Companion Through the Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief

As a result of her own experience with many kind of loss, Stephanie Ericsson offers an intimate, profoundly touching guide for those in grief, legitimizing the complex and often taboo emotions we all feel when loss transforms our lives. In Companion Through the Darkness, Stephanie Ericsson defines grief as "the constant reawakening that things are now different." Using a very simple format -- which combines excerpts from her own diary writings with brief essays -- she vividly speaks the language of loss and captures the contradictory, wrenching, and chaotic emotions of grief. The book can be opened at any point to chapters no more than a few pages long on such themes as:

Abandonment: The sudden state I am forced into. I no longer belong to you. I no longer belong to anyone.

Rage: The state I use to survive seemingly moments of intolerable pain.

Humor: The backside of agony.

Pity: The look on people's faces when they haven't a clue what to say to me.

Transition: The moments, strung out over months, when I know I am no longer the woman I was, but not quite the woman I am becoming.

The result is compelling, intimate, and heartbreakingly truthful -- a book that promises to be enormously sought-after support and touchstone for all those making their own journey through grief.

Author: Stephanie Ericsson
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Published: 01/27/1993
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.41lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.31w x 0.47d
ISBN: 9780060969745

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 01/15/1993 pg. 853

About the Author
Ericsson, Stephanie: - Stephanie Ericsson is a screenwriter and advertising copywriter and the author of ShameFaced and Recovering Together. She began writing a journal of her experiences after the loss of her husband while she was pregnant with their only child, and later published a widely acclaimed excerpt from the book in the Utne Reader. A frequent speaker on the subjects of loss, she lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.