About Johnny

I didn't set out to spend part of my life thinking about grief.
Grief found me.

In 2014, my wife Lindsey died tragically in my arms while we were on
our honeymoon. We had been married just 168 days.
Lindsey and I had one of those improbable love stories — friendship
that became love, a proposal 18 days after our first official date,
and a spontaneous wedding in my parents' front yard. Then, impossibly,
she was gone.

Losing Lindsey divided my life into a before and an after.
In the years that followed, I wrote extensively about her, about us,
and about what it actually meant to live with grief. I discovered that
grief wasn't something I could simply finish, overcome, or leave
behind. It changed me. It left a mark.

Years later, that experience has become one of the driving forces
behind Grief Marks.

But Grief Marks isn't the story of my grief.

It's about yours, mine and ours.

The longer I've lived with loss and listened to other people's
stories, the more I've realized how much grief exists beyond the
losses we traditionally associate with the word. We grieve people,
certainly — but also relationships, health, abilities, identities,
careers, dreams, opportunities, and futures we once assumed 

would be ours.

And I've become deeply interested in something else: What have all of
us learned from living through it?

That's why Jessie and I are building Grief Marks.

We're not presenting ourselves as grief experts with answers for
everyone else. We want to listen first — to thousands and eventually,
we hope, hundreds of thousands of people — and discover what their
lived experiences can teach all of us about grief, love, loss,
resilience, and how to show up for one another.
Lindsey's death is part of why I'm here.
What I've learned since is why I want to listen. 

I never planned to become an expert in grief. I became one because I loved deeply.

I’m Jessie Tieva—mom, author, speaker, advocate, founder of Born Abel, and now founder of Grief Marks.

My life has taught me that grief doesn’t always look the way we expect it to.

I’m the mother of seven children, five through adoption, and two of my children live in Heaven.

My son Abel was born with Trisomy 18 and significant medical complexities. For 210 days, I had the privilege of being his mom here on earth. Loving Abel changed me.

Every child is worthy. Every life has value. Every story deserves to be told.

Then, in February 2026, grief found our family again when Abel’s twin brother, Oren, died suddenly and unexpectedly at just three years old.

There are losses that divide your life into before and after.

Losing my boys did that to me.

But grief wasn’t the only loss I experienced. I began to understand that we can grieve people who have died, but we can also grieve marriages, relationships, health, dreams, identities, diagnoses, families, futures, and versions of our lives we thought we were going to have.

And every one of those losses leaves something behind.

A mark.

That realization became Grief Marks.

Grief Marks was created because I don’t believe grief is something we simply “get over.” I believe we learn how to carry love and loss together—and sometimes there is tremendous healing in allowing that love to become visible.

Through storytelling, our podcast, books, community, original artwork, apparel, and eventually physical Grief Marks through tattoo art, we are creating a place where people can tell the truth about what they have lost and what—or who—they continue to carry.

Your Grief Mark can represent a child.

A parent.

A spouse.

A sibling.

A pregnancy.

A diagnosis.

A relationship.

A dream.

A life you thought you would have.

Because grief is loss. Death is just one of them.

My hope is that Grief Marks becomes more than a brand.

I want it to become a community where someone can look at another person’s mark and recognize something familiar:

You loved someone, too.

You lost something, too.

You carry it with you, too.

And maybe, in that recognition, we feel a little less alone.

I would give anything to have Abel and Oren here.

But because they were here, I will spend my life reminding people that love doesn’t disappear when someone dies—and neither does the story.

We are marked by what we lose.
We are also marked by how deeply we loved.

Welcome to Grief Marks.

I’m honored to share this space with you.