This book is part memoir of a hospital chaplain, part reflections on grief...but it is also more than that. It touches on burnout, racism, and much more.
If you're familiar with Kubler-Ross's stages of grief but have questioned how a simple understanding of them has become our default framework for everything, this book is for you as Chaplain Park presents his alternative perspectives where "acceptance" is not the end goal.
Thank you to Net Galley for the advance copy. Views my own.

This is a book I won’t get over for a long time. In a world where too many people want to simplify, gloss over, dismiss, or impose their own timelines onto the grief of others out of their own discomfort or inability to reckon with it, this book looks grief straight in the eyes and welcomes it.
Park presents this complex topic in a way that does not judge, shame, or bypass. He offers a hard look at wide-ranging types of grief, many of which I didn’t realize I had grieved myself until I saw them named.
Trigger and content warnings abound, and may be difficult for some to read. And, I think that makes this book all the more valuable. Park doesn’t shy away from sharing the very real stories of his work with patients and their loved ones (or lack thereof) as a chaplain at a Level 1 Trauma Center, and honors their memory by telling their stories.
His gift is in creating sacred space not only for his patients, but for us, the readers. We, too, become his patients as he holds our hands and guides us through the many ways grief shows up in our lives. Permission to grieve is offered in a sacred, liminal, and redemptive way, remembering stories as a way to honor what was lost.
Loss and grief will always be a part of life. And now, this gentle and gracious guide from J.S. Park, our therapriest, will be with us too. If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t have the time or space to grieve, here’s your permission. Take as long as you need.

Part memoir, part instructional manual, As Long as You Need, provides the reader with permission and the process for how to grieve and heal at your own pace. The author, Joon Park, uses his gift of storytelling to touch on burnout, racism, loss of faith, and healing, as he discusses four types of grieving—spiritual, mental, physical, and relational, offering compassionate self-care and soul-care along the way. So many times when a loss is experienced, you feel pressured to move on quickly to get back to your base norm, as if your world was not just turned inside out and you can't imagine a normal ever again. This books provides real examples of healing, and permission to take as long as it takes to get there. Park understands firsthand how rushing or suppressing grief only adds a suffocating layer of pain on top of the original wound. Calling himself a "therapriest" and a "grief-catcher", he has seen more than his fair share of grief as a Chaplain at a Level 1 trauma center, and assures the reader that while everybody else might rush past your pain, grief is the voice that says, as he gives us permission take as long as we need. Reading this book feels like a long chat with a trusted advisor, a keeper and respecter of your story, an outstretched hand supporting you and navigating you through the stages. Grief is no respecter of timelines, is not linear, and is indiscriminate of humanity, and yet Park offers a voice of hope that through the fog of grief, there is light on the other end.

I found this exceptional book on grief written by a hospital chaplain to be helpful both personally and professionally. In my role as a healthcare worker, it gave me deeper insight into what my patients and coworkers are experiencing. As a daughter who lost her mother more than ten years ago but is still deeply grieving, it helped me to understand what is “normal” about grief - both everything and nothing! I am thankful to NetGalley and J.S. Park for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

In his book As Long As You Need, author J.S. Park walks right into the hard things with us, and walks through it with us with heart and eyes open.

I have heard a lot of things about grief, and been through it over the years, but nothing prepared me for when my father died. I wish that this book had existed two years ago. I am glad it exists now.

I came up on the Kubler-Ross model of grief, and while that has validity – it isn’t what I needed. In my own grief, I needed something that acknowledged the hugeness of what I’ve lost, and the idea that there would eventually be a path forward -and maybe most importantly for me, that it did not have to be tied to conventional timelines.

He also acknowledges the anger that can come with grief. That was important to and for me, and validating, as I was deeply angry after my father died, and I wasn’t sure why, and there was no good place to direct it.

There are a lot of powerful moments in the book, but here’s one that stopped me in my tracks: Park talks about being with a family member after their father had died in the hospital. He tells that family member that amid the busy and struggle of attempting to save a life, he called for a moment of silence, and said the patient’s name. He tells the person, “We were able to honor your dad.”

How do you grieve when you’re facing something bigger than you’ve ever faced before?
When you’re ready, start with J.S. Park’s book. Take as long as you need.