I Know It in My Heart: Walking through Grief with a Child

by Mary E. Plouffe, PhD

Overview

A three-week adventure becomes a tragic dilemma for a loving sister, a motherless child, and a terrified father facing unimaginable loss together and using their relationships with one another to survive. I Know It In My Heart: Walking through Grief with a Child explores the impact of early parental loss, the evolution of grief from toddler to teenager, and the devastation of adult sibling loss. Told by Mary E. Plouffe—a grieving sister who is also a psychologist—the story is more than a memoir; it is an exploration of childhood and adult grief, and how family relationships can weave them into healing. Parents, therapists, and anyone else who wants to see loss though the eyes of a child will find useful information here for guiding children through loss, and understanding how those losses impact them as they grow. Narrated with professional wisdom steeped in personal pain, I Know It In My Heart brings us all a step closer to understanding, resilience, and healing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631522000
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary E. Plouffe, PhD is a clinical psychologist with thirty-five years of experience as a clinician, teacher, and consultant. She has served on the faculty of Maine Medical Center psychiatry residency training program, the Maine Board of Examiners, and The Collaborate School, and has provided consultation to school and courts. Her essays have been published by NPR, On the Issues Magazine, Brain, Child Magazine, Survivor Review, and Mothers Always Write. Find additional information at www.maryeplouffeauthor.com .

