The Fall to the Climb: A Mother?s Account of Grief, Faith, and Healing (Journals from a Warrior's Mother)

How does a mother get through the days and months following the loss of her child? In The Fall to the Climb, Chrissy continues to chronicle her journey through a valley of loss and grief in 2010 before beginning the climb to a higher hope-filled perspective in 2011. The year after The Fight (book one) is a whole new wilderness. Chrissy describes how emotions, depression, nighttime, holidays, relational strains, and new endeavors loomed large after losing her firstborn daughter.

If you’ve lost a child or experienced loss of any kind, reading Chrissy’s CaringBridge posts feels like finding a friend who understands. You’ll see how she processed her grief and healed incrementally over the course of that first year. She includes intimate letters to her daughter, Lilian Grace, and shares Scripture, songs, and soul food that encouraged her and equipped her to climb beyond her loss.

The Fall to the Climb is book two in the series Journals from a Warrior’s Mother about a family’s faith journey through extraordinary circumstances.

Chrissy L. Whitten holds a bachelor of science in leisure service management and a master of interdisciplinary studies in educational psychology, REMS, and leisure service management from Oklahoma State University (OSU). She has over thirty years' experience working in youth programming and teaching fitness. She grew up in the Cushing and Stillwater, Oklahoma communities before marrying her husband, Michael, in December 2003. They lived in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, for fourteen years, where Chrissy was the Tulsa County 4-H extension educator for five years and Juntos 4-H educator for over a year and a half. She founded the Warrior Princess Foundation after Lilian passed away and ran it for five years to raise money for trisomy 13 and 18 children. She organized seven races with Ken TZ Childress. Many donors and volunteers helped with fundraising efforts. It was a healing experience.Michael's work moved them to Tuttle, Oklahoma, with their two children (on earth), Piper and Daphne. She en- joys going on adventures around the world with her family, discovering and exploring together. She loves get- ting involved with her church and volunteering for her girls' schools and extracurricular activities where needed.She enjoys challenging herself by running ultras-50Ks, fifty milers, seventy milers, hundred milers, and anything between. She has quite a buckle collection for completing hundreds of miles. Her most recent race was a virtual treadmill run where she completed 402.7 miles and 318,146 feet at a fifteen percent incline from December 1- 25, 2020, in forty-one runs.Chrissy facilitates Calm Waters Grief student support groups in schools in Blanchard, Bridge Creek, Mustang, Newcastle, Tuttle, and Yukon and virtually throughout the state of Oklahoma. She teaches local fitness classes-barre, Pilates, PiYo, kickboxing, yoga, and a fitness mix at Step- pin Out Dance Studio. She's excited to get book one of four out into the world despite the countless distractions, adversities, and detours along the journey.