Grief

Two mental-health professionals who started writing about grief for people who hate grief writing. The site is enormous, the podcast is good company, and the newsletter is the easiest way in. They cover the ugly parts: relief, anger, grieving someone you did not like. If you have been told you are grieving wrong, start here.

Rebecca Soffer lost both parents in her twenties and built Modern Loss as the conversation she could not find. The Substack carries essays on the long arc of loss, years out, when everyone else has moved on. It is candid, often funny, and never asks you to find the silver lining. Good for the second year, which is the one nobody warns you about.

Megan Devine wrote It's OK That You're Not OK after her partner drowned in front of her, and the site carries that authority. Her position is that grief is not a problem to be solved, and most of what people say to the grieving is for their own comfort. Essays, a podcast, and courses for the acutely bereaved. Send it to the friend who keeps saying the wrong thing.

A podcast from the Dougy Center, the Portland nonprofit that pioneered peer grief support for children and families. The host interviews people about their loss without steering them toward a lesson. Many episodes are about losing a parent, at every age. Long-running, free, and free of platitudes.

Pauline Boss named the loss that has no closure: the parent with dementia, the one who is physically present and psychologically gone. Her site collects the theory, the books and the training in one place. If our book helped you, this is where the idea came from. Read the short explanation on the home page and you will recognize your own situation.