Mar 30, 2023 | Community, Family, Grief, Parent
By Terri Schexnayder
Country music’s familiar heart-tugging lyrics of country-western ballads about cheating, love lost, and traveling roads in pickup trucks always seems to have a place for grief. Hits are littered with songs about love, death, grief, and faith as artists share their feelings and coping strategies ranging from tears to whiskey.
Steve Seskin is a name you might not know, but he’s written seven number one hit songs and is a two-time Grammy-nominated songwriter for songs that both feature grief, including Tim McGraw’s “Grown Men Don’t Cry,” and Mark Wills’ “Don’t Laugh at Me.”
The inspiration for “Grown Men Don’t Cry” came from a conversation between Seskin and McGraw about their fathers. Seskin was estranged from his father, who died from a heart attack shortly before they were scheduled to reconnect, and he spoke about the impact his father’s death had on his life.
“I wrote the lines, ‘I just placed a rose on his grave and I talked to the wind’ because that happened to me. I stood by my father’s grave in Queens, New York, and had the ‘mend fences’ talk that we had never had in real life,” he said.
Seskin and McGraw bonded over the fact that neither had a good relationship with their dads. Seskin said, “It was the rose on the grave line that killed me, and McGraw, who grew up not knowing his dad, understood. Later, Tim and Tug McGraw became close.”
“Our dads weren’t the epitome of what a dad was supposed to be. It can’t be good for you to suppress sadness, grief, and emotions. I don’t want to be that kind of dad. I want to express my emotions. Emotions should be embraced — you need to go through them. When you deny it, you mess with the process.”
Grammy-nominated songwriter Seth Glier described the power of his favorite country song about loss, “One More Day.” The song was written by Bobby Tomberlin and Steven Dale and made famous by the band Diamond Rio. “I love the second verse, ‘first thing I’d do is pray for time to crawl.’ I especially appreciate how much space there is in the writing for the listener to insert their story into the song. This song could be about anybody yet for most people is about a very specific somebody.”
Glier, who lost his brother Jamie seven years ago, shared “Jamie was born with autism, loved horseback riding, swimming, and pottery and lived his life without the ability to speak in an oral form. He had a language, but it was one all his own and I often credit him with my interest in songwriting. My brother’s death was my first introduction to what I call the territory of grief. The territory is sort of like an ocean. Other people in my life have since passed and brought me back there. After the initial awkward and painful fumbling around that territory, I’ve found a fountain of gratitude and compassion there. I’ve found that I can connect deeply with just about anybody now. I consider that a tremendous gift from Jamie.”
Seskin and Glier co-wrote “When You Lose Someone Like That” for Evermore, and for anyone who has loved and lost someone they dearly love.
Like “One More Day,” the absence of specific explanations for Evermore’s “like that” refrain intentionally does not name who has died. This technique is used in many country songs. “For example, country music star Kenny Chesney’s 2005 release, ‘Who You’d Be Today,’ written by Aimee Mayo and Bill Luther, doesn’t name a specific person, rather the songwriters used “you” to connect directly with the listener,” noted Seskin.
“We hear the listener saying, ‘like what?’ It was about the suggestion of sadness. It can come out of nowhere. Songs serve many listeners,” said Seskin.
“In the end, we write to share our songs with many people…we want the listener to complete the piece, bringing their own life to it. They understand the person they lost more than I do. There is value in not defining things or limiting the story.”
Country music’s best will take center stage this weekend in the annual Country Music Television Awards in Austin, Texas. Loss is prominent for two Performance of the Year nominees. Emmy Russell and Lukas Nelson are nominated for their performance of “Lay Me Down,” originally sung by Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson’s father, and dearly departed Loretta Lynn. The other nominee is the Judds’ performance of “Love Can Build a Bridge.” It’s a touching performance because Wynonna Judd performs with her late mother, Naomi, who died by suicide just one day before being inducted into the Country Hall of Fame last April.
During her acceptance speech, Wynonna remarked on the two conflicting emotions conveyed in her title song, “Broken and Blessed.”
I’m somewhere between hell and hallelujah’ … this is me, broken and blessed.
“I’m gonna make this fast, because my heart’s broken, and I feel so blessed. It’s a very strange dynamic to be this broken and this blessed. … Though my heart’s broken, I will continue to sing, because that’s what we do,” Wyonna said.
Resources:
Steve Seskin
Seth Glier
When You Lose Someone Like That
Judds Country Music Hall of Fame
Mar 10, 2023 | Family, Federal Government, Grief
By Terri Schexnayder
Often, when someone dies, we seek to support the grieving family in a meaningful way. In a sign of solidarity and love, we attend memorials or funerals, send condolences, prepare meals, and sometimes participate in athletic events or donate to fundraisers for a related cause.
When a child or teenager loses a parent, their lives can be upended. Beyond losing the relationship, a child may experience food or housing insecurity, loss of healthcare, or even logistical challenges attending after-school programs. Their school may struggle with compassionate policies and procedures and seek to have the student return to school as soon as possible to ensure educational continuity (see our list of helpful ideas for compassionate schools here). Even university students report similar challenges following a death (see Evermore’s efforts in advancing bereavement support among universities here).
Yet, there is a little-known economic benefit that a bereaved child may be eligible to receive if either of their parents participated in the United States workforce. This Social Security benefit is available to some bereaved children, payable upon their parents’ death. However, some experts project that more than half of America’s parentally bereaved children are not receiving the benefit, resulting in upwards of $15 billion in benefits not being conferred to bereaved children and families).
More than 2.2 million children in the United States today have experienced the death of a co-resident mother or father. Dr. David Weaver estimates that 45 percent of children with one parental death receive the Social Security Administration (SSA) benefit, and 49 percent of fully orphaned children receive the benefit. Why so many children do not receive their eligible benefits is poorly understood. In some cases, families do not know about the benefit, or an administrative error denies an eligible child. In other instances, bereaved children or orphans do not qualify because their parents did not achieve fully insured status. This means that either parent did not earn enough wages to receive the benefits.
According to the SSA, an unmarried child may be eligible for benefits if they are:
- Younger than age 18;
- 18-19 years old and a full-time student (no higher than grade 12); or
- 18 or older with a disability that began before age 22.
Once the child reaches age 18, they will no longer be eligible to receive benefits unless they are a student or disabled.
If you know a child who has experienced the death of a parent, please share Evermore’s guidance on how to apply for these benefits. Also, consider sharing SSA’s application for benefits with their caretakers.
SSA guidance states, “A child can receive up to half of the parent’s full retirement or disability benefit. If a child receives Survivors Benefits, he or she can get up to 75 percent of the deceased parent’s basic Social Security benefit.”
Weaver’s study revealed that “when Social Security and other government programs are accessed, evidence suggests that child well-being is stabilized, thus plausibly facilitating better educational, health, and economic outcomes—a benefit not only to individuals, but also to the nation in terms of elevated human capital, productivity, and innovation.”
“It takes a village to raise a child. The potential for lifelong success, well-being, and prosperity depends on us — the community — to support a grieving family. As the nation reels from concurrent mortality epidemics, it’s important to understand the public benefits system, especially for our nation’s most vulnerable children,” says Joyal Mulheron, Executive Director of Evermore.
Resources:
SSA Blog Post: Social Security Pays Benefits to Children After the Death of a Parent
SSA Fact Sheet: Benefits for Children
Evermore Fact Sheet: How to Apply for Child Survivors Benefits
Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children
Feb 19, 2023 | Family, Grief, Parent
By Terri Schexnayder
For millions of people living in America, the death of a child is a tragedy that silently unites many, even presidents. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has cited his son’s death, Beau, as motivation to run for president and has shared his reflections and experiences on grief and loss in many eulogies. Former President George H.W. Bush advanced global health measures citing the death of his three-year-old daughter, Pauline Robinson (“Robin”), who died of leukemia in the 1950s.
