I’m Too Young for This, by Laura Jinks

A Story of Widowhood, Motherhood, and Other Things I’m Still Figuring Out

Life was looking up for Laura and Bob after their second daughter was born. Both in their early thirties, they’d been married for five years. They had just bought a house. Two kids, a dog, good jobs, and a big backyard to run around. They even had a garden left over from the previous tenants. Their first spring, they wanted to plant their own vegetables. Bob went at the tiny plot with the vigor of a man who grew up on a farm, and pulled a muscle in his back. But the pain didn’t go away.

Ten months later, Laura was a young widow. Bob had passed away from a rare cancer. Their babies were four and under two, and now she was on her own. Sole mortgage payer. Sole decision maker. Solo parent.

There isn’t time to grieve when you have toddlers, and her life had to keep going. Even when Covid hit on his first Deathiversary, even when her daughter started hybrid kindergarten, even when her youngest started talking and asking questions about everything in the world.

She began to write— first for herself, then for others who might be walking a similar path.

The stories in this book share how she kept the memories of her husband (the man who had kept her sane and made her laugh) alive as she moved through her adventures as a solo parent. How she found her own story in between that of her husband and her daughters. How she pieced together a new life and learned to keep going as she raised her kids alone.