A Healesville resident published his 20th book, dedicated to the memory of his daughter.
The Hole in Your Life: Grief and Bereavement was written by Dr Bob Rich.
The book is a heartfelt, practical guide to understanding grief and healing from it, rooted in the author’s personal experience of the loss of his daughter and decades of psychological counselling.
“It is basically a handbook on how to process grief, but it’s very readable and enjoyable,” the author said.
Dr Rich earned his doctorate in psychology in 1972.
He worked as a counselling psychologist, running a private practice for over 20 years in the Yarra Valley.
“It was mostly written, and then I put it aside. It focused on a young couple who were actually clients of mine, whose little toddler son died in terrible circumstances. They each felt suicidally guilty, and also each bitterly blamed the other,” Dr Rich said.
“I tracked their progress through the book on how they not only resolved their grief, but got back together as a married couple.
“And then when my daughter died, I rewrote the book and put a second story through, which was highlighted with my grief, and everything is illustrated with little stories from my various clients. I simply changed the names. Sometimes, I combined two or three clients into one story to hide their real personalities.”
In the book, Dr Rich introduced compassionate tools for navigating bereavement to serve as both a comfort and a roadmap for anyone experiencing loss, emphasising that while grief is unique and unpredictable, growth and peace are possible.
“Those tools handle all sorts of problems,” the author said.
“For a few examples, setting aside a set time every day for feeling the grief. Let’s say you set the appointment at 5pm, when you have a thought of grief at 5pm and then say, ‘Go away, love. I’ll see you at 5pm.’ As long as you keep the appointment, it works.
“Another one is mindfulness meditation. That means you’re focusing on this instant and anything else, including severe bad emotions, can be there, but they become background because anytime something happens, you just gently return your attention to whatever you’re focusing on.”
Dr Rich’s daughter Natalie died of liver cancer in December 2024.
She graduated from Healesville High School and received a medal for the top accountancy student at RMIT University.
“She worked locally as an accountant, but she hated being the sandwich between the tax department and the client, so she retired at 30 and started up her bookkeeping business,” Dr Rich said.
“A great many people in Healesville and surrounding areas have been her past clients, and they all loved her. She was that kind of person.
“Her joy was to be of service to her clients and anybody else.”
You can read the first chapter and the table of contents, and also purchase the book at the following website, grief.lhpress.com