Beyond Presidents Biden and Bush, four other modern-day presidents have lost a child, including Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. According to Doug Wead, historian and author of All the Presidents’ Children: Triumphs and Tragedy in the Lives of America’s First Families, released in 2003, 26 children of presidents died before the age of five, and many more before the age of 30, not including the death of President Biden’s son Beau in 2015 and his daughter, who died in a car accident in 1972.
Oftentimes, these losses occurred before the president held office, but the life-altering impact carried into their days in the Oval office. “When we lose someone close to us, it leaves an imprint — the death of a child leaves an indelible mark,” says Evermore founder Joyal Mulheron. “Experiencing the death of someone you love deeply does not simply leave you. You don’t ‘get over it.’ Rather, your love and both their presence and absence will continue to be a part of your life, and your relationship with them will continue to evolve forever.”
Child loss is uniquely challenging in many ways, as is can impact parents’ sense of meaning, identity, and worldviews. According to Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, who directs Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Bereavement Clinic, “Child death defies the expected order of life events and can shatter assumptions about how the world works, and thus bereaved parents often struggle to make sense of their loss.”
Mulheron, herself a bereaved parent, says, “After you have buried a child, what could possibly be more painful? In some ways, you’ve already hit rock bottom, so any other subsequent loss — whether that’s running for president or shifting U.S. policy or partisan bickering— nothing will ever meet or exceed the irrevocable pain of losing a child. You have nothing to lose.”
At the Republican National Convention in 1988, when George H. W. Bush was nominated for president, Barbara Bush spoke about how the couple coped with Robin’s death.
“The hardest thing we ever faced together was the loss of a child. … I was very strong over the months we were trying to save her – at least, I thought I was. I was just pretending. But when she was gone, I fell apart. But George wouldn’t let me retreat into my grief. He held me in his arms, and he made me share it and accept that his sorrow was as great as my own.”
Decades later, President Bush’s experience with bereavement after his daughter’s illness and death became motivation to shape his policies around the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In his first speech on the subject in March 1990, President Bush reflected on the question his family once faced when Robin was hospitalized for leukemia.
“We asked the doctor the same question every HIV family must ask – why, why was this happening to our beautiful little girl?” He continued, “There is only one way to deal with an individual who is sick: with dignity, compassion, care, confidentiality, and without discrimination.”
At the State of the Union on February 7, 2023, President Biden introduced his guests, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, parents of Tyre Nichols, a Black man killed by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop one month earlier. Reaching out to Mr. and Mrs. Wells and other bereaved parents in the audience, including Michael Brown Sr., the father of Michael Brown, a Black teenager who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
President Biden spoke to these bereaved parents and others not only as the President of the United States, but as a fellow parent who had lost both a daughter and a son. “As many of you personally know, there are no words to describe the heartache of losing a child,” he said, “but imagine, imagine if you lost that child at the hands of the law.”
After the death of his 46-year-old son Beau to brain cancer, then Vice President Biden spoke openly about his grief and later wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose, about his special relationship with his son.
“When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” he wrote. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours.”
After deciding not to enter the 2016 presidential race, Biden commented, “Dealing with the loss of Beau, any parent listening who’s lost a child, knows that you can’t — it doesn’t follow schedules of primaries and caucuses and contributors. Everybody grieves at a different pace.”
But the tragedy of losing Beau was not his first loss. Like other presidential leaders before him, he has suffered multiple losses in his life. In 1972, shortly after being elected Senator for the first time, Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and his 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in an automobile accident. Decades later, during his presidency, his experience offered some insight to grieving parents after the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
“During President Biden’s State of the Union address two weeks ago, he referenced Beau’s death and its aftermath, but it was vague, and many, if not most, viewers would have missed it,” Mulheron says.
“For example, too many of you lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen if your spouse gets cancer, your child gets sick, or if something happens to you.
