Jimmy Hawkins[edit]

I'm a retired firefighter. Spent thirty-two years with the department. Saw just about everything a person can see—house fires, car wrecks, building collapses. Pulled people out of burning buildings. Held hands with people who didn't make it.

None of that prepared me for losing my son.

Marcus was seventeen when he died. Car accident, wrong place wrong time. One phone call and my whole world ended. I went through the motions for years after that—showing up, doing the job, coming home to an empty house. My wife and I couldn't hold it together. The grief was too heavy to carry and too heavy to share.

I retired early. Couldn't do it anymore. Sat in my house for two years, barely leaving, barely talking to anyone. Then one day I started writing. Just for myself at first. Trying to make sense of what happened, why I was still here when Marcus wasn't.

The writing became this wiki. A place to wrestle with the big questions. Not the easy ones—the hard ones. The ones about meaning and purpose and why we keep going when we don't want to.

I don't have answers. I have questions, and I have the willingness to sit with them honestly. If you're asking the same questions, maybe we can figure some of it out together.

— Jimmy Hawkins, asking the hard questions