The Countdown Continues, We Fly the Coop, and the Balm of Salt Water
(and no, I'm not talking about the beach!)
News of the Day
In exactly nine months—February 18, 2025—my memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, will be released from Motina Books. I’m so happy you’re with me on the journey to publication and look forward to engaging with you, my readers, in the coming months.
First of all a big WELCOME! to all my new subscribers. If you’re new here, it’s probably because you agreed to be on my launch team, and if I haven’t said it enough, I’m beyond grateful for your support.
Stay tuned for a book cover reveal and so much more.
If you’re interested in learning more about the book or the launch team, reply to this email and let’s chat!
Last month, Kevin and I were honored to return to the Family Heart Foundation Ambassador Training in Fernandina Beach, FL. There, we helped support the Foundation staff, connected with old friends, and met so many new people—now our friends, too.
The stories we heard were both sad and inspiring, some describing family members’ early deaths and ongoing medical struggles, yet all laced with gratitude for having learned about familial hypercholesterolemia and elevated Lp(a) and feeling so supported by the work of the Foundation.
When I spoke about the work we’ve done to raise awareness and the many ways ambassadors can use their own particular set of talents to do the same, I realized anew how our family stories deeply influence the decisions we make in our lives going forward, especially when we’ve experienced early loss, regardless of the cause.
For me, this excerpt from a blurb for my memoir from Foundation founder and CEO, Katherine Wilemon, captures the urgency of unearthing our family medical histories:
The frayed ends of loved ones lost too soon is the inheritance of too many Americans whose genetic conditions like familial hypercholesterolemia, which affected Walsh’s family across generations, have gone undetected.
As always, I’m grateful for the opportunity to tell my own story in the hopes that it will help others prevent needless early deaths in their own families.
Wanderlust
We could hardly fly to sunny Florida without staying a while! Fernandina Beach, situated at the north end of Amelia Island, turned out to be one of our favorite Florida locations. A condo only a quarter mile from the conference hotel was home base for the rest of the week. With a quiet beach a short walk away, a couple of fun restaurants nearby, and a picturesque historic downtown less than two miles west, there was little not to love.
We visited nearby Fort Clinch State Park, enjoyed Fernandina Beach, spent a day in St. Augustine, and mostly relaxed. Just what the doctor ordered.
Inspiration Everywhere
Friends, I’m eager to share an important resource for those who’ve experienced grief and loss of any sort.
Margo Fowkes, founder of the Salt Water virtual grief and loss community, has become a good friend. She reached out to me a couple of years ago (though it seems like we’ve know each other forever), after my essay, “Still,” was published in Split Lip Magazine (this microflash essay may be the single piece of writing I’m most known for, though I’d give anything to never have had this scene to write about in the first place), asking to republish it on her site.
I was curious. But as soon as my screen filled with the balm that is Salt Water, I knew Margo and I would be friends, and that our friendship would survive far past her sharing my essay. And so it has.
As stated on the site, “Salt Water is for those who have lost someone they can’t live without—a child, a sibling, a spouse, a parent, a close friend—and the people who love them. We provide a safe harbor where you can find comfort, support, and tools to survive your loss and rebuild your life.”
This is no empty promise. Spend some time at Salt Water and you’ll find a gold mine of story and support and wisdom, some from contributors, much of it from Margo herself, whose own son Jimmy died at 21 in 2014 of brain cancer. She knows loss firsthand and has the heart (and the skills) to share her story with others.
What you won’t find is “He’s in a better place” sort of sugarcoating here, the platitudes so many of us who have experienced one or more tragic losses have long ago tired of hearing.
Then there’s Margo’s book, Leading Through Loss, so necessary in a world where most businesses have little idea of how to provide genuine support for grief in the workplace. You’ll find yourself nodding along as you read this short volume packed with the sort of common-sense advice on what those experiencing loss really need from their employers (hint: it’s not three bereavement days).
That’s all for this time. Thank you so much, each of you, for reading this far, for sharing, and for joining this growing community of folks who believe in the importance of educating and supporting and sometimes holding each other up through all life throws our way.
As the sticker on my car’s rear window proclaims, “You Matter.”
Please get in touch if you’d like to join my launch team. I’d be so grateful for your support.
If your LDL-C cholesterol is over 190, doesn’t change with lifestyle modifications, and you have a family history of early heart events, you could have FH. And ask your physician to test your Lp(a) (say it: “L-P-little a”), since it’s elevated in 1 in 5 individuals yet is hardly ever checked. Feel free to get in touch—I’m happy to chat with you and point you in the right direction to get the information you need.
Check out Salt Water and Leading Through Loss. I highly recommend them both.
Till next time,
Nine months to go. Is that why we call it birthing a book? It's going to be a beautiful baby.