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Devich-Cyril says, Yet, for centuries, systems of racial, economic and gender hierarchy have disenfranchised the grief of people of color, women, children, disabled people, queer and trans communities, and the poor. Dominant narratives about grief have turned gaslighting into an art form, convincing us that it is safer to deny grief than to feel it… As we seek to breathe a new world into being, being an effective changemaker demands the right and power to feel our losses rather than escape them.

Read the essay, Grief Belongs in Social Movements. Can We Embrace It?, in its entirety here.

Listen to the Emergent Strategy podcast Radical Grievance with Devich-Cyril here.

Terminally-ill patients already facing financial pressures allowed photographer Margaret Mitchell to chronicle their final weeks alive. This show is called The Cost Of Dying. In this photo, Liz, who had a love for fashion and dress-making, was forced to leave the home she loved in her final days because of mold and leaks. 

The Cost of Dying exhibition is the culmination of a four-year University of Glasgow study called Dying in the Margins: Financial hardship should never be a barrier to accessing compassionate end of life care and a dignified end of life experience. The majority of stories and images included in this exhibition feature people supported by Marie Curie and highlight the systemic issues faced by those who live in poverty. This exhibition, which is the first of its kind, aims to bring these issues to the fore, challenge assumptions and promote action.

Read more and see more images at the BBC. 

Nick Cave, the singer-songwriter, believes that we are deeply flawed, impermanent creatures who can sometimes do extraordinary things.

Nick Cave has long given expression to our deepest yearnings, our worst heartbreaks, and sometimes our darkest desires with his enormous output of music. In 2015, when he was 57, Cave’s 15-year old son Arthur died accidentally falling from a cliff near their home. In the subsequent years he has shared his journey with grief through the powerful albums Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen, as well as his long-running newsletter The Red Hand Files. Since 2018, he has been performing in conversation with his audiences with intimacy and connectedness, as he describes it. His latest effort, a book published last year Faith, Hope and Carnage, soon to be released in paperback, is an extended interview with journalist Sean O’Hagan. Cave has become an unexpected Virgil for anyone mired in grief and casting about for a warm but unsentimental guide. His advice is compassionate and perceptive. 

Read his recent interview in The New Yorker here.

Read his letters to fans in The Red Hand Files here.

In this Huffington Post piece, Why We Need Black Death Doulas, Darnell Lamont Walker writes, For some Black Americans, grief is a constant. When we find ourselves grieving our loved ones, it brings to mind the brokenness of many systems, including a lack of resources in our communities, health disparities, housing inequality, and overall racial injustice, most of which often contribute to the loss.

As a doula in his community, Walker does the work folks in his community have been doing for years without this title, but still believes it’s an important role for the communal healing needed, fighting for end-of-life care that is both tender and dignified, while aiming to normalize conversations around death. 

Read the Huffington Post article here.

Some LGBTQ+ folks may ask - how can I be sure my wishes will be respected when I die? Who’s going to handle my body when I die, and how can I make sure that they use the right name and the right pronoun?

Wake, a nonprofit organization in Louisiana with a mission to provide education and resources for meaningful, affordable, and environmentally sustainable deathcare, has created this booklet with Louisiana’s laws in mind and are hoping to adapt and expand it to every state. Many are unprepared for the issues that attend the end of life. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual community can be even more at risk of experiencing discrimination and disenfranchisement. The goal of this guide is to close the gap of information on end of life care for the LGBTQIA+ community, since much of the existing information is directed toward heterosexual couples and nuclear families. In addition, the guide identifies key areas of risk within the legal system for those of diverse sexual orientations and/or gender identities. With the right information and legal steps in place, one’s identity and wishes can be honored through the end of life and dying processes.

Download the LGBTQ+ End of Life Guide here.

Read The Washington Post article here.

In this thought-provoking NYT Opinion piece, As a Doctor, I Know Being Ready to Die Is an Illusion, palliative care physician Sunita Puri shares her experience talking to patients about dying and raising the question if anyone is ever truly ready. What do you think?

Read the NYT piece here.