I want to list a few books on death and grieving of which I've read all or most.
It's OK That You're Not Ok by Megan Devine. This is a book for the truly heartbroken. The author helps you to look at what you are thinking and feeling, with her own loss experience as a guide, she passes no judgment and goes with you into the tough, awkward places. Through it all, she tells you over again that there is nothing wrong with the things you are naturally feeling. Grief is not something to be cured but something we must learn how to carry. There are as many ways to carry as there are people.
A Time to Grieve: Meditations for Healing After the Death of a Loved One by Carol Staudacher. Each page encapsulates a thought about grief and grieving, using a statement from a griever, a quote, a paragraph of validation, and a short passage for the griever to repeat to themselves. It was helpful to me in those times when I was in a negative feedback loop or could not stop crying.
No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom For Life, by Thich Nhat Hanh. I am still reading this. It is a Buddhist look at death and how to think of it in the ultimate perspective (infinite) rather than the historical (our lifetime). It is bigger than the big picture. I find it paradoxically comforting and frightening at the same time. This is as it should be. Death itself is paradoxical. We don't like or want death, but viewed in the long term, it ends up being a blessing. We are encouraged to consider ourselves and others as both dead and alive, just as we are both up and down, good and bad, etc. it caused me to come up with my own applicable paradox: We are simultaneously far more important and far less important than we imagine ourselves to be.
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