'Moving On Is The Wrong Goal': A Fresh Perspective On Carrying Grief After Devastating Loss

In 2003, Walker survived an accident that killed her 37-year-old husband, Paul, and their 7-year-old daughter, Cassie. Walker was left not only with her own injuries and grief, but with children to raise and a future she never expected to face.

At a women’s retreat in 2021, she felt called to finally tell her story, believing that sharing her experience might offer hope to someone else. She began writing about the loss she had carried since 2003. Then, in 2023, her 21-year-old daughter, Aria, died by suicide, bringing a second, profoundly different grief into Walker’s life and changing the narrative she was writing.

“I want readers to know that a life can be shattered without being destroyed,” Walker said. “This is not a story about pretending grief ends or that faith makes pain easy. It is about love that remains, grace that meets us in impossible places, the people who show up, and the possibility of carrying both sorrow and hope at the same time.”

Rather than presenting grief as something to conquer, Shattered but Unbreakable explores what it means to carry love and loss forward. The book makes room for anger, exhaustion, family, laughter, faith, memory and the people who quietly show up when words are inadequate. Walker’s Christian faith is central to the story, but she does not use faith to minimize pain. Instead, she writes about grace as something encountered in the middle of suffering, sometimes one small moment at a time.

Shattered but Unbreakable does not offer easy answers, timelines or cliches about grief. It offers companionship to readers who are grieving and insight to the people who love them. Its core message is that being shattered does not mean being permanently broken — and that sorrow and hope can occupy the same heart.

“Moving on is the wrong goal,” Walker added. “Grief is not something to ‘get over.’ It is something we learn to carry — with tenderness, with courage, and over time, with grace.”

Shattered but Unbreakable: How Love and Faith Survived

Publisher: Halo Publishing International

Release Date: August 2026

ISBN-13: 978-1637659243

Available from: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637659245

About The Author

Nadine Walker is a registered nurse and healthcare executive with more than 20 years of leadership experience in women’s and maternal health. She has spent her career caring for and advocating for women and families. Today, she combines that professional background with her personal story to speak about grief, grace, resilience, faith, compassion and how to show up for people when their world has been shaken. She lives in Florida and is available for speaking engagements at women’s groups, churches, retreats, grief and bereavement organizations, suicide-loss communities, healthcare audiences and community events.

For more information, please visit: https://nadinewalkerauthor.com.