Surviving Loss: The Woodcutter's Tale

By Lisa Saunders

This booklet, a grandfather’s touching fairy tale, is illustrated with heart-felt simplicity. It’s a story that soothes the aching hearts of children and adults alike, as it reveals the process of healing after the death of a loved one.

The afterward, written by a psychotherapist, seeks to help individuals understand the grieving process so they can return to a life with purpose and meaning. Further insight is provided by a mother who lost her 16-year-old daughter. She shares the ways in which she is trying to move forward to honor the memory of her child.

This message of hope enables readers to begin speaking of their own losses, whether by discussing the fairytale or identifying with the mother’s experience. The portion on understanding and coping with the natural process of grief gives individuals tools for healing.

Surviving Loss: A Woodcutter’s Tale is ideal for anyone who has experienced loss and provides professionals with an invaluable resource for assisting the bereaved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Saunders
• Release date: Feb 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301226566

Lisa Saunders

Lisa Saunders is an award-winning writer living in Mystic, Connecticut, with her husband and beagle/basset hound. A speaker, she specializes in topics such as travel and how to get free publicity, get published, finding ways to cope in adversity, and the preventable but little publicized viral causes of birth defects. She works part-time as a history interpreter at Mystic Seaport and is a graduate of Cornell University. Visit her at: http://www.authorlisasaunders.com/

Book preview

Surviving Loss

The Woodcutter’s Tale

by Lisa Saunders

Illustrated by Marianne Greiner

Afterword by Julie Russell, MSW, LCSW

Contribution by Richard W. Avazian

Lisa Saunders’ Smashwords Edition Copyright 2013

Lisa Saunders’ page at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LisaSaunders

Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please download an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not download it, or it was not downloaded for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and download your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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DEDICATION

To all who have lost a loved one.

Contents

Introduction

The Woodcutter’s Tale

Afterword: Understanding Grief by Julie Russell, LCSW

The Empty Christmas Chair—Holidays Without My Daughter

Preventing Congenital CMV

Books by Lisa Saunders

About Lisa Saunders

About Julie Russell, LCSW

To order paperback copies of Surviving Grief: The Woodcutter’s tale

INTRODUCTION

My daughter, Elizabeth Ann Saunders, died at the age of 16 on February 9, 2006. Two weeks later, my father handed me a single sheet of paper. He said, Read this. The fairytale he felt inspired to write, The Woodcutter’s Tale, spoke to my soul.

I often reread The Woodcutter’s Tale because I find comfort in it—it gives me hope for tomorrow. It is included in my memoir called Anything But a Dog! The book is about Elizabeth’s life with her big sister and a homeless older dog who became Elizabeth’s constant companion for the last five years of her life.