The Grieving Garden: Living with the Death of a Child »

Suzanne Redfern is the president of Redfern Ranches, Inc., a diversified farming and cattle operation in the Central Valley of California. Her thirty-two-year-old daughter died of lung cancer in 1999. Redfern lives in Palo Alto, California and on Redfern Ranch.

Susan K. Gilbert was a pharmaceutical executive for many years in California's Silicon Valley and is now very active in the community, serving on a board for the San Francisco homeless. Her eighteen-year-old daughter was killed in an automobile accident in 1993. Susan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Every year, some two million parents in the U.S. suffer the death of a son or daughter. The unnatural sequence of the child's preceding the parent in death creates a wrenching loss and overwhelming emotional and spiritual disorientation. Most of these bereaved parents find relief from their isolation only in the company of others like themselves. The Grieving Garden offers support, understanding, and, ultimately, comfort and hope from those who have sowed the same tears over the death of a child.

The Grieving Garden is a ground-breaking book that invites bereaved parents into personal conversations with a diverse group of fathers and mothers who share the same loss. The text is free of distracting and heavy-handed editorializing, "expert" opinion, or unwanted advice. Instead, readers are welcomed into a community of common understanding-one they may enter at will, at their own pace, for reassurance and hope.

Why the Grieving Garden     IX
How to Read This Book     XIII
About Us     XV
In Brief     XVII
Acknowledgments     XXI
Hanging On     1
Setting Out     3
Surviving the First Few Days     4
Answering The Question     31
Marking Anniversaries     40
Meeting Your Child's Friends     55
Taking Stock     65
Seeking Support     67
Setting Out     69
Rethinking Faith     70
Pursuing Counseling     85
Responding to Sympathy     94
Consulting with Psychics     110
Considering Suicide     115
Taking Stock     120
Redefining Home     123
Setting Out     125
Preserving the Marriage     126
Involving Siblings     132
Overprotecting Surviving Children     140
Encountering the Void     143
Taking Stock     147
Looking Within     149
Setting Out     151
Fighting Despair     152
Pondering Your Identity     161
Feeling Indifferent to Life     166
Battling Guilt     174
Working with Anger     188
Taking Stock     194
Grasping the Silver Cord     195
Setting Out     197
Continuing the Connection     198
Sensing the Presence     207
Losing the Intimacy     214
Fanning the Spark     216
Reflecting the Personality     228
Taking Stock     231
Reaching Out     233
Setting Out     235
Sharing One True Thing     235
More about Us     259