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And why saying something imperfectly is nearly always better than saying nothing at all. When someone we care about is grieving, we become frightened of words. We worry about saying the wrong thing. We worry about upsetting them. We worry that mentioning the person who died will remind them of something they were momentarily managing to forget. So sometimes, we say nothing. But grief doesn’t work like that. You don’t remind a grieving person that someone they love has died. T

People had said to me before, “Death can be really beautiful.” And I would think, no. There is nothing beautiful about seeing your daughter die on life support while you watch numbers on a screen. There is nothing beautiful about finding your dad on the floor. Death had never shown me beauty. It had shown me shock. Trauma. Helplessness. The moment a life divided into everything that happened before and everything that would have to come afterwards. So when people used the wor

Nobody Warns You About the Tiny Conversations That Disappear Nobody warns you about all the tiny conversations that disappear when your person dies. We prepare ourselves, as much as anyone ever can, for the enormous absence. We know we will miss their face. Their voice. Their touch. We know there will be an empty chair, a side of the bed that is no longer slept in, a name we can no longer call from another room. But I don’t think we understand how many small conversations mak

My daughter died at 22. I still wonder if she’s okay. Which makes no sense. Because clearly, she isn’t. At least, that is what the rational part of my mind tells me. Liana died. I know what happened. I know she is no longer living the life she should have had. There is no new home, no ordinary Tuesday, no future unfolding somewhere beyond my sight. And yet the question still comes. Is she okay? It arrives without warning. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes with an urgency that catc