Interview by Paul Salfen, Text by Christine Thompson for AMFM Magazine
In an exclusive AMFM Magazine conversation with Paul Salfen, author Vicki Adkins sat down to talk about the book she never planned to write—until life and faith left her no choice. Good Grief is not a tidy self-help manual. It is the raw, unfiltered story of a mother who buried her 17-year-old son Brett and, years later, her husband, only to discover that sorrow and joy can occupy the same heart. Adkins arrived on set glowing, book sparkling in hand, and declared she is “just living life on a high.” What follows is the conversation that explains why.
Adkins never set out to become an author. “I never knew that I had a book inside of me,” she told Salfen. Friends and mentors kept insisting she share her story. When she finally did, the finished manuscript undid her. “I don’t cry a whole lot, but I wept and I wept and I wept,” she said, “because my book encouraged me right where I’m at in my own faith journey of loss.”
The losses are staggering. Brett died at 17. A year before this interview, her husband followed. Yet Adkins refuses to let grief become her identity. “Grief is grief,” she explained. “You can have joy and sorrow at the same time, but it doesn’t define you. I can sit in my sadness and not dismiss it, knowing that God’s writing my story and everything He’s given me has been on loan.”
That perspective is the heartbeat of Good Grief. Adkins walks readers through her life chapter by chapter—from childhood losses of beloved dogs to the unimaginable ache of burying a child and a spouse. The process of writing was painful. “When you go back to the days when you were living the nightmare you never thought you would walk through… it was very hard,” she admitted. But the harder truth was this: the story had to help someone else.
Readers are already responding. Phone calls, texts, and screenshots arrive daily from people who finally feel permission to “just sit with grief and be okay with it.” Adkins compares the journey to a butterfly that never explains the process to the caterpillar—it simply becomes.
She is already thinking about the next book. One of the most striking conversations in Good Grief involves her mother, who planned her own funeral with surprising joy—choosing hair, outfits, pallbearers, songs, and even writing her own obituary. Adkins believes more families should have these conversations while they still can. “It would take a lot of stress off your loved ones,” she said. Death is inevitable; preparation can be an act of love.
When Salfen asked for her “Hail Mary” moment—the point where everything was on the line—Adkins did not hesitate. “The moment my son Brett passed away, I realized that God was writing not only a story, He’s producing a movie. And it’s way bigger than I can even try to explain. Sometimes you go through loss and it’s not even about you. The pain I’ve experienced is to help other people.”
Her daily anchors are Scripture and a quote that still moves her. Philippians 4:6-7—“Be anxious for nothing… and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds”—remains her favorite. She also carries the words of Wintley Phipps: “It is in the quiet crucible of our personal, private sufferings that our noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.” And she holds tightly to Romans 8:28: God works all things together for good.
What does she hope readers take away? Permission to sit where they are—whether the loss is a spouse, a child, a divorce, or a shattered dream—without shame. “Allow the Holy Spirit to minister in your time of grief and realize it’s not forever,” she said. “Get around people who will love you, encourage you, and support you. We all need each other.”
The process of writing Good Grief changed her. “It’s taught me that no matter what you go through in life, there’s better. And the best is yet to come. He gives me beauty for ashes. He has restored to me the years the locust has stolen. I look forward to my future with such greatness.”
Good Grief is available now at VickieAdkins.com, with Amazon and Barnes & Noble editions following shortly, plus an upcoming audio version. Adkins leaves readers with a simple charge: if your story can help even one person, write it. You are the only fingerprint that will leave that particular imprint on the world.
