Katie Abdou: Overcoming Grief By Finding Joy In Writing

On the one-year anniversary of my mother’s death, I lost my son.

I was halfway through my pregnancy, after years of trying and multiple early miscarriages. With my shirt rolled up over my belly, I watched as my midwife’s expression shifted from her usual pleasant smile to stony panic.

‘I can’t find the heartbeat.’

Grief is a funny thing. Everyone meets some version of her at one point in their lives, but we all feel her so differently. I managed to evade Grief – the capital ‘G’ version, where you think you’ll never escape her shadow – until that moment.

I had found his heartbeat on my home doppler a few nights prior to that appointment for the first time. I still remember the way my own heart skittered at the sound of it. I recorded it on my phone and listened to it on repeat as I fell asleep that night. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard – and I haven’t listened to it since.

I had been working on a light-hearted piratical adventure book dedicated to him. But after I got home from the hospital, that document sat untouched for months. I wallowed in my Grief and self-pity until I couldn’t bear it anymore. Then, one day, after watching a certain pirate show that made me laugh genuinely for the first time, I worked up the courage to open the document and re-read it.

It was pretty good.

It was funny.

I knew in that moment that I had to finish the story – for him, yes… but mostly, for myself. It’s hard to find ways to enjoy the world again after such immeasurable loss. The guilt you experience at laughing, or even smiling, is unbearable. But this felt different somehow. It felt right to find joy once more through my writing.

There was no guilt when I chuckled at some quip my main character made, or smiled at the ridiculous situations he found himself in. Perhaps that’s because the story was for him; for my son. I finally started to come out of my shell as the words poured out of me. I felt every emotion my characters did because everything was still so raw. Writing became therapeutic and cathartic. It gave me a reason to wake up every day, because I had to finish this book for him.

And then one day, I typed the words ‘The End’ at the bottom of the page. I went back and changed my dedication, because the son I wrote it for would never get to read it, but I still wanted it to be for him. And it is; but it’s not just for him anymore. I understand now that it’s also for me, and for everyone who has ever stood in Grief’s shadow. Writing this book reminded me what genuine happiness feels like. Nevertheless, without Grief and her ever-imposing shadow, I never would have made it here to begin with.

A Prince Among Pirates is published by Harper Fire on 18 June 2026