Baseball as Therapy During Grief
A Memoir About Love, Loss, and Learning to Keep Showing Up
When my wife, Cynthia “Cinci” Turnbull, died on September 1, 2025, I didn’t lose only the person I loved most. I lost my routine. My future. My sense of home.
Like many grieving people, I discovered that grief wasn’t a single event. It was something I learned to live with, day after day.
In the months after her death, baseball became an unexpected companion. Not because it fixed anything. Not because it made grief disappear. But because it kept showing up.
Every day there was another game. Every day there was another inning. Every day there was another reason to take one more step forward.
Baseball as Therapy During Grief is the story of caring for my wife through eighteen years of her battle with cancer, losing her, and learning how to exist in a world that continued after she was gone.
It is a book about grief. But it is also a book about love.
What You’ll Find Inside
Caregiving and anticipatory grief
The final days of hospice
Life after the death of a spouse
The loneliness and invisibility of grief
Continuing bonds and enduring love
Why routine and structure matter after loss
How baseball became a framework for healing
Why Baseball?
Baseball is a game built around failure, patience, and returning tomorrow. Even the greatest players fail most of the time. The season is long. The rhythm is steady. And no matter what happened yesterday, the game begins again.
For me, grief worked much the same way.
Some days surviving was the victory. Some days showing up was enough.
Supporting The Cindi Turnbull Endowed Scholarship
100% of profits from Baseball as Therapy During Grief support the Cindi Turnbull Endowed Scholarship in her honor at The University of Texas at Austin.
Every copy helps future generations of artists pursue the kind of education that shaped Cinci’s life and career.
About Cinci
Everything in this book begins with her.
Professor. Artist. Mentor. Optimist. Purple enthusiast. Someone who saw people.
A Few Words From The Book
“For a long time, surviving was the goal. Then some days surviving became living. Not because the grief got smaller. But because I slowly learned how to carry it.”
“I love you, Dana Berry.”
— Cinci