About
There is life after the darkest night.
I know this not only because I have studied grief, but because I have lived it. I walk beside the bereaved from a place of both professional understanding and personal knowing, and I welcome everyone who comes to this work, whatever their loss, whatever their faith.
My Story
When my daughter Jessica died from cancer, I entered a grief that no textbook had prepared me for. I was a registered nurse with decades of clinical experience. I had held the hands of dying patients and sat with grieving families. And still, nothing prepared me for the weight of that loss.
Before Jessica died, I spent nine months walking alongside her through her illness — staying at her home five days a week, helping to care for her three young children, ages 3 months, 4, and 7 years, holding hope and dread in the same breath. I know the grief that begins before death arrives. I know the exhaustion of caregiving, the guilt of going home on weekends, the miraculous strength that appears from nowhere when someone you love needs you. I know what it is to grieve alone, in a hallway, in a basement, where no one else can see.
What I discovered in the years that followed is that grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a passage to be walked — slowly, honestly, with someone who will not rush you toward the light, but will sit with you in the dark for as long as you need.
“The sun does not ask your permission to rise. It simply does — and so, in time, can you.”
That conviction became The Sun Will Rise. While my own loss gives me a particular tenderness for bereaved mothers of grown children — and for those walking alongside a child through serious illness — I believe that grief in all its forms deserves to be taken seriously. Whoever you have lost, wherever you are in the passage, you are welcome here.
Areas of Specialization
My work is grounded in lived experience as much as in education and training. I specialize in:
• Bereaved mothers of grown children — with particular depth of experience for those navigating the death of a grown child whose grief the world doesn’t always know how to hold
• Anticipatory grief — the grief that begins while a loved one is still living, often during serious illness. I lived this alongside Jessica, and I can sit with mothers who are in that season now
• Bereavement — the death of a loved one, in all its forms and timelines
• Faith and grief — for those whose faith is shaken, complicated, or absent. I hold this space honestly, without rushing to resolution
Credentials
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Lived experience—I’ve walked a similar road to the one you have walked as a bereaved mother. Certified Grief Educator (CGE)—trained by world-renowned grief expert David Kessler at Grief.com. Certified Grief Coach (CGC)—trained by Master Coach Trainer, Nancy Levin, along with David Kessler at Grief.com. Bachelor of Science in Nursing—over 30 years of clinical experience inform how I understand grief in the body and how I companion people through illness and loss. My nursing background is part of my story, not the credential I lead with. It shapes how I understand what grief does to the body and what families experience at the bedside — but the work I offer here is grief education and support, not nursing care.
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