Published Articles
2022 - January - Gazette - Stories of the Heart
Stories of the Heart
I love it when a plan comes together. My husband was behind the wheel and I was in the passenger seat as we drove our son to train with a punting coach. While I sat there, I w...
Thursday, January 27, 2022
2021 - December - Gazette - Life, Love and Light
Life, Love and Light
If you’re driving on South Atherton Street in State College this New Year’s Eve, we hope you notice the luminaries on Koch Funeral Home’s lawn. Each one of these luminaries re...
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
2021 - November - Gazette - Collective Grief, Collective Gratitude
Collective Grief, Collective Gratitude
Our Monday’s Moments at Millbrook Marsh program, in conjunction with Centre Region Parks and Recreation (CRPR), includes time for sharing, talking about diff...
Thursday, November 25, 2021
2021 - November - CDT - Helping Hands
I love Thanksgiving! With its focus on family and gratitude, it’s one of the best holidays for me. Both of our children will be home this year, and since we’re all fully vaccinated, we’ll get to sp...
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
2021 - October - Gazette - Have the Talk of Lifetime
Have the Talk of a Lifetime
It was our usual Monday morning walk through the neighborhood about one month ago. My husband, John, and I were a little over one mile in and walking up a hill when he ...
Thursday, October 28, 2021
2021 - October - CDT - Active Life
Community
I’ve been thinking about the beauty of “community” lately. In my work, I have the privilege of seeing it time and time again. We invite people to gather together around a specific event,...
Sunday, October 3, 2021
2021 - September - Gazette - A Place to Take Your Grief
A Place to Take Your Grief
When my husband and I were living through the years of losing our first six pregnancies, angels became significant to me. Angels symbolized the lives that began in me an...
Thursday, September 30, 2021
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...
Find Us:
