Healing Grief Matters
Newsletter
Updates, Changes, and Growth
Over the past few months, something has been quietly changing.
Not just in this space—
But in how grief is being understood, held, and carried forward.
What you’re about to see isn’t simply an update.
It reflects what has been unfolding.
A movement toward what matters—
and toward how you are actually feeling these days.
Because this has never been about content.
It has always been about you.
And something has been sitting with me.
In the letters…
in the quiet replies…
in the questions that arrive before dawn—
I keep noticing the same truth:
Grief does not follow a pattern.
And neither do the people carrying it.
What helps one person through the hardest night
may not reach another at all.
And I don’t want to keep guessing.
You are the reason this exists.
So I want to ask you directly—
What do you need most right now?
If you’re willing, I would truly like to hear from you.
Not a polished answer.
Not the version you think you’re supposed to share.
Just what’s real.
What you’ve been carrying.
What your days have been feeling like.
The thoughts that don’t settle.
The fears that come in waves.
The quiet upsets.
The nights that don’t seem to end.
You don’t have to explain it perfectly.
You don’t have to make it make sense.
You can simply begin where you are.
Because your experience matters here.
And it will shape what this space becomes next.
I read every message.
And I keep what you share private.
And as a hospice nurse—
I see and carry more than most people ever will.
The hurt.
The loneliness.
The quiet injustice that doesn’t come with answers.
And alongside that—
I miss my own son. And my mom.
Daily.
There are still moments that catch in my throat.
Simple questions—
“How many children do you have?”
And the pause that follows.
Do I say four?
Do I say three?
Do I explain…
or do I hold it quietly, again?
These are the moments people don’t always see.
But they are part of this work.
And part of this life.
And maybe you’ve felt something like this too—
in your own way.
The place where love and loss sit side by side,
And there isn’t a clean way to explain either.
So if you’ve ever wondered how I hold all of this…
How do I come back to center
after the long days,
the heavy rooms,
the memories that visit me throughout the day—
I don’t do it by pushing it away.
I do it by looking for ways to carry it.
Gently.
Intentionally.
One day at a time.
Journal my feelings.
Ask people who have walked this walk.
Look online. Hunt for new perspectives.
Take a walk, and cry my tears.
Drive toward nature. Let everything around me sink in-
The new growth on trees, the crisp air, the smell of the sea, and coffee.
Breathe, the things I write about- I actually do.
Change things around to create new space, movement, and openness.
(Including this newsletter)
I am a truth seeker of knowledge- what do others do?
And sometimes, I just need to lie down and rest because my mind and body hurt from thinking about everything.
This brings me to today and why I’m asking you—
What are you carrying right now?
What can I give you, or share with you, that might help your day go a little better?
Even more so, what do you not want?
How are you handling what has been going through your heart and mind?
Are you experiencing any physical, mental, or spiritual changes?
What do you do to soothe your nervous system so you can keep on with keeping on?
I look forward to hearing from you.
[email protected]
Subject line: What I’m Carrying
Walking alongside you,
Stella Rose-
Dear Stella…
A safe space for the questions grief leaves behind.
Millions navigate grief in silence — not because love is absent, but because the deepest questions of loss have nowhere safe to be shared.
Dear Stella was created for exactly that.
For seventeen years, I carried my own uncertainties quietly. The questions too vulnerable for everyday conversation. Too sacred to risk being misunderstood.
Too real to carry alone any longer.
Until one day I found a newspaper column — one that answered the most intimate questions of loss, heartbreak, and identity. I read about people who felt they were failing to be who everyone expected them to be.
People carrying what I was carrying.
The person who answered those questions brought something I had almost stopped looking for — direction, light, and hope.
The quiet knowledge that we are not as alone as we feel.
I made a vow that day. When I reached a place where I could be that for someone else — I would.
Dear Stella is that place.
You are not alone in what you are feeling.
Many are waiting for someone else to go first.
Your courage gives language to what others have been holding in silence for years — because there is a particular relief in discovering that what you thought was yours alone belongs to more of us than we knew.
This is how we build a global grief support community.
One honest question at a time.
If something has been sitting with you —
Subject line: Dear Stella
For The Journey Ahead
One small act of care can reshape the landscape around you, a quiet reminder that healing begins one step at a time.
The Loneliness No One Warned You About
It is not always the big moments that bring it.
Sometimes it arrives in the middle of a grocery store. At a table full of people who love you. On a Sunday afternoon, when the world outside seems to be moving just fine.
And you are not.
