Book Review 9: “Healing After the Loss of Your Mother: A Grief and Comfort Manual” by Elaine Mallon

I’ve been trying to read a lot of books about grief to understand its process a bit better. Thanks to our benevolent neighbor, I got this book last April, but had not yet found time to read it until this past Saturday. It’s split into two parts: one for the person affected and another for the person comforting the person affected. Naturally, being selfish, I chose to only read the first part (yes, I know the second part can be useful to help comfort people like my brother but to be honest I really needed advice as the first person).

This manual was a lifesaver…in many ways I wish I had read it earlier. What really helped me understand the type of grief I’d encountered was the section on complicated grief. I don’t want to go into too many details, but it dawned on me as I was reading that this was the type of grief I had, and that it was worth exploring further (both on my own and in therapy) to try and figure out how to work with it, instead of feeling frustrated by my progress (or lack thereof). It also recommended sound healing, which I haven’t tried but which I want to. I also appreciated the factoid about how many people say the second year of loss is worse than the first, because it finally hits them. Will be on the lookout come April…10/10