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What is Summerween? Wicked cool ways to celebrate this spooky holiday

What is Summerween? Wicked cool ways to celebrate this spooky holiday

USA Today3 days ago
Pastel colors and pinks are on trend for Summerween decor – Photo courtesy of Michaels
Americans love Halloween. In fact, roughly 47% of people in a National Retail Federation survey admitted to buying Halloween decor well before October. It's no surprise then that Summerween is fast becoming a popular holiday. This mash-up of Halloween and summer fun has fans of All Hallows' Eve celebrating spooky season as early as June. Think skeletons holding ice cream cones and frozen daiquiris, pumpkins wearing sunglasses, and ghosts in sun hats. What is Summerween?
The holiday originated from an episode (Season 1, episode 12) of Disney's animated show, 'Gravity Falls,' in which the town of Gravity Falls celebrates Halloween twice a year because residents love it so much. When is Summerween?
A calendar in the Summerween episode of "Gravity Falls" showed the third week of June, so many people celebrate Summerween on June 22. However, it's also become popular to celebrate on July 31 or the last weekend in July, so truly summer is the best time to celebrate Summerween. Ways to celebrate Summerween
Many retailers, like Amazon, HomeGoods, Michaels, and Walmart are jumping on the Summerween trend, making it easy to celebrate and decorate. Get as creative as you like! Here are a few fun ways to celebrate Summerween. Carve a jack-o-melon
Follow the lead of residents of 'Gravity Falls' and try your hand at carving a jack-o-melon from a watermelon. At least with a watermelon, you can eat the insides as you work! Carving pineapples is another creative option. Decorate your home for Summerween
Life is a beach and then you die – Photo courtesy of Amazon
Amazon is a great source for Summerween swag, and HomeGoods has an entire Summerween line. You'll find skeletons in pool floats, ghosts in ice cream trucks, and more. Michaels' Sweet & Spooky Collection is geared toward Summerween, and Etsy offers even more Summerween items with fun pool accessories, prints, and decor.
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Pinterest is filled with ideas for Summerween snacks and drinks. From cucumber-carved skeleton heads and mummy hot dogs to marshmallow ghosts, there's no shortage of culinary creativity for this spooky holiday. Get crafty
Michaels offers some DIY Summerween craft projects. Make a floral arrangement in a cauldron with Ghoulfriends Paint Party or a beautifully spooky Halloween Dark Earthy Wreath. Rather keep it simple? Grab a Summerween coloring book like this bestseller on Amazon or this one at Walmart. You also can create your own mash-up of summer and Halloween by painting beach balls as pumpkins. Read 'Gravity Falls: Happy Summerween' to your kids
Celebrate with a reading of 'Gravity Falls Happy Summerween!' – Photo courtesy of Amazon
Just like you read holiday stories in December or stories about bunnies around Easter, why not celebrate with a book all about Summerween? Disney has a book version of the 'Gravity Falls' Summerween episode that you can read together. You could even read it around a campfire to add a little more spookiness.
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Pick one of your favorite thrillers or fun Halloween classics to gather round and enjoy with a bucket of caramel corn. An obvious choice would be to watch the 'Gravity Falls' Summerween episode. Dress for Summerween
Might as well dress the part! Walmart has a selection of Summerween t-shirts, and you'll find plenty of Summerween clothing and jewelry on Etsy. You can also DIY it: Dig out your pumpkin jewelry, witches hats, and vampire teeth and mix them with a swimsuit, sundress, or board shorts for a spook-tacular Summerween costume.
Whether for teens, little ones, or adults, invite friends to come dressed in Summerween costumes, play haunting tunes, plan a Summerween craft, play games, and whip up themed treats for the ultimate party. Maybe have a game of bobbing for corn on the cob instead of apples! Attend a Summerween event
Rock out at a Summerween festival – Photo courtesy of River City Company
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There's No Way a Controller This Good Should Be So Affordable
There's No Way a Controller This Good Should Be So Affordable

