Five new releases have landed in bookstores and audible programs recently. Each one delivers the topics of grief and loss through unflinching honesty with the author’s personal story—some even include moments of humor. We encourage you to read and share with bereaved family and friends these selected books.
Dina Gachman’s self-help book, So Sorry for Your Loss: How I Learned to Live with Grief and Other Grave Concerns, was released on April 11, 2023. Since losing her mother to cancer in 2018 and her sister to alcoholism less than three years later, the author and journalist has dedicated herself to understanding what it means to grieve, healing after loss, and the ways we stay connected to those we miss. Publisher’s Weekly called Gachman’s book “a poignant, personal exploration of grief.”
Regarding her esteem for Joyal Mulheron and the nonprofit she founded, Evermore, Gachman said, “after going through a traumatic in-home hospice experience with my mom, I was so happy to discover Evermore, and find out that there are people out there trying to reform bereavement care in the U.S. Until I went through it, I had no clue how emotionally, physically, and spiritually depleting and devastating it could be. I was so moved by Joyal’s story, and by the stories of others I spoke to for the book. So many of us out there are suffering through caregiving or the loss of a loved one, with little help, and Evermore’s mission is one I fully embrace. We need more help and more understanding around death, grief, and loss at home, at work, and as a society.”
In an excerpt from Gachman’s chapter about hospice, the reader learns more about Joyal Mulheron’s own struggles with the system after the loss of her infant daughter Eleanora:
Bereavement care in America is broken, if it even exists, says Joyal Mulheron, founder of Evermore, a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of bereaved families through research, policy, and education. … She saw firsthand how “broken” the system was when insurance companies would call her during her daughter’s pediatric in-home hospice and ask how many days or weeks it would be until her daughter passed away. Mulheron said she had twenty-three providers, but she was the one doing the caloric calculations, making sure her daughter was getting enough nutrition to keep her comfortable. … During that time, the company she worked for asked for her resignation, since she was caring for her daughter and could not devote herself to the job as she once had. Now, she is working to change those systems that were so broken for her, and for so many others.
After avoiding her grief from the loss of her father to bone cancer when Laurel Braitman was a child, the New York Times bestselling author eventually faced—and embraced—her pain in her thirties. What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love, released by Simon & Schuster on March 14, 2023, is referred to as the “hero’s journey for our times.”
Her literal journey through mountainous regions, encountering life-threatening wildfires, and visiting with others about their grief along the way, Braitman’s powerful memoir “teaches us that hope is a form of courage, one that can work as an all- purpose key to the locked doors of your dreams.”
She shared how she, like so many of the children she met with, felt shame after their loss. “I became a facilitator to help grieving kids who lost siblings or who were ill … What I learned from them was that shame is really just another way to control the uncontrollable.”
Released on April 4, 2023, A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung, a Korean-American writer who was adopted by white parents is personal and addresses an important topic. Chung not only writes about the loss of both her father and mother to illness within the span of a few years but tackles the issues of class and the inequities of medical care in the United States. She witnessed this firsthand, especially when her father was dying, noting his death was “no doubt exacerbated by his lack of health insurance and limited access to care in the small Oregon town” where Chung grew up.
Chung shared an interview with LitHub journalist Hannah Bae. “I felt compelled to write about grief but also this common American experience, where so many people in this country who are not fantastically wealthy end up facing illness or loss without all the resources and support that we need.”
On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory by Jennifer Senior, released on April 4, 2023, is based on an intriguing story around the journal of a young man Bob who died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. Atlantic writer Senior interviewed Bob’s parents after his death. Years later, she shared with NPR’s Rachel Martin her desire to find the truth behind why the journal ended up with Bob’s fiancé Jen rather than his mother. “[His mother] was so upset and said, ‘How can you give away the last thing our son ever wrote?’ It was – it is a chance to have – to hear his voice one more time, to, in a weird way, be in conversation with him …”
The nagging question for Senior became, why didn’t Jen give the journal back when Bob’s mother asked for it? On Grief answers that and provides a larger conversation about the book’s title.
The Archaeology of Loss: Life, Love and the Art of Dying by Sarah Tarlow, released on April 20, 2023, shares the archaeologist’s shock and grief when faced with the sudden loss of her husband Mark. Called “a fiercely honest and unique memoir,” it reveals how nothing could have prepared Tarlow, after years of studying death in her research, for the loss of someone she loved. About writing her memoir, Tarlow said:
“When you find your husband lying dead, you think you will not forget a single detail of that moment. As an archaeologist, I like to get my facts right … I am excavating my own unreliable memory. I cannot go back and check.”
Child deaths, especially those that occur in mass tragedies, are the subject of significant news coverage. Frank Ochberg, chairman emeritus of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Michigan State University, said that journalists have an important role to play in covering child death and trauma.
A pioneer in trauma research shares how news stories can provide solace
Not every child death makes front page news, but the headlines seem to blare details about another one daily. Mass shootings and their anniversaries. Teen suicides. Car accidents. Drug overdoses. Police shootings. Military deaths. And the list goes on.
And just about every time those deaths make the headlines, news reporters place a call, attempting to reach out to the families for comments about their loved ones.
Some might consider those reporters opportunistic as they attempt to contact families at their lowest depths for a quick sound bite. And, certainly, some families won’t want to field those phone calls as they grieve.
Photo courtesy of Frank Ochberg.
But in a recent interview with Evermore, Frank Ochberg, chairman emeritus of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Michigan State University, said that journalists have an important role to play in covering child death and trauma.
When done right, Ochberg says journalists’ calls to families and the subsequent news coverage can help families and communities as they mourn the death of a child.
