All Over the Page - What Looks Like Bravery

This month we will be discussing, What Looks Like Bravery by Laurel Braitman. The discussion will be facilitated by Amanda Madson. 

Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning how to out fish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors from her larger-than-life dad. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, he went to spectacular lengths to teach her the skills she’d need to survive without him. But by her mid-thirties she is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, exhausted by running from her own bad feelings. We follow as Laurel changes course, navigating multiple wildernesses—from northern New Mexico and western Alaska to her own Tinder app. She learns the hard way that no achievement, no matter how shiny, can protect her from pain, and works to transform guilt and regret into gold: learning from a badass birder in the Bering Sea, a few dozen grieving kids in a support group, a pile of smoking ashes, and countless online dates. Along the way, she faces a wildfire that threatens everyone and everything she cares about, a grueling test of her own survival skills, and the fact that we often have to say our hardest goodbyes before we’re ready. In the end Laurel realizes that being open to love after loss is not only possible, it can set us free.

The author shares how, in the years following her beloved father's death, she denied her suffering and lived with the constant fear of loss that left her terrified of love and intimacy until she set out on a journey to confront the grief she'd been avoiding for so long.

Amanda Madson was born and raised in Knoxville and grew up in the Bearden area. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee and her masters degree in Divinity from Emory University. She served as a Pastor for the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church for many years.  Amanda also worked as a Hospice Chaplain for both Tennova Hospice Care and Caris Healthcare. She most recently started her Chaplain Residency program at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Amanda lives in Maryville with her husband and two children. She is excited to lead this discussion of All Over the Page.