Minus One

A memoir and guidebook about losing the love of your life, supporting your children through loss, and discovering over time that life does, in fact, go on. When Gregg Bonn lost his wife Heidi to cancer, he posted on Facebook to let friends know of her passing. As he continued to post daily, his life unexpectedly transformed. His grief began to heal--and he became an author. Through frank explorations of pain and bewilderment and humor-tinged recollections of life "before," author Gregg Bonn shares in this memoir-cum-grief-manual how he navigated his new role as a widowed single father of three while reckoning with the hard realities of becoming a "minus one." As Bonn shared his pain and musings about death and loss online, he received comfort-and, to his surprise, gratitude. The posts were helping not only him, but also his readers, who shared that his courage in showing up authentically and vulnerably had led them to tap into hidden capacities for compassion, strength, and purpose. In Gregg's words, people connected to "the stuff that everybody feels, but nobody talks about." With their encouragement, he began to compile the posts into a memoir. Bonn soon realized he was creating a roadmap that could help others to make their way through the anguish of grieving a lost spouse or to understand the struggle of a widowed loved one. He tells his story in a down-to-earth, conversational style, treating the reader like a friend who has come to "sit shiva"--pay a condolence call--in his living room. Following the telling of his story, in a section called "Takeaways," the author shares hard-won advice organized for easy reference. Whether you're grieving or know someone who is, Minus One offers helpful tools for moving forward and will make you cry, laugh, and ultimately cheer when Gregg Bonn discovers that, even after wrenching loss, life does go on, and love can happen twice in a lifetime.