A memoir by Shane Yerkes
On the Healing Road
After four years of cancer and the loss of his wife, a father converted a pickup into an overland camper and drove his ten-year-old son across America — telling him, mile by mile, the full story of his mother.
“When life places an obstacle in your path, the only way is through.”
Shane Yerkes
Coming soon · Debut memoir
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Advance praise
Early readers on On the Healing Road
"Shane Yerkes doesn't offer easy answers to grief. Instead, he shows that healing unfolds through connection, meaning, and the courage to keep moving forward."
— Keith M. Bellizzi, PhD, MPH
Resilience researcher, University of Connecticut
"Healing is not about forgetting, but about learning to carry love forward into a meaningful tomorrow. A life-affirming companion that will encourage your soul."
— Jerry Pierson
Author of Carrie's Journal
"A portrait of grief that doesn't ask us to move past loss, but to move through it, together… proof that healing and grief can sit side by side."
— Carrie Hopson-Doubts
Early reader
Who is Shane
A father, a writer, and a road that led back to hope
Shane Yerkes is a healthcare technology executive, writer, traveler, and devoted father who lives along the Broad River in the South Carolina Lowcountry with his son, Conor, and their dog, Moultrie.
In April 2022, after standing beside his wife through her four-year battle with cancer, Shane found himself a widowed father to their ten-year-old boy. What began as a father-son road trip became a deeply transformative journey — first chronicled in the blog On the Healing Road, and now his debut book.
Read Shane's full story →The journey
Mile by mile
Three months after Sara's death, a father and his ten-year-old son point a converted truck west. This is the road the book rides.
The Lowcountry · where it began
"Shane Yerkes packs a converted truck, points it west, and drives his ten-year-old son out of the South Carolina Lowcountry."
The open country
"Across nearly a month and dozens of states — from Old Sheldon Church to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone's bison herds to the South Dakota plains —"
The long miles
"— Shane tells Conor the full story of his mother. How he met Sara at a Halloween football game, all pigtails and laughter."
The campfires
"How she loved her boy with a fierceness that shaped him before he could remember it."
Home again
"Honest and plainspoken with an undercurrent of hope, it traces the slow turning of a wound into a scar."
Speaking
Bringing hope to the hard places
Shane speaks to audiences navigating loss, caregiving, and change — with honesty, warmth, and a message of resilience earned the hard way.
Grief & the Only Way Through
Finding a path forward after loss — for anyone carrying a wound they didn't choose.
Caregiving & Self-Advocacy
Standing beside a loved one through serious illness, and advocating within the healthcare system.
Healthcare, Safety & Technology
Fifteen-plus years helping organizations improve safety, manage risk, and deliver better outcomes.
Resources
For anyone walking a hard road right now
Shane's family lived four years inside cancer, then a road he never planned: widowhood, parenting alone, and helping a ten-year-old grieve. This is a growing, plain-spoken collection of the resources he wishes he'd had sooner — on cancer caregiving, cold capping, grief and widowhood, solo parenting after loss, and helping a child grieve a parent.
