About Hope and Grief

As a clinical social worker and thanatologist, I have had the incredible privilege of journeying alongside children and adults facing illness, loss, death, and grief for the past 25 years. Their collective stories of love, hope, and healing have shaped my view of the world. I have learned that the darkest circumstances of illness and death can never overshadow the light of love.

 

Love always remains.

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Loss is a normal part of life, but our culture does not much tolerate the grief left in its wake. Our clinical social workers and mental health practitioners do not usually receive specific training on grief and bereavement counseling in their graduate programs of study. For this reason, they often feel ill-equipped and uncomfortable providing services to clients following a loss. To fill this gap, I conduct workshops on grief and bereavement counseling throughout the United States. I aim to empower helping professionals by providing them the necessary tools to help clients reconcile their losses and find renewed meaning and purpose in their lives.

 

I am frequently asked by both practitioners and mourners to create and disseminate more information on grief and loss. This site is an effort to meet that request.

 

It will include a lot of content on grief and loss, but it will also include posts on everyday life, hope, healing, and joy. My clients and patients have beautifully taught me to seek the joy in each day and never take this life for granted. 

 

Overall, my hope is that this website uplifts and inspires those in mourning, as well as those who are ministering to the hearts of the bereaved. I also hope it challenges our society to view loss and its accompanying grief through a different lens, so that we may better understand and support our friends in grief.

 

Meister Eckhart once said, "Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light. So, when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us."

 

You see, there is always light amidst the darkness. I pray you are gently reminded of that truth today.