Hi folks, John R Worsley here. My wife passed away suddenly in early 2021, and as I sat bereft and sobbing in her hospital room, it struck me that we don’t, in our daily lives, talk much about the grief we go through – and I wanted to do something to change that.
My Heart Has No Home is the result, a collection of Facebook posts that record the unvarnished, moment-to-moment truth of what I felt, thought, and learned as I grieved. Readers have been deeply moved, grateful, and inspired whether they’ve lost loved ones or not.
My wife Amy passed away suddenly in early 2021, and as I sat bereft and sobbing in her hospital room, it occurred to me that we don’t, as people in our daily lives, talk much about the grief we go through. And I wanted to do something to change that.
So I started posting on Facebook about my feelings, thinking, and learning as I grieved. I tried to be as honest as possible, including my pain and flaws and Amy’s, and how those interacted in our marriage. At first, the posts were simple and short, but people responded encouragingly and supportedly, telling me that what I was sharing was meaningful to them. I kept going and opened up more. And it slowly became clear that I was helping people.
The guy from high school I hadn’t seen in 30 years sent me a message one day about what it meant to him. There was the local woman I ran into at a restaurant who teared up as she described how moved she was by what I was posting. And so many more. They were inspired to share more openly about their struggles. They found meaning in dealing with their own losses. They learned along with me as I gained new perspectives on relationships and more. And people who haven’t (yet) lost someone dear to them responded as strongly as those who have.
One day a friend suggested that he could see what I was writing as being useful to counselors as a book. I pondered that for several months, initially reluctant because it felt presumptuous to think I had enough to say to justify a book. But the weight of all the continuing feedback finally caught up to me, and I decided that if this content could help so many of the people I know on Facebook, it could help people in the world too.
I have published that book, My Heart Has No Home. It consists of my original, unedited Facebook posts along with some ‘Reflections’ intended to provide more emotional context to the post and share places where I’ve learned and grown since then. I needed to preserve the full intensity and raw honesty of everything I felt in the moment since that’s what people responded to.