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