Pioneer, founding father
A trained psychiatrist and a founding father of modern psychotraumatology, Ochberg’s resume is extensive. He is a founding member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, founder of the Trust for Trauma Journalism, a former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan State.
He edited the first text on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and served on the committee that defined PTSD, according to the Dart Center’s website. He supported school staff after the 1999 Columbine school shooting.
And, through his volunteer work with the Red Cross, he’s helped victims of disasters, such as earthquakes and plane crashes, sometimes connecting them with the news media for interviews.
The Dart Center is dedicated to “informed, innovative and ethical news reporting” on violence, conflict and tragedy, according to its website. It’s touched as many as 10,000 journalists around the world, providing resources to help them do their job well.
The first act comes immediately following the disaster or death. Those stories serve a need beyond simply alerting a community to a breaking news event, Ochberg said. People seek out news that’s shocking or sad, he said.
“Unfortunately, there’s something that we can call paradoxical pleasure on the part of the reader in seeing something that is horrifying, but being attracted to it,” Ochberg said.
“It exists in every culture, and it goes back to Bible stories and fairy tales and campfire scary stuff. It’s a way that our species has evolved, introducing our children to terrible themes and images and getting them to laugh about it, giggle about it. We apparently need exposure at an early age to these images, whether they are mythical or real … It serves a purpose,” Ochberg continued.
“Now it’s about the impact of what happened,” Ochberg said. “It could include lessons for others who care about the post traumatic stress disorder; good ways that communities or families have healed; ways a troubled family failed to heal.”
The third act of coverage is reserved for those occasions where there’s no good news report or lesson to be learned other than evil happens. Ochberg gives the Holocaust as one example. “In Act 3, you’re not trying to find the silver lining,” he said.
Evermore’s Joyal Mulheron said it’s important for these kinds of stories to acknowledge the ongoing struggles bereaved parents and families face.
“Just because the headlines will move on doesn’t mean the families are,” Mulheron said. “It can be affirming for news coverage to acknowledge this kind of profound grief and how it continues. As one mother put it, bereaved parents make “a daily decision to accept grief and keep going.””
Writing the unspeakable
In the case of a child death, the best stories come when all parties are mindful about the role they play.
And those articles and relationships often begin when reporters contact family members for quotes for a story about a news-making death. Tip sheets for journalists and survivors that were created by Queen’s University Belfast, which the Dart Center links to on its website, spell out what should happen next.
Journalists, for example, should avoid cold-calling a family and find a go-between instead. They also should be prepared to take no for an answer. “Remember,” it says, “that your request will evoke powerful and painful emotions, which may include anger.”
Victims and survivors, the tip sheet recommends, should feel free to say no to an interview or to decline to answer specific questions that they find intrusive. It also recommends that interviewees take care of themselves and have a friend or family member there to support them once the interview is over.
When it works, victims, survivors and family members can find some solace and journalists can write a story with deep impact.
“So often, a person who has been traumatized and aggrieved lacks the language to explain themselves to others,” Ochberg said. “… Being scared speechless is true. Some people lack fluency when we need it most.”
He added: “We have to encourage the journalists, both the mature journalists and the up and coming ones, … that they give words to what many people find unspeakable, but are necessary to communicate.
Evermore’s founder to speak at journalism conference
Raising the visibility about the long-lasting effects on parents and siblings after a child dies is a central goal for Evermore, and Joyal Mulheron, Evermore’s founder and executive director, will do just that when she addresses healthcare journalists in early May.
Mulheron will attend the Association of Health Care Journalists’ annual conference in Baltimore and participate in a workshop-style session aimed at helping reporters recognize that the far-reaching impact of a child’s death is an urgent public health crisis.
Health Journalism 2019 will draw hundreds of the country’s top healthcare reporters to Baltimore for three-and-a-half days of workshops, panels, roundtables and field trips that cover the latest topics in medical science, health policy, public health, medical education, consumer health and the business of healthcare, according to the association’s website.
“There is so much coverage, and rightly so, about child death, but there is often very little follow-up about what happens to grieving families,” Mulheron said. “We’re eager for the opportunity to share what we know about the aftermath and why this is truly an invisible public health crisis.”
During the workshop, Mulheron will share her expertise and information about researchers and other sources where reporters can get more information for stories they may be working on.
After a child’s death, studies show that grieving parents are more likely to suffer from depression, marital disruption, psychiatric hospitalization and premature death. For siblings, researchers also link the death of a brother or sister to a higher risk for agitated depression, chronic illness, guilt, lower self-esteem and performance at work and school and premature death.
At the same time, there is little safety net for families who need time to mourn their child. The Family and Medical Leave Act, for example, does not list child loss as a qualifying event for job protection, and more than half of employers allow their workers to take just three days of paid leave to grieve a child.
“These are the kinds of eye-opening issues and statistics that I plan to share during the workshop,” Mulheron said. “We hope that the information will encourage journalists at the conference to start looking more deeply at this very important issue.”
The panel will be moderated by Jayne O’Donnell, the award-winning healthcare policy reporter for USA Today. O’Donnell has explored the causes of child death in her work and was behind a series of articles in 1996 that prompted the federal government to make airbags safer for children. O’Donnell first wrote about Mulheron and her work in 2016.
Two other guests will join Mulheron:
Brie Zeltner is a health reporter at the Cleveland Plain Dealer with an interest in the lifelong health effects of poverty on children and families. She has written extensively about lead poisoning and infant mortality.
George Hobor is a program officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a New Jersey-based nonprofit focused on health. He works to promote healthy and more equitable communities, “using the power of data and research to find solutions to social-economic conditions that affect community health, such as residential segregation, housing security, and social mobility,” according to the foundation’s website.
