Available at:
Legacy Book Press :: Amazon :: St. Paul Book Corner, Davenport, IA
or contact me directly: elaine@elainekolson.com
My Walk with Grief is a spiritual memoir about my ten-year search for identity and love after living as a pastor’s wife for 30 years, eventually marrying an agnostic who embodied God's grace. Elaine K Olson
My Walk with Grief is a poignant journey of love, profound loss, the beauty of vulnerability, resilience, hope, and the possibilities of healing and transformation." Kathleen A. Bowman LCPC, Genesis Grief Support, Davenport, Iowa
Elaine K Olson is a Writer, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Ordained Pastor, Spiritual Guide, and grandmother who muses about the world.
Her life-long passion is to wonder, teach, guide, affirm and companion others and together integrate issues of life and Spirit.
The ocean feeds her soul.
A Synopsis of the Memoir: My Walk with Grief
My Walk With Grief is a spiritual memoir about my 10-year search for identity and love after living as a pastor’s wife for 30 years, eventually marrying an agnostic.
This memoir is my story. When Mark died, part of me died too. For thirty years, I lived in his shadow as a pastor’s wife. Unimpeded as a widow, I searched obsessively for identity and love. This journey pulled me into soul struggles, grief, world travel, disastrous dating, dog drama, spiritual surprises, and eventually, I married an agnostic who, to my surprise, embodied God’s Grace.
The week my husband died exposed the internal conflict between my public role as a pastor’s wife and my personal needs as a spouse. In the following ten years, I set out on a circuitous journey to rediscover myself, God, and new love as a middle-aged woman.
I wrote the memoir to uncover meaning for myself. I wrote it for others so I might no waste a good suffering. Although the book includes reflections on the week of Mark’s death, it is mostly about the struggle to find me again the years that followed.
In my work as a psychotherapist, my brand was “some things in life are too hard to do alone.” This statement is also true for the journey of grief. This writing uses my own story to reflect on the four steps I experienced in my own path toward a new life. These are 1) The Loss; 2) Survival; 3) Finding a new identity; and 4) Now what? I long for the stories of my journey to be helpful to others in theirs. Through this journey, I sought God and spiritual meaning.
I want the memoir to inspire people who know significant loss and encourage them to grieve deeply, to live fully, rediscover love, and the wideness of God’s grace.
My Walk With Grief is a spiritual memoir about my 10-year search for identity and love after living as a pastor’s wife for 30 years, eventually marrying an agnostic.
This memoir is my story. When Mark died, part of me died too. For thirty years, I lived in his shadow as a pastor’s wife. Unimpeded as a widow, I searched obsessively for identity and love. This journey pulled me into soul struggles, grief, world travel, disastrous dating, dog drama, spiritual surprises, and eventually, I married an agnostic who, to my surprise, embodied God’s Grace.
The week my husband died exposed the internal conflict between my public role as a pastor’s wife and my personal needs as a spouse. In the following ten years, I set out on a circuitous journey to rediscover myself, God, and new love as a middle-aged woman.
I wrote the memoir to uncover meaning for myself. I wrote it for others so I might no waste a good suffering. Although the book includes reflections on the week of Mark’s death, it is mostly about the struggle to find me again the years that followed.
In my work as a psychotherapist, my brand was “some things in life are too hard to do alone.” This statement is also true for the journey of grief. This writing uses my own story to reflect on the four steps I experienced in my own path toward a new life. These are 1) The Loss; 2) Survival; 3) Finding a new identity; and 4) Now what? I long for the stories of my journey to be helpful to others in theirs. Through this journey, I sought God and spiritual meaning.
I want the memoir to inspire people who know significant loss and encourage them to grieve deeply, to live fully, rediscover love, and the wideness of God’s grace.
My Walk With Grief is a spiritual memoir about my 10-year search for identity and love after living as a pastor’s wife for 30 years, eventually marrying an agnostic.
This memoir is my story. When Mark died, part of me died too. For thirty years, I lived in his shadow as a pastor’s wife. Unimpeded as a widow, I searched obsessively for identity and love. This journey pulled me into soul struggles, grief, world travel, disastrous dating, dog drama, spiritual surprises, and eventually, I married an agnostic who, to my surprise, embodied God’s Grace.
