A Social Support System for Mourning People Like Me

This is a really big thing we are doing here.

We are bridging a “taboo” gap between life on Earth and life in Spirit. Most people would not accept that we could do this. But this is real. We are connected.

— Karl, 2 November 2016

My cultural interludes with friends and colleagues convince me that mourning people like me, who cannot depend on culture, tradition, or a faith community, need a social support system. And further: I am the person to work that out. I’m an educated woman who has lived in many different rural and urban communities in Canada, the US, England, South Africa, and Australia.

I have many intelligent and wise friends.

Nevertheless, the sad truth I discover is that none of us knows what to do after Karl’s burial and the memorial. Each of us is grieving for Karl in our own ways: a laity with no education in grief, except, perhaps, for my two Sufi friends, Rose and David. Read more