The Grief Wave: Where What Hurts Meets What Heals + Catharsis Theater for Loss Tomorrow (10/18)

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

✨ Profiles & Ideas
📻 Remembering Susan Stamberg — The voice that built NPR

❤️ International Pronouns Day — Join us in honoring the power of language to create belonging, dignity, and respect for all

📰 News & Reminders
🚭 It’s Never Too Late to Quit — New research shows giving up smoking, even in later life, can help protect your brain from cognitive decline

🏚️ “It’s Dead Around Here” — A ghost town enthusiast searches for the essence of these scarcely populated locales

🎉 Events & Gatherings
🌸 Oct 18 — FREE COMMUNITY GRIEF & LOSS SUPPORT GATHERING
Catharsis Theater for Loss and Healing: Grief Relief — When loss feels overwhelming, community and wellness create pathways to healing and renewed hope. (More than 40 gatherings since 2023)
(Free | Culver City, LA)

🧘 Oct 23 — Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD
(Santa Monica)

🔔 Nov 1 — Living Deeply Retreat with Elizabeth Stomp and Lulu Toselli
(Santa Monica & Virtual)

🌅 Dec 3–8 — 2025 Ram Dass Legacy “Open Your Heart in Paradise” Retreat
(Napili Kai Beach Resort, Maui)

💔 The Traumatic Loss Companion Course — An online program for navigating sudden, unexpected, or traumatic loss
(Virtual | Self-Paced)

🌊 California Grief Center
Virtual grief counseling in CA and nationwide, support groups, Catharsis Theater, and companionship for every stage of loss.

💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,

Grief does not arrive as a single emotion—it unfolds as a landscape we learn to cross. Some paths lead through silence, others through story; some through letting go, others through rebuilding what remains. It teaches us that endings are never absolute—they leave echoes, languages, and traces of life that ask to be seen.

This week’s reflections travel that terrain: a researcher finding hope in late change, a writer rediscovering life in a ghost town, a community remembering the dignity of names and pronouns. Each reminds us that healing often begins not in forgetting, but in returning—with clearer eyes, steadier breath, and a heart still willing to meet the world.

✨ Profiles & Ideas

📻 Susan Stamberg

The voice that built NPR

Susan Stamberg dedicated her life to public radio and the art of storytelling.
Born in Newark in 1938 and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she earned a degree in English literature from Barnard College before entering broadcasting through a local Washington, D.C. station, WAMU. Her first on-air appearance came by accident when the “weather girl” was out sick, an experience that taught her two lessons she carried for life: always prepare, and never lie to your listeners.

In 1971, Stamberg joined the fledgling National Public Radio as one of its first employees. Within a year, she became the first woman in the U.S. to anchor a nightly national news program, All Things Considered. Known for her warmth, wit, and curiosity, she helped shape NPR’s human-centered voice—reporting on politics, art, and the quirks of daily life with equal care. Her annual on-air sharing of her mother-in-law’s cranberry relish recipe became a beloved tradition.

Throughout her five-decade career, Stamberg championed authenticity and connection. She encouraged colleagues to “be yourself,” paving the way for generations of women in journalism. She later hosted Weekend Edition Sunday, co-created NPR’s Sunday Puzzle, and launched Car Talk, nurturing shows that blended culture and conversation.

Honored with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame, Stamberg retired in 2025 after more than fifty years of broadcasting. To millions of listeners, her voice—still heard welcoming visitors at NPR headquarters—remains a symbol of curiosity, compassion, and the power of storytelling to connect us all.

❤️ International Pronouns Day — October 15th

Join us in honoring the power of language to create belonging, dignity, and respect for all

When language excludes, harm begins quietly. A name misused, a pronoun ignored—small acts that signal who is seen and who is erased. But when people are called by the words that honor their identity, belonging takes root. International Pronouns Day, held each year on the third Wednesday of October, was founded in 2018 to make this respect commonplace. It is a global, grassroots movement reminding us that pronouns are not preferences but expressions of dignity. Centering the voices of transgender and nonbinary people, especially those who face multiple layers of marginalization, the day calls communities to action through education, policy, and everyday kindness.

This is not a corporate campaign but a collective effort to humanize speech itself. Each person who chooses to share their pronouns—or who simply listens and respects another’s—helps undo generations of erasure. Some languages have no gendered pronouns, others have many; all can adapt. The goal is not perfection, but presence: a culture where we ask, listen, and learn.

At its heart, this movement is about justice through language. Misusing pronouns, especially intentionally, can create hostile environments and deepen harm, while correct use signals respect and safety. Every time we practice inclusive speech, we affirm that identity is not up for debate—it is something to be honored. Change begins locally, in workplaces, classrooms, and communities where words become bridges instead of barriers.

📰 News & Reminders

🚭 It’s Never Too Late to Quit

New research shows giving up smoking, even in later life, can help protect your brain from cognitive decline

In 2025, scientists reported that quitting smoking — even decades after starting — may protect the brain from cognitive decline. A large international study of more than 9,000 adults over 40 found that those who quit experienced memory decline roughly 20% slower than continuing smokers, and their verbal skills faded at about half the rate.

Researchers say smoking accelerates aging in the brain by damaging blood vessels and increasing inflammation, which raises the risk for dementia and stroke. But the new data suggest recovery remains possible at any age. “It’s never too late to quit,” said lead author Mikaela Bloomberg, whose team found that even longtime smokers who stopped showed meaningful preservation of mental function.

Experts hope these findings motivate older adults to quit — not just for their lungs and heart, but for their minds.

