MSI Press Blog

    Chris Richards' book, Nothing So Broken , reached #224 in Vietnam War biographies. Book description:  In the shadow of loss, a path to healing begins. Chris Richards grew up in a small New England mill town, where life was tough and loyalty ran deep. At just 19, his world was shaken when a close friend was left permanently disabled by a devastating accident. At the same time, Chris’s father began to show troubling symptoms linked to his service in the Vietnam War—unseen wounds that would slowly unravel the man he once knew. The weight of watching two people he loved unravel under the strain of trauma and physical decline left deep scars—ones Chris carried silently into adulthood. For years, he buried his grief and fear, never imagining that one day, facing his own crisis, he would turn to their stories for strength. This powerful and moving memoir explores the enduring impact of trauma, the quiet power of resilience, and how even the most broken lives can become sour...

    Chris Richards' book, Nothing So Broken , reached #224 in Vietnam War biographies. Book description:  In the shadow of loss, a path to healing begins. Chris Richards grew up in a small New England mill town, where life was tough and loyalty ran deep. At just 19, his world was shaken when a close friend was left permanently disabled by a devastating accident. At the same time, Chris’s father began to show troubling symptoms linked to his service in the Vietnam War—unseen wounds that would slowly unravel the man he once knew. The weight of watching two people he loved unravel under the strain of trauma and physical decline left deep scars—ones Chris carried silently into adulthood. For years, he buried his grief and fear, never imagining that one day, facing his own crisis, he would turn to their stories for strength. This powerful and moving memoir explores the enduring impact of trauma, the quiet power of resilience, and how even the most broken lives can become sour...

    Chris Richards' book, Nothing So Broken , reached #224 in Vietnam War biographies. Book description:  In the shadow of loss, a path to healing begins. Chris Richards grew up in a small New England mill town, where life was tough and loyalty ran deep. At just 19, his world was shaken when a close friend was left permanently disabled by a devastating accident. At the same time, Chris’s father began to show troubling symptoms linked to his service in the Vietnam War—unseen wounds that would slowly unravel the man he once knew. The weight of watching two people he loved unravel under the strain of trauma and physical decline left deep scars—ones Chris carried silently into adulthood. For years, he buried his grief and fear, never imagining that one day, facing his own crisis, he would turn to their stories for strength. This powerful and moving memoir explores the enduring impact of trauma, the quiet power of resilience, and how even the most broken lives can become sour...

  Healing after loss is not a return to what was—it’s the slow emergence of life from the shadow of absence. Loss reshapes the landscape of the soul; it carves valleys where once there were plains, and in those valleys, new growth begins. 1. The Shadow as Teacher The shadow of loss is not merely darkness—it is depth. It forces us to see what we once overlooked: the fragility of love, the impermanence of joy, the miracle of connection. In grief, we learn that pain is not the opposite of love but its echo. The shadow teaches us tenderness, empathy, and humility—the qualities that make healing possible. 2. The Work of Allowing Healing does not begin with forgetting; it begins with allowing. Allowing the ache to speak. Allowing the silence to stretch. Allowing the memory to remain. When we stop resisting the shadow, it softens. What once felt unbearable becomes a kind of sacred ground—a place where we meet ourselves honestly. 3. Transformation, Not Restoration Loss changes us. Healing ...

  Quebec On our way back home to Pittsburgh from Maine on one visit when the kids were little, we came pretty close to South Hero Island in Vermont. (That story will be told in another volume because there was a story that took place on South Hero Island.) Once on that island, we were intrigued by the chain of islands in Lake Champlain that separated Vermont from New York. The islands felt almost like stepping‑stones laid across the lake—long, low stretches of farmland and shoreline, connected by narrow causeways that skimmed just above the water. Each island had its own quiet personality: a cluster of houses here, a field of grazing cows there, a glimpse of blue water widening on both sides. It was the kind of landscape that pulls you forward without your noticing, island after island, as though the lake itself were guiding you north. That chain, island after island, pulled us straight up to Canada. Once again, we were in Canada, unplanned. The crossing itself was so undrama...

  There’s a rhythm to a lobster boat that you don’t learn from a summer on the water—you earn it. The day starts before the sun thinks about rising, when the harbor is still half-asleep and the gulls haven’t begun their arguments. You step aboard with coffee that’s already gone cold, boots that never quite dry, and a quiet understanding that the ocean will decide what kind of day you’re about to have. Out on the bay, the world shrinks to the boat, the traps, and the line of buoys you know as well as your own handwriting. Hauling traps isn’t glamorous. The winch groans, the rope burns a little through your gloves, and the bait—herring, pogies, whatever you’ve got—clings to your hands no matter how many times you rinse them in seawater. But there’s satisfaction in the work: the trap comes up, heavy or light, and you see what the ocean has decided to give you. Some days you pull mostly lobsters. Other days it’s crabs, sea stars, or the occasional surprise—proof that the ocean has its ...