![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jessica-Rios-book-188x300.jpg\")
St. Petersburg Press recently published Grief, Hope, Baseball, Rios\u2019 first-person account of her own experience with trauma and grief. Along with poverty, low self-esteem, fear and shame.<\/p>\n
She watched her parents. As a teen, Rios said, \u201cI just knew there was more to life. There was no way I could repeat that cycle. I wanted to help other people. I knew that was in me. To me, that\u2019s my calling. I can\u2019t do anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as life handed her one hard lesson after another, she persevered. \u201cI don\u2019t want to call it toxic positivity, but I did hold on to hope, even as a young girl thinking \u2018Things can be better.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Moncho and his eldest daughter were serious New York Yankees fans. As Rios was assembling her memoir, visiting old ghosts, she began to see baseball at a metaphor for her life\u2019s philosophy. Every chapter in the book is titled after something to do with the game (On the Shelf, Relievers, The Walkoff, Rounding the Bases etc.).<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, baseball was a welcome distraction,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s all I knew growing up. My dad would take me to softball games, and everyone would laugh. Even if we lost, there was always a celebration around it. It was a constant, growing up, despite all of the trauma going on. The chaos around me. It was a way to connect and a sense of structure that I needed, nine innings and maybe more.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd over time I learned that it was also a language for grief, the rituals, the unpredictability, the way the game unfolds. It just mirrored for me, life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Grief, Hope, Baseball Rios also chronicles her mother\u2019s own ups and downs with addiction. She recalls family friends and relatives who made a difference in her life, a first marriage that didn\u2019t work out, and her own adult battles with the bottle.<\/p>\n
Always, there was America\u2019s Pastime. \u201cThere are so many more games in the season. That\u2019s what I held on to. And if we don\u2019t win the championship this year, there\u2019s always another season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rios considers herself a survivor. \u201cEven my parents were survivors in their own way, including Moncho. He had his own trauma growing up. He decided, this was my coping skill, my way to get through.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have easily went that way too, with alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Rios counsels her clients on how to deal with some of the toughest stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWriting this book became so therapeutic,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I wanted to name the experience I was going through, and help people feel less alone. Not fixed, because you can\u2019t fix grief. But be seen and maybe feel a little more hopeful as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the ability to stay present. To keep showing up for yourself, for other people. Even when things don\u2019t feel OK.\u201d<\/p>\n