It was the beginning of her junior year at the University of South Carolina (UofSC) when Mairead Peters’ cousin unexpectedly passed away. Not only was Peters just getting settled into her new class schedule, she was now forced to navigate the school year while wading through the shock and pain of her grief. The following…
Earlier this month, Evermore hosted a conversation with Dr. Emily Smith-Greenaway, a grief and bereavement researcher in California and associate professor of sociology and spatial sciences at the University of Southern California, to discuss her research on bereaved people and her work on the COVID-19 bereavement multiplier. The bereavement multiplier is a tool used to…
Since October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month – which aims to bring more acknowledgement and recognition to the grief, stress, and hardship parents experience after a miscarriage or the death of a newborn baby – we decided to share three stories of loss to contextualize this unique, and challenging maternal experience. According to…
Jena Kirkpatrick with her son, Ellis McClane. Jena Kirkpatrick was hesitant to visit a medium after experiencing the death of her 19-year-old son, Ellis McClane, who died in a car accident in 2011. But five years after her loss, Jena decided to take a chance and scheduled an appointment. “That’s something everyone wants for the…
When someone close to us dies, we’re hardly in the right frame of mind to handle logistics and practical matters. Yet often this is the first thing we’re forced to confront. There’s the matter of the deceased’s body and how it will be handled, but also funeral arrangements and ceremonial planning to honor the life…
Experiencing the death of a loved one can be one of the most traumatic and painful experiences someone can face in life. Such losses can be overwhelming, resulting in intense and difficult emotions of sadness, emptiness, shock, and despair. The bereavement process that conjoins grief — the handling of a loved one’s affairs, the…
Just How Many People In America Have Lost A Loved One? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the nation’s most-trusted, science-based sources of data on public health in the United States. For more than 70 years, this government agency has been monitoring the nation’s health landscape and providing guidance to…
Why Is Our Nation So Far Behind In Grief and Bereavement Services and Policies? National Grief Awareness Day — observed annually on August 30 — was created by Angie Cartwright, who’s experienced immense grief in her life after the loss of her baby sister, newlywed husband, and mother. She helped establish this day of awareness…
With Teacher Shortages, Community Programs Are More Important Than Ever With the back to school season in full swing, all of us with students in our homes have probably heard about the critical shortage of teachers. Reports say that our country lacks a whopping 300,000 teachers and support staff. In an interview with ABC…
Losing a parent can derail teens’ lives. Recently, NPR covered a fascinating club for teenage students experiencing the death of a parent. The article follows the story of a high school sophomore named Elizabeth, whose father passed from COVID-19 last year. More than anything, this reporting shows that the time is now to invest in…
Close the Loophole! – Universal Paid Leave Should Include Bereavement Leave Due Monday, August 15th! Earlier this year, you made phone calls, sent emails, called your friend in order to add paid bereavement leave to our nation’s policy conversations. You did it and it was the first time Washington included paid bereavement leave to…
Grief is a powerful dual-edged emotion that can result in a dull, undulating pain which can be paralyzing and suffocating or, if channeled appropriately, can swell into rage and anger that moves each of us — or societies — to do things that once seemed impossible. Such collective grief, outrage and injustice sparked the “fierce…
For 25 years, visual artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg has comforted families in mourning as a hospice volunteer. And with each new family she’s consoled came lessons about the scope of grief, its impact, and the lack of spaces for people to express their deep sorrow. Firstenberg brings those experiences to her latest work — a…
The creators behind a new documentary set to air on public media channels across the country in May want to start a national conversation about a topic that many shy away from — grief. The goals for “Speaking Grief” are twofold: to validate the experience of grief through the stories of those mourning the death…
As another decade comes to a close and Evermore marks its fifth year working to improve bereavement care in the United States, we have reason to celebrate 2019. Here at Evermore, we made big strides toward building our team and raising awareness about the need to support grieving parents. Meanwhile, across the country, new initiatives…
Julie Kaplow, on the left, serves as the Director of the Trauma and Grief Center in Houston, Texas, will be launching the Handle with Care program for children who have witnessed a death. In August we are focusing on “Back to School” at Evermore. We are giving focus to siblings who have suffered the death…
