Former radio personality speaks out about reclaiming happiness after devastating loss of daughter

For nearly three decades, Erin Davis was that comforting radio voice so many Toronto listeners enjoyed waking up to.

Now, Davis is using her voice differently, sharing her story of what it’s like to pick up the pieces after suffering the worst loss a parent can live through – the sudden death of her 24-year-old daughter Lauren, on May 11, 2015.

“It was the most surreal of circumstances. We were in Jamaica getting set to do a breakfast broadcast and my husband stepped away from the broadcast table where he was helping me to prepare for the show to take a phone call. He was gone for ten minutes, so I went out to the lobby and he was sitting slumped in a love seat across from the front desk,” Davis recalled.

“I said, ‘What is it?’ and he said, ‘It’s Lauren, she died in her sleep.’”

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And that’s when everything changed for Davis and her husband Rob.

“I always said that the shock was a gift to Rob and to me,” said Davis, author of Mourning Has Broken. “Because as anyone who has been through grief knows, you have things you have to do and then once they’re done, that’s when you sit back and say, ‘what happened?’”

In “Mourning Has Broken,” Davis beautifully writes about love, loss and how to move forward when life takes a drastic turn.

“I would love people to understand that we are at a loss when it comes to the language of loss,” she said. “Whether you’ve lost a child or someone else close to you or you know someone who has just lost someone close to them – the things to say the things not to say.”

“Also to know that there is no timeline, there’s no road map. Your grief is as individual as you are.”

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“How you should be grieving, it’s entirely up to you,” she said. “And if you could do it by sharing with someone and having them listen, it’s an immense help. Be strong by being vulnerable.”