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A Living Undefeated resource
The Quiet Corner
Every guide we have written, in one place. All of them free, none of them behind an email, and no donation ask attached to any of it.
This is the room you come to when you want something to read on your own. No form, no list, nothing to fill in. Open one, read it, close the tab. We will not know you were here and we do not want to.
Our family wrote these after losing Austin to childhood cancer. They are an account of what we actually read and actually did — not advice, and not therapy — set next to what the research actually says, including the places where the research disagrees with us.
Seven exist today. More are being written, and this page will always say plainly which ones are real. We will never list a guide here that you cannot open.
Last reviewed 19 October 2026.
Each guide opens in your browser as a PDF. From there you can save it to your computer or your phone — on a phone, use the share button and choose Save to Files. Nothing is tracked and nothing is required.
Three practical guides
The newest three. These are the things our family actually did, written down as the practical steps nobody explains.
The Holidays
7 pages. Six weeks you did not ask for, and the decisions worth making before they start.
From mid-November to the second of January the world runs a six-week event about family, gathered, counting what they have. This is about deciding your way through it in October, while it is still early — what to tell people, the go-around-the-table moment, the empty chair, whether to say their name, and what actually helps the children who are still here.
It also covers Children's Grief Awareness Day, Thursday 19 November 2026 — the third Thursday in November, created by the Highmark Caring Place in 2008, deliberately placed the week before Thanksgiving.
Read this one if somebody has already asked what you are doing for Thanksgiving and you have not answered.
Open The Holidays — free, PDF, 7 pages.
The Memorial Video
6 pages. Making one with their photographs and their music — and the practical part nobody explains.
How to gather the photographs, how many to use, how long it should be, and how to show it to people without ambushing them. And the technical trap that catches almost everybody: the song you want will very likely be muted or blocked if you upload the video to Facebook or YouTube — but a video that stays on your own phone or a USB stick has no problem at all. We explain exactly what happens and give you four ways around it.
Read this one if you want to use their favorite song and nobody has warned you what the platforms do.
Open The Memorial Video — free, PDF, 6 pages.
The Online Memorial
7 pages. A place people can visit, add to, and come back to.
Three different things get called “a Facebook memorial page” and they behave completely differently — we explain which is which and which one usually applies when a child died young. Then the privacy decision, what to put on it, how to actually get people to contribute memories rather than just liking photographs, and how to run the yearly gathering. Including the question almost nobody asks and everybody can answer: what were they like when we weren't there?
Read this one if you want somewhere the people who loved them can leave something at two in the morning without having to call you.
Open The Online Memorial — free, PDF, 7 pages.
The four book companions
The first four. Each takes a book somebody has probably handed you, and says what it can and cannot do.
One — A Reason to Get Up
7 pages. On Viktor Frankl, and what a famous book can and cannot do after somebody dies.
Who Frankl actually was, what he actually argued, and the famous quote attributed to him that he never wrote. It carries the finding we think matters most of anything in these: in the largest study of it, about half of bereaved parents never made sense of their child's death — and the people who fared worst were not the ones who never looked.
Read this one first if somebody has handed you Man's Search for Meaning and it is sitting unopened on the table.
Open Guide One — free, PDF, 7 pages.
Two — The Circling
9 pages. On The Power of Now, and what is actually happening when you cannot stop going over it.
Why the same twenty minutes replay at three in the morning, what the research calls that, and what actually interrupts it. It includes the part almost no grief guide prints: meditation is not risk-free, and there are people who should be careful with it. We say who, and why.
Read this one if you have been told to try mindfulness and it made things worse rather than better.
Open Guide Two — free, PDF, 9 pages.
Three — Give It Away
11 pages. Why doing something for somebody else, expecting nothing back, appears to do something for you.
What the evidence actually supports here is narrower than the internet claims, and we say where it thins out. The useful half is the back of it: a verified list of places that will take you this week, and the ones that will ask you to wait a year — because being turned away when you finally worked up to asking is its own small injury.
Read this one if you are at the stage of needing somewhere to put your hands.
Open Guide Three — free, PDF, 11 pages.
Four — The First Year
16 pages. The practical one. What has to be done, what the months actually look like, and fifty things that might help.
