February 19th, my world changed forever.  My soon to be 1 year old son, Toby, was rushed to the hospital. He had stopped breathing during his afternoon nap.  The first responders and the medical staff at the hospital were unable to revive him, and by the time I arrived, he had already been declared dead. It was as though my life slowed to a crawl. I had no emotional energy to spare, it was impossible to pretend or to show any other emotion than what I was feeling in the moment.

At this time in my career I was signed with a record label and was in a season of writing, specifically chasing songs to become radio singles. After Toby’s passing, some of the writing sessions were rescheduled, some not, but whenever I showed up to write I could tell something had shifted for me creatively.

Those sessions literally became my therapy. Music therapy. Those spaces became sacred. I specifically remember one conversation before a write started, “we’re putting ‘chasing a single’ on the shelf, we are going to write where you’re at today”, and that’s what we did. On a side note, I am forever grateful for all of the writers who sat with me so early on in my grief journey.

As I wrote and started collecting the songs, I would share the demos with my wife, Lindsey.  It felt less like sharing pages from my journal and more like sharing secrets from my soul. Secrets I felt no one could relate to and that I could never share openly.

In the months after Toby’s passing I had stopped performing. To be honest, I’d stopped doing much of anything.  I wondered if I would ever play again, but as I sat with these songs I started feeling a need to.  They made me feel closer to Toby, they became like a warm hug, a snuggle.  Somehow feeling the weight of grief was becoming comforting, keeping Toby’s memory alive.

 One day as I was starting to have more energy than to merely exist, I went out to a local songwriter’s night. For my last song I explained the season Lindsey and I were walking through, thanked the audience for allowing me to honor Toby, and introduced one of my songs ‘Hello Brighter Days’ (co-written with Michael Farren). I finished the set, walked off stage and out of the listening room, and what happened next took me by complete surprise. A lady walked up and started her conversation with me by saying, “My daughter passed 16 years ago”, and then began sharing her story. A gentleman joined our conversation and started sharing about losing a parent. It was in that moment I realized something much bigger than me and my story had begun. I have to admit I wasn’t in a place to even remotely imagine what could come from this, how sharing my story and songs connected with other people. But one thing was evident, I wasn’t alone.

As I continued to share the songs, similar types of encounters and conversations kept happening.  I started feeling that, in the midst of my record deal, I didn’t have any other music I wanted to play or release but a project involving these songs.  

Enter the era of Covid and the fallout, I was dropped from my record deal in the fall of 2020.  Honestly, I was ecstatic! This meant I would be able to pursue The Toby Project, even though my vision for the project was very small in those days. I started brain storming, and as I talked to friends the response was overwhelming. Not only the encouragement, but people wanting to partner alongside me. Each step of this journey seemed bigger than I anticipated.

I realized that grief isn’t isolated to losing a loved one, human or 4-legged friend.  We grieve the passing of seasons in life, relationships, jobs, places; essentially anything we value, love, and enjoy. When we lose them we experience elements of grief. 

I started writing what I’m now calling a ‘grief journal’,  expounding on things I’ve discovered along my newly realized journey with grief. I attempted to figure out what this project should ultimately become, but the elements that it had; musical, print, a big conversational and interactive piece; left me never finding a definitive answer.  I was sitting with my good friend, songwriter and author Dennis Cook, when he said something that struck me (if you ever get a chance to sit and talk with him, do it). He said, based on the trajectory that he saw this project taking, I should look into forming a nonprofit. Over the next few days, the vision of The Toby Project started to get clarity that I hadn’t experienced before.  This wasn’t just about putting out some songs, or thoughts on grief. This was an opportunity to sit with others, share, and listen.  An opportunity to give back and support people experiencing loss like my family had. 

I also realized what this project isn’t. It’s not a step program to ‘transition through grief’. There are people far more educated than I that have studied the human psyche and have programs directed at that. This is not a ‘quick fix’ or a Bible verse to make everything feel better, or make the person saying it feel better as they walk away.  This is an invitation to sit in a space unknown to many. A space where you realize it’s ok to grieve, to say what you need to say, pray what you actually feel. Not a space to be honest with God because he already knows - a space to be honest with yourself. A space to share, a space to laugh, a space to cry, and in the end a space that becomes honoring to who and what we grieve.

If you would like to be involved with facilitating the recording and release of The Toby Project Album and Grief Journel, we would love to talk to you.