“Will you have the money to pay your medical bills? Will you have to sell the house?”
According to Mulheron, “President Biden, like many other bereaved parents, particularly those who have lost a child to prolonged medical disease, may experience housing insecurity resulting from the exorbitant health care costs families endure to save their child.”
In a 2016 interview with CNN, then-Vice President Biden shared then-President Barack Obama’s insistence that the Biden’s not sell their home to pay for Beau’s medical bills.
“This is exactly why I founded Evermore. No grieving parent, children, sibling, or spouse should experience housing, job, food, or healthcare insecurity in the aftermath. To build a united nation, we must continue our commitment to family and community during the hardest times. Because that’s when it really counts, whether you’re the president of the United States or our neighbor.”
Other Resources
USA Today: Hoping to see Robin: The loss that forever changed former president George H.W. Bush
USA Today: Hoping to see Robin: The loss that forever changed former president George H.W. Bush
CBS News: Biden acknowledges Tyre Nichols’ parents during State of the Union: “Something good must come from this
The White House: Remarks of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address as Prepared for Delivery
CNN: CNN Biden says Obama offered financial help amid son’s illness
Jan 31, 2023 | Community, Family, Grief
By Brittiny Moore
Whether at a small church, or one that seats thousands, Black funerals – or homegoing celebrations – are expressions of mourning that honor Black life, love, and community. Homegoing celebrations are a fixture in Black communities, and elaborate and festive rituals that blend African ancestry with the Christian religion.
During the antebellum period, enslaved Africans were prohibited from performing funerals and traditional rituals, for fear that they would conspire to rebel. At the same time, enslaved Africans were responsible for preparing the body and funeral services for the deceased plantation owner’s family, according to Christian funeral traditions.
This disallowance led enslaved people to perform funeral ceremonies in “hush harbors” — hidden, sacred places where enslaved Africans could freely perform funeral rituals that fused African traditions with those of Christianity.
Today, homegoings continue to offer an environment where raw forms of Black culture can be freely exercised — through the singing of gospels and spirituals, the reading of scriptures, the adornment of T-shirts honoring the deceased, the final farewells at the close of the casket, and a feast, known as a repast, shared among the bereaved.
Although Black folks in the United States are diverse in their religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, geographic regions, and family traditions, when it comes to a homegoing service, many traditions remain consistent. These traditional practices stem from, and are deeply rooted in, African ancestry brought to America by the African people who survived the middle passage of the Atlantic slave trade.
These are five African funeral traditions reflected in homegoings today:
1. Homegoings are a community-wide affair.
Homegoing celebrations are often quite large, with family members, close friends, and even acquaintances coming from far and wide to attend services. Even distant or feuding family members are expected to put up a temporary truce to attend the homegoing and honor the life of a lost loved one. Many Black families hold services on Saturdays to allow as many people as possible to attend. In some cases, the service may be postponed to ensure everyone can be there.
The Black community historically, and still today, uses funerals to come together, show support for the bereft, share in each other’s pain, relish in the culture of their Blackness, and maintain connection to older African traditions.
It is typical for a death in Africa to bring the whole community — family, friends, fellow church goers, and strangers alike — together to participate in the entire funeral process, from pre-burial ceremonies to after-funeral bereavement rituals. When a death is announced, the community at-large flocks to the bereaved family to provide holistic support to help them navigate their grief and life without their loved one.
The community aids the grieving family with their basic needs — cooking and baking, assisting with buying groceries, and other errands — providing the grieving family space to mourn. A tent is raised on the homestead of the grieving family, and here the community gathers for prayer and grief circles in the days preceding the funeral. This is a period when the community surrounds the bereaved family with love, patience, and support, and this may include various traditions and social and religious practices.
2. Home goings include a “right burial” for the deceased.
As the name implies, a homegoing is the symbolic return of the human spirit back to its heavenly home. Therefore, it’s crucial for Black families to ensure their loved ones are able to have as smooth a transition to the afterlife as possible.
