In June 2017, Brian Bohannon’s life turned upside down. Over a period of just four days, his wife Christine passed away from cancer, leaving him to raise their then 4-year old and 7-year old daughters by himself. Christine was just 39 years old.
As he worked through his grief and started to build his new life, Brian was saddened by the fact that his wife would not be around to guide their daughters through the ups and downs of life, would not be there to answer their questions, or give them a shoulder to cry on. Determined not to lose whatever chance he had to do that for them, he wrote Life Will Teach You: Lessons for Teens and Their Parents on Life, Death, Health, Love, and Loss.
“My initial goal,” Brian said, “was to pass this down to my daughters with everything their mother would have taught if she lived to tell them. I also wanted to give this to them before I die and lose the chance.” His original plan was for it to be a memoir and letter to his daughters. But as it developed, he realized it might be something that could benefit a lot of people.
Brian calls Life Will Teach You “a handbook for life. … There is a lot on grief and loss, life and death, but also lessons from my high school health class.”
This is a love story … a life or death story … a story of overcoming grief and loss, but ultimately, a be all you can be story. It’s a story for teens and their parents on how to pursue mental, physical, spiritual, and financial health. It is everything I think young people need to know about life, full of lessons from my 30 years of teaching high school health.
The book is a “Road Less Traveled” for teens, young adults, high school and college graduates, and their parents. Everything your parents should have taught you. Everything you didn’t have a chance to ask your parents. Everything you should have learned in school. Life, death, love, loss, health, and everything in between. My version of “everything, everywhere, all at once,” in one book.
He kinds of sums it in a second subtitle he’s attached to the book: “Confessions of a High School Health Teacher, Widower, and Girl Dad on Everything Young People Need to Know About Life.”
Life Will Teach You: Lessons for Teens and Their Parents on Life, Death, Health, Love, and Loss was published in November 2024, and is available on Amazon for Kindle, in paperback and hardcover, starting at $15.95.
Brian Bohannon grew up in Webster and graduated from Webster Thomas High School. He now lives in Williamson with his daughters.
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