The Grief Guide: Discovering the Reality of Continuing Bonds

By Kevin Carey MA and Gary Roe

What do you do when your life is turned upside down by the death of your loved one? In The Grief Guide, author Kevin Carey helps you through this new reality with your loved one’s presence.

Diamond Grief Groups - available on thegriefguide.org
Just as no two diamonds are alike, so is your loved one, along with your grief, unique and unlike any other to you. This is why you can’t really begin to transition from knowing about your grief to growing in your grief until you connect with others in their grief. Just as a flower needs sunlight and rain to grow to its full potential, we need one another to continue growing on our grief journey. Your relationship with your loved one did not end, it’s just in a different context; you can begin to grow in your relationship by connecting with others in their grief.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385009527

Kevin Carey MA

Kevin Carey, founder of thegriefguide.org and Diamond Grief Groups, is a grief management specialist and hospice chaplain who has been a trusted voice in grief recovery with a message of hope and healing to wounded hearts for the past three decades. In addition to being a former mental health therapist and minister, Kevin brings a pastoral approach to bereaved individuals through the difficult seasons of life.

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Copyright © 2023 Kevin Carey, MA.

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ISBN: 979-8-3850-0950-3 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0951-0 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0952-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023919187

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/06/2023

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Dear Laurel, you were too pure to live in this world and

too young to die—not sinless but innocent. You’re too

pure to live and too young to die. You are my lightning,

which is vibrant, beautiful, but all too brief. How I yearn

for your physical presence in my life once again.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many years ago while obtaining my masters in pastoral counseling from Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio, I had the privilege of sitting in some of the final lectures given by the late, great Dr. Richard D. Dobbins before his retirement in 2003. This book is dedicated to him. The very essence of my model of grieving presented here comes directly from Doc’s Healing of the Mind Model (Dr. Richard D. Dobbins. Healing of the mind model. Emerge Ministries, Inc. 1992). I am a disciple of Doc Dobbins. My clinical and spiritual teachings are a reflection of him and the impact he has had on my life. Dr. Dobbins was a pioneer in Christian counseling, as well as one of the founding fathers of Christian psychology. Dr. Dobbins was also the founder and president of Emerge Counseling Ministries in Akron, Ohio, where he was affectionately known through the years by thousands of us seminarians as Doc.

Doc taught us the phenomenon of supernatural reality, a subject I will further develop in my sequel to this work called The Supernatural Reality of Continuing Bonds (to be available for purchase on thegriefguide.org when complete). Any direct quotes or paraphrases from Doc in this book did not come from any specific sources. They were taken directly from my class notes in his lectures and recollections of things he said. These will be referenced each time I cite them throughout this work. Though I do not recall hearing Doc specifically teach on grief, the principles he imparted to us were so universally powerful that they easily translated to the development of my own model of grief outlined here. Without Doc’s teachings, I would never have been able to merge the clinical with the spiritual as I worked toward the ongoing emotional and spiritual healing for myself and other bereaved individuals. I now have my own model of grieving thanks to this amazing man, and I am honored to carry on his legacy in this way. I am just one among so many other fellow counselors, pastors, teachers, etc., who are forever grateful for and indebted to Dr. Richard D. Dobbins for his great work and the legacy he left us.

I offer a special word of thanks to my good friend Rena Harrington, who lost her beloved son Justin on January 18, 2018, to a workplace fatality. It was in supporting Rena that I was prompted to finally put my teachings into a cohesive form. Then my life changed forever on May 18, 2022, when my younger daughter Laurel died at the age of twenty-two. While processing my own grief over losing her, I developed the outline of this book. It was the merging of the clinical with the spiritual and the human with the Divine in outline form—the supernatural components of our continuing, unbreakable, and eternal bond. I also give thanks to my Sicilian queen and beloved wife, Frances. She and my twin brother Brian have been my rock during these darkest days of my life. I also want to thank Doris Ramos of Anten Graphics for making my teachings visible with her amazing artwork.

Finally, I must mention the most important person in Laurel’s life, her big sister and best friend, my older daughter Jordan. I never thought it was possible for me to love another human being as much as my Jordan, until the day her baby sister came into the world. In sharing my deepest pain and sorrow in this book, I speak on behalf of Jordan and myself. Somehow, we must journey onward in this life without our beloved Laurel, our precious diamond.

Please add this after the acknowledgments and before the preface. Start on a right facing page.

FOREWORD

What do I do now?

I ask myself this question probably dozens of times each day. Most of the time, this question is about little things. Sometimes, however, it is about huge, seemingly earth-shattering things of paramount importance.

In seasons of loss, What do I do now? can become all-encompassing. Suddenly, our worlds have been altered. We didn’t ask for this dramatic, often traumatic, change.

We’re shocked. Stunned. Emotions surface from deep within and spill out all over our lives.

We get hit on every level. Our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls are all deeply affected. Our relationships begin to change. The future is now foggy at best.

