New Beginnings: Living Through Loss and Grief

Linda Perry is a senior policy analyst at the Ontario Ministry of
Colleges and Universities.

This is a book about coming to terms with loss of many kinds, from
bereavement, divorce, and aging, through to unemployment and illness.
The premise is that these changes, however staggering and unwelcome, can
be occasions for growth and wisdom.

Wylie rejects the simplistic Pollyanna “bright side” approach. She
makes some provocative points and complex differentiations among various
forms of loss. The death of a spouse, a child, a friend: all bring
different kinds of grief and present different alternatives for
interpretation. Similarly, moving house, unemployment, or the loss of
self-image through age or illness each present varying challenges and
opportunities.

Wylie provides a sensitive description of life after loss. Bereaved
spouses, for example, may experience the re-emergence of sexuality less
as a joyful reawakening than as an anxious experience involving guilt at
what feels like infidelity.

Despite the sombre subject, the tone is richly varied—from biblical
sonority, through the intimacy of personal self-disclosure, to deft
humor. The overall effect is one of reassurance and self-validation. The
anguish of loss can be survived and can even be ennobling, Wylie claims,
given “guts and grace.”