"Keep Your Head Up": Dr. Tasha Faruqui on Anticipatory Grief, Joy, and a Mother’s Fierce Hope

Empowered by Hope

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How do you hold on to hope when you know your child is dying—and there’s no diagnosis, no cure, and no roadmap forward?
Co-hosts, Ashlyn Thompson & Ashley Milbourne are joined by Dr. Tasha Faruqui—award-winning pediatrician, rare disease parent, and now debut author—who invites us into the heart of her story, which inspired her forthcoming memoir: Keep Your Head Up: A Mother’s Story of Chasing Joy in the Face of Grief, releasing September 16, 2025.

Dr. Faruqui's second daughter, Soraya, was born with a rare, undiagnosed condition that remains a mystery more than thirteen years later. Though trained in medicine, Tasha found herself unprepared for the emotional and existential weight of parenting a child with a limited life expectancy. What she searched for—but couldn’t find—was guidance through anticipatory grief: the complex, quiet mourning that begins long before loss. So, she wrote the book she needed—one that shines a compassionate and unflinching light on this often-overlooked experience faced by so many families.

Keep Your Head Up is not only a memoir—it’s a love letter to parents navigating the unthinkable. With honesty, warmth, and hard-earned wisdom, Dr. Faruqui offers a blueprint for how to keep living, loving, and even laughing in the midst of prolonged uncertainty. Through this conversation, she opens up about how she balances motherhood with medicine, why self-care is not selfish, and how her definition of hope shifted from curing her daughter to cherishing her—one beautiful, present moment at a time.

✨ Keep Your Head Up is available September 16, 2025. Pre-orders are available now on Amazon.
✨ 100% of proceeds will benefit organizations close to the Faruqui family’s heart.

This isn’t just a conversation—it’s a glimpse into the soul of a book that will change the way we think about parenting, medicine, and what it means to keep showing up with love. If you’ve ever faced the unknown, this is the episode—and the story—you didn’t know you needed.

Join her Instagram community (@thefaruqui5) for real-time insights, resilience, and inspiration!

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Get your copy of She is Charlotte: A Mother’s Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Journey with Her Child with Medical Complexities by Emily K Whiting on Amazon

Chapters

1. Welcome to Empowered by Hope (00:00:00)

2. Introducing Dr. Tasha Faruqi (00:02:43)

3. The Journey to Becoming an Author (00:06:30)

4. The Physician Who Became a Medical Mom (00:18:13)

5. Finding Permission for Self-Care (00:32:56)

6. The Book: Keep Your Head Up (00:42:14)

7. Living with Grief While Finding Joy (00:48:19)

8. Closing Thoughts and Hope (00:54:40)