost a beloved person, but it can be a home, a job, or another kind of relationship. If we only feel grief and do nothing with it, the grief can make us sick or keep us stuck in pain. Mourning is the process of doing something active with grief.

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Using beads as mourning practice can be one of many powerful ways to work actively with your grief. With the beads to focus attention, the mourner can hold them all or touch each bead — one at a time — saying a prayer, blessing, or mantra while doing so.

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What is your favorite mantra? Here are some sample blessings:

• Yours (God’s), not mine.

• You’re always here with me.

• I love you always.

• Peace to you and to me.

• Whisper in my heart; I will listen.

• Departed but not gone from my heart.

• (breathe out) I release pain. (breathe in) I take in peace.