“Mom crouched down on my level to tell me a story about something humiliating that had happened to her only a few feet away, long before I was born.”

The author and her mother, Susan, at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro, North Carolina. "This was one of her favorite places to visit with us as kids," she writes.

The author riding the Northgate Mall carousel in Durham, North Carolina. "This was sometime before my mother’s diagnosis," she writes.

The author, her mother, Susan, and her grandfather Ralph in their driveway in Durham, North Carolina. "This was not long after my mother’s brain cancer diagnosis," she writes.

The author sitting in her grandmother’s house, holding a photo of her mother from her graduation from McGill University.

Rebecca Feinglos is a certified grief support specialist, founder of Grieve Leave, and host of the “Grief’d Up” podcast. After losing her mother as a teen, her father in 2020, and navigating a divorce, she took a grief sabbatical, and Grieve Leave was born. The platform now reaches millions, offering real tools, humor and honest conversation to help people take intentional time to grieve. Rebecca previously worked as a policy adviser in state and local government, and began her career as a bilingual educator. She holds degrees from Duke University and the University of Chicago. Her voice has been featured in Time, the LA Times, Fortune, Slate, Elle and more. She splits her time between North Carolina and Montreal with her dogs, Daisy Duke and Ralphie.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost in May 2026.