The Trimesters of Grief
or Are You Gonna Listen to What Is Going on in Here?
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Pub Date 6 Oct 2026 | Archive Date 6 Oct 2026
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Description
there are
over eight billion people
on earth
and none of
them are you.
How does someone survive the unsurvivable?
In 2024, 80,000 people in the US lost their lives to overdose. It is estimated that 48.5 million people in the US are currently struggling with addiction. Many families of those with addiction hide in the shadows. But they don't have to.
When Katie Rizzo's life was turned upside down by the death of her oldest son from opioid addiction, as a scientist and writer she fell back on what she knew: documenting, looking for patterns, and poetry. In The Trimesters of Grief, Rizzo shows how grief mirrors pregnancy, from whole-body fatigue to brain fog to the need to tell everyone about this precious life-a life that is now gone. And then it is time to "deliver" grief and let it sit beside us.
Part memoir and part self-help book, The Trimesters of Grief suggests ways to communicate and nurture grief. Other cultures embrace grief as a natural part of life; perhaps it's time for us to also learn to hold life in one hand and grief in the other.
A Note From the Publisher
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9798897472949 |
| PRICE | $22.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 412 |
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Buy on Bookshop.org Buy on WaterstonesAverage rating from 2 members
Featured Reviews
Debbie M, Reviewer
I read this book and felt as if I were sitting near Katie. Her words, thoughts, and poem tugged at me from the page and helped me more aware of things I already knew to be true. She does not shy around the truth and shares her journey from the loss of her son. It is beautiful.
She reminded me journal, have empathy, find glimmers of hope and joy, and that coming together in community as we face very difficult life experiences is the way we walk through them together.
Grief stays with us but looks different over time. She is now an advocate for an experience she would never wish on her enemies.
Ellen G, Reviewer
A child grows for nine months, three trimesters of three months each, before emerging into the world. That child is supposed to stay in this world long enough to mourn his parents’ deaths, not precede them to it. That’s not how things work all the time. When a child dies before a parent, how does that parent carry on? In this memoir/self-help book, Rizzo shares her journey with grief, organizing the time into trimesters, carrying grief as one carries a child.
This heartrending book tells the story of Nicholas Rizzo, Katie’s oldest child, who died by accidental overdose from the disease of addiction at age 25. I felt a special connection because my oldest child, also a son, was born the same year as Nicholas. My son is alive and well but it could’ve been otherwise. We never know what life has in store for us. Having a family member struggle with the disease of addiction is brutally difficult all the more because some don’t understand it in the same way we understand cancer or other diseases.
Reading this memoir is a gut wrenching experience with unexpected moments of hilarity. Rizzo is open and honest about her thoughts and feelings. The love she feels for her son is palpable. The anguish is as well.
In addition to relating her story, Rizzo gives practical tips and advice on how to deal with consuming grief.
One thing I came away with is the courage it takes to live through deep grief, every day, every moment, one must decide to keep going and do the best one can.