Host Dr. Tina Fornwald welcomes author and grief educator Natasha Smith to discuss how loss impacts individuals through a distinct cultural lens. Why is grief experienced differently by Black women, and what do we need to understand that we’ve been missing. Natasha Smith shares her personal story of carrying decades of unspoken loss, including family deaths, pregnancy loss, and silent caregiving. Together, they break down the cultural expectations of being the strong Black woman and explore how faith communities can create safer places for emotional healing. This powerful conversation offers practical guidance for releasing internal pressure and giving yourself full permission to feel seen.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. 

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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The Silent Burden: Understanding Grief Through The Eyes Of Black Women With Natasha Smith

Welcome to the show. This show features a conversation, practical tools, and inspiring stories to help you understand where grief gets stuck and how to move forward with hope. This conversation is one I believe everyone needs to hear. Grief is universal, but isn’t it always experienced the same way? Culture, race, community, expectations, faith, and life experience all shape how we grieve and whether we feel safe enough to express our grief.

Joining me is the author and grief advocate, Natasha Smith, whose work shines a light on the unique grief experience of Black women through her own story, including profound loss, including the death of several loved ones, pregnancy loss, and years of caring for grief silently. She is helping others understand that grief begins when we finally give ourselves permission to be seen. Welcome, Natasha, to the Widowhood.

Natasha, welcome to the Widowhood.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you. If you would think of like the ticker tape that is in your head, like Welcome to The Widowhood. What would be the thing that really comes to mind when you hear that?

That a loss has occurred to hold that highly.

Now, a loss has occurred. I love how you phrased that, because you have been experiencing loss, my sister, over decades of different things. What made you finally say, “I cannot do this quietly?”

Confronting Unprocessed Loss

2020 happened literally up until that moment. Up to that point, I was holding it all, stuffing it, just trying to outrun and run from grief. Primarily because I didn’t know how to process it and didn’t know what to do with it. 2020, we were shut in our homes with ourselves to deal with ourselves. That was really the pivotal point for me. Really saying I have to do something with this. Every time you turn on the news, death is staring everyone in the face. We were all experiencing loss at that time. It was really so in our faces, like death, loss, dying. There was so much chaos in the world, a political year on top of a lot of racial things that were going on. It was like, I couldn’t hide from grief even though I was running from it. That was my time to confront it.

You say all of the things, when you think of your grief, what are all those things that you were trying to run from, the experiences you had?

Exactly. The loss of half of my immediate family. The death of my dad and two of my older sisters. My older sister passed away when I was a sophomore in college. It was at a young age, or still in my teenage years. Also in my teenage years, I had a teen pregnancy that I placed the child for adoption. That was a loss that I really never talked about, that I stuffed away and really didn’t process at all. That was a loss that I had started to begin to unravel and process in 2020, along with miscarriages and the death of babies by stillbirth. A lot of loss that they came and they went, and I did not deal with them at all.

I wrote this down because I want to make sure I say this correctly. You often say that while grief is universal, Black women experience it differently. What do most people outside of that experience understand versus what it is?

That’s a beautiful question because often when I’m asked about Black Woman Grief, it comes from one of two places. One from curiosity and then another place of offense. To answer your question, someone outside of it, it may seem as if our grief is being compared to everyone else’s, and that it demeans or diminishes other people’s experience. However, that’s really not the case. Black Woman Grief is not about anyone else. It’s about us and our experiences.

Pause right there. Say that again a little bit slower.

Honoring Distinct Grief Experiences

For Black Woman Grief, it is about us and not other people’s experiences. It is about what we experience. It’s not about them, but it’s about us. It does not diminish or take away from other people’s experiences. Instead, it makes space for ours.

That right there is something people need to sit with. It’s not about comparison. My bad English has got nothing to do with anybody else but the person that’s dealing with it. It would be like having a conversation about people who are amputees. It has nothing to do with a conversation about people who have legs. This is the amputee experience. I cannot say anything that they’re going to say about that because I have both of my legs. I can choose to listen. I can choose to hold space. I can validate all of their feelings, and what they’re saying is true because this is their lived experience.

