Love, Loss and Lifelines: Dawn Picken's new book journeys through grief to hope

Multimedia Journalist·Bay of Plenty Times·

14 Oct, 2022 11:00 PM4 mins to read

Mum, reporter and former television anchor Dawn Picken is releasing a memoir on November 2. Photo / Andrew Warner

In 2010 a loss cut Dawn Picken's life into two.

A year later she started writing her memoir. Now, more than a decade later she hopes the completed book, Love, Loss and Lifelines: My Year of Grief on the Run, will help others on their own journey.

"Loss bisects your life into before and after," the Bay of Plenty writer said.

"I want to give readers hope for the after."

Picken's memoir is a "time capsule" where she looks back on losing her husband Sean. He had a mysterious illness later identified as necrotising fasciitis or flesh-eating bacteria and died due to complications from surgery to remove a mass on his pancreas.

After her husband's death, Picken rented out her house and packed six suitcases to travel the world with her children, then aged 4 and 6, before coming to call the Bay of Plenty home.

Love, Loss and Lifelines: My Year of Grief on the Run by Dawn Picken will be released on November 2. Photo / Supplied

It was not an easy book to write.

"I started the book in dribs and drabs," Picken said.

"Then I would come back to it but forget where I had left off. Sometimes I couldn't even find the file on my computer."

One particular section of the story had Picken sitting at her keyboard in tears.

"The part that was hardest for me to write is the scene where Sean dies. I would cry every time."

Picken said she did not cry a lot at the time of losing Sean.

"And I don't cry a lot now, partly because I had the feeling I needed to be strong.

"But during those hours at the kitchen table with the computer, I could just finally let it go. For me that was therapeutic."

Dawn Picken started writing her memoir in 2011, one year after experiencing a loss that cut her life into two. Photo / Andrew Warner

Eventually, Picken felt the book was where she "wanted it to be".

"I needed to close this chapter," Picken said.

"I often tell people, 'There is someone who needs to read your story and sometimes that someone is you.'"

On November 2, Picken's story will be launched into the world for anyone who needs it.

"Anybody who has lost someone important to them, I think, would find a lot of value in this story."

Ten per cent of the profits from the book will be donated to Grief Support Services, an organisation that supported Picken when she arrived in New Zealand.

"The fact I could go to Greerton and talk to someone who would listen to me and provide some gentle suggestions provided tremendous value in my life."

When asked what lessons she would like her readers to take away from the book, Picken said she wanted people to understand there was no one way to process loss.

"There is no expiration date on grief. My kids and I will always be missing Sean. We loved him dearly and time does not erase that.

"Don't beat yourself up for the mistakes you make during times of crisis. We all do the best we can with the information we have at the time."

Picken has written for NZME since 2014 after a career in television news and marketing in the United States. She also teaches in the business department of Toi Ohomai.