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Reflections on Love and Loss
"Life is a great adventure. We hurtle forward hoping for the best-great love, success, children-living a fulfilled life. Yet, we wind up in situations we never imagined. Misfortune and hardship are inevitable. We struggle and persevere, and incredibly, our friends, family, and sometimes even strangers are often there to help us get back on the road. You may not know what lies ahead, but there is only one choice: keep putting one foot in front of the other, savor the small moments, and continue down Joyland Road."
BIOGRAPHY:
Lisa Rosenberg dedicated her professional career to psychiatric nursing, education, leadership, and scholarly writing. She earned a master's degree in psychiatric nursing and a PhD in educational psychology and spent thirty years at Rush University, retiring as Associate Dean Emeritus. After retirement, she turned to narrative writing. Before she could fully begin, her husband, Jeff, died suddenly. What followed was an exploration of grief and the great love story they shared. Her memoir offers an intimate account of love, loss, and what it means to keep living after everything changes.
The book received an Honorable Mention in the Chicago Writers Association's 2025 Book of the Year Award for Indie Nonfiction.
MOTIVATION:
Though I suffered the sudden loss of my husband, people still ask what motivated me to write this memoir. One of the epigraphs at the beginning of the book, from Dante's Divine Comedy, offers my answer: "Love has moved me, and makes me speak." Love is, indeed, the force that compelled me to explore the intimate connection between deeply loving someone and the profound grief that follows their loss.
The other epigraph - "There is nothing more whole than a broken heart," attributed to Rabbi Menachem Mendel-captures a related truth: to be fully human and to love with one's whole heart is to be vulnerable to penetrating grief.
My reasons for writing this book are the same ones that have moved people across centuries. The compelling voices of love and loss ask that we listen-and speak aloud what is deeply felt yet, at times, ineffable. This is what connects us all.
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