There are days when I write about Alex.
There are days when I don’t want to write about Alex.
There isn’t a day when I don’t think about Alex.
#GriefJourney#RememberingAlex#LifeAfterLoss
“Raw, honest and incredibly moving.” A reader says the book puts into words thoughts and feelings many people would find impossible to express. Why Am I Here and He Is Not is my story of grief, love and hope.
https://t.co/Bi5uxeJLpL
I cannot transfer all the hopes I had for Alex onto his daughter. They belong to different lives.
Addy will forge her own way in this world.
But when I look at her, I see joy. I see him. And despite everything I now know about the future, I can once again imagine possibilities.
I’ve learned there is a difference between being alone and feeling alone.
Grief is quite capable of making you feel alone in a room full of people.
#WhyAmIHereAndHeIsNot#GriefJourney#GriefSupport
Even the dark futures I imagined during Alex’s mental-health struggles were still futures. There was always a tomorrow when something might change. Losing a child also means mourning every tomorrow you believed might still come.
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I didn’t write Why Am I Here and He Is Not because I figured grief out.
I wrote it from inside grief.
There’s a difference.
https://t.co/Bi5uxeJLpL
#GriefAndLoss#WhyAmIHereAndHeIsNot#StillHisDad
There are people who appeared after Alex died whom I never expected to see.
And people I expected to see who disappeared.
Grief teaches you things about relationships you weren’t necessarily interested in learning.
#GriefJourney#GriefAndLoss#LifeAfterLoss
For years, I arrived at work with the speakers cranked up, singing “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.” I believed it then. I now know how quickly a bright future can darken—but darkness does not erase every source of light.
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I once heard “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” as a song about possibility. Now it reminds me of the future Alex should have had—and the one that continues through Addy. I write about that in Why Am I Here and He Is Not. https://t.co/Bi5uxeJLpL
I have discovered that laughter after loss isn’t betrayal.
Neither is enjoying a round of golf.
Neither is having a wonderful day.
Missing Alex and enjoying my life are both allowed to be true.
#GriefJourney#JoyAfterLoss#PermissionToHeal
I spent much of my career believing problems existed to be solved.
Then my son died.
Some things cannot be solved.
They can only be lived with.
That required a completely different skill set.
#GriefJourney#Childloss#GriefAndHealing
I sometimes wonder whether we ask grieving people how they’re doing because we really want to know — or because we’re hoping they’ll say, “I’m doing fine.”
It’s a complicated question.
And sometimes a complicated answer.
#GriefSupport#GriefJourney#GrievingHeart
Why Am I Here and He Is Not isn’t a book about how to grieve. I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone how. It’s one father’s account of trying to understand what life looks like after the unimaginable happens. https://t.co/Bi5uxeJLpL
I am not interested in “getting over” the death of my son.
I am interested in living a good life while carrying the reality that he died.
Those are very different objectives.
#ChildLoss#GrievingParent#LivingWithGrief
Grief doesn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it’s a song. A photograph. A name. A memory that arrives for no apparent reason.
And suddenly yesterday and today are occupying exactly the same space.
#GriefJourney#GriefAwareness#LifeAfterLoss
I occasionally worry that people think:
“He’s talking about Alex again.”
Then I remember something.
I’m his dad.
Of course I’m talking about Alex again.
#GrievingDad#LosingAChild#RememberingAlex
When I started writing after Alex died, I wasn’t writing a book.
I was trying to survive the day.
The book came later.
Why Am I Here and He Is Not
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