Grief Reading... not what I expected

There are so many great books out there about the grieving process.

I own some of them, either gifts from loving friends or things I've bought for myself.

I have started reading a couple of them.
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.
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But that is as far as I've gotten.

I just can't do it.

It's not that I can't handle reading about grief. I cannot read anything remotely challenging. I don't mean hard or heavy topics; I can't read even positive things that I will have to process.


The combination of intense loss and immense life change with profound physical, mental and emotional exhaustion has left my brain a soft little pudding.

When I told our youngest daughter recently that I was reading Little Women, she said, "That tells me exactly how you're doing." This is something that my family knows.

Just last Spring, I had this conversation with my dear Lee. I gave him the secret key to knowing the state of my inner world. I was sharing with him some ways that I was struggling under the emotional strain of those days, and I said, "What have I been reading?"  He thought for just a moment. "The Chronicles of Narnia....D.E. Stevenson." "Exactly." "Ooohhh!!!" He totally got it in that short conversation.

If I am under stress, I can only read gentle, comfortable old-friend books. The quickest way to know how I'm doing is to look at what I'm reading. (Currently: Jo's Boys- a sequel to Little Women)

It can be frustrating.  I want to be reading deeply helpful books that will encourage me and guide me along this hard, strange new road...but my brain simply cannot process the words.

One of these days, hopefully, my inner world will settle down enough that I can prowl the pages of all those great books and drink in their wise words.

For now, I just have to be patient and read the things that are gentle on my mind and comforting to my soul. Comfort food for the mind. :)


Things I read in times like these:
Louisa May Alcott [Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, An Old Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins]
The Chronicles of Narnia
L.M. Montgomery [the Anne of Green Gables Series, Emily of New Moon trilogy, the Blue Castle]
the Mitford books, by Jan Karon
The Secret Garden
Pollyanna and its sequel
books by D.E. Stevenson, one of my favorite authors
the Miss Read books
Understood Betsy
the Riddlemaster trilogy- Patricia McKillip
The Blue Sword - Robin McKinley
the Little House on the Prairie series

I'd be interested to know how this impacts others. What are the books you return to when life hits hard and the way is heavy? What lifts your heart and takes you to a happier place?