Homegoing are deliberately and meticulously elaborate celebrations of the deceased’s life, including music, dancing, flashy hats, and ornate decorations. It’s typical to find flower-filled altars as backdrops for an elegantly casketed loved one, oversized T-shirts honouring the deceased, slideshows celebrating the life of the deceased, and the placement of personal belongings on or in the casket.
These traditions are rooted in the African belief that death is a continuum of existence, rather than an end. African communities participate in several traditions and rituals to ensure the “right burial” is available to their ancestors, which is said to prevent the spirit of the deceased from haunting or exerting power over the living.
These rituals begin by preparing the homestead of the bereaved family, including turning all pictures of their loved one to face the wall and smearing ashes on the windows to prevent the deceased from viewing themselves as their body is cleansed and prepared for burial. This is followed by body-removing rituals, so as to confuse the dead, who may want to find their way back to their body. These rituals include taking the body through a hole in the wall, removing the body feet-first, and taking a zig-zag path to the burial site. During burial, the deceased is dressed and buried with personal items to take with them in the afterlife.
3. A posh coffin is a hallmark of a Homegoing ritual.
Most families spare no expense for a homegoing service, commonly opting for an upscale casket for their loved one. The casket is the aspect of a homegoing where families will go all out, many deciding to spend a sizable sum of money, if possible.
Despite the hefty price tag of most funeral services, the overall cost of a homegoing is not often viewed negatively. Rather, many Black families are happy to indulge in traditions and ceremonies for a collective celebration in memory of a lost, loved family member.
African funeral ceremonies are akin to homegoing’s, in that extravagance is imperative to a “right” burial — so much so, that one business in Ghana has made something quite remarkable out of it. The group is affectionately known as “fantasy” coffin makers, crafting caskets in the shapes of animals, cars, airplanes, locomotives, and much more.
These fantasy coffins are designed to reflect the hobbies, and even jobs of the deceased, allowing loved ones to be buried in a casket that represents their passions and livelihoods. This allows surviving loved ones an even stronger connection to the personality and legacy of the deceased.
4. Homegoing’s include a ring shout to bind the grieving and support the deceased in their transition.
Upon arrival, homegoing guests are met by the church choir as they sing hymns about God, hope, and the healing strength of the Lord. The hymns and gospels, accompanied by the organ and a cadence of drums, echo through church halls, filling the guests with spirit and moving them through song. Guests sing, clap, raise their hands in praise and prayer, and even dance.
Music plays an integral part in setting the tone for a homegoing and provides those in attendance the space to freely express their emotions. Music has the power to unify mourners and allow those in attendance to offer a choral embrace to the family suffering a loss.
In African countries, this song and dance is prominent at burial ceremonies in the form of the ring shout — a conjure-rooted practice characterized by dancing in a circle, chorus singing, hand clapping, and percussion. Moving together in a circle keeps mourners in close rhythmic connection and offers the same choral embrace heard at homegoing’s.
Used by many enslaved communities in the antebellum south, the ring shout was considered a sacred dance and song, often in the form of a call-and-response that allowed Black folks to express themselves in safety and brought joy in the face of grief to those who participated. The ring shout is believed to allow folks to embody intimacy with their ancestors. It’s seen as a ritual with the power to open a portal for collective mourning and celebration.
5. Homegoing’s conclude with a repast to nourish the grieving and celebrate life.
After the homegoing service and burial of a loved one, family and friends gather once again to find joy in the act of breaking bread and celebrating Black life at the repast — an occasion that focuses on food and fellowship and signifies the intimately intersected feelings of melancholy and life anew without the physical presence of their loved one. Traditionally, the food is prepared by the home church as a gift to the bereaved. By sharing a meal with loved ones and friends, the bereft are given space to be vulnerable in their grief.
