Life is Goodbye Life is Hello
Alla Renee Bozarth

Life Is Goodbye Life Is Hello: Grieving Well Through All Kinds Of Loss by Alla Renee Bozarth is an excellent resource for anyone experiencing grief. This book is a profound mingling of sound psychological education and the emotional depth of one acquainted with grief. While she does not focus on the details of her story, I enjoyed the personal element of her personal grief poetry being interspersed throughout the book. Bozarth is both a priest and a therapist, yet she says her own grief journey was taken as only a broken human being.

The book is very thorough in its coverage of the various aspects of grief. She addresses cultural aspects of grief and how the loss of a significant person in our lives causes us to grief other losses related to one’s self. She talks about how grief feels, its symptoms, and what you can do about it. She also includes chapters on the grief cause through other losses in life such as change, separation, sickness, and even things we normally consider good such as the birth of a child and success. One of the best things about the book is her reminder that suffering in and of itself has no value, yet we have the choice to teach ourselves and grow through our suffering. Bozarth shows her reader how, in the midst of their loss, they can teach themselves to have a new kind of joy and wholeness.

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