I may not agree with it because I’m looking from the outside of someone else’s experience, and they’re telling me what it is. It doesn’t make me have two legs less. I do not have to feel guilty about having my two legs. I do not have to feel like I have to overcompensate or do something and all that other stuff. I just say, “He amputee.” That’s for real. That’s all this is. Why do people take offense or want to act as if it has? What have you found that people feel like they have to be in arms or feel like it’s just not your experience?

For one, thank you so much for that. Just that example and illustration, because I think that really just drives home the point. I love that so much.

You can use it anytime.

I know, right? I’m like, that is so good because everything, how you explain it, is so perfect and so on point because I feel like people do not get that. They stay so much in their head, and it’s all about, it’s all about me. It’s all about me mentality. For someone to say something that does not include me offends me, and that’s just not the mindset where we’re coming from.

I’m retired from the Army. There are a lot of people in the military who are amputees and come back into the military. It’s part of a culture that I’m accustomed to. No one is going to tell an amputee that. I felt like that was a good representation. Clearly, looking at this, this is my experience of me. Now, I know people who are interracial, who are mixed. Their version of what that looks like is going to be depicted by their life. When you think of Black Woman Grief, I think of faith being involved. This persona needed to be strong, all these things. Not that other people may not have had those same, but this is within this scope. What have you found are some of the commonalities in the Black Woman Grief that you were surprised to find?

Commonalities between what?

Just the experience of Black women grieving that you’ve found across in your studies and in your book and things that you’ve come across in your research and this experience of writing your book and sharing this information.

Some of the things that you mentioned, the Black woman trope, the strong Black woman, of course, is huge because oftentimes we feel the need and we’ve been conditioned to be the strong one or have to be strong and not to show ourselves as weak because of generational things, cultural things. That within itself makes it even that much harder when we are in a situation where we have experienced a loss. Loss is natural and normal, yet we do not want to see us crying because we’re needing to be strong, especially as a leader.

If we’re in the workplace or we’re outside of the home, it’s like we have to. We have this. Just these things culturally and within our communities that we need to stay strong. One thing that I just thought of was, I lost my grandmother at the end of last year. Right around Christmas time, the Christmas week, we were burying her. I was sitting in, and this is my mom’s mom. I was sitting in the kitchen area with my mom. My aunt was just running around making funeral arrangements. I was like, “Mom, I just hate this so much.” I just told her I hate it so much. She said, she was like, “Somebody’s got to be strong.”

Have you read my book? “He’s not 43 like you.”

Dismantling Cultural Strength Myths

I was like, I’m so glad I’m an adult now. I could just talk to her, just plain. I was like, “Mom, no, you do not.” I said, “You do not have to be strong. We do not have to be strong. We can let God be strong for us.” That’s what I told her because we rely so much on our faith as well. I knew that would get in. She was like, “Yes, you’re right.” I was like, “It’s so crazy that it’s so in us.”

What does that do to disarm it, to say, “No, we do not have to be strong”? What does that leave us with? Does it leave us feeling like if I do not wear the cape, what am I? What happens if I do cry in public? What have you found for the Black woman that you have engaged once that cape realizes it’s no longer required?

It is a very freeing experience. I had the privilege of sitting in on a book club where they were going through the Black Woman Grief book. I’m telling you, it blew my mind.

Didn’t they know you were there?

I came twice. The organizer invited me, so I came twice. They knew I was coming, but it was so freeing. She had created such a safe space for these women that they were just so freely sharing. She invited me for the last one. The last one, they actually told me the impact of the book. As often as you know, we do not, we’re not privy to that. I was like boohoo crying because I’m like, “That’s like an ugly cry.”

Finding Safe Healing Environments

I was trying to hold it together. Just to hear the impact and what resonated or kept resounding was just the permission to. I’ve encountered that. I’ve been hosting a couple of B.L.A.C.K. Women Retreats as well. The same thing is just the permission to not be the strong Black woman, the permission to grieve, the permission to be vulnerable. With that caveat, it has to be done in safe spaces.

That leads into my next question. Faith can be safe, and faith can be dangerous. Finish that.

Faith can be safe, and faith can be dangerous. Faith can be weaponized. It can be used as a weapon. I remember just being in a church after my dad passed away and hearing someone say, “You know, we are not supposed to grieve like we do have no hope.” They were talking to someone else, but I overheard it. My stomach just really dropped. It told me that you cannot tell everybody everything. You cannot share everything with everyone because they’re not safe. This is within faith spaces.

