Welcome To My (Unexpected) Life

Greetings, I’m Jenny, a writer, wife, mom, teacher, and unexpected griever. I’ve been writing about difficult feelings and perseverance my entire life. However, I have never been brave enough to share my thoughts publicly. I didn’t ever expect to –until the unthinkable happened.

Can you survive the most awful thing in the world and go on to lead a productive, meaningful life? At first, I wasn’t sure I could even get out of bed. Thinking about leading any kind of life, meaningful or otherwise, wasn’t something I contemplated. After a time, I was sure another sunrise was coming, the bills would get paid, and weight loss was still not in the cards. After even more time, I was sure I would somehow walk alongside this horrible event and breathe for the rest of my days. In those first few years, I wasn’t sure of much else.

I never imagined I would be writing about grief. Sure, everyone expects some kind of death in their lives. We’re all heading in that direction. Perhaps you would expect a grandparent or a parent to pass on, or your uncle George who smokes…a lot. But never did I imagine I would mourn the loss of my perfectly healthy child.

Can you survive the most awful, horrible, no good, very bad thing in the world and go on to lead a productive and fulfilling life?

As I went through a very public mourning, I observed that when I shared my experiences others felt comforted and inspired. That seemed hard to believe since much of my sharing was from deeply haunting, desperate places. However, the more mourning I shared, the more people would reach out and say, “I want to hear more.”

This website was started as a place of hope for those who are grieving horrible losses, especially child loss. I want to point out that I am not a grief expert. I do not view myself that way and have no training in that field. I speak of child loss because that is the loss I have experienced, but I understand that all grief is difficult. I would invite any and all, no matter the grief you are healing, to come along.

There can still be a full life after such a horrible loss.

I share my experience, strength, and hope with anyone who wants or needs it. I am here to share one way (not the only way) to tumble along through this goopy mire. I know there are many ways to walk this path.

Please join me on this journey. Let’s explore hope in the horrible.