Empowered Through Grief with MarieHeld
Be held for a whole calendar year in a space that honours you, your late partner and the love that never dies.
You might not be in the early days anymore, but you still want to talk about your loss, your person and make sense of life in the “after”.
There’s a moment after we lose a life partner where the visits, the calls and texts begin to slow down or stop. Often, that comes when we are just beginning to really come into contact with the fullness of what has been lost. When the support we need is even greater than in the early days because we’re beginning to understand that this is forever and that our person really isn’t coming back.
The widows and widowers I sit with tell me that the years after the very first one feel like being suspended in time, like being in this liminal space between the life that has been lost and the one they’re trying to rebuild for themselves.
Losing a partner is a unique landscape of loss. It can feel like every single corner of every single day is touched by our person’s absence.
The way we wake up alone and make one cup of coffee instead of two, to the texts we no longer receive throughout the day reminding us that we’re someone’s most important person, to the shows we watch, the way we eat, parent and sleep.
Everything has changed. Adjusting to that, and grieving what can no longer be, takes more time than our people often have patience for.
If months or years have passed and this loss still feels incredibly disorienting, there is nothing wrong with you. Losing a life partner is just that big. I have created this space to give your experience a space to be spoken about, held, explored and tended to. This is a space that is just for you. We meet privately, 1:1, over a full calendar year so that you’re no longer holding the big grief milestones alone.
The widows & widowers who find me aren’t looking for strategies or permission to grieve. They already know that their grief is real and profound. What they’re looking for is someone who understands that the month they died is always hard. Someone who knows that February 14th is not a hard day because of Valentine’s Day but because of the ritual they created together for that day.
Someone who remembers their name and asks about them in detail. Who holds the whole of their person, not just their loss.
Here’s how it works:
Before we begin, I send you a letter.
In it, I ask you to write back and tell me about your partner, who they were, how you loved each other, the particular way your life was shaped around their presence. I ask you for the dates that mark your year. Their birthday. Yours. The day they died. Your anniversary. The holidays that have changed. The ordinary days that hurt the most.
I hold that letter and keep those dates in mind.
Across 12 months, we meet once a month (over zoom) for an extended 75 minute private session. There is no agenda or curriculum. We go together where your grief takes us that month. We follow what’s most present for you.
Between sessions, we stay in touch through one exchange a month, a voice note or an email. Sometimes it comes from you, when something surfaces. Sometimes it comes from me, when I know a date is approaching and I want you to know that I am thinking of you.
At the end of the year, I’ll write you a closing letter. In it, I’ll share what I witnessed across our 12 months together. What I saw you carry, who I saw you become and how your person and your story has been meaningful for me to hold.
On their birthday, I’ll reach out. On the day they died, too. You won’t have to wonder who else is holding this grief calendar with you.
For a full year, you won’t be alone in this. Your grief will finally have a space to be expressed and tended to with someone who understands the magnitude of this experience. That kind of holding doesn't exist anywhere else. This is what Held is.
The investment is $ 2250 USD
payable in full or in two payments, one when we begin and one at month 7
I hold a small number of mourners at a time. When those spaces are filled, enrolment will close.
This might feel right for you if:
You are past the early days and yet still deep inside of it.
You are tired of explaining your grief to people who have largely gone back to their own lives.
You want to talk about your person and not just your grief. The photos. The memories. The specific way they loved you.
You want to be accompanied through the dates that come, not just the obvious ones, but the ordinary ones that somehow hurt the most.
You want to experience being known and understood in your grief rather than having support that only helps you manage or cope.
What’s included:
An opening letter — and yours back to me.
Before our first session, I write to you. I ask you to tell me about your person — who they were, how you loved each other, the particular shape your life took around their presence. I ask for the dates that mark your year. Their birthday. Yours. The day they died. Your anniversary. The ordinary days that somehow hurt the most. I hold that letter. I keep those dates. You won't have to remind me.Twelve monthly sessions, 75 min each
Twelve monthly sessions, 75 minutes each.
Once a month, for a full year, we meet. There is no agenda, no curriculum, nowhere you need to arrive. We go where your grief takes us that month — what's most present, what's been surfacing, what the season is asking of you. Some sessions will go somewhere unexpected. That's the point.
Twelve monthly exchanges — voice note or email.
Between sessions, we stay in touch once a month. Sometimes it comes from you, when something surfaces and needs somewhere to land before we speak again. Sometimes it comes from me — when I know a date is approaching and I want you to know I'm holding it with you. On their birthday, I'll reach out. On the day they died, too. You won't have to wonder who else is marking this calendar alongside you.
A closing letter from me at the end of our year.
When our twelve months are complete, I write to you one final time. In it, I share what I witnessed — what I saw you carry, what I watched shift, who I saw you becoming across the year. What your person and your story has meant to hold. It is not a summary. It is a record of a year that mattered, written by someone who was in it with you.
About Marie & Empowered Through Grief
I lost my partner to pancreatic cancer in August 2017. I was 32. I had been his caregiver, and his death changed the trajectory of my life.
I didn't “get over” this loss or achieve healing in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, I allowed grief to work something through me. To change and shape me into a new version of myself. I have grown deeper, more present and closer to what’s most important to me through this loss.
I've been doing this work full-time since 2020, trained by Dr. Alan Wolfelt at the Center for Loss & Life Transition. I sit with grieving people, the majority being young widowed folks, in 1:1 sessions and in groups, week after week, year after year. I have held hundreds of people inside this particular kind of loss. And I continually learn so much about what it means to live with long-term loss in a culture that thinks we should hurry along and get back to “normal”.
What I bring to this work isn't only training. It's the knowledge that comes from having loved someone completely, lost him, and chosen to keep saying yes to life despite, or perhaps because, that life has a loss at its center. I believe we can emerge from profound loss altered in ways that make us deeper and more present to what truly matters. My late partner is still present in my life, differently than before, but genuinely. And I’ve seen that continuing bond be a comfort in so many mourners’ lives.
I created Held because the widows I sit with don't need someone to help them manage or cope with grief. They need someone who will still be there in month eleven, and year three, and on the ordinary Tuesday in March that nobody else knows is hard.
This is my life’s work. To create sacred space for grief to do what it does. Inform and transform us.
Client Reviews
“I have immense gratitude for you, for your commitment to my healing, and for holding a safe space for me to have genuine conversations about grief, caregiving and what’s it’s like to watch your beloved pass”.
— Mary“You made my grief feel more bearable. Thank you for your work and for holding me”.
— Kim“Having a space to talk about my grief and story with someone who SO completely understands validates my emotions and offers a different perspective at times when I get stuck has had such a profound impact on my healing process these last 4 months”.
— D.