It caught me off guard. A simple question from a new friend—“Do you have any siblings?” For Pete’s sake, I’ve answered it a hundred times...

There’s an old adage that says; it’s not what happens to  you, but what happens for  you. And honestly? That phrase used to make me want...

I was listening to a podcast recently, and the woman speaking said something that stopped me in my tracks: “Grief never hits me on the...

Dear The Ones Who Love us, Loving someone who is grieving is hard. I know that. I see that.  And I need you to know that your love...

Addiction is a heavy burden for any family to bear. It has a way of infiltrating every relationship, every conversation—or, in my...

Last year, the holidays arrived like a storm I wasn’t prepared for. My brother’s absence wasn’t just a quiet gap at the dinner table—it...

Did he know? That is often a thought that pops up in my mind when I think about Griffin's death. Did he know that baggie had fentanyl in...

This month marks one year without my brother, Griffin. There is not one day that has gone by that I haven’t been left wondering what...

Dread. That’s how I felt leading up to our first family vacation without my brother. Deep dread. I did not want to go. I would have...

We just returned from a family trip with my husband's side of the family and during the trip I found myself tripped up by an emotional...

Olivia spoke with her sister, Kendall about her experience after losing their brother. “After the death of someone you love, it seems...

A few days after my son, James, died of accidental fentanyl poisoning in June 2020, I found myself putting together a makeshift memorial...

For the longest time, my adult life has felt like a bit of a roller coaster ride. I became a mom at 26, divorced at 30 and always managed...

Boundaries are a tough concept for someone that struggled with a people pleasing personality as I have for most of my life.  I  wanted to...

From a very young age I remember that “certain things” were to stay within the family. Period. I could never quite understand why we...

I’m sorry for your loss. It’s a phrase we say when someone we care about has lost someone they care about. It’s a phrase I’ve heard...

On June 8, 2020, my twenty-year-old son, James, was one of 87,000 deaths that year from an opioid overdose. His autopsy read accidental...

The Baltimore Ravens honor Love in the Trenches’, Kelly Ryan, as a 2022 Community Quarterback award recipient. This award recognizes...

Grief rearranges your address book; Megan Devine says in her book It’s OK That You’re not OK. People I thought would be by my side aren’t...

It is helpful to break down this journey into stages to remind ourselves that there is movement and forward propulsion in this illness.