When a state trooper arrived at Rachel Zimmerman’s door with devastating news – that her husband, a brilliant MIT professor and loving father, had taken his own life – her world shattered in an instant. With no warning signs, no history of mental illness, and two young daughters now facing an unthinkable reality, Rachel was left with a haunting question: Why?

In this powerful episode of Next Steps Forward, award-winning journalist Rachel Zimmerman shares the deeply personal and investigative journey that followed. Drawing on her years of experience covering health and medicine, Rachel turned her grief into inquiry – interviewing suicide researchers, mental health experts, and even a man who survived a jump from the same bridge. Her search yielded many insights, but never the one definitive answer she longed for.Through her new memoir, Us, After, Rachel reflects on what it means to live with ambiguity, to hold both devastation and resilience, and to find grace in the aftermath of tragedy. Rachel speaks with program host Dr. Chris Meek about the weight of secrets, the work of motherhood, and the quiet strength it takes to keep going when everything falls apart.

About Rachel Zimmerman: Rachel Zimmerman, an award-winning journalist, has written about health and medicine for more than two decades. She’s a contributor to The Washington Post and previously worked as a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and a health reporter for WBUR, Boston’s public radio station, where she co-founded a popular blog and podcast. Her essays and reporting have been published in The New York Times; Vogue.com; New York Magazine’s The Cut; “O” The Oprah Magazine; The Atlantic, Slate; and The Huffington Post, among others, She received an MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.