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The Grief Wave: Threads of Tenderness

The Grief Wave: Threads of Tenderness

Finding connection in a world unravelling and reweaving at once

Brian Stefan
September 12, 2025

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

✨ Profiles & Ideas
⚡ Melinda French Gates — A visionary force transforming girls’ futures
🌐 Tangled Net #11: The Loneliness Epidemic Goes Global — Connected yet isolated across every time zone
🕯️ Echoes & Endings | Giorgio Armani (1934–2025) — A life that turned fabric into poetry, showing elegance as freedom for the soul.

📰 News & Insights
🍊 Worship in the Shadows — Immigrant faithful turn to virtual sermons and home communion amid Trump crackdown
❤️ Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries — On the power of radical tenderness
💉 A Turning Point in U.S. Mortality Trends — In 2024, COVID dropped from the list of top 10 causes of death

🎉 Events & Gatherings
🎭 Sep 12 — Let’s Write a Musical! + Talkback with Kübler-Ross’s son, Ken Ross (LA)
⌨️ Sep 12 — Analog Hangout with Typewriters Anonymous (Pasadena)
🤝 Sep 13 — 15th Annual Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Summit (FREE event | Pasadena)
🔔 Sep 19 — Centering Through Change: Yin Yoga, Breath, Sound, and Community (Santa Monica)
🍂 Sep 21 — Caring for the Caregivers (FREE wellness event + dinner | LA) - Sponsored by SimplePractice
🎂 Sep 27 — Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman’s 80th Celebration (Santa Monica | Virtual)
🌅 Sep 27 — September Mindfulness & Deep Suffering HOPE Group — Final Session (Donation-based | Virtual)

🌊 California Grief Center
Therapy, groups, Catharsis Theater, and training for every stage of grief.

💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,

Facing the hurt — together.

Grief has a way of surfacing in unexpected places — in the pause between headlines, the silence after a song ends, the sudden memory that catches in your throat. It reminds us that loss is not confined to funerals or anniversaries; it threads through daily life, quiet but insistent, asking to be witnessed.

This week’s stories trace that thread — through public health turning from one crisis to the next, through communities reshaped by fear, through the loneliness woven into our hyperconnected world, and through the beauty and art that remind us we are still here, still capable of wonder.

Grief is never only loss. It is also what binds us to one another — to presence, to memory, and to the radical possibility of beginning again, side by side.

✨ Profiles & Ideas

⚡ Melinda French Gates: A visionary force transforming girls’ futures

A woman speaking into a handheld microphone while seated on a white chair, gesturing with one hand during a discussion; she wears a black-and-white floral blouse, with flowers in vases and a patterned backdrop behind her.

Global philanthropist Melinda French Gates attends the Discussion on Ending Child Marriage and Empowering Adolescent Girls at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town, South Africa November 16, 2023. (REUTERS/Nic Bothma)

Melinda French Gates, a global philanthropist and longtime champion for women and girls, is reshaping the future of health and equity. From decades of advocacy at the Gates Foundation to her new $100 million initiative with Wellcome Leap, she’s redefining what it means to center women in the pursuit of progress.

Her bold investment targets the vast gender gap in medical research—where only 1% of funding once reached women’s health outside cancer—and pushes for breakthroughs in cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and mental health. Even in a field long dominated by neglect, her vision insists that women’s health is not a side issue, but a cornerstone of humanity’s wellbeing.

Gates shows that greatness lies not just in innovation, but in daring to build a world where every girl’s life and health truly matter.

🌐 Tangled Net #11: The Loneliness Epidemic Goes Global

Connected yet isolated across every time zone

A close-up of a rope net with a small white seashell, a piece of green sea glass, and a bit of dried seaweed caught in its strands, with a blurred sandy beach and ocean waves in the background.

In every tangled net, some knots create connection while others create isolation. But we've built a digital world where it's increasingly difficult to tell the difference.

In every tangled net, some knots create connection while others create isolation. But we've built a digital world where it’s increasingly difficult to tell the difference.

Social media offers endless contact yet often leaves us feeling unseen — surrounded by hundreds of names but starved for closeness. Notifications blur into white noise while meaningful conversations grow rarer. These digital webs can comfort, but they can also deepen isolation when they replace real presence.

Our challenge is to navigate wisely — seeking depth over breadth, presence over performance, so that our networks become lifelines rather than hollow echoes.

🕯️ Echoes & Endings | Giorgio Armani (1934–2025)

A life that transformed fabric into poetry, proving that true elegance lies not in what adorns the body, but in what liberates the soul.

A smiling older man with white hair wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and tie, sitting casually indoors with one hand on his hip and holding eyeglasses in the other.

Giorgio Armani, Italian fashion designer and founder of the Armani luxury fashion house.

In Echoes & Endings: Giorgio Armani (1934–2025), Brian Stefan traces the life of a designer who turned fabric into quiet revolution. From Milan ateliers to red carpets worldwide, Armani showed that true elegance is not about spectacle but about freedom, dignity, and grace.

