Today would have been Terry’s 51st. I still don’t fully know how to process this day. Because part of me resists calling it a birthday… she didn’t get another year. She didn’t get more time. And yet ignoring it feels just as wrong. This is the part of grief people don’t talk about— how we end up living between dates. The day they were born. The day they died. Both major in completely different ways. And when someone dies the way Terry did, it adds another layer of confusion. So I use today the only way that feels honest for me now— to tell the truth. She didn’t leave because she didn’t love. She didn’t leave because she didn’t care. And she didn’t leave because she “chose” to in the way people think. Her mind was unwell. She suffered an illness of the kind. And that’s how she died. And when the mind is unwell, it can become incredibly convincing. It can narrow everything down to pain… and make escape feel like the only option. That’s not a character flaw. It’s suffering. So no, I’m not celebrating in the traditional sense today. But I am honoring her— by speaking about this in a way that removes blame and replaces it with understanding. If you’ve ever felt that same tension on days like this… you’re not the only one trying to make sense of it. That’s Terry and I in the video below. 24 more hours to take advantage of Terry Birthday Giveaway and become a Globally Certified Grief Educator for $51. Link here - we NEED people like YOU http://mastergrief.com/terrybirthday

I had a 3 monthly care plan review with a nurse yesterday for Eils He thanked me for coming in each day to assist Eils with feeding her lunch and staff thank me often. I AM NOT there helping them out like a volunteer. I am there to be with Eils and provide the least I can still do for her and then spend time with her, holding her hand, cuddling her and letting her know much I love her. Do they see it as an obligation? This is the furthest from the truth for me. I wish, everyday that I could have her at home with me. I know they mean well, they care about Eils and all the residents but how they not see that I'm there everyday because I love her with all of me.

Happy Easter 🤍 This morning I was thinking about a table. Not a perfect one—just one of those long holiday tables where there’s too much food, people talking over each other, chairs scraping, someone asking you to pass something every five seconds. And at that table, there was a woman sitting right in the middle of it all. Everyone else was in it—laughing, telling stories, doing the whole Easter thing. She wasn’t. She kept picking up her phone, opening a message thread, staring at a name, then locking it again. Not once. Not twice. Over and over. Nobody said anything to her about it. Because from the outside, it just looked like she was distracted. But you and I know better than that. That’s what holidays can do. They don’t just show up as “celebrations.” They highlight the empty seat without ever pointing to it directly. They replay versions of the day that used to exist, side by side with the one you’re sitting in now. And it can feel like you’re the only one who notices. Here’s what stayed with me though— At some point, someone at that table said something stupid. Not even funny, just stupid. And it caught her off guard. She laughed. Quick. Real. Gone in a second. But it was there. And no, it didn’t fix anything. It didn’t mean she had moved on or that the day suddenly made sense. It just meant… for one second, something else made it through. That’s what I want you to hold onto today. Hope isn’t this big, glowing feeling that shows up and changes the whole day. It’s smaller than that. It’s the moment you take a bite of something and actually taste it. It’s the second you forget to be sad and then remember again. It’s the part of you that’s still capable of responding to life, even when part of you is somewhere else. If today feels hard, you’re not missing the point of the holiday. You’re experiencing it honestly. And if even one small moment slips through today—one breath, one laugh, one tiny pause where it doesn’t feel so sharp— let that be enough.

What a humbling honor to be featured and quoted by The Mirror as an expert on ambiguous grief in relation to the Savannah Guthrie case. To be trusted to speak into something this complex—where the pain lives in the uncertainty, the unanswered, the unfinished—means more than I can fully put into words. My hope is that this sheds light for those navigating the confusion and weight of not having clear answers, and offers even a small sense of understanding in the middle of something so brutal. https://www.themirror.com/entertainment/savannah-guthrie-ambiguous-loss-grief-1764507

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