The loneliness of grief is not about being alone. It is about feeling like the person you were — the one who belonged somewhere, to someone — no longer quite fits anywhere.
People show up in the beginning. And then, slowly, life asks them to return to their own. And you are left holding something no one else can fully see or carry.
Here is what most people don't say out loud:
The loneliest part is not the empty house. It is the feeling that who you were — the identity built around that person, that life, that love — no longer has a place to stand.
Grief reshapes identity quietly. And the world rarely gives you permission to say that out loud.
But you are allowed to say it.
You are allowed to name what has shifted — not just who you lost, but who you were with them. And who you are still becoming without them.
One gentle step: Write it down.
Not for anyone else.
Just for you.
The version of yourself you miss. The version you are now.
And the question sitting somewhere in between.
Sometimes the act of writing it — of finally saying the true thing — is where the shift begins.
The Ache of Missing Them
There are moments that catch you without warning.
A song. A smell. Someone who laughs as they did. A question as simple as — how many children do you have?
And the pause that follows.
The ache of missing someone is not something that fades cleanly with time. It lives in the ordinary.
In the chair they used to sit in.
In the silence where their voice used to be. In the habits you still reach for — before remembering.
This is not weakness. This is love that outlived its destination — still searching, still present, still yours.
And it is one of the most human things you will ever carry.
But here is something that gets lost in grief — the ache is not just for them. It is for the version of you that existed in their presence.
The you that felt seen. Known. Held in place by someone who understood you without explanation.
That loss of self — quiet, unnamed, rarely acknowledged — is often the heaviest part.
And the heaviest things are not meant to be carried in silence.
The people who begin to find their way through are rarely the ones who pushed it down.
They are the ones who found somewhere safe enough to finally say the true thing.
To ask the question they had been holding for months. To write the words they never thought they could say out loud.
One gentle step: If something has been sitting with you — a question, a fear, something you have never found the right place for — write it down today.
Begin with whatever word comes first. You don't have to know where it's going.
Just begin. Sometimes that is the only step that matters.
Remember- You are loved. You matter. And everything you are feeling and struggling with matters.
This place is for you.
Stella Rose-
The Hearthside Kitchen
Comfort Foods For Those Days When You Need It The Most.
Homemade Toasted Coconut Ice Cream
Some recipes aren’t just about food.
They’re about memory.
About slowing down.
The first taste of soft, rich ice cream full of flavor.
That you made. And maybe willing to share a bite.
Ingredients- For The Custard
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
¾ cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
For the Coconut Flavor
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup full-fat coconut milk
For the Crumble
½ cup toasted coconut flakes
¼ cup crushed cookies or graham crackers
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
1. Toast the Coconut
In a dry pan, toast the coconut until golden and fragrant. Set aside.
2. Warm the Cream
Heat cream, milk, and coconut milk until just warm—not boiling.
3. Whisk the Base
In a bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until smooth.
4. Temper & Cook
Slowly add warm cream into the eggs, then return to the pan.
Cook on low, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened.
5. Finish the Flavor
Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla, salt, and toasted coconut.
6. Chill
Refrigerate until fully cooled (4–6 hours or overnight).
7. Freeze
Freeze, stirring every hour for the first few hours to keep it creamy.
Crumble Topping
To Make the Crumble
Melt butter in a pan.
Add crushed cookies, coconut, and brown sugar.
Toast until golden and slightly crisp.
Assembly
Scoop the ice cream into a dish.
Layer in the crumble.
Add more on top.
Let it set just long enough to hold—
but not so long it loses its softness.
"Food has always been how we gather, remember, and carry each other forward. Every meal made with care is an act of love — including the ones you make just for yourself." — Stella Rose
What’s Coming Next
May Calendar is getting full with exciting things.
May Calendar is filling with something meaningful — built entirely for you.
May is not just a new month. It is a new beginning for everyone walking this path.
Something has been quietly building behind the scenes — born from your letters, your questions, and the things you have carried in silence for far too long.
We are going to be wandering into new and exciting territory!
The Healing Grief Matters
Journal
For the grief that resurfaces in the unguarded moments — the drive home, the middle of the night, the ordinary days that suddenly become not so ordinary.
Our quarterly grief companion is designed around the real experience of loss. The 3 am thoughts. The identity questions. The love that still remains, searching for where it belongs.
The people who find their way through grief are not the ones who push it down. They are the ones who find a way to give it language.
This journal holds you on the days when you don’t quite know what you need, but you can feel the aching questions.
How do I continue becoming someone I recognize — while carrying everything loss has left behind?
