Grief is often a solitary path. There are places only you can go. However, when you step into the footprints of others who have journeyed the path of loss and who have come to a place of healing, you know you can do it too. What was before, no longer is. This is the world of the Afterloss. This book is designed to help you navigate this new world and know you are not alone. Healing in the AfterLoss: A Personal Pathway through Grief is an exploration into this expansive nature of life, love and loss. Living in loss is a perpetual reintegration process.It is about harmonizing what is gone and what is left. The three areas explored here are the new world within us, the new relationship with the ones we will always love, and the new world in which we live now. Hopefully, you will find within these pages a pathway to your own reintegration in your own Afterloss. It is a courageous task to be honest with what you are going through, to lean into every experience loss shapes and to follow loss wherever it leads. I truly believe, that if you do, you will find love waiting where love never left, a beautiful life living here and now that holds then and there in a place of peace, and the underlying love that unfolds and embraces us in every moment and binds us in our common journey - the journey of life, loss and love. This guide is the companion to Out of the Ashes: Healing in the Afterloss. Out of the Ashes chronicles the author's journey through the loss of his wife and two sons to the same devastating illness. Over thirteen years his family died one by one, leaving Benjamin alone in the Afterloss. The world of pain and grief left him reeling, but he did find his footing. His journey to peace is told in raw, vulnerable words that will help others heal as well.
Author Biography:
Several years ago Benjamin Allen appeared extensively in the media beginning with the New York Times, Dateline, The Today Show, Good Morning America, 20/20 and various local newspapers, especially The Dallas Morning News. His story also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The subject matter focused on the tragic circumstances his family endured. Lydia, his wife, received a blood transfusion with HIV during the birth of their first child, Matt. He and Lydia had another child, Bryan, before they were informed of her infection. Consequently, his wife and their two children died, the first being in 1985 and the last death was in 1995. In the midst of all this, one TV producer approached him to secure the rights to make a film about his life. He declined. Many people asked him to write his story, knowing how much it could potentially help others. He was not ready. Finally, after many years of emotional and spiritual exploration, he came to a place of peace. His book, Out of The Ashes: Healing in the Afterloss, details that journey. Portraying normal people in abnormal circumstances, the book shows how he, and those he loved and lost, came to a deeper connection with life in the embrace of death. It is an examination of what loss can take, but what it can also give. It is not a book about HIV/AIDS. It is a book that offers practical tips for dealing with any type of loss and moving into acceptance and healing. Benjamin has worked with grieving individuals and groups for decades. He began his career as a Southern Baptist minister and was the pastor of Pacifica Baptist Church in California. He worked for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas from 1985-1991. He was the founding Director of the Dallas AIDS Interfaith Network, and a member of the Texas Legislative Task Force on AIDS and the National AIDS Commission. From 1991-1995 he worked with the HIV Research Group at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. His journey has brought him to a place of peace. As with everyone, Benjamin is still on the journey of healing. Once asked what he now believes, Benjamin responded, "I have no labels, no attachment to a particular belief. All I know is that I am a human, born of Spirit. And in Spirit, there is only love." He now lives at Lake Tahoe, Nevada where he writes and delivers personal growth programs.
