How Navigating the Demands of Academia Helped Me Cope With Terrible Loss

In the summer of 2010, the author received an email invitation to give a keynote lecture the following spring.

The sender, a scholar who knew about the author's recent loss, offered condolences.

The invitation initially felt confusing to the author, who was struggling to process the death of their 18-year-old daughter, Frances, just weeks before.

Frances had died suddenly from a massive stroke in April 2010, days before her high school graduation.

The author found it difficult to reconcile the idea of academic work with their grief, as their research focused on historical cases of child injuries and deaths, including the cowboy suit tragedy (a mid-century incident where children's cowboy playsuits caught fire due to flammable fabric).

The invitation, though unsettling at first, later proved to be a turning point in the author's coping process.