Published Articles
2019 - Sept - Gazette - Burial or Cremation
Burial or Cremation
Before I worked with Koch Funeral Home, my husband and I occasionally had conversations about how we wanted our bodies cared for after death. He chose traditional burial ...
Thursday, September 26, 2019
2019 - Aug - Gazette - Thankful, Thoughtful, Tuesdays
Thankful, Thoughtful Tuesdays
With my work, I get into all kinds of conversations about dying, death and grief. One was with a woman who described a beautiful living funeral she was a part of for ...
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
2019 - Aug - CDT - Learning to Live - Understanding the Relationship between Change and Grief
Understanding the Relationship between Change and Grief
In my work with Koch Funeral Home, we choose monthly themes, and then I write blog posts corresponding with that theme. Last year when we ch...
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
2019 - July - Gazette - Three Important Lessons
Three Important Lessons
As I’ve worked around dying, death and grief, I’ve learned three important lessons: you’re not alone, community matters and storytelling heals. These messages consistently ...
Thursday, July 25, 2019
2019 - June - Gazette - Transition
Transitions
Transitions have been on my mind a lot lately. Transitions mean changes and all changes, even positive ones, involve loss. Much of my work is about companioning people through changes ...
Thursday, June 27, 2019
2019 - June - CDT - Helping Hands - Monday's Moments Complimentary Luncheons
Monday's Moment's Complimentary Luncheons
Assurance that I always have someone to talk to. Comforted. A great deal of support. A safe place to share. Peaceful. Wrapped in a security blanket. These...
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
2019 - May - Gazette - Authenticity in Life and Death
Authenticity in Life and Death
When I was training with The International End of Life Doula Association we did a fair amount of role playing. Sometimes I was the end-of-life doula and sometimes th...
Thursday, May 30, 2019
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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