Math teacher and expatriate dad Aaron Sorensen joins me from Taipei to talk about life overseas and the day everything changed when his son, Lucas, died. Aaron shares the kind, bright kid Lucas was (AP Calc, baseball, board-game strategist) and how crushing pressure and a dangerous coping behavior led to tragedy. He takes us into the immediate aftermath: the call at school, the hours waiting at home, the impossible conversation with his daughter, and the disorienting bureaucracy that follows a death.
We get real about grief’s weirdness: how you can be fine one minute and leveled by a song the next, the anger and isolation, and the perspective that comes after losing a child. Aaron explains why he and his wife chose radical honesty with their community (“secrecy feeds rumors, truth makes healing possible”), how they protected each other differently, and what genuinely helps: presence, practical help, and better questions than “Are you okay?”
If you have lost someone, or love someone who has, this conversation is raw, useful, and full of hard-won wisdom.
Most men try to think their way out of pain. I did too. Hell, I still do at times.
10 Hard Truths Every Man Needs to Hear About Grief is the guide I wish I’d had.
It’s straight talk about what grief does to you, and how to stop getting stuck in it.
