Please Be Patient, I'm Grieving: How to Care For and Support the Grieving Heart

by Gary Roe

USA Best Book Awards Finalist Loss hurts. It’s tough to go through, and painful to watch. Do you know someone who’s grieving and wish you could help? Are you the one grieving and wonder if what you’re going through is normal? Do you wish those around you understood you better? This book has answers. This practical and easy-to-read book provides the answers you need to make a difference - in your own life and in the lives of others. Bestselling author, hospice chaplain, and grief specialist Gary Roe gives you a look at the grieving heart – the thoughts, emotions, and struggles within. If you’re wanting to help someone who’s grieving, you’ll get a glimpse of what’s going on inside them and be better able to love and support them. If you’re in the midst of grief and loss, you’ll see yourself as you read, and be encouraged that you aren’t as weird or crazy as you thought. In Please Be Patient, I’m Grieving, you will learn… • How hurting, grieving people are feeling and thinking. • How to discover what they need and don’t need. • What to say and not to say. • How to be a help and not a hindrance in the grieving process. • How the grief and pain of others can affect you. • How helping others stimulates your own personal growth and healing. • How these skills can enhance all your relationships. Healing from loss is challenging. This book can help you develop a priceless ability– how to hear the heart of someone who’s hurting. The benefits for them, and for you, can be staggering. Scroll up and grab your copy of this book today. You can make more of a difference than you dreamed possible.

Genres: Nonfiction, Grief, Self Help

78 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2016

About the author

Hi. My name is Gary.

My story began with a childhood of sexual abuse and numerous other losses. When my life began to unravel as a teen, another family took me in and changed the trajectory of my life. My healing journey began.

Eager to help others heal and grow, my heart turned outward. Over the next three decades, I served as a campus minister, a church-planting missionary in Japan, an entrepreneur in Hawaii, and a pastor. I'm currently work as a writer, speaker, and hospice chaplain.

After walking through deep valleys with thousands of people, I can say the following with confidence:

• We've all been wounded
• Healing isn't for sissies
• We’re all designed for impact
• The world needs us
• We must heal

I'm here to help. I'm no guru or master of anything. I'm a fellow struggler. I still bear the scars of my wounds. I grieve, get anxious, worry, and battle fear regularly. But I'm healing, and I'm growing.

Stop by my website. Drop me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read and a good resource.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to explain to others who havent lost someone yet

This book is helpful for those around the grieving person and the grieving person as well. There are always people that just don't get it i especially love the part the says grief changes a person. I have friends who think i will return to who i was before my loss and that just isnt going to happen. Its nice to have that validated

[Ashley Kimble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written book to logically understand the transitions through grief

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating 4.0
This short but insightful book drew my attention because my brother-in-law has terminal brain cancer and I thought it would be helpful in supporting my sister as she grieves. The lessons are short, but clear and worth more than one review. The book focuses on short principles to know how to deal with the grieving and how to meet their needs. It does well what it sets out to do.

Summary: This practical and easy-to-read book provides the answers you need to make a difference - in your own life and in the lives of others.

Bestselling author, hospice chaplain, and grief specialist Gary Roe gives you a look at the grieving heart – the thoughts, emotions, and struggles within. If you’re wanting to help someone who’s grieving, you’ll get a glimpse of what’s going on inside them and be better able to love and support them. If you’re in the midst of grief and loss, you’ll see yourself as you read, and be encouraged that you aren’t as weird or crazy as you thought.

In Please Be Patient, I’m Grieving, you will learn…
•How hurting, grieving people are feeling and thinking.
•How to discover what they need and don’t need.
•What to say and not to say.
•How to be a help and not a hindrance in the grieving process.
•How the grief and pain of others can affect you.
•How helping others stimulates your own personal growth and healing.
•How these skills can enhance all your relationships.

Healing from loss is challenging. This book can help you develop a priceless ability– how to hear the heart of someone who’s hurting. The benefits for them, and for you, can be staggering.

[JZ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another whiny preacher, preaching. Thank you, no. Not helpful.