Through Stories, Tools, and Truth.
Coming in May.
Reserve your copy today!
🌿 Carried Forward Workshop
There is a moment in grief when something shifts.
For a moment, grief stops feeling like something happening to you — and starts feeling like something you can learn to carry with intention.
When you stop asking why do I keep feeling like this — and begin asking how do I carry this and still live fully?
The Carried Forward Workshop was built for that moment.
A live, intimate two-hour grief support experience — grounded in 15 years of hospice nursing, global healing traditions, and the lived knowledge of people who did not find their way through by accident — but by choosing, one difficult day at a time, to keep moving forward.
This is not a seminar. This is not a lecture.
Stories. Tools. Truth.
This is a community of people who understand what you are carrying — because they are carrying it too.
The people who show up will not leave the same way they arrived.
Details coming soon.
☕ Thursdays With Stella
For the grief that has been waiting — not for answers, but for a space steady enough to finally speak into.
Every Thursday. No scripts. No formulas.
No pressure to be further along than you are.
Just honest, real conversation about what it means to navigate profound loss — and still find your way back to yourself.
Thursdays With Stella began from one simple truth:
The most healing thing a grieving person can experience is being witnessed — fully, without judgment, without being rushed toward okay.
The moment they realize they are not alone in what they are feeling, things begin to shift, with tears of wondering giving way to tears of knowing.
That moment happens here. Every week.
Come as you are. Bring what you are carrying.
Starts mid-May — details in the next newsletter!
The Unfinished Canvas:
What the Hands Know
For the grief that lives below language — in the body, in the breath, in the part of you that knew them before words existed.
There are things inside grief that language cannot reach.
Ancient healing cultures across the world have always known this. And somewhere inside you — you know it too.
Art has always been the language grief understands.
Because grief does not want to be managed.
It wants to be expressed.
Not perfectly. Not beautifully. Not in any way that makes sense to anyone else.
Just honestly. Just fully. Just yours.
Long before words existed — before language had names for loss — people pressed their hands against stone and left something of themselves behind. Carved into canyon walls. Etched into rock faces worn smooth by wind and time.
They were saying what we are still saying today:
I was here. And I am still here.
The Unfinished Canvas — What the Hands Know
Carries that same ancient truth forward.
It is an invitation into something that has moved people through their darkest passages — not by forcing healing, but by making room for loss to finally breathe, expand, and find its shape.
No experience needed.
Just you. And what you carry within.
Details coming soon.
This one will surprise you.
Stay connected. Stay courageous. Stay nourished.
— Stella Rose 🌿
Who is Stella Rose?
As a hospice nurse, grief specialist, and the founder of Healing Grief Matters — a global grief support community built on one belief:
No one should have to walk through loss alone.
For more than fifteen years, this work has unfolded alongside the grieving — on the rugged coastal shores of the Pacific Northwest — sitting with those navigating profound loss, unresolved grief, trauma, and the quiet, life-altering shifts that follow.
The search for understanding moved beyond the clinical setting — reaching across cultures, traditions, and healing practices gathered from around the world.
What emerged was not found by moving on. But a way of moving forward with what is carried.
This became the foundation for 12 Grief Solutions — a research-based grief support system that helps you:
Honor your loss
Process what remains
And rediscover strength in places you didn't know still existed
Because healing was never about letting go.
Transforming how the world understands, supports, and heals from profound loss — by carrying love forward.
Not by leaving them behind.
Through stories, tools, and truth. We find our way.
Stay connected. Stay courageous. Stay nourished.
Stella Rose, RN, BSN
Grief Specialist · Hospice Nurse · Author · Founder
Connect With Us
Healing Grief Matters is dedicated to transforming the way the world understands and heals grief.
We value your thoughts and what matters most to you during these difficult times. Share with us your needs, concerns, or stories, and how this significant change has shaped your world and influenced your path in life.
Contact us at: [email protected]
Mail: PO BOX 1288, Kingston, Washington 98346
For more stories, tools, and ways in which we can support your journey, please visit our websites:
Get the Book- 12 Grief Solutions: How to Grow From Unresolved Grief
With Deepest Gratitude —
Thank you for reading. And for trusting me to walk this path alongside you.
Every person who opens this newsletter strengthens something larger than themselves — a global community of people who refused to carry their grief alone.
That is not a small thing.
That is how healing moves through the world.
With love, strength, and grace to keep us going — Stella Rose 🌿
Until Next Week-
Stay connected. Stay courageous. Stay nourished.
