A sincere blend of love, sorrow, and reinvention.
Loren Ridinger has lived a storied life. She co-founded a multimillion-dollar company, became a joyful wife, mother, and grandmother, has traveled the world, and has been known to rub elbows with celebrities. But even the greatest stories have challenges and uncertainties. Loren’s most formidable challenge came with the unexpected loss of her husband and soulmate, JR. True, many of us experience loss, but the magnitude of losing a business partner, a visionary, a best friend, a lover, and a reliable shelter from the storm hits with crippling force. Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up?: Living Your Best Life After Losing Your Greatest Love is Loren’s transformative journey of heartbreak, grief, doubt, fear, and, eventually, renewal as she picks up the shattered pieces of her life. Though achingly sad, this intimate memoir proves that tragedy needn’t defeat or define us.
Ridinger’s story picks up in the weeks before JR’s untimely passing. Loren is involved in planning for their company’s 30th-anniversary conference, while her husband is dreaming about a well-deserved European vacation. From simple joys of their home life to routine stresses at work, a beautiful tapestry is woven of a couple that is deeply in love and profoundly connected. Then the foundation crumbles. Loren is left to manage the business empire, care for family, and take complete charge of everything alone for the first time in her life. While you never fully heal from loss, the pain shifts from unbearable to bittersweet, and the author’s painful emotional progression is keenly felt. Though not many of us have Serena Williams in our court or Jaime Foxx available to lighten the mood, Ridinger’s experience is a startling reminder that money can’t solve every problem and death doesn’t care who we know. The titular moment of struggling to make a simple breakfast choice reminds us of the small battles fought by anyone wading through grief. There is an intensity to the narration that will sweep readers into the love story and choke them with grief at the inevitable tragedy. Ridinger thoughtfully includes lessons she learned the hardest way, including the observation that grief can’t happen without love, doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and ultimately allows us to embrace love in new forms. Her journey is unquestionably heartbreaking, but undeniably motivating for anyone thrust into a situation where the only way through is forward. Loren’s passion makes us aware that we can only live in a single moment, so let’s be present in the now, in the dash between those dates on our gravestone, or we risk living with regret. A sincere blend of love, sorrow, and reinvention Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up? is the captivating history of a global organization, a visionary man, and his forever-loving wife.
