The Miller-Carlin Funeral Home has curated a list of resources that we believe to be largely beneficial for individuals who are experiencing the loss of a loved one. The bereavement resources have been carefully selected by our professional staff to cover a broad range of situations. We understand that we may not provide a recommendation for a resource that is tailored to your specific needs, but we welcome anyone to talk with us directly for help finding resources with help and information for you.
Bereavement Books
Sharing the Darkness
By: Sheila Cassidy
This book is about the nature and cost of Christian discipleship in the front line of caring. It is warm-hearted, honest and a highly personal book, remarkable for its sense of hope and celebration. A rich book which will strike a chord with carers of all kinds and appeal to anyone trying to reconcile their Christian calling with the demands of contemporary living; a book to challenge and inspire.
When Your Spouse Dies
By: Cathleen Curry
This book deals with a variety of practical concerns for those who have lost their mates to death, including stages of grief for adults and children, mourning, loneliness, sexuality, networks of support, financial priorities and planning, good health practices, and healing.
Life After Loss
By: Bob Deits
Loss is overwhelming. After a loved one’s death, a divorce, an injury or disease, or another major life change, recovery often seems daunting, if not impossible. Life after Loss is the go-to resource for anyone who has suffered a major loss. With great compassion and insight, Bob Deits provides essential wisdom and practical exercises for navigating the uncertain terrain of grief and recovery. Now in its sixth edition, this guide is fully updated with new advice on catastrophic losses, guidance on using technology to foster connections and maintain support networks, and reflections from Deits’ ongoing counseling and his firsthand experiences. After a destabilizing change, Life after Loss helps you to find positive ways to put together a life that is necessarily different–but equally meaningful.
Living When a Loved One Has Died
By: Earl Grollman
When someone you love dies, Earl Grollman writes, “there is no way to predict how you will feel. The reactions of grief are not like recipes, with given ingredients, and certain results. Grief is universal. At the same time it is extremely personal. Heal in your own way.” If someone you know is grieving, Living When a Loved One Has Died can help. Earl Grollman explains what emotions to expect when mourning, what pitfalls to avoid, and how to work through feelings of loss. Suitable for pocket or bedside, this gentle book guides the lonely and suffering as they move through the many facets of grief, begin to heal, and slowly build new lives.
The Gift of Significance
By: Doug Manning
This book should be the guidebook for health care professionals, caregivers, friends, clergy, support groups and hospice personnel in how to help others deal with the many issues surrounding a death. It outlines the importance of establishing the significance of the person, allowing for dying rituals and approaching grieving as a healthy process-not one to be avoided.
Autumn Wisdom
By: James E. Miller
“Autumn Wisdom” is a sensitive, insightful exploration of what it means to approach one’s later years with openness and trust. The author’s full-color photography complements each of the book’s ten themes, accompanied by words of wisdom and inspiration from the ages. Thoughtful, tested suggestions at the end of each chapter assist the reader to find purpose and renewal in life. This is the sort of writing that looks and feels meditative.
Grief, Dying, and Death
By: Theresa Rando
This book provides both the theoretical background and the practical treatment interventions necessary for working with those who are bereaved or dying. Important topics such as anticipatory grief, post death mourning, and the stress of grief are described in detail. Grief reactions, both normal and abnormal, as well as their causes are analyzed. Special attention is given to grief caused by the death of a child or spouse, death by suicide, and children’s grief. Numerous exercises and case examples are included.
Final Celebrations
By: K. & Flagg, M Sublette
This book will help families make comfortable, cost-effective decisions about the final arrangements for themselves and their loved ones.
The Social Reality of Death
By: Kathy Charmax
“In this book, I aim to take a fresh look from a sociological perspective at both earlier assumptions and current issues about death and dying. Specifically, the major source of my theoretical perspective is symbolic interactionism. By examining the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the dying and those affected by death from this perspective, we can gain greater insight into the subtle relationships these actors have with each other and, more-over, with death.
Helping the Bereaved
By: Alicia S. & Daniel S. Dworkin Cook
Much has been written in the last twenty years to advance our understanding of the bereavement process. However, few books have focused specifically on therapeutic intervention with the bereaved. This book fills that gap. It offers guidance to mental health professionals working with the bereaved in a variety of settings, from hospices and hospitals to elementary and secondary schools to private practice.The authors present individual and group approaches to assessment and intervention and include numerous case examples drawn form their own extensive work with the bereaved. While many therapy books assume that clients will be from white, middle-class backgrounds, this book includes a chapter on the impact of cultural factors. In addition, because the needs of younger grievers are often overlooked, the book includes two chapters on therapy with children and adolescents. The book closes with a chapter inviting readers to engage in self-examination to promote self-awareness and growth, for the benefit of patient and therapist.The therapeutic strategies are grounded in empirical studies and clinical experience. The authors draw from psychodynamic, existential, cognitive/behavioral, and family systems perspectives, bringing together the work of a diverse spectrum of theoreticians and clinicians including Freud, Bowlby, Yalom, Kübler-Ross, and many others, to fully address the needs of the bereaved.
