Finding your Way After Your Parent Dies

by Richard B. Gilbert

Rev. Richard Gilbert has created a compassionate guide for those struggling with the loss of a parent. Bringing many years of experience in bereavement counseling, Gilbert sketches out some of the issues that arise in the wake of a parent's death and offers practical suggestions for navigating these difficulties. From the disorientation that can come immediately after death to relating to the surviving parent to healing old emotional wounds, the topics dealt with here will be of tremendous help to many.

Genres: Grief

124 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim little book has been sitting on my bookshelf since my mom passed away in 2008 when I was only 28 years old. Soon after her death I discovered I was pregnant with twins (Praise God!) and then 2 years later another baby blessed our family. Through that season of young motherhood I didn't have a lot of time to reflect on the loss of my sweet mother.

Through those 12 years following losing her, I took care of my father. He was my best friend, my constant, my strength. Our lives were so intertwined.

The last few years of his life were a constant struggle, in the hospital and in pain more often than not. The last months of 2020 was him in hospice, witnessing his slow descent into the dying process, his light slowly fading.

He passed away during the night December 4th 2020. I was with him, alone. I pushed the couch next to his bed and held his hand all night. The day after we buried him and the Taps played and I was presented the American flag from his casket, I turned 40 years old.

All this to say that the past several months without my big teddy bear have been agonizing. Such an adjustment, so different than losing my mom. I feel like I am floundering in this deep sea of grief. So that's why I finally sought out this little book. I finished it on a Saturday afternoon with many tears and prayers to Jesus.

It was compassionately brief and beautifully encouraging. Simple guidelines to help navigate this new season of life.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had a lot of beautiful things to reflect on and pray with through this intense period of grieving. Gilbert writes with compassion and understanding, even when touching on the "unpleasant" feelings of anger and other negative emotions. I want to get his other books on grieving now. He understands grief and I honestly wish he wrote more on losing both parents, like he has, and now I have too. It was honestly a little hard reading about caring for a surviving parent as my dad was my surviving parent and now I've lost him too. My dad died last month and it's been brutal. Me being me, I bought more books on grief and started reading.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much god

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional and insightful for me as the one year date approached this week with my Dad's death.