What does one do when they’ve heard the verse, “We do not grieve like the world”? It didn’t say you do not grieve. It says Jesus wept. He wept. He cried before he went to Lazarus, knowing that he was going to be able to raise him. Let me say this. This show is a non-faith-based conversation. You’re bringing faith to this conversation. I welcome other people, what your faith is, because grief is universal and our faith plays a huge role in how we deal with grief, or maybe no faith at all.

If you are agnostic or practice no faith, and how you may feel as if that works with when you leave this body. I welcome those conversations because they’re all relevant. For the Christian faith that you’re walking in, what does that look like when I’m hurting inside, and I’m devastated, and this is the place where I’m coming looking for strength? How do you wrestle with that between the God you serve and the people that you’re serving God with?

For me personally, it was a huge tension there. That was really for me, like a sounding board or bouncing board for me to dig deep into Scripture and to see really what God says about grieving. A lot of what I found is in my first book, Can You Just Sit With Me?, because I was wrestling like, “Am I grieving wrong?” What I learned even with the Scripture is that the verse that I quoted is like, so that verse can be used in the wrong way in that way, or it could say, no, as you had mentioned, Jesus wept.

Navigating Faith and Personal Pain

It didn’t say we will not grieve. It says when we grieve. I really had to do a deep dive into Scripture to say, “The entire Bible was filled with death, dying, sorrow, suffering, and how people in the Bible overcame that, or how God journeyed with them through it.” It was really a journey for me to experience. What does God say about grieving, and how is that relevant to me in my faith?

Now in the first book, in the research you did, Can You Sit With Me, were there any surprises based on things you may have heard growing up and over your years versus when you took the time to do the dive, what the words said?

Ironically, I didn’t hear a lot about grief growing up. In the church, it wasn’t really talked about. You heard about death and dying at a memorial service, at a funeral. Outside of that, I really didn’t know anything about it because no one talked about it. Even in my home, it was literally like, somebody passed, we had visitors, you hear a lot of conversation and chatter about death and dying, but not really about grief and definitely not how to grieve. I feel like that contributed to me stuffing it and not knowing what to do with it because it wasn’t talked about.

How is the work you’re doing impacting your own individual grief?

I feel, as I said, it started in 2020. Now it’s almost six years into it. It’s mind-blowing how much healing and awareness has taken place in just those years. Again, doing deep dives into it because I’m like, “I’m living this, and this does not feel good.” I need some help in trying to figure out what grief is and how you handle it. How do you navigate it? How do you integrate it into your life?

You mentioned the B.L.A.C.K Woman Grief Retreats that you have. What does that look like? What would one expect, and what are you hoping they walk away with?

It’s a three-day experience, and it’s at a retreat center here in North Carolina, in Stoneville, North Carolina. It’s co-hosted with one of my co-laborers, Dr. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson. We collaborate there, and we make space for people to have their rest and relaxation time. The grounds are absolutely beautiful there. It has walking trails and little waterfalls, little springs and stuff. The grounds are beautiful. Meals are included. We had a welcome first day. It’s like a welcome, just getting to know each other. We have our first session, which is Dr. Natasha and me. We tag-team like the first evening, and then give the ladies space to kind of settle in.

The next day, I kicked it off with the grief session. I just dive in and spend time talking about grief. Because this retreat is specific to women leading, Black women who lead. They are higher-ups in the workplace or just leading anywhere really. When I say leaders, you can be a leader in your home, a leader in your church, a leader at your corporation. Leaders, but it’s a leading through grief thing. I work with the women in regard to grief, and then Dr. Natasha, because she’s experienced a lot of grief, but she is more corporate or leadership-based. She works with the ladies dealing with leadership.

That is a different part of that because the persona I need at work may not be the persona that lines up with what my grief is supposed to be. I know for me, being a leader in the army, supervisor, lead, and just recently having an all-male team, I was like, “This is going to be fun.” March came around, which is the day that my husband took his last breath. I did not want to be at work, nor did they really want that version of me at work. I kept trying to tell myself, “You can pull this together, you can do this.”

