The Tear

The Tear: A Children’s Story of Transformation and Hope When a Loved One Dies

There are few stories for children that address dying and the loss that comes with death while also including the spiritual view of continuing existence after this transition. Yet many people hold this spiritual view of life and death, indeed many have experienced communication and affirmation from loved ones on the other side.

Children have responded to this book with understanding and enjoyment of the close relationship of Joey and his grandmother and their many happy activities together. The story ends with the transformation revealed in the beauty of the natural world that helps Joey realize that even with the loss of his grandmother’s physical companionship, her love is always there for him. He knowingly tells his parents that gratitude and the warm memories they have shared will keep their loving connection alive in his heart.

About the Author

Nancy Jewel Poer is known across the United States, for her lively lectures on Waldorf education, parenting, child development, the spiritual feminine, the mission of the spiritual America, and threshold work. She is considered a grandmother of the national home death movement and has helped in the founding of threshold groups across the United States.  She has written a book considered a classic in the home death movement, “Living Into Dying, Spiritual and Practical Deathcare for Family and Community”, which has empowered people throughout the country to care for their loved ones at death.

Nancy has served as consumer advocate on the CARE committee for creating end of life policy for the state of California. She is the producer of an award winning, full length documentary on conscious dying, “The Most Excellent Dying of Theodore Jack Heckelman” and she appears in the PBS documentary “A Family Undertaking”.  An artist as well as a writer, she has published “A Child’s First Book”,  “Mia’s Apple Tree”,  and in 2011 “The Tear, A Children’s Story of Hope and Transformation When a Loved One Dies” as well as art prints and cards for children and adults. She is also the co-founder of Rudolf Steiner College, and taught there for forty years. Her courses have included the Spiritual Mission of America.  She was co-editor of special America edition for Lillipoh magazine and lectured in the national conference on The Inner America, 2009. She has taught children at all grade levels, K-12, and began three Waldorf kindergartens, the last as the founding teacher for the Cedar Springs Waldorf School in Placerville, California where she presently lives.