Grief Is Love: Living with Loss

by Marisa Renee Lee

A trusted grief expert shares advice on how to navigate the loss of a loved one in this incisive and compassionate “calm, lucid prose… humanizing exploration of coping with the life-changing tides of loss” (Kirkus Reviews).

In Grief is Love, author Marisa Renee Lee reveals that healing does not mean moving on after losing a loved one—healing means learning to acknowledge and create space for your grief. It is about learning to love the one you lost with the same depth, passion, joy, and commitment you did when they were alive, perhaps even more. She guides you through the pain of grief—whether you’ve lost the person recently or long ago—and shows you what it looks like to honor your loss on your unique terms, and debunks the idea of a grief stages or timelines.  Grief is Love is about making space for the transformation that a significant loss requires. In beautiful, compassionate prose, Lee elegantly offers wisdom about what it means to authentically and defiantly claim space for grief’s complicated feelings and emotions. And Lee is no stranger to grief herself, she shares her journey after losing her mother, a pregnancy, and, most recently, a cousin to the COVID-19 pandemic. These losses transformed her life and led her to question what grief really is and what healing actually looks like. In this book, she also explores the unique impact of grief on Black people and reveals the key factors that proper healing permission, care, feeling, grace and more. The transformation we each undergo after loss is the indelible imprint of the people we love on our lives, which is the true definition of legacy. At its core, Grief is Love explores what comes after death, and shows us that if we are able to own and honor what we’ve lost, we can experience a beautiful and joyful life in the midst of grief. 

Genres: Grief, Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Mental Health, Memoir, Audiobook

133 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 12, 2022

Reviews

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really gentle way to be with yourself through grief. Self help in style. Simple and solid.

[Leigh Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really solid book about grief, probably best for the newly bereaved or those who haven’t experienced loss before. It’s more in the vein of self-help with the author discussing her experiences of grieving her mom and a miscarriage. I especially appreciated the chapter on legacy. The people we love leave a mark on us and that’s why it’s so hard when they die. We are transformed by loss. It’s worth reading for that alone. It’s probably the most intersectional book about grief that I’ve read in the past 20 years. (I used to be a hospice social worker and certified thanatologist.) The author is Black and highlights generational trauma and loss, as well as the impact of systemic racism and the national and global loss with COVID-19.

This unfortunately doesn’t delve into grieving complicated relationships. It barely even acknowledges that not everyone is close to their family of origin so bear that in mind. It also feels worth mentioning that the author seemed to have a codependent relationship with her mother and her experience of grief did not follow normal patterns—and not just because she initially avoided acknowledging her grief. As such, she had some irrational expectations of the people around her and doesn’t seem to be fully aware of it. That was the only true misstep in the book for me. If your grief doesn’t look like hers, it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. There’s a lot of good advice to consider regardless as you mourn your loved one.

Content notes: death of mother (breast cancer with bone mets; 14 years ago), miscarriage, infertility and fertility treatment, COVID-19 (including death of cousin), uterine cancer scare, systemic racism and police brutality, examples of other loss (including suicide), panic attack, depression, anxiety, codependency, generational trauma and loss, mixing Xanax with alcohol (blacked out), mother had multiple sclerosis, sister has bipolar disorder, past suicide attempts (sister; mostly references), weight loss, alcohol, medical marijuana reference, ableist language

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most insightful books on grief I've ever read!!!!
The author’s very open about her journey, it helps you feel seen, understood and most of all not alone.
It was amazing! Being able to see what she went through and how she overcame all the obstacles.
IT GIVES YOU HOPE!!!!
My favourite chapter is the last one. It talks about love and what she discovered about it through her grief. How they’re intertwined and how the first can’t exist without the latter!!
Unfortunately, it was a bit repetitive.

Really an inspiring book full of hope and enough tools to give you the strength and hope to keep going.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Morgan Rohbock · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐

When is the last time someone talked about grief and it wasn't at a funeral? Maybe we see someone on social media share a picture of a loved one who died too soon to commemorate their birthday, but the reality is that grief can be experienced before someone dies and long after. I'm so glad Marisa wrote this book to talk about this complex feeling and to truly validate the challenges experienced with losing someone.

I think my favorite quote that could summarize this book is: "We are irrevocably changed when we lose someone we love because so much of who we are is a reflection of the people who love us and now one of those people is gone." and "The death of a loved one, of someone you hold dear, should change you. That is their mark on the world. You are their mark on this world."

If these quotes resonate with you or you're struggling with your own loss (my heart goes out to you friend), this book is for you.

This book may not be for everyone given the heavy topics though so please know this book contains: loss of parent, miscarriage, infertility, & grief (duh!)

