The death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, has hit and moved me quite a bit. She looked so small and frail, yet with her big warm smile and solidity intact, when she greeted her final Prime Minister Liz Truss on September 6. Then when I heard that all her children were rushing to Balmoral in Scotland, I thought, “uh oh”…. Yet even when a death is foreseen, the shock of the reality can still knock you flat. The sorrow expressed by her people and millions around the world is

I'm not sure a lot of folks quite understand how fragile a cliff we're all standing on.... Anxiety, anger, depression, illness... not to mention how many of our national systems are completely broken or about to be broken. The fire has been on slow burn for quite a while, but recent politics plus the pandemic have made things 1000 times worse. All of our ills and worst instincts are on the surface, grinding away at our sanity and sense of balance and place. And something has

Like so many of you, I have been shocked and disheartened by the events of the last week. I was physically ill watching George Floyd's death before our very eyes. This will haunt this nation for a very long time....  and my belated reaction comes from exhaustion, sorrow and not knowing what to say or do. Even with the pandemic, I had resources to share, ideas to cultivate and connections to make, because I know grief so well. But this grief is different. I have been in

Parallel Shocks & Parallel Solutions When I learned my mother had died with a phone call at midnight, my whole world came crashing down. We had been estranged, all the mourning and estate tasks fell to me and I was only 24. My life fell apart for about four months – eating and sleeping and drinking were all haywire – the PTSD was very bad – my memory, my focus, my very being – nothing made sense anymore. If you have been through anything devastating in life – a loss, a

Most of the time when a loss happens,we don't know what to do. The main complaint I hear is that people say or do the wrong thing or just disappear. But today is about the opposite reaction - Too. Much. Help. Go away!! A friend of a friend just tragically lost her longstanding boyfriend to a sudden heart attack. Everyone seems to have rallied around her and offered support - food - fundraising - all the usual avenues. But for her, it was all too much. She was overwhelmed and

Shocking. Cruel. Unethical. Tragic. These are only a few words that come to mind when I see some of the attacks being levied towards those in the public eye who have lost a loved one. It is upsetting on so many levels – and I have had to wait a few days to gather my thoughts to write about it because it just makes me so angry. The sudden death of Luke Perry from a massive stroke at 52 shocked many of us in my generation. That sudden phone call in the middle of the night – I’v

It is the two-year anniversary of the tragic death of Robin Williams, one of my heroes both as performer and a human being. I grieved for him as if he had been family - I wrote about celebrity death and how we process it at the time HERE. I have been around a lot of suicide lately, and I see that it is often mistreated and judged in very....uncompassionate...ways. But I have also seen that suicide is not a monolith - people perform this act of desperation and violence for man

A child's first exposure to death often comes from the loss of a beloved pet. Kids get very attached to animals as sources of comfort and unconditional love, as a means of learning responsibility and as members of the family. That loss can shape their view of dying, their view of their parents, their sense of safety in the world, and so much more. So I was quite disturbed to read this article last week by a mom who had let her children be present as they put their loving Snug

There is not a single human being who will escape loss. Whether a beloved animal, a job, a life change or a health diagnosis, all of these will cause us to have symptoms of grieving. The scope and depth of that grief, of course, will depend on the loss you have suffered. And every loss is different, and every griever is different. There is no way one can compare the loss of a pet to the loss of a child, or the loss of your home due to foreclosure to a natural disaster. And wh