Excerpt:
There is an unwritten rule
that in the first chapter of any book on grief, the author must explain what
grief is—as if the readers of the book don’t know. Grief affects everyone at
some point. We reach out for guides like this, not for definition, but for
reassurance, companionship, answers. We may already be going through life’s
hardest tests. Our grief affects our every waking moment—and every sleeping
moment—and ruthlessly changes us from the inside out.
We absolutely know what grief is.
Out of nowhere, when I was only thirty-one years old, I lost my husband, Mike,
to a sudden tragedy. Mike was thirty-nine—a young man still—and our children
were only four and six. That man was and is my soulmate. To this day, I am
gratified for having known and loved him. And losing him was a blow that almost
leveled me. Within a matter of hours, I went from being a happy wife to being a
widow. I was in a state of shock—nothing had prepared me to lose someone so
close to me.
At that time, I had dealt with loss before, but none had so mercilessly turned
my life upside down. I was shocked to the core, unable to process the truth
until days—maybe weeks—later.
Then I found myself coping with not only my grief but our children’s as well. I
was trying to run a business at the time and had multiple responsibilities and
roles. Some days I felt like hiding in bed, but I simply could not—too many
others relied on me. The road from that time to now was a long and complex one,
full of discoveries—some painful, some remarkable—that I want to share with
you. I write this book for anyone who has suffered a loss. Your grief
experience is yours alone, but you need not be alone in living with it.
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