Letters for My Father explores grieving and making sense of a relationship between a father and son while also being so much more. Written by the influential existential psychologist Louis Hoffman, who has worked extensively with grieving throughout his career as a psychotherapist, this is also a book of love, self-exploration, relational depth, and the world and realities that shaped his relationship with his father. As Hoffman journeys into grieving, he journeys into himself and into existence. The chapters include touching letters honoring his father, working through unresolved issues, seeking acceptance, exploring the realities of being part of a biracial family, and finding places of connection. Throughout, a holistic process of grieving is modeled. As Letters for My Father illustrates, the grieving process is not just about trying to "get over" a loss. Many losses, such as the loss of a parent, are something we never get over but rather integrate and learn to live with in new and sometimes vibrant ways. Hoffman demonstrates that one can find a way to live with grief in a way that includes beauty, joy, and preserved connection alongside the pain. Any grieving includes a journey into oneself, which Hoffman does with exquisite transparency and honesty. In these letters, he finds places of connection and similarity as well as places of disconnect and differences. Both are part of his healing process and deepening his connection with his father. As he shares, through writing these letters he has found a way to preserve meaning and relationship and to even grow closer with his father. Hoffman also investigates how the process of grieving and writing these letters helped strengthen and center his connection with himself while returning to his lifelong commitment to living with relational depth. Letters are also written to family members, colleagues, mentees, and others, illuminating the impact his father had upon people surrounding him while engaging in a communal grieving process. While reading, keep some tissue handy as Letters for My Father is sure to bring tears and prompt self-reflection from the reader. One part touching tribute and one-part personal processing, Louis Hoffman's candid and probing Letters for My Father captures a son's devotion to a towering and loving, if ultimately imperfect, figure in his life. At the same time, it offers an intimate and sustained gaze at the deep themes in their braided lives, bravely and vulnerably laid bare for the reader. Far from self-indulgent, Hoffman pivots deftly from reminiscence to reflection in letter after letter, seeking the emotional truth of a father‒son bond and its wider relational ripples in an outpouring of letters to, for, and about his father, and the mirror that his living and dying held up to them both. For anyone who is drawn to correspondence with the deceased as a therapeutic tool for authentic grieving, I say, "Read this book." And to any who doubt the capacity of grief to add existential depth to our fragile existence, I say, "Enter into an imaginal conversation with this author." ~ Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, Director, Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, and Author, Living Beyond Loss: Questions and Answers about Death and Bereavement Even as there is no one or correct way to grieve, as Dr. Hoffman says in his wonderful book Letters for My Father, the reader will find a candid, poignantly vulnerable, and exquisitely insightful reflection on grief and the journey of bereavement that gifts a rich validation to anyone living with the loss of a significant loved one. Not since C. S. Lewis's A Grief Observed have I encountered such a sublime gateway to one of the most difficult and loving experiences we will ever have as human beings. More than anything, Dr. Hoffman shows that even as we experience grief and loss as something that diminishes us, leaving an unfillable vacuum in our soul, it can also be the ultimate culmination of love—the thing that illuminates us in the fullness and richness of our humanity! Dr. Hoffman embraces this paradox with grace, humility, and courage. ~ Drake Spaeth, PsyD As a psychologist, therapist, and grief and bereavement researcher, I found this book to be a deeply moving and insightful contribution to the literature and recommend it to practitioners and bereaved clients alike. As a daughter whose father died nearly a year ago, I found that the book inspired me to enter into fresh conversations and more courageous (self)-reflections of my own. ~ Edith Steffen, PsychD Editor, The Handbook of Grief Therapies & Continuing Bonds in Bereavement Before I made it through a handful of letters, I was weeping. I cried many times as I proceeded. My tears were not only for the depth of love and grief in the letters but also for the courage beckoning from the pages. ~ L. Xochitl Vallejos, PhD, Editor, Lullabies & Confessions An honest and insightful exposition of loss, vulnerability, and the yea