My Story

I want to tell you how I got here, because it isn't the story you might expect.

I spent decades in end-of-life care. I sat with hundreds of families on the hardest days of their lives. I knew what grief looked like. I knew what to say. I had the language, the frameworks, the whole professional understanding of what people go through and what helps.

And then my dad died, and none of it was any use to me at all.

A few weeks after, I was doing something as ordinary as grocery shopping. I turned down an aisle and walked past a box of plain donuts — the exact kind my dad loved. My kids had nicknamed them papa donuts. I stopped dead in my tracks, and one thought came over me all at once: I will never buy these for my dad again. I left my cart. I went out to my car and sat there until I could drive home.

Who knew a box of donuts could do that.

That was what surprised me most. I expected the big days to be hard — the funeral, the first holiday. Nobody warned me about the grocery store. I had told other people to expect exactly that, for years. I still wasn't ready.

What I learned is that knowing about grief and being inside grief are two entirely different countries. You can have the map memorized and still be lost the moment you're standing in it.

Why Living Through Dying exists

I built this because of the stretch nobody talks about — the weeks and months after everyone else has moved on. Everyone shows up for the funeral. Very few people are still asking at month fourteen. That's the part I write for.

This isn't about getting over anyone. It's about learning to carry them — and finding you're not carrying it alone.