[J.L. Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

This phenomenal piece of literature is difficult to categorize and leaves me unsure as to exactly how to describe it. It is part self-help book and part lifeline, it is a psychologically based introspective to help you cope with tremendous grief, yet it is in a “plain brown wrapper” presented in laymen’s terms. It has a soothing and reassuring religious appeal to believers, yet is presented in such a manner that I personally believe that it could reach even the staunchest of Atheists. There is the obvious component of dealing with the grief of losing a loved one, yet there is a message pertaining to life in general that makes it a MUST READ for anyone/everyone. The main target audience seems to be the grieving soul dealing with the loss of a beloved one, obviously and I find it difficult to articulate just how spectacularly this amazing, soothing, comforting and reassuring gift of love from author Gary Roe conveys his message via this latest book.

I have long been a fan of Gary Roe and his amazing work, both in literature and his strong presence online. I have read some of his other work and “PLEASE BE PATIENT, I’M GRIEVING” is a brilliant, insightful and compassionate addition to his library of works. This amazing man, wow, I am literally lost as to HOW I could possibly describe not only his work, but he himself. He embodies love and compassion, I had read one of his earlier books a couple of years ago and it had his e-mail address to write to him, not only as a fan, but as a grieving soul in need; I did and imagine my great dismay when he not only ANSWERED me (and not some canned auto-response), but he followed up and check in on me for about a year or so until he was certain all was well. That, my friends, is the quality of human soul poured onto the pages of this book. He is a HUMAN, humane in the best sense of the word and a shining example of humanity.

I strongly urge you to read this newest compassionate and kindhearted outreach from Gary Roe, if you are hurting or suffering the weight of loss of loved ones; it is my utmost conviction that you could find no one on earth better equipped, more interested and genuinely more concerned with helping you learn to walk through life embracing the memories of your loved ones without carrying the burdens of pain brought on by their loss—I am confident in saying that this is the best roadmap you could carry in navigating the journey of coping with both life and loss.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book could have been written for me. There isn't anything in it that didn't resonate with how I feel. It validated all the thoughts and emotions I have gone through and am still going through. I cried a lot reading it. I love the quotes and the scripture references and how user friendly and easy to read it is. I think the book would be great to use in any grief counseling program. It should be available to read in nursing homes for families of residents. It should be in libraries and churches. I wish it had been available years ago, but I am sure happy to read it and be a part of it now. Thank you so much Gary Roe for writing it! The book is easy to read...except for crying.

[Margaret Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The simple, straight-forward steps Gary presents in this book will not only encourage those who are grieving but will enable their families and friends to get a glimpse into what the griever lives with day after day. As a chaplain as well as a victim of loss, this is a go to book. It contains answers to many questions asked by both those experiencing grieve and those wanting to walk alongside them and help them. Thank you Gary Roe for this great book

[Leigh Paddon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Book is fantastic!

This is exactly what I wanted to say to people as I've been dealing with my grief about my grandmother.

Whether you are the one reading or your friends and family are trying to take care of you and your grief check this book out.

[Bobby Baden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, quick read with helpful advice. Emphasizes that you don't need the perfect words or solution to be helpful, you just need to be present and caring.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

My mother-in-law requested I read this book as we near the one year anniversary of her husband dying from lung cancer. She thought it would help my wife and I understand her grief and help her to grieve. That is the book's intended purpose. But it falls short of that goal.

Partially the book is just too short for its own good. It's less than 100 pages in total. Each chapter has wasted pages of blank lines to write down answers to questions. There are some blank pages so each chapter starts on the right hand page. The "paragraphs" are never more than like two sentences. So, yeah, it's a super quick read. Which is good, because there's nothing new or enlightening here.

As with many self-help books, I predicted this one could be boiled down to its bullet points. And I was right.

Show up and enter their world
Respect their pain
Accept their emotions
Grow with them as they change
Share their loneliness
Be a safe person
Connect them with others who know grief
Let their grief help you heal and grow
Be patient with yourself and them

And you will get that list in the table of contents, the conclusion, and in the "final thoughts" chapter that immediately follows the conclusion.

I was hoping this book might contain more actionable advice or insight into the grieving process. But it just spends time on platitudes. If you don't already know that you should "respect their pain" and "accept their emotions" then you need more help than reading this book will supply.

