This series of posts was inspired by my experience with grief. It was sudden, hit me like a train and left me reeling with the reality that my friend would never greet me or his family on this Earth again. Shemar’s transition was one that gave me a real insight as to how consuming and frightening death can be. As I tried to come to terms with the very sudden passing of my friend, I realized that we treat people who are grieving very differently when we don’t know the person, or sometimes our grieving process for that same person can even prompt us to push people away. What I found most of all is that no one wants to talk about it. We don’t want to be sad, so conversations about how we are really doing seem to be short and superficial. If we really answered “how are you doing” every time someone asked, eventually people would stop asking. This attitude from managers at work, professors at school, and friends who probably do care but have no idea how to comfort you, lead me to this blog. Because the way we should be able to grieve, with our loved ones surrounding us, resources, support, and limited financial restraint, is only afforded to people who can pause their life for a moment and try to recover. If you work to live, when do you grieve? How do your bills get paid? How do you cover service expenses? How do you get help when you really need it? It’s all a bit overwhelming in addition to the realization that you have to now learn how to live without a human you very much loved, and won’t be able to touch in this life again. So in this blog I’ll talk about those things, and include resources to help anyone who is dealing with the way our nation treats those in grief.