Community Grief Coalition

05/23/2026

Everyone thinks the hardest part of grief is the goodbye.

It isn't.

The hardest part is every single morning after.

Waking up and for one second...just one....forgetting.

And then remembering...

The hardest part is the Friday afternoon that ambushes you out of nowhere.

The song that finds you in the grocery store.

The habit of reaching for your phone to call them.

The inside joke that has no one to tell it to.

The hardest part is learning how to exist in a world that kept moving when yours stopped.

Learning how to answer "how are you" when the honest answer would stop the conversation completely.

Learning how to sit at a table that has a different number of people at it now.

Learning how to celebrate things.

How to laugh at things...

How to want things.

When part of you feels like wanting anything is a betrayal of the weight you're supposed to still be carrying.

The goodbye was one moment.

As devastating as it was...it was one moment.

What comes after is every moment.

Every morning.

Every ordinary Wednesday.

Every holiday....

Every first and every anniversary and every random day that hits harder than the ones that were supposed to.

That's the part nobody prepares you for.

Not the goodbye.

The after.

The long, quiet, relentless after.

And if you're living in the after right now....

You are doing the hardest thing.

Not the goodbye.

This.

What you're doing right now.

This is the hardest part.

And you are still here.

05/19/2026

Thought-provoking 💭 information about .

We often start grieving our potential losses in advance. Can we do this more wisely?

05/11/2026

🇺🇸 Run. Honor. Remember - THIS SATURDAY 🏃‍♂️❤️

⭐️ Join us for a powerful 5K run/walk on May 16 at Hedrick Stadium as we honor our fallen Soldiers. Walk among the boots. Remember their sacrifice. ⭐️

🕢 Ceremony starts at 7:30 AM | Run begins immediately after ceremony | FREE & open to DoW ID cardholders + guests | No registration needed

05/11/2026

As Mother’s Day has passed and Father’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about the complicated relationship grief often has with holidays.

Some people made it through Mother’s Day better than they expected.

Others discovered the ache was deeper than they realized.

And now, quietly, many are already bracing themselves for Father’s Day.

Grief has a way of attaching itself to calendars, traditions, smells, songs, meals, and greeting card aisles.

Sometimes we grieve the father or mother who died.

Sometimes we grieve the child who died.

Sometimes we grieve the parent we never truly knew, the relationship that remained strained, or the version of a parent we longed for but never fully had.

For years, I hated Father’s Day.

I remember standing in stores reading cards that all felt false to me because none of them reflected my lived experience. They spoke of closeness, emotional safety, wisdom, and connection in ways that felt foreign to my relationship with my own father.

I would sit in church services honoring “godly fathers” and quietly wonder what it must feel like to be loved in that way by a man who truly understood you.

It took me many years to stop comparing my father to an idealized version of fatherhood and begin seeing him as a human being shaped by his own story, limitations, wounds, generation, and understanding of love.

I remember my husband once telling me:
“You are walking east. Your father is walking west. The two of you may never see eye to eye on what is best for you, but that doesn’t change the fact he loves you and wants what he believes is best.”

That perspective did not erase grief.

But it softened something inside me.

And I think many people carry similar grief into these holidays:
the grief of death,
the grief of estrangement,
the grief of unmet expectations,
the grief of longing,
the grief of what never was.

One of the hardest realities about grief is that life keeps surrounding us with reminders.

The songs.
The meals.
The traditions.
The empty chair.
The social media posts.
The celebrations that highlight what feels absent in our own lives.

So how do we move through it?

I don’t think healing comes from pretending the grief is gone.

I think healing comes as grief slowly stops being something we are fighting against and instead becomes part of the larger story we are learning to carry.

Not the whole story.
But part of it.

Over time, many people begin to discover that grief is not only about who we lost, but also about how loss reshapes identity, relationships, expectations, faith, and the way we move through the world.

And somehow, life continues to hold both realities at once:
joy and ache,
gratitude and longing,
love and disappointment,
presence and absence.

If these holidays are difficult for you, you are not alone.

There is no “correct” way to move through days that carry both memory and pain.

Sometimes surviving the day is enough.

Sometimes breathing again is enough.

And sometimes healing begins not when the grief disappears, but when we stop demanding that our story look different than it does.

Send a message to learn more

04/24/2026

❤️‍🩹

When you reach the age your mother was when she died, the calendar can feel like it’s pointing straight at you.
In this powerful reflection on the “anniversary year,” a daughter faces illness, fear, and the haunting math of generations—then finds herself held by faith, love, and unexpected relief.
If you’ve ever felt anxious as a milestone birthday approaches after losing your mom, you’re not alone. This story offers comfort, perspective, and hope for daughters navigating mother loss and legacy.
Read the full article on Open to Hope (link in bio / at OpenToHope.com).
Author tag: | mershonniesner.com
Tartt Goldfinch

04/24/2026

❤️‍🩹

Grief doesn’t end. It changes.

A birthday. A memory. A family moment. And suddenly, grief is there again.

Losing someone you love is not only about grieving the person who died. It is also about grieving the secondary losses, changed family relationships, lost traditions, and the moments your children may never get to have.

Secondary loss is real, and it hurts.

If grief has caught you off guard lately, you are not alone.

Read more:https://www.opentohope.com/grief-doesnt-end-my-brothers-birthday-and-the-pain-of-secondary-loss/

Follow for grief resources, healing support, and hope after loss.

04/21/2026

Survivor of Su***de Support Group in Southern Pines, NC. Meets on 1st Tuesdays from 6P-8P.