Companion Through The Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief [Paperback]

Stephanie Ericsson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1993

As a result of her own experience with many kind of loss, Stephanie Ericsson offers an intimate, profoundly touching guide for those in grief, legitimizing the complex and often taboo emotions we all feel when loss transforms our lives. In Companion Through the Darkness, Stephanie Ericsson defines grief as "the constant reawakening that things are now different." Using a very simple format -- which combines excerpts from her own diary writings with brief essays -- she vividly speaks the language of loss and captures the contradictory, wrenching, and chaotic emotions of grief. The book can be opened at any point to chapters no more than a few pages long on such themes as:

Abandonment: The sudden state I am forced into. I no longer belong to you. I no longer belong to anyone.

Rage: The state I use to survive seemingly moments of intolerable pain.

Humor: The backside of agony.

Pity: The look on people's faces when they haven't a clue what to say to me.

Transition: The moments, strung out over months, when I know I am no longer the woman I was, but not quite the woman I am becoming.

The result is compelling, intimate, and heartbreakingly truthful -- a book that promises to be enormously sought-after support and touchstone for all those making their own journey through grief.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephanie Ericsson is a screenwriter and advertising copywriter and the author of ShameFaced and Recovering Together. She began writing a journal of her experiences after the loss of her husband while she was pregnant with their only child, and later published a widely acclaimed excerpt from the book in the Utne Reader. A frequent speaker on the subjects of loss, she lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; 1st edition (January 27, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060969741
• ISBN-13: 978-0060969745
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #577,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Originally from San Francisco, Stephanie Ericsson began her writing career in television when she married Sandy Baron (comedian and actor best known for his role as Jack Klompus on Seinfeld). She worked for the award-wining screenwriter Lonne Elder III (Sounder) as a story editor on movies, including A Woman Called Moses (produced and starring Cicely Tyson) and as a screenwriter for the popular sitcom, Mork & Mindy (starring Robin Williams).

Love and a second marriage with film director, Jim Hinton, of Wilson Griak Inc. took her to Minneapolis-Saint Paul where she wrote numerous docudramas and films and became a senior copywriter at the advertising agency Campbell-Mithun.

In 1988, when she was pregnant with their first child, her husband, Jim, died suddenly of a heart attack. From the private journals she kept after he died, she wrote Companion Through The Darkness, Inner Dialogues on Grief which became an instant classic on grief from the moment it was published by HarperCollins in 1993.

Her other work includes "The Ways We Lie," the cover story for "The Whole Truth About Lying, Trust Us" issue of the Utne Reader, and which is reprinted in college text books around the world, year after year as an example of the "exemplary essay," and ShameFaced (Hazelden Publications), which has been standard-issue in chemical dependency primary treatment for nearly 25 years. She is also the editor of two books by Stephen Zuckerman: New Clichés for the 21st Century and Doc, What's Up?

Stephanie Ericsson can be found on Facebook where she maintains a special group called The Companions to help her readers and others connect and share their personal experiences. Companion Through The Darkness also has its own page on Facebook.

She currently lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Companion through the Darkness, August 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Companion Through The Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief (Paperback)

My wife Robin died of lung cancer 11 months ago. My four daughters are heart broken,motherless and trying to cope with the reality of a lifetime without their mom. I came across Stephanie Erricsons book Companion through the Darkness on Amazon .com . Reading this book was an emotional rollercoaster of tears and laughter. Her uncommon insight and understanding of the process of grief and rebirth continues to help me through this hell. I can remember looking at my wedding ring and thinking "what am I to do?" Ms. Erricson had some sage advice which I followed. This book, above all the others I have read, is far and away the most important guide to healing and reconnection you will find.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive companion for the recently bereaved, December 22, 1999

By 

Vivien Shiers (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Companion Through The Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief (Paperback)

My young widows' support group all agree that this is the ONLY book that we kept returning to, month after long and lonely month. Five years later this is the book we all buy for the newly bereaved of our aquaintance. Like us, Stephanie has "been there and done that", and we all benefitted from sharing her experiences.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A letter to Ms Ericsson, March 29, 2002

By 

frank gottman (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Companion Through The Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief (Paperback)

Ms. Ericsson,

In case no one has recently told you, I want to make sure you know the value of your words in "Companion Through The Darkness".

Yes , I am grieving. My magnificent wife who I loved for 31 years died last August from a progressively worsening lung disease that caused her active life to totally collapse the last 7 months of her life.

My wife was a "social" comedian who loved to make people laugh, of Italian heritage but born in Nice, France area, an accomplished artist whose paintings of Provence hang in many homes here in New England, a gourmet cook whose charity dinners sold for over $1000 and who could throw a dinner party together for 12 people in a wink and have all the diners laughing the whole evening. She was always attired in her own fashion and had style and taste groomed from France and Italy but still took delight in helping her female friends shop.
She was respected and loved by everyone who knew her. 300 people came to her funeral and most every one wanted to speak about what my wife meant to them.

I tell you all this for a purpose:

This was a woman that was so very hard for her husband to lose. The agony of my grief was unbearable. I threw out many meaningless articles and books sent to me. Yours was the only book that from the moment I started reading helped me. I found such amazment in your description of what I was feeling.
I have reread it often and continue to do so as my life goes on to a "next chapter". I find I want to compare what you did under similar circumstances.

I am now ordering additional books- one for a friend in need and one to give to a psychologist friend to recommend to his patients as he sees fit.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your wonderfull insight, sensitivity and writing ability.