The repast offers a mourning community nourishment and space to repair the mind, body, and soul while immersed in an atmosphere of love and support. During the repast, there’s often a purposeful shift in mood and a shift to celebration, sometimes even a party.
A post-funeral meal is also customary in African funeral traditions. After a funeral, the whole community is invited to break bread at the deceased’s home.
A cleansing ritual is typically practiced before entering the home for the feast. Everyone must wash the dust and other remnants of the graveyard off of themselves at the gate of the house.
Some traditions include cutting pieces of aloe to be placed in the cleansing water, with the belief that it can remove bad luck. Often, community churches are involved in this ritual, using sprinkles of holy water to cleanse guests of their impurities. This cleansing helps ensure that the spirit of the deceased can pass on to their next life.
Death has historically marked the African American experience, from the deadly voyages of the Middle Passage to the violence of enslavement, and persists today at an alarming rate – Black Americans are three times as likely as white Americans to have two or more family members die by the time they reach the age of 30.
However, even in the face of great loss and cultural separation death, enslaved Africans and their descendants preserved sacred ancestral practices and infused them with new traditions. Today, homegoing provide the same refuge as the slave ceremonies once did, and allow emotions to be on full display – ranging from an outpouring of joy to the outcry of sorrow.
Homegoing’s offer Black communities the warm embrace in death, and provide Black families the love, support, and joy they need after suffering the loss of a loved one.
Resource:
Homegoings, a film by Christine Turner
Dec 20, 2022 | Advocacy, Appropriations, Community, Data Collection, Family, Federal Government, Grief, Research
In 2022, our community of supporters has grown by more than 50 percent for the second consecutive year. Our movement consists of people from every corner of America – from truck drivers to professors to homeschoolers and executives. We unite in solidarity to create a more compassionate world for those who will follow us. What do we do with the pain of loss? We create change.
We’ve done that in 2022, and we are on the cusp of much more. This year has been the most consequential yet in the advancement of bereavement policy, and we could not have made it this far without you. As we reflect on 2022 and look towards 2023, there are some bright spots we want to share with you:
- We are winning mindshare among our nation’s most esteemed federal health leaders. In an event hosted by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), our founder and executive director Joyal Mulheron, had the distinguished opportunity to provide a private briefing to key U.S. Department of Health & Human Services agencies on bereavement policy, research, and statistics. As an emerging social and health concern, it is imperative that government leaders understand the complexity of bereavement policy and its impact as it crafts and prioritizes its response.
- With Evermore’s support, Congress is directing the federal government to establish credentialing standards for grief therapists. Supporting bereaved people requires specialized training, which is not currently required for mental health practitioners. We are thrilled that Congress has directed federal health leaders to create universal eligibility standards to bring consistent and quality care to all grieving people.
- For the first time, Congress is encouraging CDC to collect bereavement data because of Evermore’s advocacy. Adding bereavement exposure to CDC data collection provides key demographic data and trends by race, geography, chronic disease risk factors, identity, and age, for example. A recurring data set of this magnitude will facilitate a better understanding of the scope of the problems connected to bereavement, and it will inform future policymaking and program priorities and investments.
- With Evermore’s support, Congress is directing federal health leaders to write the nation’s first report on grief and bereavement. COVID-19 and the nation’s concurrent mortality epidemics have impacted millions of Americans, yet grief and bereavement are not prioritized in our nation’s health policies, programs, or funding initiatives. This report will provide a holistic evaluation of the scope of the issue, the populations impacted, and the interventions offered to support grieving children and families.
- We are fighting for consumer rights, protections, and price transparency in the funeral industry. In almost every state in the nation, funeral homes are not required to publicly share their prices before a bereaved family walks through their doors, thereby leaving newly bereaved families vulnerable to price gouging and spending on services they don’t need or want. Evermore is preparing comments to submit to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on why funeral homes should be required to share pricing information publicly. This proposed amendment may substantially protect bereaved families during times of loss and crisis.
