Book on grief a tribute to late son

While coming home from an OU football game in September of 2022, Jonathan Zerzavy was killed by a drunk driver.

He was 13 years old.

Nearly three years later, his father, Chris Zerzavy, has turned his grief into a book to help others understand and cope with the unfortunate emotion.

His book, “Margin,” explains how he dealt with Jon’s death and how the book can help people hurting.

“I never really intended to write a book,” Zerzavy said. “About a year after his passing, I was just having a bout where I couldn’t sleep at all. A lot of thoughts were going through my head and were keeping me up at night. After about a month of this, I shared with my wife, and she said it’d probably be a good idea to write those down. So I thought about it for a while, and then I did. I started writing it down and stuff started just coming out that I didn’t know was in there. I ended up taking about two weeks off from work and just writing. Once I did, I started reading it back. I thought this was really starting to look like a book that could help people who are hurting.”

Even though Jon’s life was short-lived, he lived life to the fullest.

“Jon was a pretty special kid,” Zerzavy said. “He was a boy that just loved life. He didn’t know a stranger. If he saw somebody sitting by themselves, he’d go talk to them. He never shied away from any challenges, he was just an exceptional human. I have four kids and Jon’s different than any of them. He’s just very unique, personable, outgoing, caring, not what you expect out of a kid. He was just so selfless all the time. That’s kind of what made him who he was. He loved wrestling, that was a big part of who he was. We spent a lot of time going around the state for wrestling tournaments, practices, duels, everything. He loved going to church. He went to Falls Creek, Oak Ridge Camp,. He was just a really smart, exceptional kid with a big heart.”

The book is important for different reasons.

“Jon was only 13 years old,” Zerzavy said. “I feel like he missed out on an opportunity to share who he was with the world. That kind of haunted me when I couldn’t sleep at night, because he’s such a special kid. For the world to get to know him not to get to live to be a ripe old age and impact the world like I know he would have seemed unfair to me. I think this was my way of sharing him with the world and allowing him to live on.”

Aside from teaching how to handle grief and heartbreak, the book also teaches lessons given by Jon.

“A lot of the stories and things I learned from Jon are lessons he taught me,” Zerzavy said. “It’s about the journey that I’ve been on over the last couple of years. Life for me had been going good to that point. You’re at the mountain top one second and you get this news and you’re at rock bottom the next second. Everything that I believed in, everything that I thought that I knew was ripped away from me in a moment. This really lays out kind of the journey that (helped me relearn) who I am, what’s important. The things that I used to worry about are things that I focus on anymore. You’re at rock bottom and at some point, you have to approach that mountain that’s in front of you and begin to climb.”

A book signing will be held from 12:30-3 p.m. March 2 at Dayspring Community Church, 8612 NW Cache. The event is free and open to the public as a come and go gathering.