The only book to examine loss as a necessary experience for personal growth, "Necessary Loss" takes readers through the typical moments of loss throughout life--from maternal separation to shifting friendships, from divorce to old age. First published in 1986, this life-affirming, life-changing, and timeless book is filled with wise and witty insights into how we all must adjust to the changes that are an inevitable part of life.
From grief and mourning to aging and relationships, poet and Redbook contributor Judith Viorst presents a thoughtful and researched study in this examination of love, loss, and letting go.

Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life's inevitabilities.

In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers' protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.