Changing the conversation

Changing the conversation about death, dying, and the experience of grief centers on one thing: living. That’s right, living, not dying. Death and dying can be tricky, elusive, and complicated. And grief, well, that is all three bundled into one. It can get messy.

I get curious about how we live those experiences, how we breathe through them, feel, and experience them as an individual, a family, a community, even humanity. How are we living through caring for an ill loved one, the depth of loss in tragedy, or the experience of compound grief?

There is no right or wrong way, nor should there be. There is only what we know to do next. Your next may be totally different than mine. A lifetime may pass by without ever acknowledging the difference. And that is okay. But what if we can change the conversation by having the courage to talk about grief in the first place? What if we are open to what our world has to teach us about living and dying? What if those two questions changed everything?