What Helped Me When My Loved One Died
By: Earl A. Grollman
Collected here are the personal stories of many who have mourned the death of a beloved. The contributors are people from all walks of life: parents, wives, husbands, children, and friends who have lost loved ones to accidents, long illness, suicide, sudden infant death syndrome, and war.
Grieving: How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies
By: Theresa Rando
Mourning the death of a loved one is a process all of us will go through at one time or another. But wherever the death is sudden or anticipated, few of us are prepared for it or for the grief it brings. There is no right or wrong way to grieve; each person’s response to loss will be different. Now, in this compassionate, comprehensive guide, Therese A. Rando, Ph.D., bereavement specialist and author of Loss And Anticipatory Grief, leads you gently through the painful but necessary process of grieving and helps you find the best way for yourself.
Living Through Mourning
By: Harriet S. Schiff
Losing a loved one is one of the hardest parts of life. With sensitivity and wisdom, Harriet Sarnoff Schiff shares advice to help mourners find comfort admist grief and hope when a loved one has passed. Supported by interviews with the bereaved and with funeral directors, therapists, and clergymen, this reference helps guide mourners through the grieving process.
Bereavement Websites
Web Healing
Webhealing.com was started in early 1995 after the death of my father. He had been a research scientst with NASA and had long been interested in finding ways to use technology to help people. I thought it was perfect fit as a way to honor him. At the time there was very little on the web for grief and healing. There were no web discussion groups using bulletin board software. Webhealing was the first to make use of those resources for grieving individuals. There were also no memorial pages on the web and webhealing started the internet’s first memorial page where people post tributes to their loved ones. The honor page is still functioning today as are the discussions groups.
The Grief Recovery Method
Since the Grief Recovery Institute was founded in the mid 1980s, they have expanded their staff to provide training coast-to-coast, border-to-border in the United States and Canada. In addition, they have affiliates in Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, and most recently Mexico. We are very proud to introduce you to The Grief Recovery team.
Heart Light
Heartlight Magazine is an electronic publication for Christians that’s been encouraging thousands every day since it launched in April of 1996. Each day over 350,000 people are touched by our ministry.
Willowgreen
Willowgreen is the lifework of James E. Miller, who designs and creates video, audio, electronic, and printed resources for individuals and families as well as for professionals and organizations. Willowgreen specializes in the areas of grief and loss, illness and caregiving, transition and older age, and spirituality and life meaning. Most Willowgreen resources are known for their unique combination of word and image, the heart with the mind, the soul with the body, the modern with the age-old. Willowgreen’s mission has always remained the same: “To create resources for healing, for hope, for tending that which is sacred.”
Veteran's Resources
The United States Department of Veteran Affairs
The United State’s VA exists to fulfill President Lincoln’s promise “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan” by serving and honoring the men and women who are America’s veterans.
Fort Snelling National Cemetery
https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ftsnelling.asp
Fort Snelling National Cemetery is the home of the first all-volunteer Memorial Rifle Squad (MRS) in the National Cemetery Administration. Upon request, the MRS will perform funeral honors daily for as many as 17 Veterans between the hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (No services are scheduled on Saturday, Sunday or Federal Holidays). Each funeral honor ceremony includes a color guard, a rifle volley, the folding and presentation of the flag, and a live bugler playing “Taps”.
Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery
The Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs (MDVA) is a cabinet level state agency dedicated to serving Veterans and their families by assisting them in securing state and federal benefits, and by providing programs and services relating to higher education, benefits, burial, claims, outreach and Veterans preference.
General Resources
Minnesota Board on Aging
The Minnesota Board on Aging (MBA) is the gateway to services for Minnesota seniors and their families. MBA listens to senior concerns, researches for solutions, and proposes policy to address senior needs. In addition, MBA administer funds from the Older Americans Act that provide a spectrum of services to seniors, including Senior LinkAge Line®, Insurance Counseling and more.
U.S. Social Security Administration
The Official Website of the U.S. Social Security Administration.
St. Cloud Hospital Hospice Program
Hospice is a special way of caring for people in the final stages of life. Hospice provides comfort and dignity for patients who have a six month or less life expectancy and are accepting of comfort care. CentraCare Health provides hospice care in a variety of settings through CentraCare Health Hospice and CentraCare Health