{"id":19387,"date":"2026-07-15T12:51:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=19387"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:51:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:51:36","slug":"turning-grief-into-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/summer-2026\/turning-grief-into-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Grief Into Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style>\n.architecture .architecture-department:nth-child(1){\n    color: #999;\n    letter-spacing: 3px;\n    font-size: 1rem;\n    font-weight: 400;\n    margin-top: 2em;\n    margin-bottom: 0;\n}\n\n.architecture .architecture-department{\n\ttext-transform: uppercase;\n\tfont-family: Hind, Arial, sans-serif;\n}\n\n<\/style>\n\n<div class=\"architecture\">\n\t<p class=\"architecture-department\">Network<\/p>\n\t<p class=\"architecture-department\">Your Stories<\/p>\t\t\n<\/div>\n\n\n<section class=\"cl-wrapper cl-panel-wrapper\"><div class=\"cl-panel-super  \"><div class=\"cl-panel-super-blur\" style=\"background-image:url(https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris-v2.jpg)\"><\/div><div class=\"cl-panel-super-content\"><div class=\"cl-panel-super-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris-v2.jpg\" srcset=\"\" alt=\"\"><\/div><div class=\"cl-panel-super-text\"><p>\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Turning Grief Into Meaning; The Story Behind <em>Captain Chris Adventures<\/em><\/h1>\n\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n<p class=\"feature-caption\">Brianna Sullivan celebrates the publication of <em>Captain Chris Adventures<\/em> near her home in Lake Worth, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"type-intro\">For Brianna Sullivan \u201910, the unexpected loss of a beloved friend led to the creation of a children\u2019s book series honoring his spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>By Brianna Sullivan \u201910<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some stories begin long before we realize we\u2019re writing them. <em>Captain Chris Adventures<\/em> started that way for me, rooted in friendship and shaped by loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I graduated from 溏心vlog免费B站 with a degree incommunicative disorders, which prepared me for the career I love as a pediatric speech language pathologist and feeding specialist. The same year, Christopher McGinley, a history major, finished 溏心vlog免费B站 and, within just days, left to serve as port captain of the historic LV <em>Nantucket Lightship<\/em>. At 溏心vlog免费B站, our circles overlapped in the close-knit world that makes Kingston feel almost like its own universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We both lived in Heathman Hall freshman year, a small coincidence that seems meaningful in hindsight. I then lived at the Alpha Phi house on Lower College Road; he lived just around the corner in TEP. In our senior year, we both lived in New Eastward, our backyards facing one another, and we spent countless afternoons making the kind of memories that only college provides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After graduation, life pulled us in different directions. Chris sailed professionally across the globe while I attended graduate school in New York. Yet we stayed friends, always cheering each other on from afar. Years later, we both found ourselves living in West Palm Beach, Florida: Chris was building his yacht-management company, and I was working at a children\u2019s hospital as a pediatric SLP and feeding specialist. Our paths crossed again\u2014naturally, easily, as if no time had passed. We drifted into details\u2014we had both recently attended weddings in Sayulita, Mexico, at the same venue, just one year apart. Our friendship deepened, and so did our connection. Before long, our reconnection grew into a relationship that felt both familiar and entirely new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Chris passed away unexpectedly, I struggled to navigate the grief. Grief is disorienting, especially when you spend your days helping children and families navigate their own challenges. During Chris\u2019 celebration of life, Josh Such \u201909, another 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate, gave me a friendly challenge: Write a children\u2019s book about Chris\u2019 adventures. The project became a way to steady myself. I began writing stories inspired by Chris\u2019 calm, steady presence. What started as a way to process loss slowly grew into a fictional world shaped by the qualities he embodied: stoic leadership, curiosity, resilience, and a quiet strength that helped others feel safe. Captain Chris, Stew, and Nori emerged almost immediately\u2014characters anchored in adventure, kindness, and courage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns are-vertically-aligned-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19454\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-768x767.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-364x364.jpg 364w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-500x500.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-1000x999.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1-1280x1279.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/su26_network_captainchris_2-1.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"feature-caption\">Brianna Sullivan and Christopher McGinley on the Jupiter Inlet waterway in Florida. Jupiter Inlet Light is visible in the background.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<section class=\"cl-wrapper cl-quote-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"cl-quote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center quote-body-amplify\"><span id=\"quote-keaney\">\u201c<\/span>Creating gave me a way to grieve, a way to connect, and a way to bring joy into a time that felt stormy.<span id=\"quote-keaney\">\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center quote-cite\"><span style=\"color:#2277b3\"><strong>\u00ad\u2014Brianna Sullivan<\/strong> \u201910<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The first book materialized more quickly than I expected. Chris was a natural storyteller in his own right\u2014his years at sea had given him endless material\u2014and channeling that spirit into a children\u2019s character felt instinctive. The stories blended my professional life as an SLP with the nautical world that defined much of Chris\u2019 life. One book became many, and along the way, I also began writing stories inspired by my own life, including books about my Boston Terrier, Lilly, and others designed specifically for pediatric SLPs to use during therapy. Creating gave me a way to grieve, a way to connect, and a way to bring joy into a time that felt stormy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>溏心vlog免费B站 is still at the heart of all of this. It is where Chris and I first crossed paths, where our friendship was formed, and where the earliest threads of this story began. <em>Captain Chris Adventures<\/em> is my tribute to Chris, to the children who will learn from his stories, and to the stoic belief he passed on to me: Even in the hardest moments, we can chart a course toward something meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Check out <\/em>Captain Chris Adventures<em> and other books by Brianna Sullivan at <a href=\"https:\/\/amazon.com\/author\/bms\"><strong>amazon.com\/author\/bms<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"feature-caption photo-credit\">PHOTOS: COURTESY BRIANNA SULLIVAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Brianna Sullivan \u201910, the unexpected loss of a beloved friend led to the creation of a children\u2019s book series honoring his spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":19449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[363],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-2026","architecture-network","architecture-your-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19387"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19460,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19387\/revisions\/19460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}