Good Grief

Watching someone you love struggle with a mental illness is wrenching and frightening. Ingrid Blaufarb Hughes knows that all too well! Her son, Aaron, struggled with schizophrenia until it finally led to his death. She stood by helpless in the face of a world she did not live in, loving him but being unable to make a difference. Her experience with her brilliant son compels her to tell the stories...

When Dorothie and Martin Hellman faced the collapse of their marriage, it had to die in it's old form to make room for a new way of loving and relating to each other. But what started as a very personal path back to their marriage quickly taught them something significant about the world we live in; that it is indeed possible to face global challenges with compassion and love, creating solutions f...

When Marian Partington was 25 years old, her 21 year old sister vanished. She and her family would not know what happened for 20 years, leaving them in a state of suspended animation, moving forward and yet not. As Marian lived her life, forming relationships, having children and making a career, there was a frozen place which could not thaw until her sister's body was finally found and those resp...

On both sides of a family estrangement is the painful experience of missing what society leads us to believe is a given; that family sticks together. Sometimes, though, it becomes too painful to continue, either temporarily or permanently. How do separated family members find peace with an ambiguous loss in which they both know the other is still alive, possibly still relating to other members of...

How does a person who has been mistreated and neglected early in life create something better for themselves? Certainly part of it is being willing to face what happened and discover who you are separate from what has happened. Gewanda Parker made of her early pain and fear a life of service and hope. Now she seeks to serve other people who also struggle, and in the meantime, treasure the life she...

The rhetoric and actions of our recent election cut to the core of my own life and the safety of my family. Will my wife be stopped by police because she is Hispanic? Will my son-in-law and my grandchildren have to register because he was raised Muslim? Will those in my family with African heritage be attacked? And will I, as a lesbian, be targeted? Good Grief talks each week about the transformat...

Divya Parekh is a gifted business woman, working to inspire people towards their best selves. How did her own experiences of illness and difficulty release her into her own best future? Learning to support herself through the hard times was essential to her cultivation of a steadfast emotional intelligence she could share with others. Having been to the depths, she discovered the way through and d...

We hear quite a bit about the experience of cancer treatment; the shocking diagnosis, the decisions, the side effects. But how much do we hear about after, when most people with cancer must adapt to a new world view, lasting lasting impacts and deep existential questions about death, and life? At a time when communities are celebrating, offering congratulations for being done the person at the cen...

How can grief be a road to freedom? When Kaye Cleave's 18 year old daughter died, she felt imprisoned by her loss, unable to even connect to any reason to live. Desperate, willing to try anything to find a way through the agony, she began to practice mindfulness meditation and ultimately, found her way through each and every feeling and thought. So when she met a Nepalese man trying to support a s...

The death of Erica Buist's father-in-law sent her into a tailspin. The world suddenly seemed unpredictable and unsafe. She was unable to find her own ground and began to devise ways to stay in her apartment, working at home and avoiding the world. But somehow through that time, she became intensely curious about death itself. Why don't we talk about it? What are we missing? How could it be differe...

Facing any significant loss challenges all our abilities and ideas about ourselves and our lives. But what happens when that loss is somewhere across the globe, in an unfamiliar and difficult environment? When Roselee Blooston got the call letting her know that her husband had had a stroke in Dubai while working there, she and her son rushed to his side. And when he died, she was faced with an ali...

After a loss, it can come as a surprise that we still feel love for and feel connected to the person who is no longer in this world. How do we continue to find ways to carry out that relationship in our everyday life? Author Allison Gilbert, out of her own losses, began to find ways to creatively and joyfully connect with her loved ones, making quilts of neckties and plates printed with her grandm...

How does a parent survive watching their 8 year old child hit by a truck and killed? How does the heart heal enough to welcome another child and to love her wholly? Robert Goor wrote letters to his son Andrew naming his deep agony and, ultimately, the winding path to recovery. Rob learned to accept his grief and all the feelings that came with it, including the love and continued connection to his...

What is the connection between love, generosity and grief? In countless ways, our hearts close when we avoid the feelings connected to our small everyday losses. But in profound grief, our hearts break open and we learn how to love ourselves through it. Grief connects us to the human community and the losses we all suffer. As we walk the path of open hearted love for ourselves, we naturally become...

What helps people recover from severe trauma? Belleruth Naparstek, a leading expert in healing from trauma, believes methods that employ imagery and activate the intuitive brain work much better than traditional talk therapy. She has developed powerful tools for helping people find their way after experiencing traumatic events: war, traumatic loss, abuse, natural disaster- any extreme stress. Her...

When Anne-Marie Cockburn's fifteen year old daughter died of an Ecstasy overdose, her grief took her in some unexpected directions. She was compelled to write her way through the grief, overcoming an old hesitation to write, which she'd always loved. She was moved to forgive the boy who gave her daughter the drugs. And she was moved to work, with all she has, to decriminalize drug use, believing t...

The time after a death is filled with detail, set against the backdrop of emotion. In an overwhelming expanse of paper and planning and demand, we often find it hard to cope. But Heather Vargas and Daniella Guzman, both consummate business people, were shocked to find how hard it was for THEM. When they experienced deep losses in their lives, they too found it difficult to take care of the busines...

What happens when a couple, both dedicated supporters helping others through profound grief and loss, confront their own crisis? Robert and Andrea Zucker, faced with Andrea's cancer diagnosis, have devoted all their time, resources and emotional energy to paying attention to this life experience. They have pushed everything aside to go through it together: honestly, truly and with love. They have...

How is it that some of us live difficult early lives and find a way to a beautiful and meaningful adulthood, while others get lost along the way to addiction, depression, hopelessness and despair? Winston Price found in facing up to the experiences of his life the inspiration for his life. He learned that he could have an impact on how he responded to the negative. He determined that he could crea...

What compels a successful film, television and commercial ad company to make numerous films about death? Sara and Bobby Sheehan have maintained a commitment to improving the conversation about end of life, guided by their own experiences- especially with the death of Sara's father. They wanted to use their considerable expertise to create films of beauty and strength that would capture the viewer...

Receiving a cancer diagnosis plunges your life into a whole new dimension, challenging what you thought it would look like. Receiving a brain cancer diagnosis at 29 is an even deeper challenge to all you know. When Liz Salmi received that news, she began to blog, depending on social media to share her experience and gather support from her Liz Army. How did her use of digital media impact her expe...

When the twin towers fell in 2001, Elizabeth Hack was hit hard. She'd visited family many time there, considering it a home away from home. She felt the pain of all those losses and the impact of hopelessness and anger coming from it. So the next day, she began to blog about it, and eventually evolving the blog into an organization; San Francisco Peace and Hope. The organization seeks to offer sol...

Grief is a heroes' journey, sending us into our own wilderness and requiring that we step out into the unknown. What guides us on this fearsome path? And what might we find at the end? When Therèse Tappouni's 11 year old son died, she was catapulted into just such a journey. And as she travelled, she found her own way and also the calling of her life; to help others navigate the territory of grief...

When Azim Khamisa's only son, twenty year old Tariq, was murdered by a fourteen year old boy, his immediate thought, beyond reason, was that two lives had been lost. Drowning in a sea of grief, he knew he had to bring meaning back into his life if he was to truly live again. But what could he do that would somehow honor his son and contribute in the world? Founding the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, he...

Watching our own parents face the end of their lives often illuminates questions about how we want to navigate that territory. What will support our own end of life experiences? What are the limits of medical intervention? How do we create a gentle circle of care to hold us through our dying time? How do we live fully right up to the end of life? What can we put in place to make our wishes, hopes...