What do you do when the unthinkable happens - and life keeps going anyway?
After the death of her daughter Kahlia, Kirsten O’Connor entered a world that felt unfamiliar, unrecognisable, and profoundly changed. The Year After Kahlia is a raw, honest memoir of what it means to live inside grief; not as a problem to be solved, but as a reality to be carried.
This is not a book about moving on, finding closure, or turning loss into something neat or meaningful. It is about survival. About love that doesn’t end. About learning how to stay alive when the person you love is no longer here.
Through reflection, memory, and lived experience, Kirsten writes openly about the many shapes grief takes: shock, numbness, anger, guilt, longing, tenderness, and the way grief can reshape the body, the nervous system, identity, and one’s place in the world. She names what is often left unsaid, giving language to experiences that can feel isolating or impossible to explain.
Writing becomes a quiet companion throughout the book. Alongside the narrative, Kirsten reflects on how writing helped her stay connected to herself when words felt fragile or hard to reach. Gentle prompts, reflections, and invitations to write are offered - not as therapy or homework, but as a way to pause, notice, and sit with what is true.
A dedicated diary section traces grief as it unfolds over time, without forcing it into stages or timelines. The book also explores what is happening inside the grieving body and mind, offering grounding perspectives for moments when everything feels overwhelming.
While the book includes the experience of suicide loss, The Year After Kahlia is written for anyone who is grieving - the loss of a child, a loved one, a future, or a version of life they expected to have.
This is a book for those who are hurting, and for those who want to understand grief more honestly; without clichés, platitudes, or pressure to be “okay.”
If you’ve ever felt that no one really understands what this kind of loss is like, this book offers companionship, truth, and the quiet reassurance that you are not alone.
Kirsten O'Connor is a New Zealand author and grief advocate, and the founder of This Is Grief. After the death of her daughter Kahlia in 2024, Kirsten began writing to survive, to tell the truth about suicide, and to challenge the silence that surrounds grief. Her work blends lived experience with social insight, and focuses on love, loss, and what it means to keep living after the unimaginable.She is the author of The Year After Kahlia: Surviving, Loving, and Writing My Way Through Loss and writes from Aotearoa New Zealand.
