Published Articles
2019 - Jan - The Daily News - Huntingdon
Funerals Matter
I worked with a woman who was pregnant with her first child. When it was time for her to give birth, she and her fiancé drove to the hospital, took the elevator and got off on the ...
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
2018 - Dec - CDT - Learning to Live - Healing Through the Holidays
Healing through the Holidays
As part of my outreach for the Helping Grieving Hearts Heal program, Evelyn Wald, a licensed professional counselor at Individual and Family CHOICES, and I facilitated...
Sunday, December 23, 2018
2018 - Nov - The Daily News - Time for Family, Time for Talk - Conversations Count
Conversations Count: Time for Family, Time for Talk Month
John B. Brown Funeral Home, Inc. - Huntingdon, PA
Years ago my husband John met Jim in State College. John was a Penn State student c...
Monday, November 12, 2018
2018 - Nov - Gazette - Conversations Count: Time for Family, Time for Talk Month
Conversations Count: Time for Family, Time for Talk Month
A counselor ed class of Penn State graduate students recently spent a couple of hours asking one another meaningful questions such as: Wha...
Thursday, November 1, 2018
2018 - Oct - CDT - Helping Hands - National Family History Month
Remember, share your
family stories during
National Family History Month
When my grandmother was a young woman, she came from Kansas to Milroy, Pennsylvania, to visit a college friend. One day dur...
Thursday, October 11, 2018
2018 - August - Gazette - Plan Ahead
Plan Ahead
In March of 2017, a group of us sat in a circle together at the Bellefonte Senior Resource Center and talked about death. We talked about the history of our perceptions about death. We ...
Monday, August 13, 2018
2018 - July - CDT - Helping Hands - Humor to Heal
Humor to Heal
There is a scene in the movie Steel Magnolias where Sally Field’s character is leaving her daughter’s funeral and experiences several emotions in a few minutes. She is sad, angry, co...
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
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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