Grief doesn't whisper. It crashes in-loud, disorienting, and consuming. When D. Mayse lost his father, the silence that followed was deafening. What began as heartbreak unraveled into anxiety, depression, and a darkness so thick, even hope felt unreachable.
Ashes to Light is the story of that unraveling- and the slow, sacred work of being stitched back together.
Told through raw, vulnerable poetry, this collection traces the author's personal journey from devastation to healing. It's not a quick fix. It's not tied in bows. These poems were written in hospital rooms and quiet nights, in moments of panic and whispered prayers, in the fight to keep breathing when everything inside said give up.
But this is not a book about staying in the dark.
It's about what happens when love walks in-when someone sees the wreckage and chooses to stay. It's about the quiet strength of faith when the world feels loud. It's about scars that don't just tell the story of what hurt, but of what healed.
With the steadying love of his wife and the relentless grace of Christ, Mayse rose from the ashes of loss-not unscathed, but unshaken in purpose. His story is not one of perfection, but of presence. Not of being whole, but of becoming.
Ashes to Light is an offering to anyone who has sat in their own darkness and wondered if light would ever return. To those battling silent wars no one sees. To those learning to live again after loss. To those who feel alone, too far gone, or forgotten.
