Sorrow Like No Other Supporting the Grief of a Parent Whose Child Has Died

Grieving parents who have also lost spouses, parents, siblings, best friends insist without exception that the loss of their child is a very different type of sorrow because it is so outside the natural order of the world as it should be. This slim volume is a gentle spiritual introduction to this experience by a couple whose own son, Paul, died unexpectedly years ago while in his early twenties. Diane and Charley Monaghan have spent the subsequent two decades ministering to other people who have lost a child--no matter how old (from before birth to any age) or how they died (from illness, pandemic, accident, crime, violence, mass shootings, war, miscarriage, abortion, overdose, addiction, suicide, or any other cause or no apparent cause). 

This booklet is appropriate both for the grieving parents themselves and those trying to understand and support them. It addresses these questions. How is the grief of a parent whose child has died like no other grief? How long is the duration and intensity of a parent's grief? Do parents progress through the traditional "stages of grief"? What feelings are common among parents who've lost a child? To the grieving mothers? To the grieving fathers? How can the loss of a child challenge the grieving couple? How does the loss of a child affect a parents relationship with any remaining (or future) children? What is the special bond that all grieving parents share? What do grieving parents need?

This book is "first aid" for the lifelong struggle of parents to deal with the sorrow, anger, numbness, helplessness, disbelief, and sometimes guilt that comes over them like the unforeseen tornado they always feared, never expected, but always prayed to be spared: the death of their beloved child.