Book Review: Endure by Kelly McCoy

Endure: A Memoir of Grief, Resilience, and Love by Kelly McCoy

Kelly McCoy's life was turned upside down when his 23-year-old son Cooper died by suicide in 2023. To help deal with the situation, he started writing a blog about his thoughts and feelings during the time between the death of his son until a year later. This book reprints the blog entries (with some guest posts by his wife Victoria, Cooper's mom). They did not realize Cooper was dealing with depression until after he died, making the situation very hard situation. As a former firefighter, McCoy had dealt with a lot of crisis situations and worked to build resilience in desperate situations. But his own crisis, his own desperation, were much harder to deal with. He describes his struggle to understand what happened and why it happened and to deal with the painful flood of emotions and memories. The death of any child or young adult is a tragedy, even more so to the surviving parents.

His account is touching as he tries to sort out his new life without his son. Some coping mechanisms are better than others. With only a year he does not work everything out. The process is life-long, so that's okay. His openness to find a better place, to get through the process, is a consolation to others who are on similar paths. It's not always easy to read and he does lean into cliches at times, but that is part of the process. 

I have mixed feelings about this book. One the one hand, I am entirely sympathetic and his son's situation sounds a lot like my son's (though we were aware of my son's mental health struggles). On the other hand, a lot of the things he goes to are a bit cliched (like looking to eastern mysticism for answers) and seem superficial. The road he is on is so hard though, often we grab at anything. Finding the true thing is the real challenge.

Mildly recommended--it's a tough look at the toughest to times for a father.