CNET

timean hour ago

  • CNET

There's No Way a Controller This Good Should Be So Affordable

CNET's expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. GameSir Super Nova Multiplatform Controller $50 at Amazon Pros Solid hardware Lots of customization Plenty of pro features Mappable buttons Affordable Cons Mobile app is limited PC app UI needs work No Xbox support GameSir Super Nova Multiplatform Controller $50 at Amazon I've used a lot of GameSir products over the years, and it's gotten to the point where I'm never sure what to expect when they send a new product. It's always hit or miss. The Super Nova is one of the company's hits, and quite likely one of the best controllers it has ever made -- especially in a gaming landscape that's become increasingly competitive. The Super Nova has all the features you'd expect from a solid controller, including many you typically only find on pro-level controllers, plus some fun customization options, all at a price that's much lower than you might expect. What I like about the GameSir Super Nova Jason Cockerham/CNET From a design standpoint, the Super Nova looks and feels a bit like a Nintendo Switch Pro controller, which isn't a bad thing, especially for those of us with smaller hands. I really like the way it feels. I find it more comfortable than most Xbox and other popular controllers. The buttons are nicely tactile, which is surprising for membrane ABXY buttons. Typically, membrane buttons feel mushy and soft, but these are crisp and satisfying. You can even switch the buttons around for playing on Switch or PC, which is a useful feature. At $50, you might not expect the Super Nova to come with many "pro-level" features, but surprisingly it does. For starters, it has Hall Effect joysticks. These are becoming more popular but it's still rare to find them on controllers priced far below $100. There are also two-stage, Hall Effect triggers, so you can mechanically lock the trigger pull for much faster response times. You can even set a digital hair trigger for high-speed games. If you've never used multi-stage triggers on a controller before, they're a game-changer (pun intended). Jason Cockerham/CNET On the back, there are two programmable buttons that you can remap to almost any keypress. You can also get up to a 1000Hz polling rate via the wireless dongle or the included USB-C cable. There's also support for macros and, of course, there's RGB lighting. Compatibility The Super Nova is compatible with PC, Switch, iOS and Android, but switching between them quickly can be annoying. If you're switching Bluetooth inputs, just be prepared that it might take a couple of minutes before everything's ready to go. My favorite feature of the Super Nova is auto-play. Once paired to a device, you can just pick up the Super Nova from the charging station and it will instantly reconnect, waking your device in the process. I can grab the Super Nova and by the time I've sat down in my chair, my Switch is awake, the TV is on and I'm ready to play. You'll quickly get spoiled by not having to manually turn on your console like a Neanderthal. Customization options Jason Cockerham/CNET The entire faceplate is attached magnetically, and GameSir has made several different color options for the Super Nova, allowing you to add your own dash of flair. If you want the white controller and charging stand, however, you'll have to order the "whipped pink" color, but again, you can swap the faceplate out if you prefer. Aside from the magnetic faceplates, there are plenty of other customization options available in GameSir Connect app for Windows. There are also iOS and Android apps, but they don't offer quite as much customization. You'll need to use your PC to fully fine-tune it. GameSir Connect is pretty comprehensive, letting you adjust the trigger stops, joystick dead zones and even the motion control settings if you like using the gyroscope for Switch games. The UI is a little stale, and you can't store multiple profiles for the controller, but overall it works well. The only issue I've seen is that sometimes connecting to the controller wirelessly can be tricky; just use a cable and you'll be fine. Should you buy the GameSir Super Nova? To be honest, there really isn't anything I don't like about the Super Nova. A nitpick might be that the D-Pad is not the best, but it's certainly not bad. I do wish you could store multiple profiles on the controller, and some people might be turned off by the lack of Xbox support, but none of those are deal-breakers for me. CNET Especially when it only costs $50. I personally don't know of another controller on the market that is this good and gives you this many features for so little money. If you want to upgrade your Switch controller with one that also works great for PC and mobile, or if you want a great, inexpensive extra controller for your partner or kiddos, you really can't go wrong with the Super Nova.

