My name is Hope and I am the creator of Grieving Naturally. I’d like to tell you a little bit about me and my purpose in creating Grieving Naturally, which is not only this blog, but also a website Grieving Naturally and a public Facebook page and, eventually, a private Facebook group.
Greg, my soulmate, and love of my life, died by suicide in December 2021. My whole world imploded. Personally, and professionally as we worked together as well. My life and my whole world would never be the same.
There were so many emotions, so many thoughts and very little clear, cognizant thought. I cried almost constantly. I wondered if I was losing my mind. I prayed for God to call me home. In those brief and fleeting moments of clarity, I knew more what I did not want than what I wanted. I was adrift in my own existence. I knew that as a widow, and even more so as a widow by suicide, that I needed support. I had a lot of support from my daughter and some close friends, yet they didn’t really understand what I was going through.
There was nothing to keep me in Dayton anymore as I closed our businesses— I just could not carry on doing that. I sold the house, the big van we had for travel and the rental property. I (well, not me personally—a small yet mighty group of family and friends) packed what possessions would fit into a POD. In May 2022, I drove myself and my dogs across the country from Ohio to Sacramento, CA, where my daughter and son-in-law reside.
I finished up my coursework in natural health, something that I am really passionate about that I started working on many years ago. I also completed the Grief Educator program through the world-renowned grief expert, David Kessler David Kessler And I sat in my apartment wondering what I was going to do with my life. One day I realized that I could blend my love of natural health with my desire to provide support to widows, especially widows of suicide. And Grieving Naturally was born. I know this sounds cliche but Grieving Naturally has been created from the ashes of my life.
The purpose of Grieving Naturally is two-fold: first and foremost, to help widows, especially widows by suicide, in their grief by supporting the whole person—emotionally, physically, and spiritually—using natural and holistic methods. These one-on-one sessions offer a safe, confidential place for widows to get peer-to-peer understanding and support along with ways to care for themselves on all levels.
The second purpose of Grieving Naturally is to provide general grief awareness and education to everyone. Our society as a whole does not do grief well. Every single person reading this will experience grief at some point in their life, whether due to a death or other loss, and since it’s unavoidable, let’s face it. Let’s learn about grief, how to support those who are grieving and to understand that grief is with us and always will be.
I invite you to stay here with Grieving Naturally, to share this with your family and friends and to ask questions and suggest topics you want to learn about. You can reach me through Grieving Naturally or through Facebook.