Grief Motherhood

A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In Yiyun Li’s stories, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces—death, violence, estrangement—come to light. And even everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details.

Most people who talk about motherhood start out by telling you how much they always wanted to be a mom. Not Lisa-Jo Baker. She was 18 and growing up in South Africa when her mom died, and she swore she would never have kids. But then she fell in love with an American boy with cowboy-green eyes, married him, and now, a decade and two continents later, they have three. This is the unlikely story of how she got there.

With raw vulnerability, a deep well of wisdom, and the practical knowledge of someone who's been there, Kim Erickson walks grieving moms through the life-after-death process from how to plan the funeral to how to deal with friends, family, holidays, and birthdays. This is a profound and powerful resource that's invaluable for the mom who has lost a child - and for her friends and family who want to love her well.

When Lizzie Pickering's young son Harry died in 2000, she set out on a journey to understand how she could survive her grief and learn to live with it. In When Grief Equals Love, she details the lessons she’s learned from her own experiences and those of others, who share their thoughts in this moving and tender book.

Mathildas Sohn stirbt 34 Tage nach der Geburt. Und mit ihm alles, was vorher war. Seither geht sie wie durch Scherben. Sie funktioniert – ja, aber nur aus Gewohnheit. Man schickt sie fort, in die Sonne, ans Meer, als könnte sie die Trauer einfach zu Hause lassen. Mathilda kehrt zurück in den Alltag, auf die Bühne, spricht fremde Texte, trägt fremde Gesichter – und verliert sich darin selbst.

Secrets shared can bind hearts, but secrets concealed? That's a tale of its own. The year is 1884. Robert Cooke and his pregnant wife Freya tragically lose their two sons to scarlet fever, sending Freya into self-imposed isolation for the safety of their unborn child. Cut off from each other, their shared grief becomes a silent, destructive foe. A decade later and now a successful businessman, Robert conceives a poignant tribute to his lost sons - a pleasure garden. But in withholding his vision from Freya, he widens the gulf between them.

Amelia Morris's Wildcat is an uproariously funny, surprisingly touching story of one woman’s journey through motherhood and female friendship, in a society that plays fast and loose with information. New mother, aspiring writer, and former shopgirl Leanne has lost her way. As she struggles...

"Congratulations on the resurrection of your life", a colleague wrote to Emily Rapp Black when she announced the birth of her second child. The line made Rapp Black pause. Her first child, a boy named Ronan, had died from Tay-Sachs disease before he turned three years old, an experience she wrote about in her second book, The Still Point of the Turning World. Since that time, her life had changed utterly.

A rich, bighearted debut that takes us from working-class Staten Island in the wake of the September 11th attacks to moneyed London a decade later, revealing a story of loss, motherhood, and love, perfect for fans of Gail Honeyman and Ann Napolitano.

Korean immigrant Mina Pak Johnson is clearing out the last of her husband’s things when she finds a picnic basket in his closet—a long-forgotten wedding present from her mother. With it comes decades of memories—of her mother’s wishes for her to be happy and her own shattered hopes for her first child—and regret at never having used it. Pushing her husband’s ashes and a bottle of wine in a rusty old stroller, Mina is determined to re-create the picnic they never had. But with it comes something Mina never expected, illuminating a loving gesture her husband made years ago.

Sifting gingerly through memories of her late mother, brilliant newcomer Sarah McColl has penned an indelible tribute to the joy and pain of loving well. Even as her own marriage splinters, McColl drops everything when her mother is diagnosed with cancer, returning to the family farmhouse and laboring over elaborate meals in the hopes of nourishing her back to health. In a series of vibrant vignettes - lipstick applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked - McColl reveals a woman of endless charm and infinite love for her unruly brood of children.

Kate Inglis' story is a springboard that can help other bereaved parents - and anyone who has experienced wrenching loss - reflect on emotional survival in the first year; dealing with family, friends, and bystanders post-loss; the unique survivors' guilt, feelings of failure, and isolation of bereavement; and the fortitude of like-minded community and small kindnesses.

Kate Braestrup's life was transformed by the loss of her husband; now Kate faces the possibility that she may lose her son. As a young mother, Kate Braestrup discovered the fierce protectiveness that accompanies parenthood. In the intervening years - through mourning her husband and the joy of remarriage and a blended family - Kate has absorbed the rewards and complications of that spirit. But when her eldest son joins the marines, Kate is at a crossroads.

Jesse Cooper was an honor-roll student who loved to windsurf and write poetry. He also had severe cerebral palsy and was quadriplegic, unable to speak, and wracked by seizures. He died suddenly at age 17. In fiercely honest, surprisingly funny, and sometimes heartbreaking prose, Jesse's mother, Marianne Leone, chronicles her transformation by the remarkable life and untimely death of her child.

February 29th is a date that comes into existence just once every four years. It is also the birthday of Thais - author Anne-Dauphine Julliand's darling daughter - who died of a genetic disease. Thais lived just shy of her fourth birthday. She had a short life but good one. As this special day is about to reappear on her calendar for the first time since her daughter passed away, Anne-Dauphine struggles with how to mark this momentous occasion. She wants to live fully on this special day: Thais would have been eight years old.

Denise Riley has pursued her singular path with a determined disregard for poetic fashion: a poet of immense musical gifts and formal skill, as happy in traditional forms as experimental, her non-alignment with any ‘tribe’ has led to a rich and various poetry that, while densely allusive and...

A collection of honest, fierce and beautiful poems about being a mother, from pregnancy and birth to growing up and leaving home. Curated by acclaimed anthology Ana Sampson, Night Feeds and Morning Songs examines motherhood from all angles, capturing the mess and the madness, to the joy and the wonder....

Shattered: A Mother’s Journey Through Life After Losing a Child is a book written by Shanteria Jackson. In this book, Shanteria shares her testimony and experience of healing and grieving after losing a child. She goes into exquisite details about the worst pain she has ever felt, her pregnancy, her son’s birth, his death, and burial. This pain caused her to blame God at times and curse his name.