The challenge his legacy poses is enduring: how to create beauty that does not confine, to design not for display but to liberate the soul.

📰 News & Insights

🍊 Worship in the Shadows

Immigrant faithful turn to virtual sermons and home communion amid Trump crackdown

An overhead view of a woman sitting at a wooden table with a plate holding several crackers and a small glass of orange juice for home communion, watching a virtual church service on her phone propped up on a paper towel holder.

Doris Aguirre, an immigrant from Honduras, participates virtually in a Sunday service of the immigrant-focused Lincoln United Methodist Church, due to the threat of immigration sweeps, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. August 31, 2025. REUTERS/Audrey Richardson

A new Reuters investigation reveals how Trump’s expanded immigration crackdown is reshaping religious life, with immigrant church attendance plummeting and pastors taking communion door-to-door as fear keeps congregants home.

The story underscores more than falling attendance — it shows how fear is unraveling community ties and testing the church’s role as refuge.

❤️ Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, on the power of radical tenderness

A mindset of belonging for turbulent political times

An older man with a bald head, white beard, and round glasses wearing a light blue button-down shirt, looking thoughtful against a softly blurred brick wall background.

Father Greg Boyle — Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program.

Father Greg Boyle, Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, has spent decades showing that healing begins not with punishment or perfection, but with belonging. Through radical tenderness, he has helped thousands reclaim their lives — offering job training, therapy, education, and hope where despair once ruled.

Boyle says transformation takes root when people are seen “with the highest, deepest reverence.” He urges communities to choose solidarity over fear, reminding us that love is not weakness but the strongest force for change.

To listen to his July 2025 podcast interview with Dan Harris on Resisting Without Demonizing:

💉 A Turning Point in U.S. Mortality Trends

In 2024, COVID dropped from the list of top 10 causes of death

A nighttime vigil scene under a large bare tree, where people stand quietly among hundreds of glowing candles arranged on the ground, holding lights and papers, with city buildings softly illuminated in the background.

Activists gather during a vigil in Lafayette Park for nurses who died during the COVID-19 pandemic on January 13, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

COVID-19 reshaped how Americans thought about mortality, surging to the third leading cause of death in 2020 and claiming more than 463,000 lives in 2021. Yet by 2024, it had fallen from the nation’s top ten causes of death for the first time since the pandemic began.

This shift reminds us how grief reshapes societies — and how public health must honor not just survival, but the lives left behind.

🎉 Events & Gatherings

🎭 Let’s Write a Musical!

Friday, September 12, 2025 | 8:00 PM | Los Angeles

Talkback with Ken Ross, CEO of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation (and Elisabeth’s son), on grief, hope, and how art sparks conversations about dying and death.

“Promotional poster with stage lights and wooden floorboards that reads: ‘LET’S WRITE A MUSICAL!’ Opening September 5, 2025 | Hudson Theatre | Los Angeles.”

A joyous celebration of love, resilience, and the timeless magic of musicals.

This heartfelt and inspiring production follows David Hamilton and his wife as they embark on writing a romantic comedy in the wake of David’s cancer diagnosis. As their real-life struggles unfold, so does the parallel story of Olive and Blake, a young couple in the 1950s navigating love, laughter, and life’s unexpected turns.

✨ Special Dates

September 12: Fundraiser for the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation
September 13: TeenTix Night
September 14: Stand Up To Cancer Night

⌨️ Analog Hangout with Typewriters Anonymous

Friday, September 12, 2025 | 7:00–9:00 PM | Pasadena

A vintage black Corona typewriter with round keys sits on a wooden surface. Overlaid text reads “Analog Hangouts” at the top, “WITH TYPEWRITERS” in the center, and “ANONYMOUS” in bold orange at the bottom, styled in a colorful, retro design.

Founded by Phillip and Elisabeth Nails, Typewriters Anonymous creates interactive moments of mindfulness within the joy of community.

This creative and restorative gathering invites you to unplug and reconnect with your imagination through the tactile joy of classic typewriters. Guided by Phillip and Elisabeth Nails of Typewriters Anonymous, the evening centers on process over product, offering space for reflection, play, and connection.

Whether adding a line to a community poem or finishing a long-overdue letter, each keystroke becomes an act of mindfulness and shared expression.

Suitable for ages 14 and up, all materials provided.

🤝 15th Annual Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Network Summit

Saturday, September 13, 2025 | All Day | Pasadena

Promotional flyer for the LASPN Summit 2025. The theme reads “Transforming Pain to Purpose: Building Communities of Hope.” A blue oval in the center says “SAVE THE DATE.” The event takes place September 12 and 13, 2025, at Pasadena City College. The background features colorful artwork of the Los Angeles skyline and neighborhoods. Logos of partner organizations appear along the bottom, including the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Arts & Culture, Arts Ed Collective, Office of Violence Prevention, Department of Public Health, Teen Line, Didi Hirsch, and Pasadena City College.