- Evermore releases America’s Forgotten Orphans, a free 58-page report, to bring childhood bereavement to the attention of federal lawmakers and agencies. In collaboration with Penn State and the University of Southern California, we identified a 22-year trend in increasing childhood bereavement across every state in the nation and among every racial and ethnic population. Childhood bereavement, and bereavement generally, have been a long-standing public health and social concern hiding in plain sight.
- Evermore releases free fact sheets and tools to calculate childhood bereavement in your own jurisdiction. We’ve developed 51 state fact sheets that help state and local lawmakers assess and better understand childhood bereavement in their jurisdictions. In addition, we’ve provided tools allowing local champions to calculate the prevalence of childhood bereavement in their school or Congressional districts.
- We are bringing the nation’s experts in grief and bereavement to you. This year we launched In the Know, a monthly video series featuring some of the nation’s experts in grief and bereavement, including luminaries like Megan Devine, one of our nation’s most respected grief leaders, and Dr. Toni Miles, who helped pioneer bereavement epidemiology.
- Evermore’s national grief directory continues to be a top resource for grieving children and families. Our comprehensive grief directory features more than 300 nonprofit resources across every state in the nation and continues to grow.
- Our weekly newsletter keeps our community connected, learning, and engaged. This year we launched a weekly newsletter to provide insights on bereavement science, policy, and community action. Our readership continues to grow as our stories and information aim to transform our nation’s systems toward supporting the lives of bereaved children and families.
We are not sitting on the sidelines and hoping change will come. We are actively working to advance these critical developments with respect and credibility each day. As we close out 2022, we want to thank you for making our work possible. Unlike other health and social concerns, bereavement policy and law are not funding priorities for any philanthropist or foundation we can find. Instead, people like you solely fund our movement.
We will continue our work building a healthy, prosperous, and equitable future for all bereaved people in 2023. If you would like to support our work in the coming year, you can make a donation here.
We wish you and yours a warm, healthy, and restorative 2023!
Dec 12, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief
This list was developed in collaboration with Dr. Donna Gaffney, an expert in children’s grief.
A tragic event is difficult to comprehend for even the most mature, knowledgeable adult. For children and adolescents faced with trying to understand such an overwhelming experience, the task is even more daunting. How can a young person grasp the enormity, meaning, and consequences of an occurrence that brought death, injury, or harm into his life? These are the times, as parents and teachers, when words fail us. Sometimes we are consumed with our own emotions and other times, we cannot seem to begin these important conversations. But literature can give us a starting point. Because stories are a form of medicine. They offer catharsis, they hold a mirror so we can better see our own experiences, and they invite us to question, demand answers, get angry, feel sad, and somehow learn to cope and grow and move forward in our experience. Because books can be such a powerful balm during a time of grief, here’s our list of favorite books for kids and teens that explore the difficult experiences of death, grief, loss, and bereavement.
The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown (Harper-Collins, 2016)
Ages 4 and up
Finding a still warm but dead bird, a group of children give it a fitting burial and every day, until they forget, come again to the woods to sing to the dead bird and place fresh flowers on its grave. An excellent book handling the subject of death in which all young children have a natural interest.
The Heart and The Bottle by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel Books, 2010)
Ages 4 and up
There is a wonder and magic to childhood. We don’t realize it at the time, of course… yet the adults in our lives do. They encourage us to see things in the stars and to find joy in colors and laughter as we play. But what happens when that special someone who encourages such wonder and magic is no longer around? We can hide, we can place our heart in a bottle and grow up… or we can find another special someone who understands the magic. And we can encourage them to see things in the stars and find joy among colors and laughter. This remarkable book is a touching and resonant tale that will speak to the hearts of children and parents alike.
Listen by Holly McGhee (Roaring Book Press, 2019)
Ages 4-7
Experience the power of listening to your heart, paying attention, love, and empathy in Listen, a simple and tender picture book by Holly M. McGhee and Pascal Lemaitre, the creators of the New York Times bestseller Come With Me. The buoyant verses and gentle art show young readers how to connect with the whole world. From exploring sensorial surroundings ― what you see, breathe, hear, taste, and feel ― to becoming aware of our shared experiences.
