Ray Grace

Ray Grace is a retired Professional Engineer and Construction Manager.

Following several years as a full-time caregiver, Mr. Grace lost his wife to cancer, being widowed in early 2014. Following her loss he has learned much about bereavement and the pain its grief brings.

The trauma of his grief opened his eyes to others suffering similar grief around him. With the goal of assisting people suffering the grief of losing a spouse, he wrote and recently published his latest book, "Surviving Surviving your Spouse", in which he chronicles his personal journey through grief. He states, "This dark night of the soul will happen to almost half of those married today", and "although I had lost my mother and step-daughter to cancer, and my father to old-age dementia, I was totally and pathetically unprepared for the grief-pain of losing my beloved wife".

As I learned more and more about how to reconcile with the grief of bereavement, I guess I became somewhat of an activist. As I said in the book, I'm not a joiner or marcher, but more of a one-on-one person, and to me this book serves that purpose. I am in sincere hope that sharing the journal of my own grief and my eventual reconciliation with it, may assist others experiencing this tragedy.

Mr. Grace worked on heavy construction projects in the United States, Middle East, South America, and the Pacific Rim, before retiring to Eastern Oregon in 1995, where he worked as Resident Engineer for local small and medium Infrastructure projects until 2002, when he was elected County Commissioner, serving during the startup and operational phase for incineration of the chemical weapons stockpile stored at the Army's Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon. After that he received a Governors appointment to the Citizens Advisory Commission, where he continued to monitor the public safety aspect of chemical weapons incineration until its completion.

During his international travels, he communicated and interacted with various races and cultures, resulting in a fascination with ethnic people groups. He is also conversant or familiar in several languages.

In addition to writing, Mr. Grace also paints portraits, some of which represent the various ethnic people groups which fascinate him.