The longest and the least emotional. Paperwork, dates, the people who stop calling, the ones who surprise you. Every one of the fifty suggestions is labeled for whether there is evidence behind it or whether it is simply something that helped somebody — so you can tell the difference, which almost no list lets you do.
Read this one if you are in the first weeks and the practical weight is the part crushing you.
Open Guide Four — free, PDF, 16 pages.
Common questions
Do I have to give you my email address?
No. Every guide on this page opens with one click and nothing to fill in. There is a sign-up elsewhere on the site if you want to hear when a new one is written, and it is entirely optional. You will never need it to read anything here.
Who wrote these, and are they qualified?
Our family wrote them, and no, we are not clinicians. We say so on every page of every guide. What we have is one loss lived all the way through, and the willingness to go and read the research properly and report it accurately — including when it contradicts what we believe.
These are not therapy and they are not medical, legal or financial advice. If you need more than a guide, that is not a failure of yours.
Do these cover losses other than a child?
Not yet, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. All seven are written from the death of a child, because that is the loss this family has actually lived.
A pet, a marriage, a job, a parent — those are real losses, and the three practical guides above will carry across almost completely, because a memorial video, an online memorial and a hard December are not specific to one kind of loss. The four book companions are more particular to ours.
What we are not going to do is write as though we know what your loss is like when we do not. Those guides become honest the day somebody who has lived one writes them, and that is how we intend to get them.
Is there a catch? An upsell? A donation ask?
No. Nothing on this page is behind a paywall, none of the organizations named in the guides pays us, and there is no donation ask inside any of them. We do not attach a request for money to somebody's worst year. If a guide is useful, pass it to someone — that is the only thing we would ask.
How do I save one to my phone?
Open it, then use your browser's share button and choose Save to Files on an iPhone, or Download on Android. On a computer, open it and press Ctrl+S, or Cmd+S on a Mac. They are yours to keep, print and hand to somebody else.
How often does this page change?
Whenever a new guide is finished, and whenever somebody tells us we got something wrong. Every statistic in every guide carries a primary source and a year, listed at the back so you can check us. If you check one and we are wrong, that is the most useful message you could send.
More from this shelf
The Zen Room — ten quotes, five of which were never said.
The Art Room — ten works to sit with, free to keep.
The Shelf — twenty books and recordings, sorted by how far along you are.
The Music Room — one hundred songs, sorted by what the moment needs.
The Movie Room — one hundred films, and which ones will ambush you.
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We publish the test we use on ourselves, including the parts we do not pass yet. Read it here — it is not about us, it is about how to check anybody, including us.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, any time, anywhere in the United States.
Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741.
These are never behind a form on this site, and never will be. You do not owe us an email address to get a phone number.
Before you give to anyone
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We wrote down the checklist we use. Before we send a dollar anywhere, we run the organization through CharityWatch, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator and Candid. It is one page, and it works on any charity — including this one.
Read the checklist — freeOn the site, right now. Nothing to fill in and no email needed.
Start here — free, no sign-up
Guide one · 7 pages
A Reason to Get Up
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, and what that book can and cannot do for you after somebody dies. Who Frankl actually was, what he actually argued, and the famous quote that is not his.
Download the guide — freePDF, 7 pages. Nothing to fill in, no email, no ask attached to it.
Three more, if you want them
These are the books we read and the things we did after we lost Austin. Not advice and not therapy — an honest account of what helped us, and what the research actually says about each of it. Every statistic in them carries a source and a year.
Guide two · 9 pages
The Circling
The Power of Now, and what is actually happening when you cannot stop going over it. Includes the part no grief guide prints: meditation is not risk-free, and who should be careful.
Guide three · 11 pages
Give It Away
Why doing something for somebody else, expecting nothing back, appears to do something for you. With a verified list of places that will take you this week, and the ones that will ask you to wait a year.
Guide four · 16 pages
The First Year
The practical one. What actually has to be done, what the months afterward really look like, and fifty things that might help — each one labeled for whether there is evidence behind it.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the US. You do not have to be in immediate danger to use it.
Crisis Text Line. Text HOME to 741741.
Veterans Crisis Line. Dial 988 then press 1, or text 838255.
If there is an immediate danger to life, call 911.
