Customer Reviews

A Broken Heart Still Beats: After Your Child Dies

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I lost my precious daughter Hannah Caguiat last December in an accident that injured me and her little sister Emily as well. Along with an outpouring of love, support, and sympathy from our family and community, I received dozens of books about bereavement in general and loss of a child in particular.

I received _A Broken Heart Still Beats_ as a gift recently and reading it has been so helpful. Despite the variety of experiences and the fact that some of the pieces in here are fiction, this is the first time I have felt like there are people out there who truly would understand what we are going through. It is not a self-help book, but does explore various aspects of being a bereaved parent -- from relationships with spouse/partner/child's other parent, to anger, to sibling issues. I highly recommend this for anyone who has lost a child or is close to someone who has.

I was saddened, too, by how many people out there in the arts and literature have been in this situation. So many that I never knew had experienced this.

Although it has been 15 years since the terrible loss of my very much loved daughter this book helped me very much. I have read many, many books since she passed away but find I am still searching for answers as well as ways to cope. I am glad to find there are other people who have suffered this loss and are much better at putting their feelings into words that I am. So many times I found myself thinking, "Yes!!!!!!!! that is exactly what I have been feeling". I recommend this for anyone experiencing this loss but only to read after a couple of years have passed. I know it takes that long to read something like this with a different perspective. I don't know that it would have helped the first couple of years, although nothing could help then.

I lost my seventeen year old son in a auto accident this year.

Alot of people have their religion and faith to fall back on, others (like me) find their faith has been shaken when the worst that can happen, happens. There are no answers for the neverending questions you have after you lose your son or daughter, especially the hardest one is why? You won't find the answers in a book or in any place on earth, it has to come from inside you.

This book is just a guide to help you, a collection of stories from other people, famous and not so famous. It's like getting a personal letter from someone who understands, as if they wrote it just for you and your child without getting lost in any one belief or philosophy. It comes from the heart.

I bought this book to give to my mother and father. I had to order another copy. Once I started reading it I needed to keep it. It is an excellent book for siblings who have experienced a tragic loss. Most of the titles dealing with grief tell you how to heal. This book lets you experience profound sadness and find comfort in the fact that others were there before you.

When my granddaughter was born still, I immediately turned to the solace offered by the written word, finding that to be much more helpful than the empty cliches and platitudes offered by acquaintances. This is an incredible collection of writing, both fiction and nonfiction, essay and poetry, on the subject of the loss of a child. Many, if not most, of the writers included have experienced this most devastating of all losses. The authors introduce each section with personal writing that forms an intimate connection. They draw from classic literature as well as modern, making this a book that offers something to everyone. I found myself re-reading sections in an attempt to hold off coming to the end of this sustaining book. I doubt this book will ever make it to my bookshelf, as I will be turning to it often for inspiration and comfort.

My 9 year old daughter died suddenly at school almost 2 years ago. While I have continued to function and do the things that I must do, I know that I will be haunted forever by sadness and guilt (i.e. "the what-ifs") forever.

When my grief was new, "When Bad Things Happen To Good People" helped some. It gave me permission to see her death as random, horrifically bad luck. Not as a "lesson" that I needed to learn. Not as an "act of god." Not as something that I needed to accept and eventually see as part of a greater (good) plan.

I am religiously agnostic. Therefore, many of the books about grieving were meaningless to me. (Anyone who can believe in god after losing a child is beyond me....) This book allowed me to hear from other people who are pretty sure that they will not "see their child again." It talks about gut wrenching pain from many points of view - but always using the language of great writers to portray the many nuances of grieving for a son or daughter.

The unique aspects of this book have affirmed me and my process of facing an unbearable loss.

This book is exactly as described in the product description. The editors, both of whom lost a child in car accidents, have collected excerpts from articles, poems, and books that talk about the loss of a child. The excerpts come from an amazing array of materials, from ancient texts to popular music lyrics. As a piece of literature, this is an excellent collection.

However, the weight of sorrow contained in this book is overwhelming. This is not an uplifting or hopeful book and I did not derive any particular comfort from it. The emotion that was most commonly elicited from me by this book was sympathy - "Oh, these poor people! So much pain!" - and it usually made me feel even sadder. I am, by nature, a pragmatic "deal with it and move forward" kind of person and for me, reading this book felt uncomfortably close to wallowing in self-pity (emphasis on "for ME").

Do I recommend this book? I don't know. If there is one thing that has become clear since the death of my son, it is that every single person grieves and deals with the loss of a loved one differently. Some people will find this collection useful. Obviously the editors and some of the other reviewers did. And, if you have suffered through the death of your child, you will almost certainly find your own feelings and thoughts represented in at least some of these excerpts. For me, though, this book was not particularly useful nor was it pleasant to read, and it will likely end up in my "donate" pile. I suggest that you borrow a copy from the public library first and then decide whether or not it is something you wish to add to your personal library.

I loved this book!
So many parents share their deepest feelings and memories about their children, their personal grief, and their healing.

My daughter questioned why I was reading this book, and until she said it I would have not really thought about or understood why I WAS reading it. However, when forced to think about it, I realized that I was probably wondering how other parents were able to survive this crushing loss and by what means they did so. This book provided that window into another's grief and gave me the sense that I was not alone, and that while it was normal to feel the things I was experiencing, others were finding out and giving voice to their own grief. It was this shared experience of understanding another's pain that gave me some relief - to know that I wasn't going crazy!

Excellent read for anyone dealing with the loss of a child, or someone close. I gave this to a friend who'd lost her nephew.

It's not a self-help book. It's stories and poems from regular folk as well as some of our greatest writers. Each story tells some version of the emotional shock of learning that a beloved person has died, and many more tell of the journey in coming to terms with the death. What we learn is that we are not alone in our grief and there is comfort that.