How to watch 'Under The Bridge' online from anywhere in the world
How to watch 'Under The Bridge' online from anywhere in the world

Tom's Guide

time2 hours ago

  • Tom's Guide

How to watch 'Under The Bridge' online from anywhere in the world

"Under The Bridge" is based on Rebecca Godfrey's book of the same name and tells the story of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk (played by Vritika Gupta) who went to meet her friends at a party and never came home. Godfrey (Riley Keough) and local police officer (Lily Gladstone) are our guides through the distressing hidden world of the young girls accused of the murder... Here's how to watch 'Under The Bridge" from anywhere with a VPN — and potentially for free. "Under The Bridge" has already premiered in U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand but arrives in U.K. on ITV1 on Friday, July 25 at 9 p.m. It will also be available to stream on ITVX. • FREE STREAM — ITV/ ITVX (U.K.)• U.S. — Hulu / Disney+ • Australia — SBS • Canada — CBC Gem • New Zealand — Disney+ • Watch anywhere — try NordVPN 100% risk-free Reena's murder and the sustained bullying that had taken place before it became the the focus of intense media coverage and public speculation. There were other factors at play - the suspects were mostly teenage girls, the victim was of Asian heritage and there was a racial aspect to the crime. Virk's parents were Jehovah's Witnesses ("a minority within a minority") and their strict religious views may have led to Leena rebelling at school inn attempt to gain acceptance from the very people who planned and carried out the attack upon her that led to her death. The murder by forcible drowning appears in the first episode the show but Reena's story continues to be told and developed by virtue of the inclusion of fictionalized versions of author Godfrey and police officer Cam Bentland in the script. They lean into the problems surrounding the case and lead us through. Read on to find out how to watch 'Under The Bridge" online and from anywhere. "Under The Bridge" arrives in U.K. on ITV1 on Friday, July 25 at 9 p.m. It will also be available to stream on ITVX. All episodes will also be available to stream live and on demand on ITVX for FREE. However, you will need a valid TV license to stream content live. If you're outside of the U.K. when it's on, you can use a VPN to get around the geo-restrictions that will prevent ITVX from working. Scroll down for more information and instructions. Thanks to the wonders of a VPN (Virtual Private Network), "Under The Bridge" should be available to Brits no matter where they are. The software allows your devices to appear to be back in your home country regardless of where in the world you find yourself. Our favorite is NordVPN – and you can find out why in our NordVPN review. NordVPN deal: FREE $50 / £50 Amazon gift card Boasting lightning fast speeds, great features, streaming power, and class-leading security, NordVPN is our #1 VPN. ✅ FREE Amazon gift card worth up to $50/£50✅ 4 months extra FREE!✅ 76% off usual price Use Nord to unblock ITVX and watch "Under The Bridge" online with our exclusive deal. Using a VPN is incredibly simple. 1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite. 2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're in the U.S. and want to view a British service, you'd select U.K. from the list. 3. Sit back and enjoy the show. Head to ITVX and stream "Under The Bridge" for free. "Under The Bridge" first showed in the U.S. in 2024 and is still available to stream on Hulu/ Disney+ Brits traveling in the U.S. who want to use their usual domestic streaming platform could look in to using a VPN to stream for free as they would back home. We recommend NordVPN. "Under The Bridge" first showed in Australia in 2024 and is still available to stream on SBS for FREE. Remember, if you're traveling and geo-blocking won't let you connect to the streaming platforms you use back home, purchasing a VPN will allow you to watch "Under The Bridge" online wherever you are. We recommend NordVPN. "Under The Bridge" first showed in Canada in 2024 and is still available to stream on CBC Gem. Brit abroad in Canada? Signing up to NordVPN will help you access your preferred streaming service when you're overseas. "Under The Bridge" first showed is available to stream on Disney+ in New Zealand. Remember, if you're traveling and geo-blocking won't let you connect to the streaming platforms you use back home, purchasing a VPN will allow you to watch "Under The Bridge" online, no matter where you are. We recommend NordVPN. Episode 1: "Looking Glass" - In 1997, on a quiet island in BC, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk attends a party and never returns home. Her disappearance intrigues a novelist returning to her hometown. Episode 2: "The John Gotti of Seven Oaks" - Cam is thrown by a shocking discovery, and the police rush to unravel what really happened under the bridge. Josephine makes a deal with Rebecca. Episode 3: "Blood Oath" - Upsetting news shakes the small town of Victoria, and as rumors surface, Rebecca and Cam reconnect. In the past, Reena enters Josephine's mafia fantasy world. Episode 4: "Beautiful British Colombia" - In 1979, Suman and Manjit fall in love, setting into motion a series of events that will change their lives forever. In 1997, the Seven Oaks girls come to the Virk house for a dinner to remember, Episode 5: "When The Heat Comes Down" - Tensions rise as suspicions surround the teens. Rebecca and Cam hatch a plan — but an unexpected detour leads Rebecca down a strange rabbit hole, resulting in a new bond. Episode 6: "In the Water They Sink As The Same" - Past and present wounds entwine as Rebecca and Cam's alliance is tested. The Virks discuss taking matters into their own hands, and the teens use a school dance as cover for their escape Episode 7: "Three and Seven" - The unfolding trial pushes Rebecca to the brink as she begins to question who she should defend. Cam's allegiance to the justice system is tested as details from the night of the murder are finally revealed. Episode 8: "Mercy Alone" - The last opportunity for justice arrives as all the participants reckon with their true involvement in the events that transpired. A radical choice of forgiveness allows for closure. Godfrey was a Canadian journalist turned award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. "Under The Bridge", published in 2005, was her second book. Hollywood star Reese Witherspoon's Type-A production company optioned the rights. In 2017 she wrote an update on the case for Vice Magazine. Hulu announced that they had ordered the 8 part series above a week before Godfrey's death from complications due to lung cancer in September 2022 We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

