The Sum of Grief: A Daughter's Memoir

What does it mean to live without the person you loved most? In The Sum of Grief, chaplain and grief counselor Jessica Shannon explores the quiet arithmetic of loss—the calculations we make when we measure our days against the absence of someone who shaped them. Drawing from her own experience of losing her mother at seventeen and years of walking alongside the grieving, Shannon offers a framework that validates what so many feel but rarely hear spoken aloud: grief isn't a problem to solve. It's the proof of how deeply we loved. ______________________________ PRAISE FOR THE SUM OF GRIEF “The Sum of Grief perfectly captures all of the love, longing, loss, and confusion that comes with losing a mother during the teenage years. Jessica Shannon’s exploration of Grief Math is one of the best I’ve encountered, showing us how the loss of a mother when you’re young can radiate forward in consistently new and unexpected ways. This is a beautiful book.” “Grief bends time in the most curious way. As a fellow member of “the worst club you never want to join,” I met Jessica at a chaplain’s conference less than a year after my own mother, a fellow Deborah, died far too soon.