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh. I really wanted to like this book, to connect to this book. But I couldn’t. There were a couple of nice ideas. Like that you grieve because you loved. “Grief is love, and love is the antidote to grief.” And that your grief journey won’t look like anyone else’s journey and that’s ok; give yourself some grace to grieve in your own way. Those were the positives that I liked from the book. But those good things could have been summed up in a nice pamphlet or even magazine article. Now the bad. This book is a downer for anyone going through grief. And that’s not what I wanted. I wanted some wise advice from someone who had been there, but found peace and hope. But I found all of that completely lacking in this book. It felt like this author was “all sharp edges” full of “the heaviness of grief, (and) the heat of (her) rage.” She also came across as really entitled when she threw a fit and wrote off her super close friend and college roommate “for life” simply because the friend was playing a game for the Irish women’s National soccer team in Portugal during the author’s mother’s funeral. Also, I wanted to relate to the author’s journey, but the author let me know that I couldn’t understand what it was like for her because of “the complexities that come with Black grief.” All in all, I didn’t enjoy reading in this book and it didn’t help with my grief journey. But I was happy to read that the author finally got to become a mother of her own at the end of the book after a long struggle with infertility. So I am happy for her. But I can’t recommend her book. If you want an uplifting book that actually helps you make your grief lighter, I’d recommend “One Breath at a Time.”

[Steph Anya · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ I really hate rating memoirs because it feels like ranking a person’s life, but I do so just to remind myself about how I personally experienced the book whenever someone asks. There are no major complaints about this book. However, for me, it simply didn’t provide me with anything new to consider or reference for my clients regarding grief which is the primary reason that I read it. I think other people may find it more valuable though, so please don’t let this rating deter you. I’m looking forward to seeing other people’s thoughts in the live tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/live/8XdAq-t1...

[Jamie McKevitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was extremely disappointing. I had really high hopes based on the author losing her mother and my personal experiences. However, the author makes the entire book about race. She puts out polarizing statements about white supremacy. She goes into a story about how everyone had to be at the funeral and how she cut off a person in her life because the person was out of the country and couldn't make the funeral, even though that person went above and beyond in the months that followed.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think grief is made harder or easier based on your race or ethnicity. Disappointed.

[Robin Happonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far the only book that has really spoken to my grief journey.

[Hannah Nowak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe one of the best books I’ve ready about grief so far. I didn’t agree with everything, but I feel like this was a very gentle self-help for going through grief.

We grieve because we love💙

[Eduardo Santiago · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. Started off kind of bad: I found the author unpleasant but not intolerable. Right at the halfway mark, in the chapter titled Grace, that changed. For the worse: TL;DR author’s former Harvard roommate (yes, author makes sure to write Harvard, not college) can’t attend author’s mother’s funeral, for a valid reason; roommate explains “the funeral is the beginning of grief, and it makes more sense to show up when other people stop showing up”; author ends their friendship. Roommate continues making efforts to reach out. Significant efforts. Author relents... then writes, seriously, about grace as if SHE, the author, is the one manifesting grace by “forgiving” the roommate. (I just reread that section, to make sure I didn’t misinterpret. I don’t think I have.)

We all grieve differently. I don’t wish to make light of the author’s pain, but I will say that none of it resonated with me. It just baffled me. I found her entitled, self-absorbed, high-drama, and even mean-spirited at times.

[Rebecca Chen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought I wanted to read this book based on some other reviews, but I was taken aback by the use of
the "F" word that I thought was placed very distastefully. I was very turned off. I read two chapters and there was so much repetition of text and ideas. The author also brought into the first several chapters a subject that I do not want to currently read about. I think I will be returning this to the library.

[Natalie Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking for first advice on how to deal with grief, this is a book I would suggest. The author shares her grief surrounded around the loss of her beloved mother and gives the reader the consent to feel, grieve and do what is needed to move forward in the their own life.

[Allyson Gilliam]

[No rating] Always going to grab a book if ‘grief’ is in the title. Don’t know what that says about me. But hey, this cover was super appealing too. Grief books are almost all terrible looking on the outside. And for what???

The more books on grief that I read, the more I feel disheartened that I’ve “heard everything” there is out there. Not a bad thing necessarily. So this felt very-much familiar in terms of advice, BUT I did really, really like how she *explained* said advice. Many moments where I raised my eyebrows and went, “oh wow. Never heard anyone say it that way.” This felt more real and honest than most of the sugar-coated grief memoirs out there.

I also found it very eye opening to hear it through the lens of a Black woman’s journey with grief. There are so many ways we fail Black women, and never considered grief support being one of them. I applaud her for sharing that part of her heart so open and honestly.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really thoughtful book confronting the raw realities of coping with the death of a loved one. The author shares her personal perspectives after losing her mother and a much-wanted pregnancy, and also discusses the grief associated with being a Black woman in America. Pretty much all of this book resonated with me (I lost my mother as a similar age as the author, and also had a miscarriage). The sentiment I'm left with having finished the book is that it's important to not expect grief to go away. Rather, we learn to have it coexist with joy. There's a sadness in knowing that grief doesn't stop, and we can never go back to feeling the way we did when our person was alive. But the author encourages steps to find ways to keep your lost loved one's love for us in the present tense.

