Grief Biography

Dan Robson's father is a builder, a fixer. When he dies, nothing in his son's world feels steady anymore. Dan knows he is not the man his father was. Dan never learned the blue-collar skills he admired, because his father wanted him to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. Now that his father is gone, the acknowledgment of his sacrifices and the sheer longing to be close to him again in some way draw Dan to the tools that lie unused in the garage. So begins Dan’s year of learning the skills his father’s hands had long mastered, and trying to fill the steel-toe boots left behind.

Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning from her dad how to out-fish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors. Diagnosed young with terminal cancer, he raced against the clock to leave her the skills she’d need to survive without him. This was one legacy. Another was relentless perfectionism and the belief that bravery meant never acknowledging your own fear. By her mid-thirties Laurel is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, having learned the hard way that no achievement can protect her from pain or remove the guilt and regret her dad’s death leaves her with.

I wrote this book during one of the most difficult years of my life. This is my journey through the grieving process of losing my 27 year relationship and trauma work before and after. It is a glimpse into how I used the therapeutic processes of Compassionate Inquiry and Internal Family Systems to navigate through the year, as well as chronicle how my childhood shaped my life and how I show up in relationship, my worldview, coping mechanisms, and more.

Meghan Riordan Jarvis lived a charmed childhood with her large Irish-Catholic family: loving parents, a house full of siblings, a top-tier education, and summers on Cape Cod. And yet, loss was part of her story from the beginning. In therapy in her 20s after a break-up, Meghan discovered how the silence surrounding a childhood tragedy had laid the groundwork for a life spent trying to keep other people happy and avoiding any type of risk, including love. End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief—and wondered how they’d ever get through it.

Lucy Edwards is a UK-based blind broadcaster, content creator, Pantene Ambassador and disability activist. At only 17 her world went to black. In an instant Lucy lost her eyesight due to a rare condition called Incontinentia Pigmenti. She had to learn how to navigate her life all over again, the beginning of an extraordinary journey to find self-acceptance and happiness. Lucy took to the internet and started to upload her experiences. Through sharing her day-to-day routine in her viral 'How does a blind girl?' video series, Lucy's story gripped the nation.

"Okay, Lord, you can have him. But if he must die, I want it to be for something big. I want someone’s life to be changed forever." This is what Laura Sobeich prayed when she found out her 17-year-old son had only one year to live. With this desperate prayer, she released her son to God’s will. At that point, Zach Sobiech was just another teenager battling cancer. When his mother told him to think about writing good-bye letters to family and friends, he decided instead to write songs. One of them, "Clouds", captured hearts and changed not one life but millions, making him an international sensation.

My name is Ashlee. I am a victim of murder. Through a series of events and by two shots of a gun, I was made a widow at the age of 28, with my youngest child just six weeks old. I am a victim of infidelity. I have felt unlovable. I have felt rejected. I have had days in my life when I wasn’t sure if I would ever take a breath again, let alone be able to raise my five children by myself. I have lived in fear. I have felt much heartache. I have felt truly broken to my core. I have carried some heavy burdens...not only of my own, but burdens put upon my shoulders by the death of my husband.

"I am the descendant of drinkers and drifters better at passing on their love for the bottle than family history...". Prepare yourself for an unvarnished, harrowing look at one Christian's life. A powerful memoir of knowing and being known by God through the pain of loss, tragedy, and brokenness - Even in Our Darkness explores what it means to fend off doubt and despair, even in the most painful trials. Jack Deere tells the true story of his life growing up near Fort Worth, Texas in the 1950's and the disintegration of his family following his father's suicide.

In 2001, Christine Yanke’s life was turned upside down after police raided her family’s home and arrested her Hells Angel husband. Suddenly an unemployed single mother of three boys, she had to fight to keep her home and family together. For the next three years, her husband awaited a trial that would determine their future together as a family. Blinded by an Angel is the true story of one woman’s struggle to survive mental, physical, and financial hardships.

Dallas Willard spent his life making eternal living concrete for his friends. After his unexpected passing in 2013, the kaleidoscope of memories and the diversity of the lives he had touched could not be confined to one or even two memorial services but three. It is this wide breadth of impact that inspired friends, family, colleagues, students, and leaders of the church to gather their reflections on this celebrated yet humble theologian and philosopher.

What started as a wonderful love story for Mélissa and Scott ended 16 years later with Scott’s dramatic death, leaving Mélissa and her two young children to endure the unimaginable. In her desperation, Mélissa prayed for guidance, and God responded by sending her an army of angels to make her transition from wife to widow more bearable. Since her husband’s passing, Mélissa has felt a strong calling to use her voice to address the stigmas around suicide and mental health.

David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons.

In 2015 former England football star Rio Ferdinand suddenly and tragically lost his wife and soul mate, Rebecca, age 34, to cancer. It was a profound shock, and Rio found himself struggling to cope not just with the pain of his grief but also with his new role as both mum and dad to their three young children. Rio's BBC1 documentary Being Mum and Dad touched everyone who watched it and won huge praise for the honesty and bravery he showed in talking about his emotions and experiences.

A 29-year-old son and only child passes. He nudges his mother to open up to spirit so she can build a new relationship with him. Letters to David unlocks a door to spirit and offers hope for parents who have suffered tragic grief. There is an immediacy and accessibility to Claudia and David's relationship that provides laughter, tears, and hope to those grieving what they see as the "end" of a relationship. Enclosed, you will find valuable tools for healing and growth. We don't die, and our loved ones remain with us forever.

In the mid 1980s, Canada's worst public health disaster was unfolding. Catastrophic mismanagement of the country's blood supply allowed contaminated blood to be knowingly distributed, infecting close to two thousand Canadians with HIV. Among them was Melanie Brooks's surgeon father who, after receiving a blood transfusion during open-heart surgery in 1985, learned he was HIV positive. At a time when HIV/AIDS was misunderstood and public perception was shaped by fear, prejudice, and homophobia, victims of the disease faced ostracism and persecution. Wanting to protect his family from this stigma, Melanie's father decided his illness would be a secret they'd all keep.

This House of Grief is a heartbreaking audiobook by one of Australia's most admired authors. Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.

Like the biblical Job, John Ramsey had it all - wealth, social position, a loving family. And like Job, Ramsey was destined for great affliction, as many of the most precious things in his life were cruelly taken from him.

Infertility is a battle that women have been fighting for centuries, but the seemingly taboo subject is rarely discussed openly. Here, Bailey Henry describes her journey with infertility, including four miscarriages, marriage, grief, love, and the chance she was never properly potty-trained. With raw honesty, heartbreak, and a bit of humor, Bailey discusses the trials of being pregnant but never having a baby. If you've known the devastating loss of a child, or if your life simply hasn't turned out the way you thought it would, this one is for you.

When Emily Halnon lost her beloved mother to a rare uterine cancer at just sixty-six years old, she wanted to do something monumental to honor the person her mother had been. Emily's mom had taken up running in her late forties; she ran her first marathon at fifty. She even went skydiving to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. Emily, already an accomplished ultrarunner, decided to try to break the record for the Fastest Known Time by a woman on the Pacific Crest Trail's 460 miles across Oregon.

The morning after a birthday party she threw for him, O'Brien woke up in the hospital to learn that his girlfriend was dead, and he might be going to prison for causing the car crash that killed her. With piercing insight and stark prose, Mark L. O’Brien leads us on a deeply personal, intimate, and emotional journey—grappling with loss, regret, and his fragmented memories of the night of the crash, questioning a new relationship fraught with immense shame.