Meet John Jeff
I'm John Jeff (yes, both names). I write and speak about grief, loss, and the unglamorous work of becoming in the aftermath.
Grief doesn't just show up at funerals. It arrives when careers crash, relationships dissolve, or the identity you built stops fitting. My work explores what happens when loss vandalizes everything you thought defined you and forces you to meet the person underneath.
After my dad died by suicide in 2016, I discovered his journals hidden in a filing cabinet. Thirty years of his inner world became my most unexpected inheritance. What followed was years of excavating my own grief, unlearning inherited patterns, and figuring out how to participate in my own becoming instead of just bracing against what had already happened.
I blend personal story, research, and a healthy disrespect for the idea that healing has to look polished. I have zero patience for stages, timelines, or reflexive platitudes. My work is about agency in the aftermath and the power to choose how loss shapes you, rather than letting it happen unconsciously.
My work is for anyone navigating the unglamorous territory between who they were and who they're becoming.
When I lost my father to suicide in 2016, my experience with grief didn’t match anything I’d ever read or been told.
If my story resonates with you, know that you aren’t navigating loss incorrectly. You’re on the edge of something real — an opportunity for serious self-reckoning.
It’s time to live with guts.
When I lost my father to suicide in 2016, my experience with grief didn’t match anything I’d ever read or been told.
If my story resonates with you, know that you aren’t navigating loss incorrectly. You’re on the edge of something real — an opportunity for serious self-reckoning.
