The Social Media Guide to Grief: How Social Media Helped Turn Tragedy to Hope

On August 28 2014 Brittany McGrath set out on her traditional once maybe twice a year leisurely motorcycle ride with her fathher Ed. Equal parts brilliant beautiful. and kind she had graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brooklyn Law School two months earlier had just returned from a long European vacation with her life partner Juan Pablo to celebrate having taken the NY Bar Exam and was set to begin her first Associate Counsel job at a world-renowned firm in just under two weeks. It would be several hours into the evening however before he and Brittanys mother and little sister would learn that Brittany and Ed had been violently mowed down in broad daylight by two people driving an SUV high on heroin and other drugs. She was just 29 years old. While they had one another for support grief is a singular experience. And Juan Pablo knew only one way to deal with his near-debilitating grief: writing. A collection of social media posts made over the first seven years after losing Brittany The Social Media Guide to Grief is a journey through grief and how the willingness to be as open as possible about his pain and experiences became one of the ways he was able to once again find hope in life after loss.