Table of Contents

Prologue

Winslow Park xi

The Favor xii

Section I Remembering

Chapter 1 The Portal 3

Chapter 2 Family 6

Chapter 3 Bookends 12

Chapter 4 Liamarie 15

Chapter 5 The Numbers 21

Chapter 6 Decisions 25

Chapter 7 Fall 35

Section II Bonding

Chapter 8 Attachment 45

Chapter 9 Negotiating Family 52

Chapter 10 The Ice Storm 56

Chapter 11 February 1998 62

Chapter 12 I Love You 67

Chapter 13 ARBS 69

Chapter 14 The Injury 71

Chapter 15 Saying Goodbye 77

Chapter 16 Johns Hopkins 82

Chapter 17 Maybe 93

Chapter 18 March 97

Chapter 19 Returning Home 100

Chapter 20 The Ending 104

Section III Grieving

Chapter 21 Denial 109

Chapter 22 Ritual 115

Chapter 23 Condolences 124

Chapter 24 Las Vegas 132

Chapter 25 Solo 139

Chapter 26 Turning Four 148

Chapter 27 Spring 151

Chapter 28 July 154

Chapter 29 The Box 157

Chapter 30 August 161

Chapter 31 Healing Voices 168

Chapter 32 Fall 178

Chapter 33 Holidays 183

Chapter 34 December 1998 187

Chapter 35 The Hospital 194

Section IV Growing

Chapter 36 A Child's Anniversary 201

Chapter 37 Sleep 206

Chapter 38 Turning Five 209

Chapter 39 Berkshire Choral Festival II 215

Chapter 40 Touch 220

Chapter 41 Happy Day 223

Chapter 42 Two Years 227

Chapter 43 Turning Six 231

Chapter 44 Communication 236

Chapter 45 Knowing 240

Chapter 46 First Communion 248

Chapter 47 Mastery 253

Chapter 48 Two Weddings 258

Chapter 49 Quinceañera, May 2009 262

Epilogue

Kaleidoscope 269

Editorial Reviews

The Independent Publisher Of New England 2018 Book of the Year (November 2018) 2018 Foreword Indies Finalist in Adult Nonfiction—Grief & Grieving 2018 Readers' Favorites Book Awards Honorable Mention in Non-Fiction—Grief/Hardship 2017 Living Now Awards Silver Medal Winner in Inspirational Memoir, Female 2017-2018 Sarton Women's Book Award Finalist in Memoir 2017 International Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Memoir
"A remarkable, empathetic, and intense exploration of the nature of grief and guilt, featuring searing personal insights as well as cleareyed professionalism.” —Kirkus Reviews “I wish this book had existed decades ago, to help adults understand how children navigate grief during and after a parent’s death. Kudos to Mary Plouffe, Ph.D. not just for writing this book about the aftermath of her sister’s death, but also for helping her niece adjust to the absence from ages 3-15 and beyond. This is an important addition to the children’s bereavement field. Highly recommended.” —Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters
"A beautiful, courageously honest book . . . In I Know It in My Heart, Dr. Plouffe, a clinical psychologist, masterfully interweaves her own grief for her sister’s death with her niece’s, while educating readers as to the emotional and psychological nature of adult and childhood loss. A must-read page-turner: Profound, insightful, and exquisitely written." —Virginia A. Simpson, Ph.D., FT, Bereavement Care Specialist, founder of The Mourning Star Center for Grieving Children, and author of The Space Between: A Memoir of Mother-Daughter Love at the End of Life
"Because we are mortal, love always turns to grief; but honest remembering, of the kind Mary Plouffe does here, restores it to its true nature. As a therapist, Plouffe understands the difficult pathways of mourning; as a sister, she has had to walk them in sorrow and wonder; as a writer, she has depicted the terrain with a power and beauty that will make I Know It in My Heart a classic." — Richard Hoffman, author of Half the House and Love & Fury
"Mary Plouffe has written an achingly beautiful family guide to loss and healing. This is a story that will make a difference, told with grace and wit and the keen understanding of a sister's grief and a child's capacity for hope.” —Susan Conley, author of The Foremost Good Fortune, Paris was the Place, Stop Here, This is the Place
“In a profound yet simple way, Mary Plouffe gives us a compelling personal story of grieving—of her sister's diagnosis, then caring for her little niece, her own family, and herself, then loss, and then on to healing. Her evident experience as a psychologist adds authority to a universal story in a deep and tender way . . . a noteworthy, compassionate companion, eloquent and reassuring.” —Anne Lynch, Director, Maine Center for Grieving Children “Mary Plouffe’s love for her late sister lives on in the close relationship she built with her niece after their mutual great loss, just as it lives on in I Know it in My Heart, a book that so poignantly bows to the often-unacknowledged pain suffered by a grieving sibling, and the life-altering loss experienced by a young child.” —Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Songs from a Lead Lined Room, This is Paradise, and Sundays in America
“A searing, beautifully written story of unfathomable grief and unbreakable family bonds. If you are a human being, read this.” —Monica Wood, author of When We Were the Kennedys and The One-in-a-Million Boy

From the Publisher

2018-01-25
A veteran clinical psychologist examines cancer and a child's grief in this debut memoir.When her firecracker sister Martha was diagnosed with breast cancer, Plouffe believed she had the tools to deal with whatever happened, including the interminable machinations of the insurance company, the roller coaster of recovery and relapse, and the demands of a large family scattered across three states. Martha and her doctors played the numbers game, but only one number mattered to this mother of a 3-year-old: "I need twenty years to raise Liamarie." And when a treatment designed to extend Martha's life inadvertently ended it, Plouffe was forced to inspect not only her own grief, but also that of the newly abandoned child. The author tells not only the story of "how we got through the horror" of Martha's death in the years that followed, but also "how we got back," detailing family members' exhausting emotional journeys as they attempted to heal and move on with their lives while managing Liamarie's mental health as she grew from toddler to teenager. As a psychologist dealing with trauma on a daily basis, Plouffe found herself reiterating the received wisdom that "grieving is a two-year process" only to discover the advice as lacking in the glut of platitudes that met her in the wake of Martha's death. She came to realize that "grief is not a broken heart...grief is a fractured soul," and her striking tale is one of reconciling her career experiences with the agonizing reality of personal loss, told in a manner that wisely avoids sentimentality and embraces the warts-and-all irrationality of mourning. Where a lesser writer might lean into the darling precocity of Liamarie and offer the child as a panacea to the suffering, Plouffe uses an almost clinical examination of the girl's development as a springboard to reconsidering her own attitude toward the grieving process. What results is a bracing and accessible account of the conflict between emotion and intellect.A remarkable, empathetic, and intense exploration of the nature of grief and guilt, featuring searing personal insights as well as cleareyed professionalism.

Kirkus Reviews