Losing William: A Father's Journals on Losing His Son - Paperback

by Eric Schnakenberg (Author)

When Eric Schnakenberg's nineteen-year-old son, William, is killed in a motorcycle crash, life shatters in an instant. In the days and months that follow, Eric reaches for an unlikely lifeline: raw voice journals recorded alone in his car and makeshift home studio as he tries to survive the unthinkable and make sense of a world permanently altered by loss.

Losing William is not a polite, polished script of how grief is "supposed" to look. Drawn from those journals and carefully shaped for the reader, it is a father's unflinching account of shock, rage, regret, numbness, and the daily work of staying alive after the worst has already happened. There are no neat stages here, no tidy answers, and no false promises-only the real, messy truth of grief as it unfolds over time.

Along the way, Eric shares the practices and perspectives that helped him keep moving when nothing made sense: therapy, voice journaling, books, reflection, movement, community, and the hard-won realization that grief is not something you "get over," but something you learn to carry and slowly weave into the rest of your life. He writes candidly about family, marriage, parenting, memory, dark days, and the fragile challenge of building a future that can hold both new joy and an unhealed absence.

Written in a direct, plainspoken voice that feels like a conversation with a trusted friend, Losing William offers recognition and companionship to grieving parents, families, and the people who love them. It is a deeply personal story of sorrow and survival-and a testament to a love that does not end, even when a life does.