I'm Heidi. I write for people who are grieving someone who's still here.

There's a name for it — anticipatory grief — but almost nobody uses it, which is part of why it's so lonely. It's what you carry through the appointments and the phone calls and the showing up, again, when nothing has changed except a little more of them is gone. Everyone asks how they're doing. Almost nobody asks about you.

I've been in it more than once. My grandparents. My mom. Now my dad. And our old dog, who left us slowly. Every time, I carried it quietly, because I didn't have language for what I was feeling and the people around me didn't either.

So I built the thing I needed and couldn't find.

Everything here comes out of The REAL Process™ — Recognize, Embrace, Align, Live — a four-step practice for staying honest with yourself when life asks more of you than you have. It isn't therapy and doesn't pretend to be. It's peer support from someone who has been where you are, and it makes room for the parts nobody says out loud: that you can love them and be exhausted, want more time and want it to be over. Both. Not either/or.

If you're in the middle of it right now — you're not doing it wrong, and you're not alone.

— Heidi Coleman · Eugene, Oregon

Resilience Empowers Authentic Living