The change is so great that we can wonder if we’re going crazy. Everything is different, yet the world around us continues on, almost as if nothing has happened. We find ourselves in uncharted territory, somewhere between what was and what will be. This in-between place can be painful, confusing, frustrating, and exhausting.

Our grieving hearts cry out:

How did this happen? Why?

What is happening to me? How do I survive this?

I feel so lost. Who am I now?

How do I do this? What’s next?

How do we move through this unfamiliar territory?

We need a guide.

We need someone who has been there. We need someone who knows this strange place of mourning and grief.

We need a map for the road ahead.

Kevin Carey has been there. He knows this territory. In this book, he has given us a great gift - a roadmap for this difficult journey.

The Grief Guide takes us on a journey through four essential phases:

• Knowing about our grief.

• Growing in our grief.

• Sharing from our grief.

• Serving with our grief.

• Know. Grow. Share. Serve.

We’re created in the image of God. We’re designed for connection and relationships. We are made to know and be known. Separation is painful and often traumatic.

We designed to grow in our relationships with God and others.

We’re made to share our hearts with God and others - to love and be loved.

We’re constructed to serve God and others - to give.

And by knowing, growing, sharing, and serving, we heal.

As Kevin walks with us through these phases, he provides not only information and knowledge, but intensely practical steps that give our grieving hearts invaluable tools to help navigate this bumpy road well. Punctuated with personal insights, stories, helpful illustrations, and Scripture, the Grief Guide will be an important ongoing resource for any hurting, grieving heart.

Above all, I appreciate that The Grief Guide is anchored in the eternal truths of Scripture. Ultimately, healing comes from being in growing, ever-deepening walk with Christ. He heals. He teaches. He guides. He leads. As we follow, Christ Himself works in and through us to bring His healing in His way in His time.

Thank you, Kevin, for this wonderful resource. We need it.

Finally, please don’t rush through this book. Take your time. Let the truths in these pages sink into your mind and heart.

You are not alone. You are not crazy. And you will make it through this.

Gary Roe

Amazon Bestselling Author, Speaker, Grief Specialist

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to guide myself and other bereaved individuals into the reality of continuing bonds with our loved ones who have passed away. This bond is realized by discovering and implementing healthy and adaptive ways to bring about a lifelong process of emotional and spiritual healing, with the hope and anticipation of being reunited with loved ones again. I started writing this book before my Laurel died, so in addition to blending the clinical with the spiritual to promote a holistic model of grieving, I now realize that when death impacts one’s family, there is an immense chasm between theory and practice. Nothing can be said or done to bring my child back to me. I am broken beyond repair, and my sorrow is beyond anything that words can convey.

To those reading this who have lost a child like Rena and my sisters, my heart is with you. I have supported individuals in grief for over thirty years. First, as a pastor who assisted bereaved individuals in the church as well as a chaplain in senior living communities followed by being a mental-health supervisor in a long-term structured residential setting (LTSR). Mostly however in my calling as a bereavement counselor and hospice chaplain. During my years of supporting grief-stricken individuals, I have found very few who have been able to experience a healthy grief journey, which is commonly known in the grief world as continuing bonds, with their loved ones who have died. More specifically, I refer to this continuing relationship as continuing presence.

As I reflected on the many years of supporting the bereaved, I noticed a stark contrast between those who were effectively managing their grief and those who were not. The folks who took care of themselves while being provided an opportunity to express their grief experienced less emotional and spiritual pain than those who did not. In this book, I define self-care as taking care of one’s body, mind, emotions, relationships, and spirit. I developed this self-care model from one of Doc’s teachings—his PIESS model—which is the premise that we exist in five domains (physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual) directly taken from my class notes (Dr. Richard D. Dobbins. Healing of the mind model. Emerge Ministries, Inc. 1992). I cannot add any citations for the many quotes from Doc in the following pages because they all come directly from my class notes taken while attending his lectures. That said, Doc gets all the credit for my self-care model. With regard to grief, I discovered that the bereaved who exercised this self-care began to experience an inner healing on their grief journey, which became a reality in their lives moving forward. Conversely, those who did not tend to each of these domains ended up being stuck in the same place, and their lives remained more difficult. Additionally I provide here, a couple of fictitious examples when discussing the red tide of grief in order to provide greater emphasis on complicated mourning. All other individuals cited in this book have provided notarized, signed permissions to be mentioned herein. May the therapeutic model presented in the following pages serve as a guide to support and navigate you throughout your own grief journey.

CONTENTS

Introduction . Revelation of the Loss: Trauma

Phase 1.   Knowing about My Grief: Response to the Loss (Being Shipwrecked)

Recoil: The Trauma of Grief

React: The Waves of Grief

Diamond Grief Group weeks 1-2: Knowing about my grief

Phase 2.   Growing in My Grief: Reflect upon the Loss (The Iceberg of the Mind)

Recollect: The Information of Memories

Reminisce: The Emotion of Memories

Diamond Grief Group weeks 3-4: Growing in my grief

Phase 3.   Sharing from My Grief: Reconcile with the Loss (Reaching the Shore)

Reconnect period: Recovering from Secondary Losses

Resume period: