Paula Becker is an author and mother of three. Her memoir, A House on Stilts, Mothering in the Age of Opiod Addiction, chronicles how she and her family navigated her oldest son, Hunter's, struggles with substance use. Paula and her husband Barry braced themselves, many times, for the reality that Hunter's addiction might end his life. Then, in 2017, while riding a bus from their hometown of Seattle to the Bay Area of California, Hunter was hit and killed by the driver of the bus, as he attempted to re-board after a rest stop. Paula and Barry filed a wrongful death suit which, after two years, led to a jury declaring the bus driver and company were responsible for Hunter's death.
Paula talks about Hunter, the grief she faced throughout his struggle with substance use, how she and her husband learned to make space for one another's grief, and what it was like to be so public with that grief during the trial.