A Long-Shadowed Grief: Suicide and Its Aftermath [Paperback]

Harold Ivan Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 2007

In the aftermath of suicide, friends and family face a long road of grief and reflection. With a sympathetic eye and a firm hand, Harold Ivan Smith searches for the place of the spirit in the wake of suicide. He asks how one may live a spiritual life as a survivor, and he addresses the way faith is permanently altered by “the residue of stigma” that attaches to suicide.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Harold Ivan Smith is the author of many books on dying, death, and grieving. A former funeral director, he is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and leads seminars on grief and spirituality throughout the world. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Harold Ivan Smith is the author of many books on dying, death, and grieving. A former funeral director, he is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and leads seminars on grief and spirituality throughout the world. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Cowley Publications (January 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561012815
• ISBN-13: 978-1561012817
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suicide...a long shadow indeed, December 7, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Long-Shadowed Grief: Suicide and Its Aftermath (Paperback)

Author Smith has written many books on dying, death and grieving (as a former funeral director) and leads seminars on grief and spirituality. His cousin committed suicide (or suicided, as he terms it)--so he is also a "survivor" of suicide--those left behind. In the past few years, people dear to me had young people suicide.

Every 16.5 minutes there is a suicide (86.7 in the U.S. every day--a million in the world every year), and Smith writes about the days, months, years and even generations the "whys" of suicide affect a family. Often families deny the "truth" of the suicide because of suicide's stigma to those left.

He writes of famous people suiciding (Katherine Graham's and Joan River's husbands, and many famous children) and of average people who come to help of others going through what they have and are still experiencing.

Smith writes about survivors not being able to pray in the "dark despair of the spiritual night. Vance Havner is quoted: "If you can't pray as you want, pray as you can. God knows what you need." Prayer cannot lesson the pain but it can change the survivor.

"Even though I walk through the valley of death," (Psalm 23:4) the author asks survivors to reflect on the word "through"--as on a journey, not staying in one place. "I will fear no evil, for you are with me." (v.4).

Many survivors say suicide grief is like no other grief. For example, the insinuations from people about your parenting (if it was your child)--and he recommends you not allow those kinds of people around you.

The stats on page 17 were sobering. So much about suicide centers on youth (1,000 on college campus suicide each year), but the 65+ age group has the most suicides.

Although 90 percent of people who suicide are mentally ill, there is no "suicide gene," but depression, manic depression, schizophrenia and alcoholism (mood disorders) have a strong genetic base.

Armchair Interviews says: Even if you have not been affected by suicide, the book will give you more compassion and empathy toward others--well worth your reading time.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True stories of suicide and the words of survivors illustrate this comforting, plain-spoken discussion., March 5, 2007

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Long-Shadowed Grief: Suicide and Its Aftermath (Paperback)

Written by former funeral director Harold Ivan Smith, A Long-Shadowed Grief: Suicide and its Aftermath is a compassionate, serious discussion of the grief and suffering that friends and family endure in the wake of a loved one's suicide. From permitting oneself to grieve and survive, how one can learn to live a spiritual life as a survivor, to praying one's grief, surviving the toll suicide takes on one's assumptions and values, and much more, A Long-Shadowed Grief covers in-depth the emotional dimensions of relearning day-to-day living after a loved one has made the choice to die. True stories of suicide and the words of survivors illustrate this comforting, plain-spoken discussion.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Long-Shadowed Grief Review, July 3, 2011

By 

DLM - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Long-Shadowed Grief: Suicide and Its Aftermath (Paperback)

Our son passed away from suicide. I have read many books looking for answers to gain a peace about this place we continue to be in. This is the best book we have read. It is written by a survivor of suicide who lost someone dear to them. I highly recommended this book. If you buy one book buy this one. It will change your life. The author insights are rewarding. We have several in our support group reading it and they are experiencing that same peace we are. After reading it once, I go back to it often.