You only grieve what you can no longer reach.
You were told grief comes in stages — that if you keep climbing, you arrive at acceptance and are done.
Your grief refused.
I have spent twenty years in coaching, teaching emotional education and psychotherapy, the last ten of those in the therapist’s chair, with people whose grief would not climb stairs. The result is a map: twelve steps, numbered nought to eleven, laid out on a clock that runs backwards — because loss takes us back before it lets us go.
This book is that map, delivered as fifteen letters, each written to an hour of grief.
It will not tell you that time heals, that everything happens for a reason, or that you will get over it. You do not get over the people you love. You learn to carry them differently.
A companion, not a clinician. Not a substitute for professional mental-health care.
Read a letter free
Choose the letter written for where you are tonight. Leave your email and the letters open straight away. I’ll send nothing else unless you tick the box.
The fifteen letters:
- To the one awake at 2am
- To the one nobody sends a card
- To the man who wrote 186 words
- To the one who feels nothing
- To the one who just heard the words
- To the one standing beside them
- To the one leaving
- To the ones staying
- To the one who is angry
- To the one who is gone
- To the one at the bottom
- To the machine that offered to bring them back
- To the one learning to carry it
- Past the last step
- To the reader who will one day write these
The whole book · £5.99
The phone and web edition: the map and all fifteen letters, opening straight after payment on any phone, tablet or computer. Keep it, or give it to someone who needs it.
Buy the phone and web edition · £5.99
Secure payment by Stripe. You’ll go straight to the book.
In print or on Kindle now: Buy on Amazon
Instrument · App
For the one leaving, and the ones staying.
InTeo
In The Event Of: set down what your family will need if you die or lose capacity, in one sitting. No account; nothing leaves your device.
Open InTeoTalking to someone
Sessions are two hours, face to face in Oxhill, South Warwickshire. For clients further afield, one hour by phone or video.
If you are thinking about ending your life, call Samaritans free, any time, on 116 123.