Tim P. VanDuivendyk, D.Min. on the birth of a book

On Writing The Unwanted Gift of Grief

Writing The Unwanted Gift of Grief: A Ministry Approach has been a ten-year process. Hospitals seem never to give sabbaticals for writing and study, so we have to write in the morning or night hours. My moments of solitude and inspiration were usually from 4:30 to 7:30 in the morning and on weekends. Writing became a spiritual experience, transcending the moment and the demands of the day and leaving me feeling inspired and transformed.

Why did I write? “Everyone has a book on grief. I have nothing new to say!” I whispered to myself and to Jeanne, my wife. It was Jeanne who kept saying, “Your right, there is nothing new ever written, what is new is how you write it and say it.”

That insightful encouragement kept me going even as I submitted my finished manuscript to five publishers. Why did I write? Was it because of Abby, our daughter, who has Down Syndrome? Or was it because Jeanne was widowed in her mid-twenties left with an infant and a two-year-old? Or was it my divorce – a traumatic teacher? Or was it the many seminars in CPE I taught, or the congregation presentations I made, or the people who kept saying, “You must write this approach to grief! We need this in writing.”

There were so many reasons not to write. Days were already long: being a spouse, father to four children, serving as chaplain, ACPE Supervisor, a private practice of marriage and family therapy and learning to be a system executive for a 3000-bed hospital system. I told myself I was crazy but the inner voice kept nudging and calling me to write. At numerous resting places over the years, concluding that it was complete, I would send it to readers who were in the middle of the wilderness of grief. Or I ministered to a new person/family that taught me a new perspective I had not considered. Just months after I submitted the book and could not change it, we faced a tsunami and hurricanes. There is nothing in the text about these unbelievable disasters and losses. The book seemed out of date before it was printed. I cognitively and emotionally criticized myself in these moments for not seeing and including natural disaster. Yes, I am hard on myself.

So the book unfolded. Finally the past president of our hospital system became the tipping point. Dan Wilford had been through a traumatic car accident where he was badly broken physically but also broken emotionally/spiritually because his wife, Ann, had died in the crash. After some months of working together, I asked him to read my text and give me feedback. When I returned, the manuscript was dog-eared and written on. He told me how it had touched him in areas he had not considered. Dan asked, “When is this going to be published?” I responded, “I don’t know. Every time I minister to people in trauma, loss and grief, I add to and reshape it.” His next comment was the electrifying kick in the pants, “This book may be perfect in five more years but people need it now!” Isn’t it an amazing gift, that God’s voice is heard through people which become the tipping point for a decade of writing?

I did not want to write another theory book with multiple footnotes. My hope was that the narrative be born out of my story as minister and fellow struggler, to write to the person suffering and the many sojourners who walk with them whether they be professionals or the neighbor next door.

Soon after I started writing, I decide not to read another book about loss, mourning or grief. The more I read others, the more I moved to my head and convinced my heart that I had nothing to say – no words to contribute. Embracing the freedom to trust myself, I wrote out of my story, spirituality, theology and perception of the behavioral sciences.

In my writing, I compare grief to a wandering and wondering experience in the wilderness as one searching for a promised life…searching for transformation…searching for hope and healing. There were many days and months I wandered and wondered around in my body, mind and spirit searching for a word, a story, a truth that would be a hopeful voice to God’s people and a hopeful catharsis from my soul. I recently spoke to a congregation about the book and afterwards a women said, “It must be like giving birth. Through the labor and contractions a book is born.”

The Unwanted Gift of Grief: A Ministry Approach, Haworth Pastoral Press, New York, 2006, pp 192.

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