I was like, “Why do I need to? Why do I need to pretend as if I care about anything anybody’s going to say?” I have two left feet to not care. I remember coming into the office and telling them, “I’m going to be out tomorrow because it’s the anniversary of my husband’s death.” They’re all like, “You would have thought I said, Kotex or a period or something.” “What’s she talking about?” I said, “ I’m not going to feel like doing whatever you need to do.”

They’re freaking out. I was like, “I’m not even like, my whole husband stopped breathing. I’m going to say his name. I’m going to be honest with it.” That eliminated me from having to put on this persona. Does that have anything to do with the excellent decisions that I make on an everyday basis? Does that have anything to do with my ability to project manage or do all these other things? I’m human, and we often say, “People are our most amazing commodity,” until we start being human. It’s uncomfortable.

I love that so much. I do not know if I can ask, like, “How did you get to this point?” This is exactly what we’re sharing at the leadership retreat. It’s okay to be vulnerable at work to say things like, “I need time anytime because this is happening and I do not think so. You do not want to see that.” Basically, you do not want to see that version of me because it’s not, you know, but I’m human. How did you arrive at being with him?

There’s a book called The Grief Recovery Handbook. It takes you through the time. It tells you to do a practical exercise where you develop the timeline of when your first grief was and how your grief has matured in life. My first grief was a pet, Chu Chu, the dog that died. I started looking at other different things. I didn’t have the word for grief then. I had a miscarriage. My late husband and I, the first time we got pregnant. I remember being mentally disassociated, showing up, being confused. Didn’t have the word grief for that then either.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer, dealing with that. I went to a breast cancer support group. Not particularly grief, but we survived. My husband, I went through an emergency hysterectomy. My husband died on vacation. I was like, “I spent a lot of time getting smart about stuff, going to school.” I’m not about to freelance on being a widow. I have no concept of what the expectation management was for that. I look back at the miscarriage. I was like, “I cannot do work.” I gave myself permission to say, I always was telling my daughter, “Tell me how you feel, be honest about that.”

I was like, “Great, you tell yourself that. I do not feel like doing that. I’m not up to it. I need a day to be in bed. I need to sit with how I feel because I can easily run to the next thing in the next success and do that.” I was like, “We need to breathe.” When my husband died, I realized everything that I had done up until this point. I didn’t know if this could hold me up. Megan was a therapist digging into the word for me to see what the word says happens after this world is over. I had heard all the cliches, and I’m from Chicago.

I’m glad I didn’t punch nobody because the stuff that they were saying was like, “You could have kept all of that. That did not land. You thought it came out of your mouth like, “Do not do that.” It just got to a place when the man I spent 32 years with died on vacation. You might go call me an 80-year-old woman because I’m going to be like so straight with you. Like, “I do not know what you want from me.” It’s like, “Do you want to do that?” “No.” I learned through breast cancer, “No” was a complete answer. I go, “No.” I dare you to ask me why because I said no.

Using things I learned in the military, being in Iraq for six months, taking a shower and there’s incoming, and you’re going, “That’s why we get danger pay.” I need to get up out of here. You’re in your living quarters. Just a lot of different experiences. I remember when I got out of the army, I had been in Korea. I’m out there running in all this different stuff. I was like, “What I’m not going to do is get wet when I’m a civilian.

I’m going to have an umbrella, and I’m going to wait for somebody to pick me up because I did hard work.” If I do not have to work hard, I’m not doing it. Hard work was pretending. The man I have loved and still love today is no longer in this world. You expect me to pretend I do not care. It’s best for me to be honest with you, and I remember the first year after he passed.

I took that whole week off, and I learned as I was doing work within me and coming to peace with that. What turned out into an entire week became more reflection, but more being honest and giving other people permission to talk about what we should talk about. We’ve been dying all the time. I’m like a skittish thing. Feeling for me is like, “I’m so lucky I told them I didn’t want to be there.” Giving myself permission, it freed me up from not having stress.

I love that so much. Thank you so much for sharing that.

You’re welcome.

I remember you mentioned your husband, but I didn’t know about the other losses. I love that so much. It’s almost one thing that you said that from the first loss, you didn’t have the language for it. That was the big thing for me, not having the language for it. In writing the book and doing the research, I was gaining language for it.

What are the dates of your retreat? How would someone contact you if they are, is it already filled up?

