It’s stupid hot in Chicagoland today—the kind of hot where the humidity does all the talking. I just got home from the Grayslake Author Fest, which was wonderful (more on that soon on YouTube). But something else has been sitting with me, and I wanted to write my way into it here first.
I’ve started the coursework for a grief support practitioner certification.
Grief isn’t something people volunteer to learn. You learn it because you have to, and eventually—if you’re paying attention—it teaches you something. I’ve spent a long time inside it. Long enough to know it isn’t something you graduate from. It’s something you carry, and carrying it well is its own kind of skill.
Lately I’ve felt called toward this work. Not a lightning bolt—more like a door I kept walking past finally staying open long enough for me to notice it.
I want to be clear: this isn’t me positioning myself as a bereavement counselor or psychologist. That’s my dear friend Claire Bidwell Smith’s lane, and she’s brilliant at it. I’m building something adjacent—a support role, a companion role, which fits everything I believe about moving with grief rather than past it.
Writing has always been how I process the unprocessable. It’s how I stayed connected to Ken while losing him, and to myself since. If that helped me, I believe it can be shaped into something that helps others too—through the page, through this certification, maybe through workshops down the line.
I don’t have the whole plan. But I’m excited to learn, and to see where this leads.
Follow along as it unfolds.
Onward.
Ron Stempkowski is the author of The Luck We Carry: Love, Loss, and the Stories That Shape Us, a memoir-in-essays about learning to move with grief instead of moving on. If this story resonated, you can grab a signed copy—complete with a handwritten note—at ronstempkowski.com, or get your copy wherever books are sold. And if you'd like more stories like this one, join the journey and get them straight in your inbox.
Or follow here on Substack…