A Shelter for Sadness by Anne Booth (Peachtree Press, 2021)
Ages 5 and up
A small boy creates a shelter for his sadness so that he can visit it whenever he needs to, and the two of them can cry, talk, or just sit. The boy knows that one day his sadness may come out of the shelter, and together they will look out at the world and see how beautiful it is. In this timely consideration of sadness and mental health, Anne Booth offers a beautiful depiction of how children (and everyone else) must care for their emotions and give attention to their grief on a regular basis.
Sweet Sweet Memory by Jacqueline Woodson and Floyd Cooper (Jump at the Sun, 2007)
Grades K-3
Now that Grandpa’s gone, Sarah tries to remember what he used to say about the garden. Like us, he would tell her, a part of it never dies. Everything and everyone goes on and on. But Sarah feels very sad, even though Grandma and all the relatives are with her, sharing stories and hugs. How can life go on without Grandpa? As summer slips into fall, Grandma and Sarah share a rich garden harvest and their sweet, sweet memories of Grandpa. The stories and memories of loved ones, Sarah learns, are what keeps everything and everyone going on and on. This spare and beautiful picture book balances sadness and mourning with the comforting notion of the continuity of all life.
The Scar by Charlotte Moundic (Candlewick Press, 2011)
Grades K-4
When the boy in this story wakes up to find that his mother has died, he is overwhelmed with sadness, anger, and fear that he will forget her. He shuts all the windows to keep in his mother’s familiar smell and scratches open the cut on his knee to remember her comforting voice. He doesn’t know how to speak to his dad anymore, and when Grandma visits and throws open the windows, it’s more than the boy can take — until his grandmother shows him another way to feel that his mom’s love is near. With tenderness, touches of humor, and unflinching emotional truth, The Scar captures the loneliness of grief through the eyes of a child, rendered with sympathy and charm.
Currently out of print but available in libraries or through sellers like Thiftbooks.com and AbeBooks.
The Color of Absence: 12 Stories About Loss and Hope edited by James Howe (Simon & Schuster)
Grades 6-10
“In adolescence, we feel our losses as if for the first time, with a greater depth of pain and drama than we are aware of having experienced ever before,” writes James Howe in his introduction to this collection of short stories which celebrated fiction authors for young adults explore the many faces of loss — the common thread they share and the hope that is borne through change. Featuring stories by Naomi Shihab Nye, Jacqueline Woodson, Chris Lynch, Walter Dean Myers, Annette Curtis Klause, Norma Fox Mazer, and others.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Harper Festival, 2006)
Ages 9 and up
This Newbery Medal-winning novel revolves around two friends. Jess Aarons is eager to start fifth grade and wants to become the fastest runner at school. All seems to be on track, until the new girl in class, Leslie Burke, leaves all the boys in the dust, including Jess. But the two become fast friends and spend most of their days in the woods behind Leslie’s house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs. It will take the love of his family and the strength that Leslie has given him for Jess to be able to deal with his grief. Author Katherine Paterson wrote the book for her son, who lost a friend in a tragic accident at the age of 8.
Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes edited by Nora Shalaway Carpenter & Rocky Callen (Penguin Randomhouse, April 2023)
Teen & Young Adults
In this inspiring, unflinching, and hope-filled mixed-genre collection, sixteen diverse and notable authors draw on their own lived experiences with mental health conditions to create works of fiction that will uplift and empower you, break your heart and stitch it back together stronger than before. Through powerful prose, verse, and graphics, the characters in this anthology defy stereotypes and remind readers that living with a mental health condition doesn’t mean that you’re defined by it. Each story is followed by a note from its author to the reader, and comprehensive back matter includes bios for the contributors as well as a collection of relevant resources. A discussion guide for parents, young people, and teachers will be available.