🏚️ “It’s Dead Around Here”

A ghost town enthusiast searches for the essence of these scarcely populated locales.

In November, a writer set out from Austin with her dog, Woody Guthrie, to find a ghost town in Texas. She drove through rain and dust storms, following names on a map that promised history but offered only farmland and silence. From Baby Head Cemetery to Shafter to Terlingua, she found places that were not quite ghosts and not quite towns—just remnants of stories fading into the landscape.

Her search led west, to Toyah and Barstow, where the wind still howled through abandoned schools and boarded storefronts. Most of these “ghost towns” turned out to be half-alive—scattered residents, rusted cars, the hum of survival in empty streets. What she discovered was less about ghosts than about persistence: people who stayed, or returned, or tried again.

Finally, she met Blair and Blanca Schaffer, who bought Jericho, an old Route 66 stop once buried in dust and memory. They’re rebuilding it—hosting ghost tours, raising gardens, restoring the motor court where travelers once waited for the road to dry. What began as a search for something lost became an encounter with something reborn.

Read the full story to see how absence turns to presence, how a ruin becomes a home again, and how even the quietest towns keep finding reasons to live.

🎉 Events & Gatherings

🌸 FREE COMMUNITY GRIEF & LOSS SUPPORT GATHERING: Catharsis Theater for Loss and Healing: Grief Relief (Saturday October 18th 1:00-4:30pm)

When loss feels overwhelming, community and connection open the way to proven healing and renewed hope

To honor our final gathering of the year, this session will be offered free of charge.

In a time when the world feels heavy with loss and uncertainty, Catharsis Theater for Loss and Healing provides a monthly space where unfinished grief finds witness, expression, and relief in community. 40+ events since 2023 and more to come in 2026. All are welcome.

📅 Saturday, October 18 | 1:00–4:30 PM (arrive 12:30–12:45)
📍 Blue Door Theater, Culver City

What is Catharsis Theater?
Catharsis Theater is a safe, psychodrama-inspired, trauma-informed gathering that draws on psychodrama, sociometry, and other proven group-based methods that emerged as some of the most effective, supportive, and most widely used mental health approaches of the 20th century. We’ve met more than 40 times since 2023 and will continue in 2026.

Psychodrama is reemerging as a powerful way to help people navigate profound grief and loss, just as it once did for returning soldiers after World War II, during the Civil Rights era, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and in New York after 9/11. Through Catharsis Theater for Loss and Healing, individuals, families, and communities can once again transform sorrow into connection and resilience, honoring both personal pain and the collective grief of our country.

✨ What makes it unique:
– Not performance, but presence
– Not scripted, but supportive
– Not clinical therapy, but deeply healing

🕯️ Join if you’re ready. Simply come as you are.
With gratitude to ArtsUp! LA for hosting.

🧘 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD

Santa Monica | October 23-December 18, 2025 | Thursdays 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM PT

For over 20 years, InsightLA has offered mindfulness teachings to people from all walks of life—a community gathering to find balance, peace, and well-being.

This fall, we meet at the Santa Monica Meditation Center for an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction & Mindful Self-Compassion series with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD. Rooted in decades of research, this program supports greater resilience, healing, and connection in daily life.

Each session welcomes both newcomers and longtime practitioners, offering guided practices, reflection, and tools for managing stress, pain, and uncertainty.

💛 Registration open now. Thursdays, Oct. 23–Dec. 18, 2025, Santa Monica.

🔔 Living Deeply Retreat with Elizabeth Stomp and Lulu Toselli

Santa Monica & Online (Hybrid) | Saturday, November 1, 2025

For over 20 years, InsightLA has welcomed people from all backgrounds into a community of mindfulness—spaces to pause, restore, and reconnect with the heart.

This fall, we gather at the Benedict Canyon Retreat House for a daylong Living Deeply Retreat with Elizabeth Stomp and Lulu Toselli. Rooted in mindfulness and compassion, the program offers guided meditation, movement, walking practice, and gentle silence in a peaceful natural setting.

Each retreat invites both newcomers and longtime practitioners, providing tools for steadiness, clarity, and care amidst life’s uncertainty.

💛 Registration open now. Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. PT, Benedict Canyon.

🌅 2025 Ram Dass Legacy "Open Your Heart in Paradise" Maui Retreat

Napili Kai Beach Resort | December 3-8, 2025

Since 2008, the Ram Dass Legacy Retreat has been a sanctuary for seekers—a gathering to reflect, connect, and return to the heart.

As we approach December, we meet once more at the Napili Kai Beach Resort for Open Your Heart in Paradise, honoring Ram Dass’s vision with music, meditation, teachings, and community. This beloved retreat continues to welcome pilgrims, newcomers, and longtime friends alike on the spiritual path.

All are invited to join this immersive six-day experience of silence, song, practice, and celebration in Maui.

💛 Registration open now. Dec. 3–8, 2025, Napili Bay.

💔 The Traumatic Loss Companion Course (Virtual)

An online self-help program for individuals living with the aftermath of a sudden, unexpected or traumatic death of a loved one

Since its creation, the Traumatic Loss Companion Course has been a refuge for the grieving—a guided path through pain, chaos, and the search for meaning.

As you face the aftermath of a sudden, devastating death, you are invited to join this online program led by Dr. Jennifer Levin. With warmth and clarity, she offers video modules, guided practices, and community calls designed to support you through trauma and grief, step by step.

All are welcome to begin this self-paced journey of healing, understanding, and connection with others who truly understand.

💛 Enrollment open now. 12 modules online + monthly live calls.

🌊 Get Help from the 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.

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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