I understand I have not experienced the same grief my mother-in-law is experiencing. This book's purpose is to make me more adept at helping her despite that. Given that purpose, the book failed to help me. I got better advice from Jane McGonigal's Imaginable about helping a loved one envision a better future than I got in this book. The advice here comes off as "sit down and be sad with them." Which, I guess, might be what a grieving person wants, but if I'm reading a book I hope for better, more novel advice.

[Theresa Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so love and appreciate this book! Gary Roe gets it! He understands grief! In his book, "Please Be Patient, I'm Grieving" he gives voice to those who have experienced grief. As a hospice Chaplain and Minister, Roe has sat beside many grieving souls. Thus, able to share the sentiments of their hearts. He gives voice to the grieving soul and allows them to speak directly to his reader. The vulnerably share what grieving looks like and how best to support them. In short, it leaves the guesswork out. In this book, Roe also reveals nine very practical principles (ways) to support someone's grieving heart and perhaps even your own. A must read if you struggle with how to show up for grieving loved ones.

[Alisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, this is a fast and easy read which I appreciate. As someone who is not grieving, I'm disappointed by the book. I was expecting to have more resources for helping my spouse through his grief. I already knew everything that was in this book. Nothing was new or enlightening. I was looking for a book that would help outline the stages of grief and how to specifically deal with a loved one when they are in the midst of a stage. For example, my husband's grief is mainly the stage of anger. There was 0 talk about that.
My friend gifted me this book, so I did not research and choose it myself. It didn't suit my needs.
I hope I will find a better book.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth your time

"Grief isn’t an item to be checked off a list or a task to be accomplished. It’s a process of learning to live on with a hole in the heart." One of the best quotes in this book.

[Jacqui · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful

This book helped me through the grieving process. While I’m not sure if I’ll ever actually be THROUGH it, I’ve learned that my new normal is okay and I can do this all in due time.

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve listened to the audiobook. I felt this book was more for people who wants to help others or their loved ones who are grieving. People who are grieving may receive empathy and awareness from reading the book too. Thanks to the author for writing this book.

[Russell George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Something of importance was left out

I can't say I didn't learn anything from reading this book, but when I have been called upon to comfort people I always encourage them to look to God for the comfort He can give. II Corinthians 1:3-4 says that He is the God of all comfort.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very quick read and not much meat, but a great tool without needing to wade through a lot. A good gift as a toolbox for the friend or spouse who really just needs a primer on supporting somebody in grief.

[Jan Chiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grief

Told in easy to understand language and easy concepts. This book is helpful for those helping others through grief or going through it yourself. I'm going through both. It gives good advice. For 14 +

[Mara Minshew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes it more realistic for me

It’s only been 1 week but somehow I felt this pressure to get on with life. Now I know it’s just that, pressure. I will take as long as I need. Thank you for this book!

[Debi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. When my daughter died in 1983 grief was not talked about so there was nothing to help me through the Grief process. Gary's book has been helpful with my understanding I'm ok that we all grieve differently and it's ok. Thanks for all your books Gary

[Cheryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very relatable as one who has experienced/is experiencing grief and one who will/has helped people through grief. It’s a quick read, but one that can be referenced again and again. The reflection questions are awesome. I will be buying this book for a few people!

[suzanne bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good insights for the grieving soul and observer

Was easy to read with simple helpful suggestions to walk with someone who is grieving. Recommend this
to those grieving and the family supporting them.

[Johnson Henson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t read one of Gary’s books that aren’t helpful. Each one is meaningful and I feel as though I’m sitting in a room with a friend listening to me. I appreciate Gary’s honesty and openness about his own loss of a child. I would recommend this for anyone grieving.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read, informative

GOOD BOOK, FAST AND EASY READ, a great deal of good information for people on both sides of the grief process

[Ms_Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very easy to understand and a quick read. It is very straight forward about what we can do to help someone who is grieving as well as what we should avoid doing.

[Mike Forbes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information to have for anyone who has a loved one experiencing grief and how to handle things. I definitely needed a guide book like this.

[Barb B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and to the point

This book made some very good points and was insightful. It was short and to the point. Worth reading it.

[Deb BaylorSmith]

Such a great book. Grief is so hard. Confused, aching, alone and lonely are the grieving and non grieving. To help understand grief.

[Tuesdayschild · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there is nothing "new" in this book, I like that the content is presented in a clear and uncluttered style. A comforting read.