Evelyn Dahlke

An Unexpected Grief Evelyn Dahlke

Although we often think that the grieving process follows the death of someone we love, in An Unexpected Grief, the author explores grief as she experienced it when called upon to walk the final journey of her abusive, ex-spouse's life after having been divorced from him for over twenty years. She details his "death journey", making final decisions following his death, preaching his funeral, and the clean up of the house and farm she had co-owned and operated with him so many years ago where he still resided, and the processing of all that had transpired. As a former special needs teacher, and, currently, as an ordained pastor trained in pastoral counseling, she discusses current scholarship on the grieving process, and discusses the topics of forgiveness and grace, citing stories from her own life and the lives of others with whom she has done ministry as well as citing excerpts from pertinent writings on those subjects that she has found particularly meaningful and helpful in processing her grief and moving forward with her life. In the end, she describes coming to terms with the death in processing the loss of both the physical farm's existence and her own thought processes surrounding death. In doing so, her own faith grows, and she reaches a place where hope and future win out.