A few days ago I had one of those wonderful human connections.

I was walking into my local supermarket when I noticed a woman of color of a certain age sitting alone on the low stone wall at the entrance. She had a patina of melancholy on her beautiful face, and I stopped to say hi. She loved my T-shirt, she said, a shirt that spells out the word Human in a rainbow of colors, and I thanked her and said:

“We’re all human.”

“You got that right,” she replied, nodding.

She mentioned she was resting for a while before she went inside.

“I’m missing my husband, ” the woman said sadly. I expressed how sorry I was, and then she said, almost apologetically, “It’s been 2 years.”

I looked at her gently and said what I knew in my heart to be the truth. Grief has no timeline; it could be 4 years, it could be 10. The grief and the missing never end.

There’s no expiration date.

We then got into a conversation about grief and loved ones, and when I left, I told her to take all the time in the world with her grief and her heart. She smiled so kindly.

As did I. This human connection made my day.

The timing of the conversation was serendipitous.

The following morning Moe was wagging his tail especially vigorously as our mailman handed me a small package. What a delight to open it and find my copy of a special book, “Grieving Out Loud,” an anthology that I am so proud to have several essays included in.

As I flipped through the pages, I was transported back to the fall and an amazing workshop I attended, named “Grieving Out Loud,” led by Amy Ferris and B.K.Jackson. It was where this book was birthed, in a supportive and powerful community of women storytellers.

The workshop is part of a series from Noon Miracle, an international production house and collaborative platform founded by actress, writer, and director Jane Sibbett, alongside co-founders Violet Grace Fink and Ruby Fink.

An amazing group of brilliant souls who opened their hearts, touched their truths, and used their voices to share in that unavoidable part of life that is grief. It was an honor and a privilege to grieve out loud together.

To connect through our shared humanity.

Like the woman in the supermarket,

There is so much grief in our lives right now; let us all hold one another.

Copies are available to order online

Grieving Out Loud