Friendship

‘You Are Only as Good as the People You Surround Yourself With’

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I was desperate to be wild in grief and my coke-snorting bestie was my ticket to fun.

A Sacred, Unlikely Friendship, Maintained Through Terrifying Times

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At 87, my friend Ned narrowly escaped Covid-19's invasion of his nursing home. Here's what it made me realize.

How the Modern Loss Holiday Gift Swap Sparked a Powerful Friendship

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We were complete strangers who disentangled our lonely and complex feelings about grief together.

How I’m Creating the Grief Vocabulary My Language Doesn’t Have

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The Dutch wish each other strength to move through tough times. But in loss, we need different words of support.

Processing My Friend’s Death in the Sound Studio

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My podcast helped me work through who I am - and who I want to be - when I was questioning everything.

10 Lessons I Learned from My Friend’s 9/11 Death

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My best friend vanished without a trace that day. But the mark she made on my life has been indelible.

In the Face of Death, We Laughed

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As AIDS ravaged my friend's body, levity carried us through the end.

How a Psychic Medium Broke Through My June Gloom

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An unexpected exchange reconnected me with my vivacious friend years after her death.

Don’t Talk About How ‘It Gets Better’

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This is what I wish my friends knew when my parents died.

A Therapist Says Goodbye

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We are not ‘friends’ with those we treat. But many of our patients make a very deep and lasting impression on us.

Traveling the World With My Daughter’s Ashes in Tow

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In Ireland, alongside an empathic stranger, I watched Rachel's cremains scatter with the wind. 

Meet My ‘Dead Mom Friends’ 

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I’ve found kinship (but no judgment or pity) among my friends — and even acquaintances — who have also experienced a loss of a parent. 

How I Make Real Mom Friends After My Baby’s Death

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Bitching about parenthood anchors me to the present — and tests the waters for true connection.

Take a Chance On Me

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Two days after my mom’s funeral, her friend Velma told me she had a surprise for me — and OMG, did she ever.  

The Lights and Lessons of Toro Nagashi, the Japanese Candle Boat Ceremony

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I missed a lifelong friend’s funeral. But I honored him all the same.

My BFF Makes ‘Your Mom’ Jokes About My Dead Mom — and I Love Her for It

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And I love her for it.

11 People You Meet in Hell

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Minimizers, vultures, happy morons, competitors at the Sad Olympics and other people you’re bound to encounter on your grief journey.

That Would Have Been a Great Story

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My high school boyfriend and I lost our respective spouses just months apart — and reconnected over our grief. I would like to be able to say that we fell back in love and lived happily ever after. Something else unfolded.

The Widow's Yoga Tribe_Modern Loss

A Widow and her Galentines

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After my husband died, I stumbled about looking for my tribe. Counterintuitive to my nature, I found it in yoga class.

Dead in Real Life, Alive on Twitter

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How a post-mortem scrapbook project kept teaching me about my friend.

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