[Kristi Marshae]

Incredibly disappointed but not surprised by all the deeply racist reviews here on goodreads about this book. I’m grateful the author shared some of her journey with the world and that she has added a voice to the complicated subject.

On a personal note it opened up some space for me to cry, which doesn’t happen nearly enough. Letting myself be moved is always a gift.

[Samantha King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart warming, heart breaking and everything a person needs to read when they are experiencing losing a loved one or have lost a loved one. HIGHLY recommend.

[Gloriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a very unbiased observer here, but yet, I think everyone should run out and grab a copy of this book. Grief is a heavy subject and not one easily tackled. Most people avoid it all their lives, if they can, or try to attack it in a compartmentalized way, through steps or stages perhaps, such as to try to make sense of the senseless pain of it. But what my very good friend Marisa Renee Lee did here was try to distill her own heavy won battles with grief and the accompanying despair that goes along with it, to attempt to explain it to everyone who picks up her book. Through touching anecdotes and her own struggles with loss, she grips her readers with her easy prose and no-nonsense advice, imparting wisdom and some very necessary lessons, with some laughs along the way as well to help lighten the load. She personally knows what a heavy burden grief can be, and how dark the road can be to get back from it, and while she never sugar-coats her message, she still manages to convey a simple, yet indelible lesson: that yes, grief hurts so much because it represents a love that is lost, but one that can always be remembered and brought back, and maybe even grown again, through time and therapy and even more love.

[Holly (holly_houx) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
I was expecting more about processing grief and living with grief in a positive way from this book and less of the authors grief story, but there were some good takes and it was a new perspective for me. Many of the grief books I have picked up feel like the same take from various privileged white women. Marisa sharing her perspective on grief as a black woman added to my understanding of the how systemic racism effects so many aspects of someone’s life, including one of the most intimate and isolating experiences of life; grief. It was disheartening to see the negative and racists reviews here on goodreads. If you read about a black woman’s grief experience and you get upset that she says her grief is harder b/c she is black then you really need to go do some reflection and self- educating to unlearn your deep rooted prejudices.

[Gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really solid grief book. It’s not really a guide or lecture about dealing with it; it’s more like a hug from a friend who’s been there and giving you language you couldn’t find for yourself and maybe didn’t even know you needed. She walks you through her own experiences with loss and grief and what helped her and how to recognize what you need. I also appreciated that it was not preachy or filled with scripture and Bible verses as so many books about loss tend to be.

[Laurinda Ross · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up at my local library the week my own mother died. Maybe I was expecting too much from it? I found the writing painfully bad and repetitive. This all could have been whittled down to a 300 word essay in Cosmo.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

For this season of my life, this book was really helpful and relatable as the author also lost a parent.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was exactly what I needed right now. A simple but helpful, highly readable, compass for the disorientation and overwhelm of grief. At the 40% mark I was like “ok I get it already, feel your feelings, be vulnerable, name your grief, let people in.” (Even though I actually did need to have those ideas reinforced probably) But then the chapter on “Grace” really landed for me. The chapter on “Legacy” was validating for some ideas I had percolating, and then the final chapter on “Love” tore me apart and put me back together again with some new understandings.

[Suhana Ruprai · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best book about grief I have read so far - probably because I felt there were so many similarities between the author’s and my own experience with grief. This book is short, simple and gentle. The “legacy” and “love” chapters were my favourite and really resonated with me.

[Keira · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thought provoking and insightful audiobook for my flight :)

[Joy Hart · Rating 1 out of 5]

As someone with a terminally ill husband I had high hopes for this book. I was not able to even complete chapter 2. The author talks about how she took care of XYZ for her mom while her dad took care of ABC. I take care of all of that and everything in between. However, since I’m a white woman I feel like the author believes my difficulties aren’t as big. My grief isn’t as hard.
I have no doubts that there are things that are different for each race. I was just looking for a book to help with grief and this wasn’t it.

[Gayle · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I had not written in the margins of the first few chapters I would return this book. It got painfully repetitive as if she were required to write a certain number of pages and didn't have the content to get there. Then came page 70....I actually wrote "WTF" in the margin where she wrote a racist sentence. I continued on to page 71 where the racist intolerable attitude was in full force. I threw the book in the trash. I will not finish it.

[Roxana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book everyone should read to understand grief and living with grief a bit better. Can be a good manual for the people around a person that lost someone, as it helps understand certain behaviors of the person in cause. A book that gives permission to live while you grief and who gives justice and sense to many feelings and actions that might seem strange at a first glance.

[Glenda Nelms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply moving and inspiring book.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

needed this🕊️🤍