Healing a Spouse's Grieving Heart: 100 Practical Ideas After Your Husband or Wife Dies (Healing Your Grieving Heart series)

130 Pages·2003·0.58 MB·English

by  Alan D. Wolfelt PhD

HEALING A SPOUSE’S
GRIEVING HEART
Also by Alan Wolfelt:
Creating Meaningful Funeral Ceremonies:
A Guide for Families
Healing a Child’s Grieving Heart:
100 Practical Ideas for Families, Friends
and Caregivers
Healing a Friend’s Grieving Heart:
100 Practical Ideas for Helping Someone
You Love Through Loss
Healing a Teen’s Grieving Heart:
100 Practical Ideas for Families, Friends
and Caregivers
Healing Your Grieving Heart for Kids:
100 Practical Ideas
The Journey Through Grief:
Reflections on Healing
Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential
Touchstones For Finding Hope
and Healing Your Heart
Companion Press is dedicated to the education and
support of both the bereaved and bereavement caregivers.
We believe that those who companion the bereaved by
walking with them as they journey in grief have a
wondrous opportunity: to help others embrace and grow
through grief—and to lead fuller, more deeply-lived lives
themselves because of this important ministry.
For a complete catalog and
ordering information,write or call:
Companion Press
The Center for Loss and LifeTransition
3735 Broken Bow Road
Fort Collins,CO 80526
[phone]
www.centerforloss.com

HEALING A SPOUSE’S
GRIEVING HEART
•
100 PRACTICAL IDEAS
AFTER YOUR HUSBAND
OR WIFE DIES
Compassionate advice and simple activities
for widows and widowers
•
ALAN D. WOLFELT, PH.D.
Fort Collins,Colorado
An imprint of the Center for Loss and Life Transition
© 2003 by Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
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recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the
publisher.
Companion Press is an imprint of the
Center for Loss and Life Transition,
3735 Broken Bow Road, Fort Collins, Colorado 80526
Companion Press books may be purchased in bulk for sales
promotions, premiums or fundraisers. Please contact the
publisher at the above address for more information.
Printed in the United States of America
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 1-879-651-37-8
In loving memory of the soulmate relationship of my
Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob, and in gratitude for the
model they provided for a loving relationship with
another human being.
Helen and Bob Mansfield were married
on December 26, 1943.
Helen died on July 28, 2001.
This couple loved each other deeply and with
passion. To them I dedicate this book.

“Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our
experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as
marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer.
It is not a truncation of the process but one of the phases;
not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure. We
are taken out of ourselves by the loved one when he is
here. Then comes the tragic figure dance in which we
must learn to be taken out of ourselves though the
bodily presence is withdrawn.”
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed