MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - When Bryon Vaughn sat beside his wife’s hospital bed, he began to write. It wasn’t meant to become a book - just notes, thoughts, and a journal of the long hours spent in the hum of machines and the dim quiet of waiting.
His wife, Tani, had fallen suddenly and gravely ill, and for six weeks Vaughn stayed by her side, recording moments she might someday want to remember.
“She was asleep most of the time,” he recalls. “So I was just writing it all down so I could tell her later what had been happening.”
But there would be no later.
Tani passed away before she could return home, and Vaughn’s journal - initially composed to preserve memories - became his lifeline.
That writing has now become “You’re Doing Fine: A Memoir of Love and Holding On," a deeply personal account of grief, endurance, and the tender spaces where love continues to live.
The title comes from the final words Tani ever said to him, a phrase Vaughn describes as “a haunting kindness” and a reminder to keep going, even when the weight of loss feels impossible.
Loss and Renewal
Vaughn’s path to Mount Kisco began in California, where he and Tani lived before moving to New York in 2016. A data specialist by trade, Vaughn now serves as the head of the data unit at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. After years in the city, the couple moved north to Westchester to be closer to family and to care for Tani’s mother.
“It was supposed to be the start of a new chapter,” Vaughn explains.
Instead, their new life in Mount Kisco became the setting for an unexpected and devastating illness. What began as fatigue and mobility issues turned into cascading liver and kidney failure.
“I thought she was going to be fine the whole time,” he says. “Even right up until the end.”
In “You’re Doing Fine,” Vaughn writes not only about that sudden loss but also about the disorienting aftermath - how daily routines collapse, and the world seems to move on without you.
“When my wife died, I didn’t fall gracefully into grief,” the book begins. “I broke.”
Through writing, he began the slow work of reassembling himself.
“The book was therapy,” he continues. “I just needed to get everything down on paper with no filter, no plan to publish. I needed to remember who we were, what mattered, and what still does.”
From Sci-Fi to Soul-Baring
Before “You’re Doing Fine,” Vaughn was best known for his science-fiction work in the NeuralTech Rising trilogy, a futuristic exploration of artificial intelligence and consciousness.
“If you’d asked me before, I’d say I write sci-fi,” he clarifies. “This book is nothing like that. It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever done.”
Writing such an intimate work, he says, opened a part of himself he hadn’t known existed.
“My daughter told me she couldn’t remember ever seeing me cry,” Vaughn recalls. “Now I cry at everything. Even movies Tani loved hit me differently now. I understand why they made her emotional.”
He’s unsure what comes next as an author but knows his writing will never be the same.
“This experience opened something in me,” he says. “If I do another book, it’ll probably come from that same emotional place. It’s changed how I see everything.”
Life After Loss
Today, Vaughn balances his work at Columbia with graduate studies in political analytics - a pursuit he describes as both intellectual and civic-minded.
“I want to use data and statistics to help campaigns and candidates that can’t afford big consulting firms,” he explains. “Not as a career change, but just a way to give back.”
Still, writing remains central to who he is.
“I’ve always considered myself a writer, even when I wasn’t publishing anything,” he adds. “Writing this book was how I stayed alive inside the loss.”
Vaughn’s daughters - one a financial advisor in Boston and the other a lawyer in Rochester - have been pillars of support. And though there are still difficult days, he continues to hold on to Tani’s final words: You’re doing fine.
“They’re not reassurance,” he concludes. “They’re a reminder to keep going, even when I can’t.”
You’re Doing Fine: A Memoir of Love and Holding On is available now on Amazon.
To learn more about Bryon Vaughn and his work, visit www.bryonvaughn.com
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here