Published Articles
2019 - March - Gazette - Death Café
Death Café
In November 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote these words, “…but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” These two certainties will be spotlighted on April 15, 2019, wit...
Friday, March 29, 2019
2019 - March - CDT - Helping Hands - Thankful Thoughtful Thursdays
Thankful Thoughtful Thursdays
In the book, The Moon in the Well: Wisdom Tales to Transform Your Life, Family, and Community, Erica Helm Meade shared a tale from Madagascar. In this story, God allo...
Thursday, March 7, 2019
2019 - March - CDT - Active Life - Find the Path by Walking It
Find the Path by Walking It
A 96-year-old woman attended several of our grief education and support programs. At one such gathering she told us she believed it helps to share troubles with o...
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
2019 - February - Gazette - Thankful Thoughtful Thursdays
Thankful Thoughtful Thursdays
I have the incredible honor of companioning people before and after a loved one dies. One thing I’ve learned in this process is that fulfilling the dying person’s wis...
Thursday, February 28, 2019
2019 - January - Gazette - Love Helps Us Heal
Love Helps Us Heal
The room was full of friends and family who came to honor a woman’s life. First, the guests offered their condolences in the receiving line. Next, as the celebrant, I shared pie...
Thursday, January 31, 2019
2019 - Jan - The Daily News - Huntingdon
Funerals Matter
I worked with a woman who was pregnant with her first child. When it was time for her to give birth, she and her fiancé drove to the hospital, took the elevator and got off on the ...
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
2018 - Dec - CDT - Learning to Live - Healing Through the Holidays
Healing through the Holidays
As part of my outreach for the Helping Grieving Hearts Heal program, Evelyn Wald, a licensed professional counselor at Individual and Family CHOICES, and I facilitated...
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Previous Posts
2018 - Nov - The Daily News - Time for Family, Time for Talk - Conversations Count
Conversations Count: Time for Family, Time for Talk Month
John B. Brown Funeral Home, Inc. - Huntingdon, PA
Years ago my husband John met Jim in State College. John was a Penn State student c...
2018 - Nov - Gazette - Conversations Count: Time for Family, Time for Talk Month
Conversations Count: Time for Family, Time for Talk Month
A counselor ed class of Penn State graduate students recently spent a couple of hours asking one another meaningful questions such as: Wha...
2018 - Oct - CDT - Helping Hands - National Family History Month
Remember, share your
family stories during
National Family History Month
When my grandmother was a young woman, she came from Kansas to Milroy, Pennsylvania, to visit a college friend. One day dur...
2018 - August - Gazette - Plan Ahead
Plan Ahead
In March of 2017, a group of us sat in a circle together at the Bellefonte Senior Resource Center and talked about death. We talked about the history of our perceptions about death. We ...
2018 - July - CDT - Helping Hands - Humor to Heal
Humor to Heal
There is a scene in the movie Steel Magnolias where Sally Field’s character is leaving her daughter’s funeral and experiences several emotions in a few minutes. She is sad, angry, co...
2018 - June - CDT - Learning to Live - Honoring Life
Honoring Life
Before I began to work with Koch Funeral Home, I thought their work was about death. What I have learned since then is just the opposite. Their work is about honoring life. They hono...
2018 - May - Gazette - Nurturing. Where do you begin?
Nurturing, Where Do You Begin?
The patriarch of a family I know recently died. He had been in declining health for a couple of years and near the end, his family courageously chose to bring him ho...
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