Luck We Carry: Love, Loss, and the Stories that Shape Us

The Luck We Carry is a collection of deeply personal essays about love, loss, and the quiet, often unexpected ways life continues after grief.

After losing his husband, Ron Stempkowski found himself navigating a world that looked familiar but felt fundamentally changed. These essays trace that terrain with honesty and restraint, exploring what it means to survive the worst thing that happens to you and still remain open to joy, humor, connection, and meaning.

Rather than offering answers or prescriptions for healing, The Luck We Carry sits with the lived experience of grief: the moments that linger, the memories that shape us, and the small, human choices that allow life to move forward without leaving love behind. Each essay is accompanied by an author's note, offering context and reflection for readers who may recognize pieces of their own story in these pages.

Thoughtful, accessible, and quietly hopeful, The Luck We Carry is for anyone who has loved deeply, lost someone they thought they could not live without, or wondered how to hold both sorrow and gratitude at the same time. It is a reminder that grief is not only a measure of loss, but also evidence of the love we are lucky enough to carry with us.