Written by Jan & Argie
Their true story, Chapter 1 free
Even after a loss like this, there's still a door.
After I lost my husband, Mickey, I kept picturing a door, open just a crack. I knew all I had to do was push it open, and I knew I had to be ready. Read Chapter 1 of Where the Crabapple Blooms free and see where my story and Argie's begin to meet.
When the World Stops but You Keep Breathing
Chapter 1. Read the opening in about two minutes, no signup needed.
There are moments in life when the world continues moving forward while two grieving hearts stand completely still.
Jan and Argie would both come to understand that kind of silence.
Not the silence of funerals.
Not the silence held inside church sanctuaries filled with flowers, sympathy cards, casseroles, and whispered condolences.
For anyone who can see the door but isn't sure they're ready
Written for anyone who has lost someone, or something, that changed them. You don't have to fling the door open today. Noticing it is a real first step.
The one who isn't ready
You can see the door. Some days it's enough just to know it's there.
The one still in the fog
Every day feels heavy, and you're not sure where to set any of it down.
The one finding a new name
You were someone's wife, daughter or best friend, and now you're wondering who you get to become.
The one who's been noticing
Little moments keep catching your attention, and you're curious what they might mean.
I see the door. That means it's coming.
From Chapter 1
One afternoon on a couch. Then this book.
At a retreat in the Dominican Republic, Jan, a retired elementary teacher coming up on the first anniversary of losing her husband Mickey, met Argie, who had recently lost her brother, Dwayne. They sat down on a couch and talked for three and a half hours. Somewhere in that conversation Jan asked what day Dwayne died. March 21st, Argie said. That was Mickey's birthday. The conversation became a friendship, and the friendship became this book.
Jan Reed spent 30 years as an elementary teacher, mostly first and second grade. When she retired, she trained as a life coach with Mary Morrissey. Today she's a grief coach, a mom of two, a grandma of four and the eldest of five. She helps people after a big loss, of any kind, release the pain of the past so there's room for joy again. The open door in her logo comes from her own grief: a door open just a crack that she learned to push open when she was ready.
"I learned to move through grief, not past Mickey."
Jan Reed
Moments along the way
What people say after time with Jan
Jan gave me words for something I'd carried for two years without being able to name it. After my sister passed, everyone kept telling me to 'give it time.' Jan showed me how to move through it instead — not past it, through it. For the first time since the funeral I feel like I can actually breathe.
We trained together in Mary Morrissey's program, and Jan is the one I still call when life gets heavy. She holds space like nobody I've ever met — no fixing, no rushing, just this steady, grounded presence that somehow makes your own next step feel possible again. Half of what I bring to my own clients, I learned from her.
I only meant to sit in on one session at the Valencia retreat. Three hours later I was still talking, and Jan was still listening. She read me the opening of the chapter that night and I cried the good kind of tears. I didn't know a stranger could make me feel that understood.
What readers ask first
Open the door to Chapter 1.
Start with the first pages. You can open the door a little at a time.