An Excerpt From Part One: Where does effective grief care start? It starts with you, the caregiver. It starts with what you believe about grief and mourning. It starts with your training and understanding of the helping relationship. It starts with your innate personality. It starts with your personal experiences with loss and grief. It starts with how all of this translates into your ways of being when you are in the company of someone who is grieving. Whenever you enter into a counseling relationship, you are about to embark on a journey through the wilderness of grief with a fellow human being. You might think of the starting point as the trailhead.

Before you set off, I urge you to make sure you are as prepared as possible. The wilderness is vast and inhospitable, and the journey is grueling. The mourner is trusting in you to help him survive. Yes, lives are at stake-usually not literal life-or-death consequences but instead what I consider the even more important life of the soul. On the journey to come, you will not be the guide, exactly, because you will be walking alongside the mourner, not in front of or behind him. As you walk, you will be allowing the mourner to choose the path. After all, this is really his journey-not yours. But as his trusted and discerning companion, you are tasked with helping him discover paths that lead to healing.

You will help him read the compass and look for the signposts that are the six needs of mourning. You will try to ensure adequate shelter (safe places to express thoughts and feelings), food (regular meals of compassion and hope), and water (recognizing what sustains him day to day). You will watch out for the hazards of complicated grief and learn when to refer him to another helper when his needs are beyond your training and experience. While you are not responsible for him, you are responsible to him for all of these things. Helping people who are grieving-and helping people who help people who are grieving-is my life's work. This book starts at the trailhead of grief and is meant to help you be as prepared for and capable of truly helping mourners as possible. Book jacket.