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We hear a lot about grief as though it is one experience with a predictable path. But it isn't.​ Grief can come with the death of someone we love, but even those losses are profoundly different. Losing a parent is different from losing a child. Losing a spouse or partner is different from losing a sibling or a friend. The relationship matters. The circumstances matter. The life you shared matters.

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And grief doesn't only begin with death.​ We grieve relationships, marriages, friendships, pregnancies, health, independence, homes, careers, safety, identity, dreams, and versions of our lives we thought we were going to have. We can grieve someone who is still alive. We can begin grieving before a loss ever happens. We can even grieve something we cannot quite explain to anyone else. That is why I couldn't write this book from only one perspective.

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MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED CONVERSATIONS.

MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED STORIES.

While writing GET REAL ABOUT™ GRIEF, I spoke with more than one hundred people about loss.

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I listened and asked questions.

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I heard stories of heartbreak, love, anger, guilt, loneliness, relief, fear, resilience, laughter, hope, and healing. I spoke with people whose losses were recent and people who had carried theirs for decades. People who had lost someone suddenly and people who had watched a loss coming. People whose grief was recognized by everyone around them and people who felt as though nobody understood why they were grieving at all.

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Those conversations changed this book.

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They reminded me again and again that there is no single story of grief, because there is no single way to love, to lose, or to heal.

So rather than trying to fit every kind of grief into one broad conversation, I gave these experiences room of their own.

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BECAUSE DIFFERENT GRIEF DESERVES

DIFFERENT CONVERSATIONS

That is why you will find individual chapters about losing a parent, a child, a spouse or partner, a sibling, and a friend.

You will also find conversations about suicide loss, pet loss, miscarriage and infertility, divorce, losing a job or career, losing a home, changes in health and independence, anticipatory grief, caregiving, identity, guilt, trauma, cultural and spiritual experiences of grief, and so much more.

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Some chapters may feel immediately familiar.

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Others may introduce you to a kind of grief you have never personally experienced.

Both matter. Because understanding grief isn't only about understanding our own pain. It is also about becoming better at recognizing the pain of the people around us.

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Sometimes the greatest gift we can give another person is simply understanding that what they are feeling is real.

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THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT "GETTING OVER IT"

One of my biggest goals in writing GET REAL ABOUT™ GRIEF was to move away from the idea that grieving is something we complete. I actually removed the word "healing" from my subtitle a number of times because as I quicky learned, with grief

there is no finish line, and no perfect timetable.

And healing does not require forgetting the person, relationship, dream, or life you lost.

Instead, this book explores what grief can look like, why it can affect us in ways we never expected, what may help us move through it, and how people begin finding their way forward while still honoring what came before.

I wanted to understand not only how people grieve, but how grieving people heal.

What helps?

What doesn't?

What do we wish someone had told us?

How do we carry love and loss at the same time?

How do we begin living fully again without feeling as though moving forward means leaving something, or someone, behind?

Those questions became the heart of this book.

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YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK FROM BEGINNING TO END

Grief isn't linear, and this book doesn't ask you to be either. I intentionally created a book which was bite size. You can begin with the chapter that brought you here then skip the chapters that aren't yours right now. You can return to them later when you need them, or when someone you love does.

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• Underline something.

• Write in the margins.

• Buy a companion journal to take notes.

• Put the book down when you've had enough.

• Pick it back up when you're ready.

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There is no right way to read a book about grief, just as there is no right way to grieve.

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27 CHAPTERS. MANY KINDS OF GRIEF.

ONE VERY HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

[CHAPTER LIST / INTERACTIVE CHAPTER GRID]

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Each chapter explores a different experience of grief through honest conversations, real stories, practical understanding, and the voices of people who have lived it. Because your grief may not look like someone else's.

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Your healing may not either.

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And that's exactly why this book matters. GET REAL ABOUT™ GRIEF isn't here to tell you how to get over what you've lost.

It's here to help you understand what you're feeling, remind you that you aren't alone in feeling it, and help you find your own way from heartache to hope to healing.