It’s coming up really fast. August 30th through September 1st.

By the time they hear this, it would have been happening. Is it annual? Next year, they can reach out to you for the retreat?

Yes.

How would they reach you if they’re interested in the retreat?

Just my website, ImNatashaSmith.com, at events.

If a Black woman, I know you’re out there, girl. I see you. For the Black woman that are tuning into this and quietly carrying their grief while they’re showing up at work, they’re showing up for everybody else, what do you recommend for them?

If possible, to find a safe person or safe community or even a safe way to begin to let the grief out. Sometimes I like to say that grief needs a place to go. That could be on a page. It could be with a therapist or counselor. A safe person, safe place could be that as well. By all means, start to let it out. One thing that I found, I mentioned, is that I stuffed up the grief for over 30 years, basically. Did I really stuff it? No, because it was coming out anyway.

It will leak out in little ways. What does leaking out look like for you or what you’ve seen in others? Go ahead.

Recognizing Physical Symptoms of Unspoken Loss

Short temper, like it’s hard to hold other things when you have grief underneath the surface. When I say other things, I’m talking about busy schedules, busy life, because life is busy, especially when you have kids, family, that thing. It’s almost like the drops in the bucket are like, but if you have unresolved grief or you’re not dealing with the grief, it can just feel ten times heavier. In the same token, just not being able to think, because you have brain fog. Physical symptoms, and for me personally, I was having so many headaches, and I was wondering why, but that was part of it. It was like just holding so much tension on the inside. Headaches, stomach problems, not being able to sleep as well. The physical symptoms were a big indicator for me that I need to take care of something.

Thank you for sharing that because we can see ourselves. We can see when we’re behaving outside of our norm and may need to take a pause and say, “Girl, what is going on? Because this is not how we show up.” Being on lockdown gives you a lot of time to peel back that onion several times because we can go, “I’m just tired,” or “I’m just this and that.” It’s like, “What are the things that I’m not talking about? Those things I’m not talking about may be the things that are talking to me when I’m trying to ignore them.”

I’m smiling so hard because I’ve used that so many times. “I’m just tired.” There is so much underneath that tired. What does your tired look like? What really is that?

You dipped in a little bit. I try to give my guests an opportunity to ask me a question, but you did already. I want to know if you have any other questions. Make sure I make that available.

I just love the space that you’re offering here and being able to share about grief and our stories. Thank you so much for sharing your story. What has been one of the things that has been that you have found that has helped that you come in contact with as it relates to grief in integrating their grief or navigating their grief?

I do not think anyone’s asking that particularly. The first thing is realizing other people feel like this, the validation of being in community, not in a trauma-bonding way, but in a healthy way that says we are all having a similar experience and grief fog is real. If I read Mary O’Connor’s book on The Grieving Brain and I’m seeing the neurological science behind it, I can stop telling myself I’m just being dramatic. They’ve been dead a year. I should be over this. No, our bodies were created in such a way that when we are processing grief, our brain is trying to protect us.

Mary-Frances O’Connor or The Grieving Brain, and I start seeing the fatigue. I’m tired. I cannot sleep. Now I’m validated because of knowledge and information, where I thought grief was just about the five stages of grief and what’s after that to be in a space. I want us to go back to something you said, safe. We hear that word and do not really know how to define that. For me, a safe space is where I can authentically, organically, in as much as I need to, talk about what’s going on without hearing somebody, they’re on their phone and they look like they’re talking to you and they are not, or they’re not giving you this or the sad look, or just leaning in and going, “What else happened?”

That was hard. What do you think about that now? When you choose not to show up for somebody, life is waiting. When your grief shows up, you are going to be very smart and be like, “Okay.” You’re going to either learn how to show up by showing up for other people, or when that gap exists in your life, then no one will show up for you. I would prefer you learn how to show up for other people and pay that forward. You said something earlier about people making it about them. If you had a miscarriage and you came to tell me about it and I’m making it about me, I’m afraid in the work ditching because I’m like, “How am I going to make your situation about me being uncomfortable and you in the thick of it?”

No, I think being a community allows people to vent, to talk about the people on the outskirts who didn’t know how to show up and talk about what your needs are. When you take that experience and say, “Now what? Now that I’ve been heard, now that I’ve been validated, how do I want to live life forward? Are there other people I want to connect with? Are there retreats?” We have a widow’s retreat, December 3rd through the 6th. People go, “That’s just a weekend.”

