FROM PAIN TO PURPOSE - finishing the book

I was asked this week how I feel about finishing FROM PAIN TO PURPOSE.

I hadn’t really stopped to think about it. But the question came from a bereaved parent — and a fellow author — and it made me pause in a way I didn’t expect.

How do I feel?

Numb.

Not satisfied.

Not accomplished.

Not proud in the way people assume you should feel when you finish something big.

Because I never planned to write this book. It happened… almost by accident.

And it isn’t sadness exactly — because grief has already taken me to the deepest place imaginable, the day Cooper died. Nothing compares to that.

This feeling is different.

It’s numbness.

Confusion.

And a kind of disbelief.

Even now, I don’t really understand how it happened.

I began writing before my knee replacement — just trying to survive, just trying to cope. My surgeon asked if I was writing a diary.

I said, “No… I’m just writing.”

And then the pages kept coming.

It grew.

It developed.

Before I knew it, it became something more than words — it became a story.

My dear friend Michelle read it early on and encouraged me to keep going. She told me it mattered. That it was important. That there were people who would need it.

Then everything moved quickly — faster than I could process.

In just over 90 days, it was written, edited, and sent to the printers (with deep gratitude to All In The Edit).

Sometimes I think… if I had stopped to think too much, I might never have published it at all.

Because the only other feeling I can name is this:

Terrified.

Sharing your most intimate thoughts — your heartbreak, your vulnerability, your truth — is frightening.

All of a sudden, people will know everything.

But maybe not stopping was the point.

Maybe this is how it was meant to happen.

Not planned.

Not polished into perfection.

Just honest.

By accident… but still important.

And if it helps even one person feel less alone, then maybe that’s enough.

Copies arrive in the next 10 days. 🤍