An Illustrated Journey Through Grief

"I have been writing and illustrating this book on the subject of grief and survival almost daily throughout this full year. With love and understanding of our Journey, my hope is that this book brings comfort to all who read it." So begins Claudia Chappel's second collection of paintings and meditations on the process of grieving the loss of a loved one. This book is full of beautiful, full-color paintings that capture the spaces and feelings that one passes through while shoring up under intense pain, and surviving.

At the age of 53, Claudia Chappel experienced the unimaginable. She answered a knock at the door and a policeman was standing there. He told her every parent's worst nightmare: her son Ben, the first love of her life, was gone. She fell into a dark and lonely place. She gave up painting. Over the next 13 years, Claudia slowly learned to live with her pain and grief. She began to paint again. Her work had no special meaning to her at the time.

Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one began to seek her out for advice, comfort and hope. Over time Claudia realized that she was saying the same words repeatedly, so she decided to write them down. It wasn't until she began writing her first book that she realized the art, which she thought had no meaning, served as perfect illustrations.

Claudia's first book, The Art of Living with Grief, was initially written as a gift for a mother whose son had recently died. Other's wanted copies to send to friends who were suffering the same losses, so she started making copies. The growing response indicated a need to publish the book more traditionally, and soon people who were grieving the deaths of spouses and parents and other loved ones were sharing that first book. This demand inspired this new volume, which is meant to help a broader audience process their grief. Helping others gives purpose to both Claudia's grief and her art.