“I got it.” Anne Gudger uttered those words when she had to do all the hard things, by herself, after her husband – the love of her life – died in an accident when she was six months pregnant with their first child. Now she must navigate the trials of single motherhood, mourning, and learning to love again. Fascinated with the heart and its fifth chamber that holds more love, that holds shadows, she poetically chronicles her passage through grief and the beauty she found on the other side. Crafted with lightning bolts of joy and sorrow, she brings us a tender and lyrical memoir about the dance of loss and life, and how grief can make the heart beat stronger than ever before. is an autobiographical essayist who writes hard and loves harder. She’s been published in Real Simple, Cutbank, Cutthroat, The Los Angeles Review, The Normal School, The Rumpus, and the Columbia Journal.