It's our third annual holidays & grief episode with Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence, Pathways Program Coordinator at the Dougy Center. We share updated ideas for navigating the winter holidays while grieving, during a pandemic.  For more ideas on holidays & grief visit our website, listen to Ep. 27 & Ep. 98, and follow us on Instagram (@thedougycenter) & Facebook (@thedougycenter) to catch all of our Dougy's (a very different) December Tips. 

For Allison Hite, two questions sparked a community project called Never, Ever Give Up. The first question was, “How do I be grateful in grief?” The second was, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve had to do?” These questions became part of Allison’s life after her mother died in a traffic accident when Allison was in her mid-twenties. Answering them, publicly, led to Never, Ever Give Up, which at its core is a conversation between those who write letters of struggle and those who respond with letters of hope.  

Learn more about Never, Ever Give Up.  Follow them on Instagram & Facebook.  Learn more about the National Day of Mourning.  

How do you go on living after your child's life ends? How do you continue to find connection, beauty, and meaning when someone we can't imagine living without dies? This is the question Margo Fowkes faced when her son Jimmy died of brain cancer at the age of 21. Margo barely had a moment to grapple with this devastating loss when just a year later, her mother also died. This led Margo to search for information and connection with others who were also grieving. When she couldn't find what she was looking for, she decided to create it. Her website, Salt Water, is a collection of writings, by Margo and others, about how people are continuing to engage in life after losing the people they love most. 

We talk about:

• Parenting when your child is living with an illness
• Grieving together and apart with a spouse/partner
• The power of writing
• Answering "How many children do you have?"
• What's helping Margo during this time
• How she hopes the world will remember Jimmy

Visit Salt Water and connect with Margo on Facebook (@findyourharbor) & Instagram (@findyourharbor). 

BJ Miller is a Hospice & Palliative Care Medicine physician who works with patients facing the end of their lives. When BJ's sister Lisa died of suicide over twenty years ago, he did what so many of us do, he pushed his pain aside. It was his work, supporting patients with advanced serious illnesses, that helped him realize the importance of reckoning with his own grief.  Watch BJ's TED Talk, What Really Matters at the End of Life. Listen to his OnBeing interview with Krista Tippet. Check out his new organization, Mettle Health, which offers online counseling and support for both patients and caregivers. 

Shelby Forsythia returns to Grief Out Loud to talk about her new book, Your Grief, Your Way, a secular daily devotional for anyone dealing with grief. She pairs quotes with routines and practices that people can do in any order. We talk Your Grief, Your Way, what grief means during this time of COVID and a reckoning with police brutality and racism, the effects of cumulative grief, and what’s currently helping her (spoiler alert: cue the dance party playlist).   Listen to Shelby’s podcast, Coming Back  Explore her website  Check out her new book, Your Grief, Your Way 

If you missed Shelby’s first Grief Out Loud appearance, tune into Ep. 131: Permission to Grieve. 

When Derrick Kirk was six years old, he and his two sisters were removed from their home and placed in the foster care system. For Derrick, growing up in the orphanage gave him a window into a different way of life. Now a successful entrepreneur, Derrick started the Derrick Kirk Foundation and his podcast, My Thoughts With Derrick Kirk, to help other youth growing up in the foster care system. 

In this episode we talk about the LYGHT program which provides peer grief support groups, based on the Dougy Center's model, for youth in the foster care system. To learn more about the program, listen to episodes 136 & 137. 

Paula Fontenelle is a journalist turned therapist who specializes in suicide prevention and supporting those who have had someone die of suicide. Paula's professional interest in this work is deeply rooted in personal experience. Her father died of suicide just over 15 years ago and his death set her on two parallel trajectories. Professionally, she studied everything she could about suicide. Personally, she spent hours interviewing friends and family, uncovering stories and details about her father's life and the pain he carried that she never knew about.  Listen to Understand Suicide Read Understand Suicide: Living With Loss, Paths to Prevention Learn more about her work Follow Paula on Facebook

Many of us grew up believing that some emotions are good, some emotions are better, and some (most) emotions are bad. When it comes to grief the list of emotions we'd like to not have can be long: guilt, anger, shame, regret, etc. What would happen though if we stopped ranking emotions? Stopped thinking of them as problems that need to be fixed? It was this shift that changed things for Krista St. Germain after her husband was killed by a drunk driver. Krista is the host of the Widowed Mom Podcast and a life coach who specializes in working with widows. 

Listen to the Widowed Mom Podcast. Follow Krista on Instagram (@lifecoachkrista) & Facebook. Check out her website, Coaching With Krista. 

Mira Simone is a writer, mother, and grieving wife. Her husband Brian died of cancer in the winter of 2019, just seven weeks after a diagnosis of stage IV melanoma. When Brian died, their daughter Davida was about to turn three. Brian's death created a huge crater in their lives - leaving Mira to figure out how to live without Brian, who was the biggest love she'd ever known, while also supporting Davida in her grief. Writing has been a constant for Mira, both throughout Brian's illness and in the months since he died. You can find her published writings here. She posts regularly about grief on her Instagram (@newmoonmira).