Channeling Grief into Helping Others

Mary Leopold ’89’s story of the wind phone and the loss of her son Oliver resonated with me so much as I too lost my beautiful and kind 24-year-old daughter Falon in a car accident in December 2020. It is an indescribable pain. A pain that I feel you have to find a way to channel into helping others in order to survive.

My name is Shannon Morris I live in Hollidaysburg, a town in Central Pennsylvania. I had also read about the story of the Japanese garden designer who had started the wind phone and I was inspired to place one in a public memorial garden surrounded by a grove of silver oak trees and a children’s kindness story walk, which houses a children’s book I wrote inspired by my daughter. I agree wholeheartedly we need to change how we deal with grief as a society. We all are grieving someone or we someday will, that is inevitable. We need to be a support for each other, stop making grief such a taboo topic. Say their names, as you and I both know we carry our children with us each and every moment of everyday; they are still very much a part of us, giving us the strength, wisdom and grace to carry on, and hopefully we are helping others in the process. If interested you can read more about my daughter and how we work to continue her story of positivity and kindness at soeursgrey.com.