Melissa Dlugolecki's book covers all kinds of loss, not just death: divorce, infertility, empty nest, aging parents, breakups. She maps grief intensity without ranking which losses matter more, and offers the same practical tools for any of them, woven through memoir.
One of the most misunderstood things is that this book is for just death, that grief is death. The truth is, if you've gone through divorce, pet loss, empty nest, breakup, aging parent, infertility, miscarriage, someone you love is serving or has come back from service and completely different life, loss of identity, all of these are manifestations of grief. There are different depth charts, and I explain it like it's not a hierarchy. There's a depth chart. That's gonna directly correlate to the depth of emotion is gonna relate to the depth of grief. However, the tools are the same. They're the exact same. So this is a manual laced within a bit of a memoir, right, for real understanding of the applications. But it's a memoir of tactical tools that are going to help the reader feel empowered and to not use toxic positivity.
