I am Julie Story. At heart, I am a country girl living near the broad, beautiful Susquehanna River that winds through the quiet Bald Eagle Mountains surrounding Lock Haven, PA. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership, I taught and supported college students for 35 years.

My education provided credentials that did not define but shaped me. As a teenager, I moved from a small country school to a big city school. In the process, I became an introvert. However, I realized eventually that I could express my voice through writing. In college, a teacher tapped me on the shoulder and suggested that I become a writing tutor. From this opportunity, I overcame my own fear of being afraid to speak in front of others and gained the courage to attend graduate school and become an educator. As a mentor, I loved tapping students on the shoulders to let them know that I was there to listen. In their writing and in conversations, students often expressed how much loss they had faced in their lives. I encouraged them to address their grief and pain so that they could realize and enjoy reaching their full potential.
When I was in the middle of graduate studies, my older brother, Phillip, contracted an aggressive leukemia. Our parents had just gone through a divorce, so navigating family dynamics and finding a support system were also stressful. I took a leave of absence to help care for him. After three years of treatments, Phil died at 28. The ground fell out from beneath my feet. I felt as though I had died, too. I could not afford counseling. I did not burden my parents and other siblings because they were grieving. I felt invisible to friends. Self-help books were inadequate. To honor my brother, I stepped away from joy and threw myself into teaching. Years later, when my companion of 30 years died from cancer, my inability to feel joy resonated louder than ever. Not until I was feeling the post-retirement void and letdown did I acknowledge my dire need for joy.

My search for joy led me to the Grief Recovery Method. With a compassionate guide to bear witness to my grief and take me through action-oriented, emotional exercises, I was on the path to feeling joy again. With the appropriate tools, I was ready to address other losses. From my students and GRM Specialist, I learned how valuable it is to have another person witness our grief so that we don’t also have to lose our own life, our own joy—and that we can honor those we have lost through living rather than spiritually dying with them.

This lesson was so profound that I became a GRM Advanced Specialist to provide online one-on-one grief support and in-person one-on-one and group grief support in Central Pennsylvania. My deeply personal and professional experiences drive my passion for helping grievers who might feel unseen, especially those having any kind of disability, being older adults or siblings, experiencing the death of a pet, or belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community.