“I appreciate having a space where I can just exist and talk without feeling like I need to perform my grief or mask it.”
– A Client
Caregiving & Grief Support
Caregiving support and disenfranchised grief work for the losses that don’t get casseroles.
Whether you’re in the middle of caregiving, bracing for a loss you can feel coming, or carrying one that’s already happened, you’re welcome here exactly as you are. Undone, relieved, angry, numb, or laughing when you least expect it.
Yes, laughing. It happens more than you’d think.
Who this is for
You’re caregiving for someone you love and you need somewhere to put everything you can’t say in that room.
You’re grieving something the world doesn’t quite recognize. A pet. An ex. A friendship. A version of yourself. A miscarriage. A coming-out that cost you family. Disenfranchised grief takes a lot of shapes, and all of them are welcome here.
You’ve lost someone and you want a space that doesn’t require you to be okay, to be moving on, or to grieve on anyone else’s timeline.
You want help honoring and memorializing someone in a way that actually feels like them.
You’re anticipating a loss and the grief is already here, even though the person isn’t gone yet.
What this looks like
Sometimes it’s talking. Sometimes it’s sitting with what’s too big for words. Sometimes it’s practical: finding the right ritual, building a memorial, figuring out how to mark a life in a way that feels true.
For those who are interested, I also offer somatic exercises: simple, body-based practices that can help when emotions are living more in your chest than in your head. They’re an option, never a requirement.
There’s no pressure here to process in a particular way or arrive at a particular outcome. You don’t have to have it together. You don’t have to fall apart either.
There’s also space for the unsaid
Grief comes with emotions our culture pretends don’t exist. Relief. Anger at the person who died. Ambivalence about someone you were supposed to love without complication. The dark humor that shows up at the worst moments and feels like a betrayal.
These aren’t the wrong feelings. They’re just the ones nobody makes room for.
What I’m not
I’m not a therapist, grief counselor, doctor, or religious advisor. I don’t diagnose, treat, or provide clinical mental health support. I work alongside those professionals, not in place of them.
If you’re in crisis or need immediate mental health support, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
Grief Doesn’t Resolve in 90 Minutes
A first session can open something. Language for what’s been unspeakable. The relief of being heard without performance. That’s real, and for some people it’s enough.
For most it isn’t, because grief doesn’t run on a schedule and it doesn’t give notice. It comes back on an anniversary you forgot was coming. It comes back in the grocery store, in front of the yogurt. It comes back three years later when you thought you were finished, which is its own particular insult.
So people return. Some weekly for a stretch. Some when something shifts. Some after a year of quiet. There’s no expiration on the space and no expectation that you use it. You set the pace.
Investment
90-minute sessions are $150, $115, or $80. You pick.
$150 is what the work actually costs to do. $115 is for when money’s tight but you’re managing. $80 is for when it isn’t and you’re not. No questions, no proof, no explaining yourself. And you can pick differently next time, because next time might be different.
Pollinate Hive House adds a 15% service fee at booking. That goes to keeping the building running, which is how the room exists.
If none of these work, or if you’d rather trade something you make or something you do, reach out and we’ll figure it out. And if getting to Windsor Heights isn’t workable, whether that’s distance or anything else, reach out and we can meet by video instead.
Queer Grief Circle
Monthly grief support specifically for queer people, in collaboration with Reading in Public. Free-will donation, no agenda except what the room brings. If the standard grief narrative was never built for your life, this is the room.
Next gathering: Friday, July 24, 6 to 8pm