After the Terrible: Seeking Solace When the Worst Things Happen

Summary

Sometimes life cleaves in two. There's before the person died. Before the marriage ended. Before the accident. Then there's after: After the pink slip arrived. After the diagnosis. After life turned upside down. After the terrible, the world doesn't stop. So how do we live after the worst things happen?

With a lucid and pastoral gaze, Leanne Friesen, grief ally and author of Grieving Room, looks at how we live after the terrible, offering an ancient story as a source of solace and direction. Millennia ago, a woman named Naomi lost her husband and two sons, prompting her to say: Call me Bitter. Many have framed this as a failure, but Naomi has something to teach us about naming who we become in the wake of the worst. We, too, are changed by our losses. Sometimes, more awful things pile on top of the first. Others may question our terrible, or dismiss it. We may carry others' losses alongside our own. Friesen unpacks concepts like secondary loss, cumulative grief, and disenfranchised grief, and she reminds us that there are no right answers for the worst things.

For anyone who will never be the same after tragedy or crisis—and who is fed up with the advice to "move forward" or "focus on the positive"—this book offers genuine validation that your terrible matters, without seeking to explain it away. Grievers and caregivers alike—as well as anyone undone by brokenness or betrayal, family crisis or national catastrophe—will feel seen. Friesen examines what ordinary and extraordinary losses do to us, and who we become in their wake. After the Terrible avoids platitudes, offering instead forthright guidance and gentle companionship for the aftermath of the hardest things.