But she wasn’t alone. Together with Gabrielle and some other friends, Rebecca formed a monthly dinner party called WWDP (Women With Dead Parents, obviously). The WWDP conversations were wide-ranging, but the common denominator was a shared understanding. A general “I get it.” No apologies, no accusations, no questions asked. Other than: Who brought the chocolate cake, and can I get the recipe? This is one of the best grief resources for mental health, helpful and funny. This book is meant to help us stay connected to our people, stay connected to ourselves, and stay connected to the world around us even in grief. I think the "handbook" title doesn't really define the book. Even though it is a handbook and workbook you can use, it is also a deep and personal guide that provides a box of tools we can use in different situations of grief.

Life is an incredible journey without a roadmap. It can be wonderful and we should remember to be grateful more often.

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Care for one’s emotional well-being as they would their physical health, be it through talk/group/music therapy, writing exercises or cathartic destruction (it’s a thing!)

Don’t think of grief as a wall to scale but rather as a wall to walk alongside - one you can decorate, too.” In the interim, I had started thinking about how nice it would be to have a community that wasn’t anchored in religion or psychology. A space that was centered around human storytelling, where anything goes as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anybody else and done in a way that was really casual. Sometimes you have an idea and it just doesn’t go away for years—that’s what was happening. So, in 2013 I approached Gabi, who is an excellent journalist and editor, and said, “We’ve really got to do this thing.”The book has highlighted in blue important points Rebecca wants all to remember on our grief journey. One highlighted portion that has really stayed with me is that even though your person has died, you continue to be in a relationship with them and through loss the relationship changes but is never taken away.

One moment managing, and going about the business of living, the next sobbing with a pain out of nowhere unable to breathe and then like the clouds parting, a wonderful memory and I am able to go on. And then it repeats. Two years ago, in the first months of this seemingly interminable pandemic, I found myself holed up in my guest room/office/silent primal scream hideaway with little else to do than be in my own head over all the grief that seemed to be overflowing from all parts of society.The truth is, it’s not that we can’t imagine the experience. It’s that we don’t want to. In saying that the deep loss someone is feeling is too unbearable to picture, what we’re really doing is drawing a line: not mine, not ours, only yours. Perhaps we think we might prevent this pain, this chaos, this fear and uncertainty, from reaching our own lives. But if this global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that grief doesn’t work that way. Grief belongs or will belong to everybody , if not today then someday. Another section I felt important to me was working through to see if seeking a professional to help deal with grief would be a good fit. No one wants this book but I do recommend it as a professional for other therapists and anyone helping another heal as an incredible resource Because if Rebecca couldn’t have parents, dammit, she could at least have chocolate cake—not to mention friends who understood the particular nuances of going through profound loss way before they expected to. Eric Meyerhas been a burger flipper, a college webmaster, an early blogger, and more. In 2006, he was inducted into the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for his work to “inform excellence and efficiency on the Web.” He is CTO at Rebecca’s Gift, a non-profit established in honor and memory of his daughter, and co-founder of the interaction design conference An Event Apart.

Join writers Rebecca Soffer ( Modern Loss) and Pete Paphides ( Broken Greek) for a candid, warm, and even humorous conversation exploring Rebecca’s new book, “The Modern Loss Handbook”, and the global movement to destigmatize the universal experience of grief while encouraging people to find meaning and live richly. I am a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. I help people deal with life challenges; what they bring to it themselves and what life unfairly drops in their lap. What I finally realized was this: As completely unfair as it felt, absorbing my grief, figuring it out, and living with it were my responsibilities. Nobody else could do it for me,” states the author up-front, while promising to offer “no toxic positivity or suggestions that you find gratitude in everything.” Everyone will eventually experience the loss of someone meaningful, and the idea that they’re expected to “move on” because “it’s time,” isn’t realistic. What is? Talking about the stuff that society shies away from in public conversation and holding an ongoing space for our losses – because relationships don’t end when someone dies, and our own lives hold enormous potential for significance after a loss. Advice you won’t find in Soffer’s book? How to move on in a traditional sense. "Even if it was a negative relationship, you still examine or contend with it," she noted.

Modern Loss on CBS Mornings!

Rebecca Soffer is cofounder of the Modern Loss community and author of “ The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience.” Humor is so important to me. You don’t always have the choice, but sometimes you get to ask, “Am I gonna laugh about this? Or am I gonna lose it?” Of course, sometimes it’s both, but you definitely deserve to laugh if you want to and if it feels good. That what comedy is—laughing at the ridiculous aspects of life. Why wouldn’t grief be included in that? It’s part of life. It’s messy. You can’t just sit and rend your clothes for however long you’re going to be on Earth. You deserve to remind yourself that you’re human, that you can laugh and feel some levity. Whether you are someone who has lost their “person” or want to give something meaningful and effective to someone who has, this is a place to explore the unspeakably taboo, unbelievably hilarious, and unexpectedly beautiful terrain of navigating life after a death. Now, more than ever, grief is likely to be suppressed, protracted, or complicated because of the social, professional, and personal demands the pandemic has made of all of us. Some people can’t even begin to actively grieve for more than a year because of work, childcare, or their own health issues.These delays and complications disproportionately affect communities of color. In this respect, grief is a social justice issue.