Love You Like the Sky

On a dark cold morning in November, Sarah’s graduate-school sweetheart John, put himself in front of a train in Mountain View, California, destroying the normalcy of his family, friends, fellow psychology students and Sarah’s life. She sunk so far into darkness she could barely breathe or muster the will to live another day: The pain of missing him unbearable, the thought of living the rest of her life without him impossible. Effectively widowed at age 29, alienated from her friends, family, and peers who’ve never experienced such a tragedy, she felt trapped in her life, and wished she too could die.

The only way to gain any sense of understanding about her loss, to ease the suffering and to remain connected to the memories, hopes and dreams Sarah shared with John, was to write him emails —even through she knew they’d never be answered.

Written from the unique point of view of suicide survivor and psychologist, Love You Like the Sky presents the compilation of emails sent from Sarah to John over the years following his death. Documenting the raw emotions of grief, despair, abandonment, confusion, and the seductive feeling of wanting to die, this book seeks to answer some hard existential and psychological questions: Why is this happening? What does this mean about mortality? How do I go on with the rest of my life without my beloved? How do I heal my broken heart? Will I ever love again?

Love You Like the Sky is a companion guide for supporting younger women and men through intense and complicated grief and provides a roadmap for how to utilize tragedy as an access point for deeper transformation, shifting awareness from despair to beauty.