Reader’s Comments
GriefSpace is an online gallery space that welcomes pilgrims. I will share thoughts, readings, and resources I’ve have found helpful in facing end-of-life issues and in grief work. Just as in an art museum, we will have visiting and permanent exhibits for your viewing. I invite readers and visitors to GriefSpace as if it were in a gallery to linger, view, contemplate and be inspired.
I look forward to hearing from you here.
Letters from Readers
From a Hospice Chaplain of 45 Years
“I have been a hospice chaplain for 45 years and bought this set for a hospice nurse who just lost her 20-year-old son. I am no longer full time for Maine General Hospice (74 yrs. old after all!) but offer pastoral support to an increasing elder population in Central
Maine. If you send me more copies, I will certainly get them out into the community that desperately needs this kind of resource. Thank you so much!”
Sharing the Loss of a Close Friend
“An experience of a close friend’s death is not one that at some point you lay down. There are gifts to be found by staying with the grief and the loss, the emptiness that will never be filled and the laugh that will never be heard again. And you found a way to meaning, and way to share your experience with others, to make of loss a cornucopia of compassion and healing, the alchemy that turns tears to gold and grief back into love. Your beautiful story of “Buddy’s Bench” would be your vehicle through which to share with others the permission to grieve, and ways to make the grieving process one that enhances our lives, enriches them, and brings us closer to the one we have lost, so that we not only metaphorically stand vigil over their dying, but we find them among us again in their living. Not in the miracle of the flesh resurrected, but in the sacred halls of memory and the chambers of the heart where we touch the life once again.”
A Night on Buddy’s Bench Helps Grieving Families Come Together
“Even though grief and loss are a universal experience we often experience it in our own personal silos. Below are few examples from readers on their experience of sharing A Night on Buddy’s Bench in times of grief or in preparation of loss. The reading of the book or listening to the audio version with their family was a way to stay out of isolation and be together to seek solace and connection.”
A Father’s Sharing with his Grown Children
“We sat around the big table in the dining room, the grandchildren were playing in another room. There was plenty of coffee and there was deep, heavy sadness piling up in the room. My grown children have just lost their mom. That’s when I remembered, I have A Night on Buddy’s Bench and with the turning of each page, a new presence grew. There were others who shared our grief. It was never going to make sense and we would never truly understand, but like the old man, we could feel all the loss and sadness, experience what actually did happen and be alive. We could be sad, and we could be whole.”
Parents Want to Prepare Their Grown Children for Their End of Life
“I have plans to give a book to each of our three grown sons for the holidays this year. My husband and I are encouraging healthy conversation regarding our end of life & enhancing their thinking accordingly. We are both in our 70s now & in good health, but the reality of our deaths must be brought out the closet & shared with them. This is as much a part of our being good parents as when we taught them how to tie their shoes. They are learning to accept the honesty of this conversation & your book will be an additional tool in their toolboxes for their emotional health and growth into understanding their own life’s journey.”
Honoring the Passing of a Family Elder – Reading it Together
“I was so happy to read Buddy’s Bench, I felt so calm … I liked the sound of everything in the harbor, the mist, the waves, the seabirds, the music, and the owl. The music was so nice to hear. First, I read the book, then I played the audio version, and then my daughter read the book out loud, and we just listened to the music. It gave me such a feeling of well-being.”
From a Library We Donated To
“Perhaps the best gift anyone has ever given me, in all my years on this earth. Thank you so much. Your thought about donating it to the library here is generous, and excellent, but this book is going to stay on my own shelves for a very long time to come. I love its powerful message about meditation as much as the guidance on grief. Clearly something I will be returning to time and again, and I have no doubt something new will emerge for me every time.”