Fresh Perspective on Death and Grieving

    SAN FRANCISCO, CA, March 04, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Sydney's husband died on an otherwise perfect summer day. He was in the prime of life, but the heart attack he experienced was sudden and fatal. Sydney's life as well as that of her two teenage daughters was shattered into a million pieces with one phone call on the morning of July 25, 2017.

Love and Blessings is her story of picking up the pieces over the 12 months that followed. Sydney writes about grief in her popular blog and has a loyal following.

"As difficult as it was to write, I am happy it is done and hope it will help other people who experience similar losses. Grief is a tricky thing, but it can transform us into stronger and kinder versions of ourselves.  It was a tremendous learning experience and I am happy to have come through it and be able to enjoy my life again," explains the author.

Sydney writes openly and eloquently of  the 12 months following the sudden death of her husband. She is transformed by grief as she struggles to raise her children, start a company and build a non-profit.

Love and Blessings, Grief & The Hero's Journey, is her story of grief, mourning and eventual healing. With new content, journal entries, notes and articles from the author's popular website, Sydney shares her inner thoughts on the meaning of wisdom and courage.

What deepens Sydney's journey through the grieving process is that she is haunted by the loss of her own father as a young girl, and then her mother as a young adult. Then, without warning history repeats and her own husband dies suddenly leaving her to raise her two daughters alone and follow in her own mother's footsteps. The story chronicles not just the death of a husband in the prime of life, but her inner fears as she comes to terms with the transformative power of love as she learns to trust, forgive and move forward in her life.
She shares her 12 month journey as a new widow, not just recovering from one recent death, but healing the unhealed trauma from the past with the transformative power of love and faith. This is a story of overcoming loss; it is haunting and lyrical in style and deeply inspirational for anyone who is grieving or mourning the loss of a loved one.

Love and Blessings is a must read.

Excerpt from her book Love & Blessings:

"Sometimes, at night I dream of him. I'm following him down a snowy mountain. He is in front of me and I can see his yellow jacket as he carves each elegant turn in the white snow. His body is strong and athletic and handles the terrain with confidence and ease. The snow is falling and his coat is a bright yellow dot in the distance. The snow beneath my feet is fresh and crisp and I can see my breath in the clean air, but as hard as I try, he is just out of my reach. He disappears behind the trees as he makes one last sweeping turn, and is lost from view. When I reach the bottom the chairlift lines are empty and he is gone."

Sydney has written and published three books:

Real Food for Real People - A family cookbook full of easy recipes and stories about raising her two daughters in the San Francisco Bay Area and cooking for both family and friends.

Love & Blessings, Grief & The Hero's Journey - This is a memoir of the 12 months following the sudden death of her husband in the prime of life. She writes about transformation and the positive aspects of grief and counting your blessings.

Nine - A collection of short stories about growing up on a farm and horse ranch in rural Oregon among other stories of coming to age in San Fransisco and married life.

Sydney's Biography:

Sydney grew up on a farm in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, she studied at Oregon State University, University of London, England, and Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

She married in 1994, settling in the Bay Area, she had two beautiful little girls in 1999 and 2001, and was widowed in 2016. She lives with her daughter in Moraga, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sydney created the popular lifestyle blog, sydneychaneythomas.com, and writes about grief, motherhood, cooking, entrepreneurship, and following your dreams.

She is a clothing designer for Ocean SF, a company she co-founded in 2015, and runs a non-profit, The Trident Project that works to eliminate plastic and plastic particles in our oceans and drinking water. She is an avid skier, and sailor.

Sydney on Widowhood:

"I wrote Love & Blessings, The Hero's Journey about my first 12 months of grieving the loss of my husband, Tracy Alan Thomas. The intention of the book is to help others who are experiencing the same type of loss to move through the journey of grief knowing that it can be transformative in positive ways. As devastating as these events are they are an integral part of life and must be patiently endured with dignity and grace."

Available on Amazon.

Sydney is a writer, sailing apparel designer and mother. She has written three books all available on Amazon.

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