Life’s Cosmic 2x4: When the Book You’re Writing Isn’t the Book You’re Meant to Write
A funny thing happens when you decide to write a book.
You think you are the one choosing the topic.
You think you are in charge.
I thought that too.
I was deep into writing what I thought was my newest book, Age Out Loud—a book about strength, vitality, confidence, and living boldly after 50. I was rolling. The chapters were flowing. The stories, the strategies, the fire… all of it felt right.
Until it didn’t.
One day, I sat at my desk completely stuck.
Frozen.
Like someone unplugged the power cord from my brain.
Naturally, I blamed everything:
Too much coffee.
Too little coffee.
Mercury in retrograde.
My puppy Gracie chewing my notes—again.
But the truth was simpler.
I wasn’t stuck.
I was avoiding something.
There was a tug I couldn’t ignore.
A whisper I kept trying to outrun.
That spiritual nudge tapping me on the shoulder…
…until the tapping became what I now call a cosmic 2x4.
Because that’s the thing about life:
first it whispers,
then it taps,
and then—if you refuse to listen—it swings a two-by-four of truth right across your path.
And finally, I heard it.
“Hey Kate… over here.”
I knew exactly what it meant.
Grief.
Oh come on. AGAIN?
Hadn’t I lived enough grief to last ten lifetimes?
Hadn’t I earned a free pass by now?
I didn’t want to write this book.
I didn’t want to touch the sorrow still living in my bones.
I didn’t want to revisit every loss that shaped me—the ones people know, and the ones they don’t.
But here’s the thing about purpose:
You don’t get to debate the calling.
Not really.
Before I could write about living boldly,
I had to write about living through what breaks us.
I had to write the book I didn’t want to write:
Grief and Grace.
Because grief wasn’t just a chapter of my story—
it was the entire landscape I’d been walking for decades.
Most people know about the loss of my son Will.
Losing him to suicide shattered me in a way that didn’t just break my heart… it rearranged it.
But my grief story didn’t begin there.
It began 30 years earlier, when my brother Matt was murdered.
I was 23.
And instead of grieving, I went into full protector mode.
I was so worried about my parents’ pain that I never allowed myself to feel my own.
I became:
The strong one.
The responsible one.
The good daughter.
The fixer.
And my grief?
I stuffed it down.
Packed it tight.
Wrapped it in performance and positivity.
But here’s what I learned in my Grief Educator training—a truth that hit me like another cosmic 2x4:
When you don’t give yourself permission to grieve, your grief doesn’t disappear.
It waits.
It waits in your body.
Your nervous system.
Your relationships.
Your anger.
Your silence.
Your overworking.
Your people-pleasing.
Your drive to save the world while forgetting to save yourself.
So while I was trying to write Age Out Loud—a book about living vibrantly at any age—I was being asked to write about the invisible weight that keeps so many of us from living fully:
Grief.
Not the doom-and-gloom kind.
Not the “five stages” you can check off like a to-do list.
Not the neat, curated version society prefers.
But grief as a human experience.
Grief as a teacher.
Grief as a companion that—whether we invite it or not—reshapes us from the inside out.
And here’s what surprised me most:
Grace is not what comes after grief.
Grace is what meets us in it.
Grace was the stranger who handed me a glove in the grocery store and somehow broke me open.
Grace was the quiet moments when my heart felt unbearably heavy and yet… I was still breathing.
Grace was my training reminding me that grief is sacred, universal, and nothing to be ashamed of.
Grace arrived the moment I finally said yes
to writing the book I’d been running from.
And something unexpected happened…
Once I began writing Grief and Grace, my voice started coming back, twisted, tear filled and authentic
messy
More honest.
Because you cannot teach people how to live boldly
until you understand how to live honestly.
So here’s what I want to leave you with today:
Every single one of us carries grief—old or new, spoken or unspoken, named or deeply buried.
But grief is not the end of the story.
Grief is the teacher that shapes the next chapter.
And grace?
Grace is the hand on your back saying:
“You’re not done yet.
There is still life in you.
Keep going.”
I didn’t choose to write this book.
The book chose me.
And sometimes, the thing you resist the most
is the very thing that sets you free.
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