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Loss and Found: How We Survived the Loss of a Young Spouse

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"Loss and Found" is the heart-wrenching story of two people who had children and families, but lost their spouse. Each tells the story of their early life, marriage, family experiences, and children. Each also tells the story of finding out that their spouse was sick, working through the sickness, and eventually losing them anyway. The stories detail their struggles with the children, problems with finances, friends, feelings of loss, and all the other feelings on their emotional roller coaster ride. They tell their experiences as a young widow/widower and their introduction back into dating. After several false starts and problems in the dating scene they eventually found each other. This is their story, the story of Gary and Kathy Young and how they survived the loss of their spouses at a young age and eventually found each other.

Told from both the male and female perspectives and full of insight, it is sure to be helpful to anyone experiencing loss and looking for hope. Of particular value to those going through a similar loss are the items in Appendix A. It includes the changes and fears that a young widow/widower faces as well as the thoughts and problems that they have to deal with. It provides a great point of reference for those who would like to help someone experiencing the situation. A highly recommended read for anyone experiencing such a loss, who knows someone going through it, or who might be placed in a position to counsel or deal with someone with such a loss. There is very little literature available specifically for young widows/widowers and this is among the best.

Increasingly, Baby Boomers find they "don't get no respect." Often referred to as "the Me Generation," Boomers typically are characterized as the folks who launched the sexual revolution, trashed the culture and the family. But authors Gary and Kathy Young - straight out of Hollywood, no less - have inadvertently put the lie to this popular portrayal.

Anyone still harboring wistful thoughts about things like picket fences and romantic love will find much with which to identify in the couple's fascinating new book, Loss and Found. This true story revolves around, first, the agonizing death of two young people's former spouses from aggressive cancers, followed by the unexpected, exquisite excitement of finding each other in, of all places, a widow/widower support group. In the process of being drawn into this tantalizing cross between your worst nightmare and a romantic comedy, the reader learns a lot about not-so-attractive realities surrounding today's health care as well as the business of picking up the pieces of life and moving on. These are not the kinds of realities typically found among the self-help shelves of your bookstore.

Loss and Found is no 1950s-era soppy tale of "love lost and love found"; nor is it the smiley-faced, Pollyanna stereotype of Doris Day-Rock Hudson vintage. Mental health practitioners will be astonished to find a "survival guide," as the book is advertised, that manages to be funny, sexy, heart-wrenching and provocative - all at the same time. What readers will find is a fast-moving and, most of all, upbeat account about falling head-over-heels in love just when you thought they were, uh, beaten.

Upon examination, there's much to debate in Loss and Found for various and sundry experts out there who might be so inclined - the dubious ethics of advanced medicine; the insensitivity of law enforcement, social services workers, and credit agencies; the pressures of modern society to become sexually promiscuous; the dearth of help available to young widows and widowers; not to mention the success of an insurance racket in disassociating "health" from "care."

But authors Gary and Kathy Young leave any conclusions about such things to others and do not fixate on such questions. The surprise for most readers is that the two owe their self-renewal to their implicit determination to locate new spouses, not merely new "relationships." The intricacies involved in establishing such a bond after a 20-something hiatus from the dating scene - and in a new culture that seems to have turned its back on commitment - fortunately turns out more humorous than aggravating for the reader. One would have imagined, after all, that proximity to the nesting place of fare like "Ally McBeal" and "Sex and the City" would at the very least have prepared the authors for altered views about "singlehood." But Loss and Found is a hit precisely because it provides character insights that readers won't find in People Magazine or TV's Entertainment Tonight. Merely rubbing elbows with Hollywood's elite doesn't make the world depicted there real. Musical mates are not for everybody.

Perhaps what's so endearing about the book is that, in following their story, we discover as much about us as we do about its authors, Gary and Kathy Young.

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Beverly K. Eakman is a former teacher-turned-speechwriter, now lecturer on education and privacy issues. She is Executive Director of a Washington, DC-based education organization and author of numerous articles, op-eds and three books.

Gary and Kathy's book, "Loss and Found" offers a powerful, hard-hitting message that offers a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of mourning - a subject that we often shy away from. It's a relief to find a book on death that opens the windows and lets in the light. Their honest and emotional feelings gave me the courage to face my own family deaths from years back...life does, in fact, go on regardless of the pain involved. I enjoyed their humor, raw observations of their innermost fears, hoplessness and the joys of rediscovering the love within themselves to carry on during the gloomiest of times. I highly recommend this book...a must read for anyone who cares about enriching their souls to the fullest ...for once we deal with the loss of a loved one, we can live our lives to the fullest.

This book spoke to me in so many ways. I keep it on the nightstand by my bed. It helps me answer many of my questions and comforts me. I highly recommend it for any type of loss.

After being a widow for ten years, Loss and Found answered some questions that psychologists and support groups could not answer. This book put me in touch with my emotions and gave me direction. I can't stress strongly enough how important and positive this book is. I couldn't put it down once I started. I was just going to read a few pages, and I was hooked. I highly recommend it!

The only book I found with real experiences. Very complete from start to their new lives, both the man and woman. Not only important but surprisingly entertaining, honest and easy reading. I couldn't put it down.