Greif has been one of the deepest teachers of my life
ABOUT ALISON
Grief is not something I have simply studied. It has been one of the deepest teachers of my life.
I have experienced many losses, including the death of my brother, but nothing prepared me for the death of my daughter, Maya Rose, when she was 25. Losing a child changed the landscape of my life. It changed the way I understood love, death, my body, my spirituality, and who I was in the world.
Years later, my son Jericho Sky was killed at 28 while volunteering in Ukraine.
Losing a second child took me into another depth of grief entirely.
What grief has taught me
But there are things grief itself taught me that no classroom ever could.
It taught me what it means for your entire identity to change because someone you love has died.
It taught me that grief is not linear. It does not follow a timetable, and it certainly does not disappear because the people around you are ready for you to be “better.”
It taught me that grief can live in the body. That sometimes there are no words. That sometimes what a grieving person needs most is not advice, answers, or another person trying to find the silver lining.
There are some things professional training can teach us — how trauma affects the nervous system, how to listen, how to create safety, and how to accompany someone through loss. I value that training deeply.
There is no hierarchy of grief
I have come to understand that there is no hierarchy of grief. The death of a child, a partner, a sibling, a parent, a friend, or a deeply loved animal companion can all profoundly change us.
I believe that animals can be some of our greatest teachers of grief. They love us with such complete, uncomplicated, unconditional love, and yet so often they are only here with us for such a short time.
For many people, an animal has been their constant companion, the one who slept beside them, greeted them at the door, walked with them through heartbreak, illness, loneliness, change, and grief itself. When that relationship ends physically, the loss can be deeply destabilizing.
grief is not measured by the title we gave the relationship. It is measured by love.
And yet pet grief is so often minimized. People may hear, “It was only a dog,” or “You can get another one,” when what they have lost was family, safety, companionship, and a love that asked almost nothing of them in return.
Each loss is different.
Each relationship is different.
Each person deserves to have their grief witnessed and taken seriously.
I don't stand on the other side of grief telling people how to get there. I walk with it too.
Why I do this work
After Maya died, I found myself being drawn more and more deeply toward grief work. What began as my own search for understanding became a calling to sit beside others.
I went on to train in grief support, traumatic grief, death and dying, end-of-life work, breathwork, ritual, and other healing practices.
Then Jericho died, and once again everything I believed I understood about grief was asked to deepen.
I am still a grieving mother.
My own losses do not mean I know exactly what your grief feels like. But when I say, “I get it,” I mean that I understand what it is to have life divided into a before and an after. I understand what it is for grief to change you. I understand how desperately we sometimes need someone to meet us there without trying to pull us out before we are ready.
This is one of the most important things I want someone to know before trusting me with their grief.
My Philosophy
There is no single way to grieve, heal, die, or make meaning from loss. Every person's journey is their own.
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Hope is not pretending everything will be okay.
Hope can be much quieter than that. Sometimes it is simply the possibility that life may one day feel different than it does today, that love, connection, meaning, and even moments of beauty may still be possible.
All emotions are welcome.
Grief can hold sorrow, anger, relief, guilt, fear, numbness, gratitude, longing, even laughter and joy. None of these make your grief wrong.
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Grieving people need presence.
Space. Time. Safety. Someone willing to sit with what is difficult without trying to fix, rush, minimize, or explain it away.
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Love after someone dies does not end.
The relationship changes, but the love remains and can continue to shape our lives in ways we may not yet understand.
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Healing does not mean forgetting,
moving on, or becoming the person you were before. Healing can mean learning how to live alongside what has happened while carrying the love forward.
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Grief is love with nowhere obvious to go.
It is the natural response to losing someone or something deeply meaningful, and there is no single right way to experience it.
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a little more about me
I was born in England and have spent much of my life traveling, living in different cultures, volunteering, and seeking experiences that have expanded the way I understand people, spirituality, community, and our relationship with the Earth. Curiosity and adventure are still very much a part of who I am.
alison yendell, founder of the greif architect
I currently live in the mountains of Northern California, near Truckee, surrounded by pine trees, rivers, wildlife, and big open skies. Nature has always been one of the places where I feel most at home.
Outside of my work, I love being outdoors with my dog, hiking, swimming in rivers and the ocean, yoga, meditation, music, playing my guitar, traveling, and simply sitting somewhere beautiful and paying attention to what is alive around me.
Nature is one of my greatest teachers.
The seasons remind me that nothing stays the same; rivers teach me about movement, trees about rootedness, and animals about presence and unconditional love. Again and again, nature reminds me that death and life are not opposites; they are part of the same cycle.
Animals have been woven through my life for as long as I can remember. I have been involved in animal rescue, worked with horses, and even cared for rescued big cats. I believe animals have an extraordinary ability to bring us back into our bodies, into the present moment, and into love.
I am always looking for the sacred in ordinary things — a river, a feather, an animal crossing my path, a piece of music, an altar, a candle, a conversation, or simply sitting beneath a tree.
a little more about me
I was born in England and have spent much of my life traveling, living in different cultures, volunteering, and seeking experiences that have expanded the way I understand people, spirituality, community, and our relationship with the Earth. Curiosity and adventure are still very much a part of who I am.
Alison yendell, founder of the grief architect
I currently live in the mountains of Northern California, near Truckee, surrounded by pine trees, rivers, wildlife, and big open skies. Nature has always been one of the places where I feel most at home.
Outside of my work, I love being outdoors with my dog, hiking, swimming in rivers and the ocean, yoga, meditation, music, playing my guitar, traveling, and simply sitting somewhere beautiful and paying attention to what is alive around me.
Nature is one of my greatest teachers.
The seasons remind me that nothing stays the same; rivers teach me about movement, trees about rootedness, and animals about presence and unconditional love. Again and again, nature reminds me that death and life are not opposites; they are part of the same cycle.
Animals have been woven through my life for as long as I can remember. I have been involved in animal rescue, worked with horses, and even cared for rescued big cats. I believe animals have an extraordinary ability to bring us back into our bodies, into the present moment, and into love.
I am always looking for the sacred in ordinary things — a river, a feather, an animal crossing my path, a piece of music, an altar, a candle, a conversation, or simply sitting beneath a tree.
Final Notes
On Motherhood & Love
On Service & Kindness
On coming as you are
I am a mother of four children, two of whom are no longer here in physical form, and two who are living. Losing Maya and Jericho has profoundly changed the way I hold my living children too. I love them deeply, but I have learned to hold them more loosely.
Kahlil Gibran’s On Children has always spoken to something I now understand in a much deeper way: our children come through us, but they do not belong to us. They have their own lives, their own paths, and their own becoming. I try to love my children with an open hand rather than a closed fist, to cherish them, be present with them, and allow them the freedom to belong to their own lives.
There is something both heartbreaking and beautiful in that.
Service is one of the highest values in my life. I am involved with B4BC, helping facilitate experiences for young breast cancer survivors, and I am an advocate for Ukraine and for the children who have been stolen from their families and communities.
For me, service does not always have to be something big. Sometimes it is simply a smile, a hello to a stranger, sitting beside someone who is hurting, speaking up when something matters, or choosing kindness when it would be easier to look away.
I believe kindness is one of the simplest ways we can give something back, to one another, to our communities, and to this extraordinary planet we get to call home.
You do not have to perform healing for me. You don't have to be inspiring.
You don't have to be resilient. You don't have to find meaning in what happened.
You don't even have to want to move forward yet.
You can come exactly as you are.
I will meet you there.
