I couldn't find a place where grief was allowed to take up space in public. So I built one.
In 2016, my dad died by suicide. Months later, I found decades of his journals hidden in a secret compartment of a filing cabinet in his office. Reading them began a nearly decade-long journey of getting to know him, and in turn myself. I made sense of it by writing, and over the years the writing grew into my book, Gutsy Grief: Turning Loss Into Self-Discovery.
When I shared my story at a community storytelling event in Austin, a woman told me afterward that she had also lost someone she loved to suicide. Her family had decided they wouldn't talk about it, and hearing me speak so openly about my dad's death helped her.
Sharing the book taught me something I didn't expect: when one person speaks openly about loss, it invites others to do the same. The Museum of All the Things We've Loved is built on that multiplier effect, a museum created through the participation of the community it serves.
