This book tells about the emotional and spiritual journey of a woman following the death of her husband, combining the poignant appeal of a love story cut short with the theme of personal growth and spiritual search for meaning, including contact with the spirit of the departed.

Can I Let You Go, My Love? will help to give comfort to those who have experienced the pain of bereavement by showing them that they are not alone, that the cycle of grieving is normal and that life does get better.

Presented as a verse journal, this book is more than an outpouring of one woman's experience of bereavement and life beyond grief. It is also a way of letting other people know what the bereaved are going through and so broadening understanding. The verses are full of life's lessons and the thoughts and feelings expressed are powerful, profound and heart-rending.

It is a book that not only can be used by counsellors and their clients (the manuscript has already been adopted as a therapeutic aid by counsellors) but is just the gift to give to a friend who has lost a loved one or who is going through a crisis in life.

Can I Let You Go, My Love? was cited as an Outstanding Contender for the CRUSE Excellence in Communication Award 1997.

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Journal of Poems

Notes
Translations

Kay van Dijk was born in South Africa and lived in many countries before settling in Holland. There she studied to become a humanistic counselor, caring for the sick and dying. She is now a practitioner and teacher of Regression and Past Life Therapy.

"...full of love, leading to a curious kind of wisdom … the cycle reveals a progression towards a sort of resurgence. … This is a chronicle, not of recovery, but of accommodation, told with tenderness."
Outlook

"If ever there was a poignantly moving book in the avalanche of new books about life and death then it is Kay van Dijk's Can I Let You Go, My Love? The love story that emerges through the poems and continues after the death is a sublime tribute to the human capacity to cope with grief, as well as a tribute to the poetry that expresses these feelings in a more touching and striking way than a narrative account could. The poems … are … extremely moving and can be of great support to those in a comparable situation, travelling along this same lonely road."
Simon Vinkenoog, Dutch author and poet, in Bres, Oct/Nov '97

"For those who are suffering from loss and grief, these poems will be of great assistance to the healing process."
Gerald G. Jampolsky MD

"I was deeply touched by this very personal and healing journey. That one can overcome a deeply felt personal loss, has been expressed in a very touching, intimate, vulnerable, direct and hopeful way. I am convinced that the reading of these poetic sketches will support all those that have to travel this same long and lonesome road."
Pieter Sluis MD, Chairman, Dutch Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation

"The ability to face emotion and transcend it in the minimum of words – a thing so few of us have the courage to do – was most poignant and inspirational. I look forward to recommending it."
Ruth Oliver, bereavement counsellor

"I read it whilst en-route to give a lecture to some Nurses, carers of the dying, and I realised just how important the contents were ... I will be delighted to recommend it to all my teaching groups and workshop participants ... I'll most definitely add this wonderfully alive heart opening story to the suggested reading lists."
Phyllida Templeton, bereavement counsellor

"The poetry would be very comforting to the bereaved at a difficult time in the healing process; a genuine moving book."
CRUSE Bereavement Care

"A jewel of a book! The story is written so directly from the heart that it takes your breath away. It does not describe the essence of bereavement, it IS the essence of it. You feel the grief, the loneliness, the despair and the struggle so intensely that the book is almost thrilling – you ask yourself 'Will Kay be able to survive this difficult loss?' For those who have experienced such a loss, this book will be a source of great recognition. A wonderful book that I can recommend to everyone."
Len Kapteijn-Snijders, therapist and bereavement counsellor, in Shanti Nilaya (magazine of the Dutch Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation)