Jump to Comments
If you have ever felt that your grief did not quite follow what the books say you “should” feel after a loss, The Other Side of Sadness
is for you. It seems that the standard denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance stages simply do not apply to a lot of otherwise completely normal and sensitive people, and that many people cope much better and faster with loss than the theories might suggest, perhaps because the theories are based on studying the minority of people who find it difficult and lengthy to recover. The same theories also tell us it’s helpful to talk somberly about our feelings of loss to get better but perhaps that’s exactly the opposite that’s needed, at least for many of us.
The author shows how different traditions handle death in ways that are not exactly familiar to us, including joking about the dead or continuing to dialog with them after their death — so clearly there’s a range of comforting behaviors that we should feel free to adopt if they can help. The book goes on some long personal tangents but overall I found it very interesting.