Join us at the 2025 Suicide Prevention Summit to learn, connect, and collaborate on saving lives together

This powerful and unifying summit invites participants to come together around the shared mission of suicide prevention and healing.

Hosted by the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Network, the annual LASPN Summit creates a space for mental health professionals, advocates, survivors, and community members to connect and learn.

Centered on the 2025 theme “Transforming Pain to Purpose: Building Communities of Hope,” the gathering offers workshops, motivational talks, therapeutic arts experiences, and opportunities to share lived experience and best practices.

Free and open to the public, the Summit will be held September 12–13, 2025 at Pasadena City College.

🔔 Centering Through Change: An Evening of Yin Yoga, Guided Breath, Sound Meditation, and Community (Suicide Prevention Fundraiser)

Friday, September 19, 2025 | 6:30–8:00 PM | Santa Monica

Flyer for Hive Therapy & Wellness Boutique event titled Centering Through Change: An Evening of Yin Yoga, Guided Breath, Sound Meditation, Community. Facilitators: Lauren Rozells, AMFT; Frances Zumbro, AMFT; and Meg Reinis, LMFT. Event date: Friday, September 19, 6:30–8:00 pm at Santa Monica Yoga, 1640 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405. Cost: $56 per person or $103 for two. Limited spots, Venmo to reserve. Portion of proceeds go to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in honor of Mark Grillo for Suicide Prevention Month. Attendees should dress comfortably and bring their own mat. Contact: hivewellnessboutique.com or 310-896-8063. Images include people doing yoga, a seated meditation pose with a candle, and white sound bowls.

Resting and healing in community.

This grounding and restorative gathering invites you to slow down and reconnect through Yin Yoga, guided breath, and sound meditation. Led by Lauren Rozells, AMFT, Frances Zumbro, AMFT, and Meg Reinis, LMFT, the evening centers on community, presence, and gentle transformation.

Whether settling into mindful postures or immersing in resonant sound, each moment becomes an act of self-care and shared healing.

All levels welcome. Please dress comfortably and bring your own mat.

Reserve your spot today by pre-registering (Venmo @megreinis31)

🍂 Caring for the Caregivers: A New Season Beyond Burnout and Despair (FREE + Dinner) - Sponsored by SimplePractice

Sunday, September 21, 2025 | 4:00–7:00 PM | Los Angeles (TBD)

“A forest pathway covered in fallen leaves, surrounded by tall trees with bright orange autumn foliage.”

Like autumn leaves, we gather together—each carrying our own weight, each offering color to the forest. This season reminds us: resilience grows in community.

The Provider Wellness Survey Project is a working group dedicated to strengthening the resilience and wellbeing of those who care for others. Mental health professionals are often exposed to high levels of stress, emotional exhaustion, and secondary trauma—this space is designed to help us come together, connect, and find support without judgment.

This is our first community meeting, and we are excited to invite you to join the conversation and share in a supportive circle.

Who Can Attend:
This gathering is open to clinicians of all levels and disciplines, including:

Student Interns (MSW, MFT, PCC, etc.)
Associate Therapists (ACSW, APCC, AMFT)
Licensed Therapists (LCSW, LPCC, LMFT)
Psychological Assistants
Psychology Interns/Externs
Psychologists (PhD/PsyD)
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
Psychiatrists
Counselors of all backgrounds
And other professionals working in mental health care

What to Expect:
Not a lecture, but a conversation.
Not isolation, but community.
Not just surviving, but building new seasons of strength.

Together, we’ll reflect, connect, and renew as we move from summer into fall.

Free and dinner will be served!

🎉 A Joyful Celebration: Honoring the 80th Birthdays of Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman

Saturday, September 27, 2025 | 2:00–5:00 PM PT

Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman smiling closely together on a sunny day, with Trudy wearing a large blue sunhat and Jack in a light purple shirt.

Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman—beloved teachers, partners, and pioneers in mindfulness—sharing a joyful moment ahead of their 80th birthday celebration.

Guided presence, shared stories, and gratitude for two beloved mindfulness teachers. Proceeds support InsightLA’s mission of access, equity, and care.

📅 Saturday, September 27 | 2:00–5:00 PM PT | Santa Monica + Live Online

🌊 Get Help from the California Grief Center

“Smiling bald man, Brian Stefan, with a beard wearing a suit jacket and open-collar shirt, pictured against a light blue background.”

Brian Stefan, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director
California Grief Center

You do not have to grieve alone. Whether you have lost someone, lost your way, or carry unspoken sorrow, there is a place for you here.

What We Offer:

Grief Therapy (in-person and virtual)
Catharsis Theater (monthly gatherings)
Virtual Support Groups (confidential and facilitated)
Grief Counselor Training (Fall 2025)

Our Philosophy: We do not treat grief as a problem. We treat it as a passage.
Consultations are always free.

💛 With care,
Brian Stefan, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director
California Grief Center

✅ P.S. Know someone quietly grieving?
👉 Forward this letter. You never know who needs it.
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