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Rating: 
Summary: Important Book to Help Get Through It
Review: The death of someone close to you is a pivotal event in your life. The closer that death is to you, the more difficult are the issues that present themselves. Be it a partner or a parent, a sibling, a close relative, or a pet, each death you encounter in life will surely affect you deeply, and also will provide opportunities for dynamic personal growth. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people deal with issues of grief, loss, and bereavement in their lives. In our society unfortunately, members of this community find it much more difficult to address honestly and openly, those details and intimate emotions surrounding the death of a loved one. Fears of rejection, hostility, constant explanation and ignorance often make it impossible for a gay man or a lesbian, for example, to join a mixed group and openly share many details of their lives. Add to this the factor of the impact of AIDS onto those communities, and the potential for problems can escalate quickly. This book reveals both personal stories and usable information on the reactions gay men have to grief. Through the use of anecdotes and timely analysis, one gets a more complete picture of the incredible passage gay men undergo in their grief journeys. I currently am a grief counselor for The Hospice Caring Project of Santa Cruz and we have been involved in GLBT greif and bereavement since the early days of the AIDS epidemic. We are now offering to the LGBT Community a renewed outreach due to an increase in both AIDS deaths and deaths due to breast and ovarian cancers. A similar book needs to be written for the lesbian community.
Rating:
Summary: Disenfranchised grief
Review: The death of someone close to you is a pivotal event in your life. The closer that death is to you, the more difficult are the issues that present themselves. Be it a partner or a parent, a sibling, a close relative, or a pet, each death you encounter in life will surely affect you deeply, and also will provide opportunities for dynamic personal growth. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people deal with issues of grief, loss, and bereavement in their lives. In our society unfortunately, members of this community find it much more difficult to address honestly and openly, those details and intimate emotions surrounding the death of a loved one. Fears of rejection, hostility, constant explanation and ignorance often make it impossible for a gay man or a lesbian, for example, to join a mixed group and openly share many details of their lives. Add to this the factor of the impact of AIDS onto those communities, and the potential for problems can escalate quickly. This book reveals both personal stories and usable information on the reactions gay men have to grief. Through the use of anecdotes and timely analysis, one gets a more complete picture of the incredible passage gay men undergo in their grief journeys. I currently am a grief counselor for The Hospice Caring Project of Santa Cruz and we have been involved in GLBT greif and bereavement since the early days of the AIDS epidemic. We are now offering to the LGBT Community a renewed outreach due to an increase in both AIDS deaths and deaths due to breast and ovarian cancers. A similar book needs to be written for the lesbian community.
Rating:
Summary: Important Book to Help Get Through It
Review: This is the only book I know on the subject (there are lots of books on grief, but it's nice to have a book focused on gay men, since our situtations can be vastly different), and when I lost my partner, reading Gay Widowers provided a great deal of relief and information. Knowing that I wasn't alone, and reading about similar experiences was (and still is) important to my bereavement. I actually wish the book was longer.
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