Summary:

As Bertman says in her introduction, this book "is meant to refuel therapists, counselors, social workers, physicians, nurses, clergy and all others who are committed to providing support to those in grief." While the caregivers' focus is on those in grief, they also have to give some attention to their own bodies, minds and spirits. This collection of essays, poems and stories, illustrated with drawings and photographs, examines grief from several perspectives.

The opening section looks at professional roles in experiencing and understanding suffering and empathy. Section two provides several descriptions of how caregivers use the arts for themselves and for those they companion. Section three is devoted to lessons from old and new cultures. The final section explores basic needs of grieving people.

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Summary:

This poem, told in the voice of a troubled, angry teenager, describes her determination to control her eating and her body. The eight, eight-line stanzas each repeat the same words at the end of the lines, in a modified sestina form, so that emphasis falls on the same eight words: "disappear," "smile," bones," "fat," "mother," "touch," "person," "guts." By the end of the poem, the girl is clearly suicidal and unable to control her anorexia.

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George tries to take care of his mentally retarded friend, Lennie, whose mental disability makes it impossible for him to judge his powerful strength. Lennie means well and tried hard; he likes soft, furry things, like a mouse and a puppy, both of which he squeezes to death accidentally. Though his great strength is useful on the ranch where he works, his inability to govern his behavior leads him into an accidental homicide. George, not wanting Lennie to live the rest of his life in prison, shoots him in the head as an act of mercy.

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This story is claimed by its narrator to be a chapter in his biography of the Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol. He begins by saying he knows some intimate details of Gogol's life and that as his biographer he feels obligated to reveal them, though as his friend he might have kept all this to himself.

After setting the reader up for some perhaps prurient "facts," the narrator tells us that Gogol's wife was a life-sized balloon, anatomically correct and quite voluptuous. Claiming to be the only person besides Gogol who has ever seen this creation, the narrator goes on to tell us an occasion where he heard her speak. He describes how she developed her own personality, in spite of the fact that she was a balloon, and that she even contracted syphilis, which subsequently infected Gogol.

The narrator and Gogol are celebrating the silver anniversary of Gogol and his wife when the novelist gets insanely irritated with her, inserts a bicycle pump into her, and inflates her until she explodes. Gogol then throws the rubber pieces into the fire (much as he had burned his manuscripts earlier). He also throws into the fire a balloon baby boy. The story closes with the narrator again defending his position of biographer, providing the truth about Gogol to the reader.

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This work describes a young girl, Barbara, growing up in a poor rural Alabama family with a charismatic but abusive father and a nurturing mother unable to leave him, even for the sake of the children. Barbara suffers facial malformation, partly because of malnutrition and no access to dental or medical care.

Her gums cannot close over her buck teeth, her skull is longer and narrower than it should be, her bite does not close properly, and she has several black moles on her face. When she finally has major facial surgery, she is in her late twenties with a six year old son. He does not recognize the pretty women who comes home from the hospital.

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Summary:

The narrator is a woman in an insane asylum addressing her doctor, whom she sees as "god of our block," taking care of all his "foxy children." His "third eye moves among us" making him seem powerful and all-seeing but remote. She keeps herself occupied making moccasins, giving her something to do with her hands.

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Summary:

Sam (Hume Cronyn) and Cora Peek (Jessica Tandy) dance to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, surrounded by friends and children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Not long after this party, Cora dies suddenly, and Sam is left alone and depressed. His anxious, protective children try to manage his life, down to what he eats, but Sam wants to be left alone. There is a classic, often comic conflict between the stubborn, independent old father and his worried, controlling children.

To help Sam, his wife returns from the dead as a white dog which he feeds and cares for, but she keeps hiding when the other family members appear, so they think Sam is hallucinating and demented. When Sam has a stroke, however, the white dog runs to a family member's house and barks for help, saving Sam's life. Later, as Sam recovers and walks using a walker, the white dog "dances" with him by putting her front paws on top of the walker. She also saves his life another time when she leads family members to a stream where Sam has fallen. Mostly she is there as his loving companion, leaving only when Sam dies.

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In rural Georgia, Mrs. Hopewell runs her family farm with the help of tenants Mr. and Mrs. Freeman. Mrs. Hopewell's daughter, Joy, who got her leg shot off in an accident when she was a child, now lives at home with her mother. Thirty three year old Joy has earned a PhD in philosophy, but she does not seem to have much common sense. In an act of rebellion, she has changed her name to Hulga, and she lives in a state of annoyed anger at her mother and Mrs. Freeman.

A Bible salesman comes to the door, claiming his name is Manly Pointer (!), and manages to get invited to dinner. He and Hulga make a date to have a picnic together the next day. That night Hulga imagines with her superior mind and education that she's in control and that she will seduce him.

However, the next day by the time they have climbed into a barn loft, Manly manages to persuade her to take off her glasses and then her wooden leg which he packs in a suitcase, between a "Bible" which is really a box with liquor and pornographic cards in it. As Manly leaves Hulga without her false leg, he tells her that he collects prostheses from the disabled. She is shocked to realize that he is not "good country people."

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Summary:

In this lyrical, funny, sad, heartwarming work, Joyce Dyer takes us inside an Alzheimer's unit where she visits her mother daily and watches as she experiences the many absurdities and contradictions of this disease over several years. Dyer records not only the behavior of her mother and other patients in the unit but also her own feelings of worry, anger, frustration and then acceptance. The prose-poem style of this writing makes the work especially wonderful to read, because it is a work of art as well as a very helpful document.

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Summary:

This story is narrated by a young boy who is observing his twin brother, Francis, as he expresses his extreme fear of the dark. Francis tries hard to avoid attending a children's party because he knows the plan is to play hide-and-seek in the dark. He pretends to have a cold, tells his parents and his nanny that he does not want to go, but is forced to attend anyway.

When the lights are turned out for this game, Francis is literally scared to death. His brother tries to comfort Francis by touching his arm, only to find that was the final unendurable anguish for his petrified sibling. When the lights are turned back on, the adults find Francis dead.

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