For a long time after Max died, Rae Ann Gruver counted the weeks: one week, then two weeks, then a whole month had passed since her son's heart had last beaten. And every Thursday at noon, a new week would start and she knew exactly how long he had been gone.
One Thursday phone call divided her family's lives into the Before and the After, and none of their Afters looked the same.
I Used to Dread Thursdays is Rae Ann's account of that Thursday in September 2017, when her son Max was killed in a fraternity hazing ritual just twenty-nine days into his freshman year at LSU, and of the years since.
But most of it is about the days in between-learning to live alongside a loss she will never be able to accept and the family, friends, and fellow grieving mothers who helped her through it. Somewhere in the midst of her grieving, purpose found her: from a purple-and-gold wristband that became the Max Gruver Foundation, to anti-hazing laws she fought for in statehouses and on Capitol Hill. And to college campuses across the country, where Rae Ann tells Max's story to rooms full of students, hoping it makes the difference for just one of them.
Mostly though this is a book about hope, and the moments of light that come back. And about how grief can be turned toward something good in anyone's After.
