Living Without the One You Cannot Live Without: Hope and Healing after Loss

by Natasha Josefowitz Ph.D.

Overview

From the first, life-changing terminal diagnosis to a new way of life as a widow, the deeply moving journey of mourning a beloved spouse's death is the subject of Natasha Josefowitz's candid, uplifting collection of poems, Living Without the One You Cannot Live Without. Drawing from her own personal experiences navigating the grief of this seemingly unbearable loss, the author's tender and thoughtful perspective is certain to offer hope and healing to anyone who is embarking on his or her own journey of grief and healing process, regardless of age and life stage.

With rich insight and raw honesty, Living Without the One You Cannot Live Without guides the reader from mourning to recovery, using simple, relatable poetry that casts an unflinching eye on the day-to-day experiences entailed with losing a loved one. The collection starts with a diagnosis of cancer and travels through the moments experienced in doctors' offices, hospice care, the funeral, and on to the reality of a life alone. Examining the grief process chronologically, the poems progress from the painful early days to the second year, when healing has occurred. The book then culminates with a strong message of hope, as the grieving person emerges once again as a self-sufficient, confident person who is facing the next adventure life has to offer.

Natasha Josefowitz was inspired to put her poems on paper by her own experience with the death of her husband, as well as the grief she witnessed among so many of her friends. She now endeavors to help others who are confronting the unimaginable end of a central relationship. With compassion, clarity, and profound humanity, Living Without the One You Cannot Live Without is certain to offer solace and support to those who are bereft, and who will benefit from empathy and emotional connection as they work through their own grief toward help and healing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484141328
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	09/23/2013
Pages:	108
Sales rank:	127,594
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Dr. Natasha Josefowitz, professor of management, business consultant and keynote speaker, had for 10 years her own weekly program on public radio and monthly segment on television and has been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows including All Things Considered and The Larry King Show.

Natasha is the best-selling author of twenty business and poetry books. She has been published extensively in places such as the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, and the London Times. She has a bimonthly column in La Jolla Today and San Diego Jewish World.

The Washington Post says: "Natasha Josefowitz is helping her generation, and those that follow, find their way into a successful, meaningful and fun older age...her optimism about aging is inspiring."

Her twentieth book is Living Without the One You Cannot Live Without: Hope and Healing after Loss.

Editorial Reviews

2013-10-22
A hard-won, heart-wrenching collection of poems. In her latest book, poet Josefowitz (Been There, Done That, Doing It Better, 2009) touchingly chronicles the painful first year after the death of her longtime husband. Beginning with a description of his final days in hospice, her plainspoken, free verse documents the slow burn of her grief from day to day--whether she's at her husband's funeral struggling to "find the man I loved / in all these words" or sitting alone in the evenings, trying to conjure the presence of her lost love ("make a sound in the wind / touch my cheek / with a breath of air"). Although the poems sometimes rely on clichéd abstractions and can err toward the sentimental, Josefowitz's sense of detail makes them sing. The poems are at their best when most specific: "I miss him / rustling the newspapers / in the room next door / his voice on the phone-- / I always knew which of the children / he was talking to." The author never shies away from difficulties she faces--a fractured sense of self, months of inconsolability and profound survivor's guilt when she eventually finds herself able to enjoy things again. In the sad but charming "Firsts," she finds she must learn how to do the many mundane tasks her husband used to do: taking out the garbage, resetting the clocks for daylight saving time, opening a bottle of wine. Josefowitz's poems, in all their raw tenderness, are sometimes excruciating to read, but they're ultimately testaments to a great love and affirmations of the author's new identity as a single, self-sustaining woman in her elder years. A beautiful book of sad, funny and relatable verse and a comforting companion for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one.

Kirkus Reviews