Just like your three-day experience, the tools, the validation, the lifetime community, the experiences that you have, and leave it refreshed after being able to finally be in a space for 3 or 4 days that you do not have to pretend because you’re now investing in your wellbeing. You probably have tried all the things. You tried journaling, you tried this, you tried that, but it didn’t take hold long enough to make a change. We could spend our money on a bag, a purse, shoes, a trip, investing your own self in your experience because your soul needs healing. When we take that opportunity to do that, it promotes change for a lifetime forward.

Building Healthy Community Support Systems

Community is so huge. I do not think people realize that. I’m actually in the middle of working on my third book. My edits are literally due in less than a week. Is that right? Seven days.

I’m sorry.

No, you’re fine. It was supposed to be like the deadline anyway. It got pushed out. I got my edits back late. I was supposed to have been done before. Anyways, it reminded me. I’ve been writing about the importance of community. Just all the things that you’re saying are exactly what I’m pointing to as it relates to validation, and it needed someone to really just sit with us. It goes back to my first book, Can You Just Sit With Me?, to validate, to hear me, to listen, not really to give me advice at this point. We need someone witnessing the pain of what we’ve experienced.

I love what you said, and I may steal this too, like, we’re not into trauma bonding. I was saying, because when we’re in this space, I see a lot of that on socials, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” Anyway, so let me hear you, let me be with you, know that you’re not alone, validate, witness. As you were saying, “Now what? How can I integrate this loss that I’m carrying forward? How can I have hope? What do I do with this now?” I love that so much.

Thank you. The trauma bonding thing is important to me. In the particular grief where your spouse died, this is the person you left your parents’ home for. This is a person that two became one. This is the person that you were planning life after this experience and that experience. When that person is removed from your life, not always, but I’ve seen too often where widows want to cleave to someone else. That is not my space to cleave in.

My space is to help give you the tools and equip you because you were enough when you came into this world, and you will be enough standing on your own. You are not less than. It’s not if. It’s who you are. You are this individual carrying these experiences that you’ve had in life. I’m very apprehensive about someone trying to create that because now the goal is to realize you’re enough and be able to stand independently, not automatically having to cleave to someone else to fill that gap. It’s hard, it’s painful, but this, I believe, is an individual’s work in a community environment.

That’s so good, so important.

I want to say thank you for accepting my Instagram message to you. I know you’re like, “That person’s for real,” because you never know. You’ve got to sift through there. Thank you. I want you to finish this conversation. Share where people can find you, where you hang out, and anything else you’d like to wrap this discussion up with.

Thank you so much, Tina, for having me. This has been such a pleasure speaking with you. I probably can just keep talking on and on and on. Thank you so much for having me and sitting with me. I can be found at ImNatashaSmith.com. I am Natasha Smith all across socials. Again, that’s my website as ImNatashaSmith.com. You can find my book, Can You Just Sit With Me?, as well as Black Woman Grief anywhere books are sold. The third book is coming in summer 2027.

Any idea what the book is about? Do we get a little bit of some sort right here?

The tentative title is Invisible Burden: Releasing the Mental and Spiritual Load Women Carry.

We are going to just say less. Thank you again, Natasha, and you have a wonderful evening.

Thank you so much.

Important Links

• Natasha Smith
• Natasha Smith on Facebook
• Natasha Smith on Instagram
• Can You Just Sit With Me?
• Black Woman Grief
• B.L.A.C.K Woman Grief Retreats
• Dr. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
• The Grief Recovery Handbook
• The Grieving Brain

About Natasha Smith

Natasha Smith is a certified grief educator and pastoral counselor, author, speaker, and podcast host. She shares from a place of 30-plus years of lived grief experience, research, and biblical study. Her work has appeared in Guideposts, Propel Women, Influence Magazine, HerBible, and elsewhere in major online and print publications. She lives near Raleigh, NC, with her husband and children. Her books Can You Just Sit With Me: Healthy Grieving for the Losses of Life (2023) and Black Woman Grief: A Guide to Hope and Wholeness (2025) are available wherever books are sold. Connect with her at imnatashasmith.com.