Published Articles
2024 - March - CDT - Helping Hands - A Walk with Grief
A Walk with Grief
I’ve become keenly aware of the dual process model of grief lately. This model involves oscillation between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented responses to grief. Sometimes a...
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
2024 - March - Gazette - Dad, Death, Daffodils, Ducks, Cardinals, and Comfort
Dad, Death, Daffodils, Ducks, Cardinals, and Comfort ...
My 93-year-old dad died on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. When I left you in my February column, he was working hard to get his strength back aft...
Thursday, March 28, 2024
2024 - February - Gazette - How Old Would You Be?
How Old Would You Be?
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? When I ask this question, I get a variety of reactions. Some people laugh and say, “I’d be the age I am.” Others loo...
Thursday, February 29, 2024
2024 - January - CDT - Learning to Live: What's Your Story? - Grief as a Funeral Director
Grief as a Funeral Director
Ten years ago, on February 1, 2014, my wife Margie died. We were married for 50 years and eight months, and I still think of her every day. I always have a picture of h...
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
2024 - January - Gazette - Love Your Heart
Love Your Heart
Children can be great role models for adults, in all kinds of ways. For example, when it comes to the grief journey, I have a special place in my heart for the funeral and memorial...
Thursday, January 25, 2024
2023 - December - Gazette - Let's Remember
Let’s Remember
Just a few days ago our family received a large tin of popcorn as a holiday gift. One-half of the tin was filled with caramel corn, one-quarter with buttered popcorn, and one-quarte...
Thursday, December 28, 2023
2023 - December - CDT - Learning to Live: What's Your Story?
Expectant Waiting
It was Christmas Eve 1993 and my husband, John, and I were spending the holidays at my parent’s house in Austin, Texas. I was doing my daily meditation when these words came into...
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Previous Posts
2023 - November - Gazette - Dare! Silence
A lot goes on in the silence.” These are words I often share because silence is a big part of my work. For example, I ask for moments of silence when officiating at memorial and funeral services. D...
2023 - Nov - CDT - Helping Hands - Healing Through the Holidays
Healing through the Holidays
Author, poet, and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” I witness this every day in my work ...
2023 - October - Gazette - Memories Become Treasures
Memories Become Treasures
I was visiting with my mom and dad a couple of weeks ago and we started talking about my dad’s parents, who I lovingly called Grandma and Grandad. My mom shared two memor...
2023 - September - Centered - Arriving Where I Started
I love the T.S. Eliot quote, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for t...
2023 - September - Gazette - Existing Elsewhere
A few years ago I sat with a handful of adults’s in a grief gathering and listened as one mother shared her story. She told us about the moments before and after her young child’s unexpected and su...
2023 - September - Town & Gown - End-of-Life Doulas, Graveside Journaling, and Sponsoring Memorials from Afar
We hope you read the September Town & Gown article by Holly Riddle featuring End-of-Life Doula Jackie Naginey Hook.
2023 - August - Gazette - Surrender Your Soul
Surrender Your Soul
A couple of weeks ago, I stepped onto the deck of our cabin at Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. It was early morning and the sun had just risen from behind...
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