The Long Goodbye: A Gentle Guide to Anticipatory Grief - Finding Peace While You Still Have Time, When Someone You Love Is Facing the End (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798188213497)

They're still here. And you're already grieving. And you don't understand why.

When someone you love is facing the end - a terminal diagnosis, a long decline, a fading you can see coming - a strange and lonely grief arrives long before the goodbye. You mourn a person who is still right in front of you. You grieve each loss as it comes, while trying to be strong, to be present, to make the most of the time that's left.

And almost no one talks about it. So you carry it alone, wondering if something is wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. What you're feeling is called anticipatory grief, and it is one of the most natural responses there is to loving someone near the end.

Written with warmth and without a trace of false comfort, The Long Goodbye is a tender companion for anyone facing the coming loss of someone they love - a parent, a spouse, a friend.

Inside, you'll find:

• Understanding and language for the confusing grief that begins before the goodbye
• Permission to feel the whole tangled range - sorrow, anger, exhaustion, even relief - without shame
• Comfort for the particular loneliness of grieving someone who is still alive
• A chapter for those losing someone slowly to dementia - the longest goodbye of all
• A chapter for those facing the loss of a spouse or partner
• Gentle ways to be present, and to say the things worth saying, while there's still time
• Help for the guilt, the "not enough," and making peace with your own imperfection
• Ways to care for yourself while your heart breaks slowly
• Honest guidance on the hardest stretch - and knowing when to reach for support

This book won't rush you, won't pretend it's easy, and won't hand you tidy answers about an untidy thing. It will simply walk beside you.

There is still time. And love doesn't end at the goodbye.