Soo-jin Watanabe

About

If there were one message I could hand you before we ever met, it would be this: there is no wrong way of grieving, no matter what the timelines and the well-meaning advice seem to insist. You are not too slow. You are not too dramatic. You are exactly as wrecked as this loss deserves. So my approach is refreshingly free of jargon. We talk plainly about who you lost and what that person still means to you. We sort through the practical wreckage nobody prepares you for: the belongings, the paperwork, the friendships that shifted, the anniversaries lining up on the calendar. I say true things instead of soothing ones, because you can tell the difference and you deserve the true ones. My path into this work ran through nonprofit and social-service settings, close to people during the hardest hours of their lives. It taught me to be useful without being precious about it. If you want a plainspoken hour with someone who will not flinch or hurry you, tell me who died and where it hurts, and we will begin there.