Could be worse, right?
You know that stress inventory you can take? You get one point each for a long list of disastrous life events? Let’s just say I have lost count. In the last year alone I’ve lost my husband (and his brother), sold our home, moved across the country, quietly quit my job, watched my closest friend-slash-sister-in-law move out of the country, and… well, I guess that’s it. Could be worse, right?
—Holland on the back cover of Holland, My Heart
When I first wrote that copy, I assumed most people knew what I meant by “that stress inventory.”
Turns out, maybe not.
What Is the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale?
In 1967, two psychiatrists created something called the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Most people call it the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. They were studying the connection between major life changes and illness. They assigned point values to events—death of a spouse, divorce, job loss, moving, financial shifts. You add up your total and it estimates your likelihood of a stress-related health breakdown in the next couple of years.
It’s older research, but the worksheet is still floating around online. When you fill it out, it can hit harder than you expect.
Of course I filled it out for Holland.
Death of a spouse scores the highest. Selling a home adds points. Changing jobs. Moving. Major financial shifts. Even losing proximity to someone you love.
However you tally it, she lands somewhere between 150 and 300 points. That range suggests about a 50% chance of a health breakdown within two years.
Stress, the Body, and Love
What Holmes and Rahe were pointing toward in the 1960s, we understand more clearly now: prolonged stress and grief take a physical toll. The immune system. The heart. The brain. The nervous system.
When readers tell me Holland feels real, that her exhaustion feels familiar, that her edges make sense, I think that’s because sustained stress can really shrink a person. It makes everything louder and harder and more fragile.
Kai does not fix that.
He offers steadiness. Presence. A nervous system that does not escalate hers (until his own grief and stress hit, but that’s a whole other story). He offers partnership when her internal reserves are depleted.
Why This Story Still Matters to Me
When I wrote Holland, My Heart during the pandemic lockdown, I had known grief. I lost my dad in 2006. I understood what it meant for the world to divide into before and after. I knew how long the fog can last. I knew that particular flavor of exhaustion.
I wrote Holland from that place. I worked hard to make her guardedness make sense. I wanted her slowness to feel real.
Now just months after losing my mother, the book feels different.
The stress scale doesn’t feel like an interesting psychological artifact anymore. It feels personal. The numbers feel heavier, less academic.
When I reread Holland’s loss, I feel it in my body. When she resists building something new, I understand the cost in a way I couldn’t have before. When she lets herself care about Kai, I see the risk more clearly.
Grief rearranges you. I knew that already. I just know it differently now.
There are lines in the book that surprise me. I don’t remember writing them with this level of understanding. I couldn’t have. I hadn’t lost my mom yet. Back then, I was writing from the memory of losing my dad—and from other losses too. My marriage. My soul dog. Friendships. A job I loved. Now I’m reading from fresh terrain.
I’m still proud of the book.
But it resonates in different bones.
I wrote Holland, My Heart because I wanted to engage with Ruth, my favorite story. I wanted to write about women who rebuild after devastation. I wanted to sit with loyalty and survival and love that doesn’t erase what came before.
I didn’t realize I was also writing something I would need again.
The book hasn’t changed.
I have.
And I’m grateful she’s still here waiting for me. Maybe she’ll land differently for you, too.
