The Year After Kahlia

The Story I Never Wanted to Write

A book titled "The Year After Kahlia" by Kirsten O'Connor, featuring a woman with red hair standing on a beach facing the ocean under a partly cloudy sky.

The Story I Never Wanted to Write

A grief memoir that doesn’t flinch.
This book is a raw, unfiltered account of life after losing my 24-year-old daughter, Kahlia, to suicide. It’s not about moving on, it’s about moving through.

It’s a story of love that doesn’t end, of grief that doesn’t behave, and of the relentless, aching courage it takes to live in a world without her. It’s messy, beautiful, unbearable, and true.

This isn’t a book of answers. It’s a book of questions, breakdowns, breakthroughs, and the kind of honesty most people run from. If you’ve ever lost someone or loved someone who struggled; you’ll find parts of yourself in these pages too.

This is the story I never wanted to tell. And maybe the one you need to hear.

About the book

  • Scenic landscape with a large body of turquoise water, rolling green hills, and mountains in the background under an overcast sky.

    What you'll find inside

    This isn’t a manual for grief. It’s a love letter, a survival story, and a challenge to everything we’ve been told about “getting over it.”

    Structured around the first twelve months after Kahlia’s death, each chapter is woven with journal entries, reflections, and brutal truths; about silence, shame, love, rage, healing, and the ache of carrying on.

    This book wasn’t written with distance or hindsight. It was written in real time, in the messy, disoriented, bone-deep aftermath of losing my daughter.

    It’s about the nights that wouldn’t end. The firsts that shattered me. The kindnesses that stitched me back together.

    These pages don’t offer neat answers. But they do offer truth, companionship, and a place to feel less alone; along with a fiercely honest invitation to keep going when you don’t know how.

    Inside, you’ll find stories, letters, and reflections that speak to the ache, and the hope, of surviving loss.

  • A modern house situated on a hilly green landscape with snow-capped mountains in the background under a cloudy sky.

    Who is this for?

    For those grieving the loss of a loved one.


    For friends unsure of what to say.


    For parents enduring the unthinkable.


    For those feeling alone in their sorrow.


    For anyone seeking to make sense of loss in a world that feels uncertain.
  • Modern wooden house with a large glass window, set against a mountainous landscape with dry grass and small trees in the foreground.

    A glimpse inside

    Excerpt: When Feelings Didn’t Make Sense

    I used to think emotions needed order.
    That you tucked them in, folded them neatly, kept them polite.
    Then Kahlia died, and nothing fit into a box anymore.

    Grief is the contradiction: I wanted to die and I wanted to live.
    I smiled while breaking and I raged while praying.
    Love didn’t cancel out anger. Joy didn’t erase pain.
    They all lived in me at once.

    The hardest feeling, oddly, was joy.
    A good joke, a warm day, Zac laughing, Mark holding me. It hit harder than sadness.
    It felt like betrayal. like emotional adultery.
    Joy became a punishment. Every good moment followed by shame.
    I kept thinking: How can you enjoy anything? Your daughter is dead.
    And then I’d feel like a monster.

  • Modern house with wooden exterior and stone steps leading to a patio, set in a landscape with green hills and snow-capped mountains in the background.

    Coming soon

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