The taboo that Americans just can't seem to break
The taboo that Americans just can't seem to break

Vox

time3 hours ago

  • Vox

The taboo that Americans just can't seem to break

is a lesbian journalist and author based in New York City. Her work has been featured in New York Magazine, Cosmopolitan, the New York Times, and many others. When Alana Romero was a child, they'd leave their bed in the middle of the night, sneak through her family's darkened home in South Florida, and slip into her sisters' bedrooms. But they didn't want to play, gossip, or otherwise annoy her siblings — she wanted to make sure they hadn't died in their sleep. 'I would wake up, crawl to my sister's room, just put my hand under her nose and make sure she was still breathing,' Romero, now 26, recalls. 'If she was snoring, that was a good sign.' Romero would then check on her little sister one room over. Is she breathing? Yes. Reassured for the moment, Romero would return to their own bed. Romero didn't know exactly why she was making these anxious nighttime visits at the time — she kept them to herself. What they did know was that in their Catholic, Latino family, death wasn't something that was acknowledged, much less discussed. 'It's like, don't talk about death, don't do the taboo things, maybe don't even prepare for [death] because if you just don't talk about it, don't prepare for it, maybe it won't happen,' Romero says. Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. When a loved one did pass, the circumstances of their death, and the events of their lives, weren't brought up again, at least not with Romero. It felt like once a family member was gone, they were gone for good. So, like many other children with questions but no answers, Romero carried on as best as they could. She worried, she wondered, she woke up in the middle of the night. In the US, we've long approached death with secrecy and silence. Despite the fact that, according to one survey, nearly half of Americans think about death at least once a month — and a quarter of them think about it every day — many keep these thoughts to themselves. When asked to rank their willingness to talk about various taboos, from money to sex to religion, respondents ranked death dead last, at 32 percent. Furthermore, a 2018 survey conducted by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement found that while 92 percent of Americans agreed that discussing their end-of-life preferences was important, only 32 percent actually followed through. In other words, people struggle to bridge the gap between an internal awareness of death, and the actual external preparation for it. 'Death is the ultimate loss of control. It's the ultimate uncertainty.' There are any number of reasons why people avoid these conversations. You may not know where to begin. You may not want to upset others. You may not know how to answer your child's questions. You may be afraid of aging, illness, the callous indifference of insurance companies, and the creeping of medical debt. You may be superstitious. You may feel too young or too old to worry about it. Or you may hate to confront, once and for all, that you are afraid of what you can't prevent, contain, or wish away. 'Death is the ultimate loss of control. It's the ultimate uncertainty,' says Claire Bidwell Smith, therapist, grief counselor and author of Conscious Grieving: A Transformative Approach to Healing From Loss. 'We can really get very clear and focused and organized about so many aspects of our lives, yet death is the one that we cannot. We can't predict it, we can't control it.' This studious avoidance of death has real consequences: Less than half of US adults have a will, which dictates financial and estate preferences after death. Likewise, only about 45 percent of adults have a living will, which dictates wishes around medical care. These numbers may be surprising given the Covid-19 pandemic, which exposed a generation of Americans to the existential dread, systemic failures, and grief of a global death event. But after a brief uptick in estate planning during the pandemic, interest waned. These cultural seeds have long been sown by organizers, spiritual leaders, academics, medical and funeral professionals — and much of this work pre-dates the pandemic. The contemporary death positive movement, which advocates for a transparent, unabashed approach to death and death care, began in earnest in the early 2010s when author and mortician Caitlin Doughty founded the advocacy group The Order of the Good Death. This movement has deep roots in the hospice care, green burial, and home funeral movements. Still, despite the pandemic's fresh lessons — and the ancient knowledge that death comes for us all — many of us still cannot bear to talk about death. Even when we know it's important. Even though we may want to. So why not? And what would we stand to gain if, instead, we learned to speak about dying more