The week my husband died exposed the internal conflict between my public role as a pastor’s wife and my personal needs as a spouse. In the following ten years, I set out on a circuitous journey to rediscover myself, God, and new love as a middle-aged woman.
I wrote the memoir to uncover meaning for myself. I wrote it for others so I might no waste a good suffering. Although the book includes reflections on the week of Mark’s death, it is mostly about the struggle to find me again the years that followed.
In my work as a psychotherapist, my brand was “some things in life are too hard to do alone.” This statement is also true for the journey of grief. This writing uses my own story to reflect on the four steps I experienced in my own path toward a new life. These are 1) The Loss; 2) Survival; 3) Finding a new identity; and 4) Now what? I long for the stories of my journey to be helpful to others in theirs. Through this journey, I sought God and spiritual meaning.
I want the memoir to inspire people who know significant loss and encourage them to grieve deeply, to live fully, rediscover love, and the wideness of God’s grace.
What People are Saying:
And Amazon Book Review:
One mama bear5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful story of finding life, love, and identity after loss
Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2021Verified Purchase
This book is poetic, powerful and raw. It takes the author and the reader on a spiritual journey of coping with a devastating loss, struggling to find one’s way in the aftermath, and ultimately learning more about life, love and oneself. Olson does a skillful job of capturing emotion, without leaving you depressed or despairing. Instead, every chapter is infused with hope, and dashes of humor make for an entertaining and relatable read. Olson doesn’t hold anything back, letting the reader walk through every moment of the journey with her, from the darkness of grief to finding purpose and meaning in career changes to navigating sexuality as a widow to the hope of a new life. Highly recommended.
Amidst the most beautiful blessings of our human existence is our capacity to love and be loved. In the wake of profound loss, one comes to fully understand love and grief are inextricably entwined, both extraordinarily powerful forces in influencing and shaping our lives.
My Walk with Grief is a poignant journey of love, profound loss, the beauty of vulnerability, resilience, hope and the possibilities of healing and transformation.
Kathleen Bowman, LCPC,
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor
Genesis Grief Support, Davenport,
With exquisite attention to the myriad realities of grief and refreshing candor about subjects many widows find it difficult to talk about, Elaine Olson has written a compelling memoir about the death of a beloved spouse and the journey to be loyal to love by continuing to embrace life. As a widow myself, I found this book insightful and life-giving.
Kathleen D. (Kadi) Billman
John H. Tietjen Professor of Pastoral Ministry, Emerita
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
As a former hospital chaplain, I enthusiastically recommend Elaine Olson’s book. It is an honest memoir of a widow’s journey through grief and healing. Read it and you will be blessed.
Jeanne Olson
Retired Hospital Chaplain
Bettendorf, Iowa
A beautiful and sensitive memoir of the trials and tribulations we all face at different times in our life.
Pastor Olson’s poetic writing style and honest depictions of her struggles in finding happiness and equilibrium in her life once more after suffering deep pain and uncertainties, is a celebration of the human spirit.
Read this book. You will long remember it and be inspired and reassured that difficult and unbearable sad events in life can and will be overcome with faith, hope and perseverance.
Catherine Androus
Certified Master Guide
Washington, D.C.
Elaine’s memoir is sad, brave–and so encouraging. As a widow, I was comforted to discover that the journey may be long and winding, but it leads to new life.
Carl Tracy (beta reader)
Retired, Director
Thomas Tredway Library
Augustana College Rock Isla
In the memoir My Walk with Grief, Elaine has shared the story of her deep grief with a vulnerability that caused me to feel as though she was revealing her soul-identity to a most trusted friend. She shares experiences that are raw and real as she relates how the desperation of a life defined by loss eventually leads to a more complete understanding of self. It was a privilege to be invited to such an intimate look at her life
Mary Kay Hensen. M.Div.
Pastor/Spiritual Director
Bloomington, Illionis
It is a rare gift to be able to weave together the various threads of one’s life. Rarer still to do so and share it with others as Elaine has done so eloquently in My Walk with Grief. This beautiful journey of heartbreak, joy and rediscovery reminds us that love is the gossamer strand that binds us all.
Anne Supplee,
MDiv, MS-Palliative Care
Minneapolis, MN