Letters to Family (A Year of Coping with Grief)

In the early hours of the morning after his wife's accidental death, Bill Mech chose to write a heartfelt email answering his family's concerns. His children, his in-laws, and his nieces and nephews were not only worried about him but were also struggling with their own grief. He figured he would respond to everyone with a single letter, sent to all.

His effort to connect with his loved ones during this difficult chapter in their lives grew into a form of therapy. The words Mech shared in his letters echoed his relatives' thoughts and emotions—the things he was doing to cope, his milestones, the crushing emotional turbulence, the white-knuckled navigation of suddenly going it alone through both the old and the new. He shared object lessons from meditative walks on trails near his home, reactions to passages of Scripture, insights into how faith might intersect with loss, and records of the family's collective memories of his wife.

When twelve months had passed, Mech realized he had unwittingly written a diary of his first year in grief, along with the fresh signs of healing, embracing “the new normal,” and once again feeling joy. It suddenly made sense why he'd found the most helpful books weren't the ones that advise how to pull yourself together, but those that share the ways we all fall apart.

Letters to Family is an epistolary chronicle of one man's journey through grief, and an unconventional example of how to confront your own. May these letters offer you compassion and empathy wherever you are in your journey toward healing.