Name: How to Manage Our Grief Through the Holidays Ahead
Start: 2025-11-19T11:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-11-19T13:00:00-05:00
Location: The Catholic Community of St. John & Blessed Sacrament

How to Manage Our Grief Through the Holidays Ahead

Entering into the holiday season after a death in the family can often be particularly distressing and challenging. Oftentimes, even our closest support persons find themselves helpless in knowing how to support us. Please join us in a special session on creative ways to process and cope with grief and loss, facilitated by Dr. Laurel Hilliker, a new parishioner, who spoke previously at our parish. She will be accompanied by the Seasons of Hope grief support team.
Our speaker, Dr. Laurel Hilliker, received her doctorate in sociology from Michigan State University with a specialization in bereavement. She is the daughter of former parishioner, Anna Nutt, now deceased. Dr. Hilliker holds a Fellow in Thanatology through the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Her current university affiliation is the University of Michigan-Flint, where she teaches public health coursework, including Wellness in the Face of Loss. She is published in scholarly journals and has written for Faith Catholic Magazine. She is the founder of Bearing Loss, Grief Education and Consulting, LLC, providing webinars and talks for the bereaved and for the professionals who work with them. She has recently published her first book, Grief-Stricken, Stories of Altered Loss in a Pandemic Haze through Covenant Books.
The talk will aim to provide coping strategies to help us bear our losses and will include a format that allows for a question-and-answer period. The session will be held on Wednesday, November 19th from 11:00 a.m.-1:00p.m. in the St. John Family Center Youth Room with a repeat session on Monday, November 24 from 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there!