In 2016, four months after my mom died, I started volunteering prison.
R, a big guy with a soft heart, shared a powerful story about healing.
Moving Through Election Grief
Make Space for Mourning
In May, I participated in an Art & Death Café. We painted rocks while sharing thoughts about life and death, honoring loved ones, and posing questions.
The Complexity of Grief
Grief is complex. It’s both communal and individual. We all understand loss and sadness: it’s part of the human condition. Yet we experience these sensations differently, and it’s one individual, not the community, who lives inside extended grief for a specific person. Everyone walking down the street knows pain, yet that pain comes from different losses.
The Reality of Grief
Grief is visceral, unpredictable, and raw. Part of me resists grief, wishing it were done, completed, and gone. This same resistance holds self-judgment: Get over it, Joy; toughen up. Yet I don’t want to “toughen up.” The wiser, kinder parts of me welcome waves of grief. These waves honor my tenderness and vulnerability. They cultivate deep love and gratitude. They connect me to humanity.