ABOUT
Papillon Center for Loss & Transition is dedicated to building healthier communities by providing professionally led, compassionate services for individuals, families and children experiencing loss and transition.
Losing someone you love can be devastating. You may feel overwhelmed, addled with “grief brain”, isolated. Friends and family offer support but may not know what to say or do, or may be experiencing their own grief.
In our groups, you will meet others who are experiencing similar emotions and coping in a variety of ways, people who are working to grieve in a healthy, resilient way. Every grief experience is different, but you are not in this alone.
TEAM
FOUNDERS
HELEN GRADY, MA, MFT, MBA
Founder/Facilitator/Board Member
Marriage & Family Therapist
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
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- Lao Tzu
JOY SMITH, RN, MSN
Founder/Facilitator/Board Member
Oncology & Palliative Nurse Educator
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler
BOARD
HELEN GRADY, MA, MFT, MBA
Founder/Facilitator/Board Member
Marriage & Family Therapist
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
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- Lao Tzu
MIKE MOMBOISSE
Board Member​
Formerly CFO and EVP of a national environmental consulting company, as EVP of an early stage venture capital firm, and as a Partner in the Corporate Department of a boutique Silicon Valley Law firm.
GILDA MONTESINO
Board Chair
How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
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- Winnie the Pooh
Sally Shea
Board Member
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JOY SMITH, RN, MSN
Founder/Facilitator/Board Member
Oncology & Palliative Nurse Educator
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler
YVONNE RICKETTS
Executive Director
Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow..
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- Mary Anne Radmacher
STAFF
CAROL MEISEL
Program Director
The trouble is, you think you have time.
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- Buddha
KEROLOS ISTAFANOUS
Administrative Assistant
The sun will rise, and we will try again.
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- Twenty One Pilots
FACILITATORS
JULIE COOPER ALTMAN,
LCSW, PH.D.e
Recognizing our shared humanity and our biological nature as beings whose happiness is dependent on others, we learn to open our hearts, and in so doing we gain a sense of purpose and a sense of connection with those around us.
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- Dalai Lama
ZOSIA CHCIUK,
RNC-NIC, MSN, IBCLC, ANLC
Each new life, no matter how brief, forever changes the world.
- Unknown.
KEVIN GLENN,
Registered Associate PCC
Within the pain and suffering of grieving the loss of a loved one, there exists new dimensions of life, love, and connection.
- Daisaku Ikeda
LISA HANDLEY
SoulCollage® facilitator
Love recognizes no barriers.
It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls
to arrive at its destination
full of hope.
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- Maya Angelou
MIRIAM LITTLE,
M.S., LMFT
Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.
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- Jamie Anderson
Emily Nicholl,
MSW, LCSW
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
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- Mary Oliver
NANCY OTIS,
Facilitator Trainer, Dougy Center
What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
- Helen Keller
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PAMELA ROGERS,
LCSW
If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
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- Will Rogers
BRIAN WAINWRIGHT,
LMFT
Though the ones we love no longer walk alongside us in this world, their stories live on through us and through our tellings of who they are.
FACILITY
Our facility includes meeting rooms that are warm, welcoming places furnished to encourage comfort and provide a safe, confidential place to discuss your loss.
You’ll also find our offices and The Madison Rose Memorial Library and Bookstore, where you’ll find small gifts and books relating to grief.
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We are on the second floor and the building is accessible. Feel free to come by any time during office hours.