Articles — Supportal

Some mail, if left unattended, can lead to hurt feelings. Some can lead to jail. I started to go through the piles and dig my way out of the grief pit I felt stuck in.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickJuly 18, 2019Parent Loss

He Fixed Me a Drink

A week after Cottie’s South Carolina funeral, upon returning home to Oregon, our friend Tyler shook up a gin fizz to accompany our meal. That drink, which Tyler had lovingly practiced making before we arrived, was the best gin fizz I’d ever had.

Born Still, BUT STILL BORN

She was born in the late afternoon, many excruciating hours after our doctor uttered the most devastating words my wife Elly and I have ever heard: “There’s no heartbeat.”

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickJune 13, 2019Infant Loss

Food As Solace

We were so thoroughly fed by the steel network of community around us that I lost count of my blessings. Already a big believer in the value of friends cooking for friends, I became essentially devout.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickMay 16, 2019Sibling Loss, Books, Food and Drink, Under $25, $25 - $50

A Hollow Holiday

I wanted nothing more than to sleep through Mother’s Day, to pretend Mother’s Day was gone, like my son.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickMay 9, 2019Child Loss, Stationery, Under $25

We’ll Always Have Paris

In the middle of my battle with “recurrent pregnancy loss” I got on a SoulCycle bike on New Year’s Eve with the best intentions.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickApril 16, 2019Pregnancy Loss, Travel, Over $100

Bloody Marys and Olive Branches

When I lost my father a few years ago, my friends all showed up in the best ways they knew how.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickMarch 19, 2019Parent Loss

Great Expectations

There's a lot of talk about all the thoughtless things people say to the bereaved. But in the aftermath of my father and stepmother's murders in 2004, two people in my life managed to say the right things.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickMarch 12, 2019Parent Loss

La Piñata

The tenth time they asked, I finally agreed to meet Francesco and Molly at La Piñata in Alameda for dinner.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickFebruary 26, 2019Spouse Loss

Table for Two

When you’re ten years old and you’ve just lost your dad, you soften like a sponge submerged in water for the first time.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickJanuary 10, 2019Parent Loss

Not Quite Yet But Someday Soon

At the gravesite, after I shoveled the dirt over my mother's casket and heard it hit the lid, my friend Karen gave me a butterfly finger puppet.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickJanuary 8, 2019Parent Loss, Other in Gift Categories, Under $25

Write and Remember

My mom, and best friend, passed away suddenly a year ago at the age of 61. I feel like I am still emerging from the sadness and the void, figuring out my new normal.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickJanuary 2, 2019Parent Loss, Stationery, Under $25, $25 - $50, $50 - $100

Sadvent and Other Rituals

When my baby brother, Josh, was killed in a hit and run on New Year’s Day 2016, I bellowed sounds – not words, just guttural howls – I didn’t know my body could make.

Forget-Me-Not

I have found that most people do not feel comfortable talking about loss and, more specifically, the loss of a child.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickDecember 28, 2018Infant Loss

Can You Handle This?

“Your mom is worried about you. She doesn't think you can handle this.”

The Power of Acknowledgment

Pregnancy loss sucks. There really is no other way to describe it. I have experienced two miscarriages and a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickDecember 21, 2018Pregnancy Loss, Stationery, Under $25

Comfort Food

When I was 37 years old, my dad went to battle with something in his body and lost. Standing on the sidelines of this battle, I didn’t know what to do. So I made rice pudding.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickDecember 18, 2018Food and Drink, Parent Loss, Books, Under $25

He Just Listened

After a few days of dull pain in his arm, we decided to move my dad to a hospital. There, we learned that an infection at the injection point of one of his cancer treatments was slowly eating his guitar-strumming arm.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickDecember 17, 2018Parent Loss

Christmas Out of the Ashes

Until August, I lived with my 87-year-old father in the house I grew up in. But that was before the fire that claimed our home and the stroke that claimed his life.

Grief and LossJaquelyn ScharnickDecember 15, 2018Parent Loss