openly? How death became laden down with euphemism American attitudes around death and dying are fairly modern creations, taking root in the 19th century. Until then, most people died at home. Rites were carried out by community members, bodies were washed and displayed in the home for mourners, and funerals were cheap, intimate and hands-on affairs. That is, until the Civil War. In the early 1860s, people were, for the first time, dying away from their homes en masse. To address this, embalming — the process of slowing down decomposition by replacing the body's blood with chemicals — was used to preserve bodies long enough to transport them back to those families who could afford it. Sarah Chavez, a writer, historian, and activist who is the executive director of Order of the Good Death and founding member of the death scholarship organization The Collective for Radical Death Studies, says embalming didn't truly captivate the American imagination until the death of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. 'When [Lincoln] died, he was embalmed and went on a multicity tour, like he was a music artist,' Chavez says. 'People came out in droves to see the funeral train and his body. That really kind of cemented embalming as this new, American thing.' Embalming became more widely popular and laid the foundations for a new paradigm: dead bodies cared for outside the home by a buttoned-up, for-profit class of embalmers. Over the next few decades, embalmers and funeral workers, who Chavez says signaled wealth and elegance by setting up shop in Victorian-style homes, slowly gained a foothold in the United States. At the same time, during the turn of the 20th century, medical care was also leaving the home and entering more firmly into the purview of trained doctors, nurses, and hospital systems. 'The funeral industry and the medical industry rose up together and kind of partnered to position themselves as these guardians of health and safety,' Chavez says. (Seeking trained medical professionals has obvious benefits for the living, but keep in mind that dead bodies aren't dangerous, and embalming services aren't necessary for health or safety.) By the 1930s, the modern funeral industry had taken off and sold a new, 'dignified' version of death — one that rapidly isolated the living from their own dead. 'Their definition of what a [dignified death] was, is expensive, away from the home amongst professionals, devoid of signs of death through embalming,' Chavez says. 'They come in and they whisk away your person and they return them to you as if they look alive, as if they're sleeping.' If you've ever said 'passed away' instead of died, 'loved one' rather than dead body, or 'memorial park' rather than cemetery, you'll begin to see how thoroughly death has been obscured. There are, of course, vibrant counterexamples of this attitude across American culture. For marginalized communities in particular, elaborate, public displays of death and grieving offer the dead a dignity and power society never offered them in life. Homegoing rituals in Black communities, which often blend African and Christian practices, and political funerals and 'ash actions' during the AIDS crisis both come to mind. Still, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, death became laden down with euphemism for large swaths of society. This was often encouraged by the funerary industry, whose professionals developed language to avoid talking about death while, paradoxically, talking about death. If you've ever said 'passed away' instead of died, 'loved one' rather than dead body, or 'memorial park' rather than cemetery, you'll begin to see how thoroughly death has been obscured from the common lexicon. This language, or lack thereof, can make every aspect of death more secretive and more confusing, from the actual physiological process of dying itself all the way down to funeral prices. These factors — embalming practices, the expansion of a for-profit funeral industry, and a developing taste for euphemism — gave birth to the modern American death taboo. The cost of silence When we avoid talking about death, we risk living and dying in ways that don't align with our values and needs. If you don't discuss end-of-life medical treatment, for example, you may receive invasive and expensive care you never wanted. Or as a caregiver, you may be forced to make quality of life, death care, and estate-related decisions based on your best guess rather than falling back on the information and documentation needed to confidently honor someone else's wishes. ' Many of us know so many people who've died and didn't have a plan,' says Darnell Lamont Walker, death doula and author of the Notes From a Death Doula Substack. 'And so when they die, the family is falling apart and everyone is thinking, Oh well this is what I think they would have wanted.' In that situation, it's easy for conflict to break out among even the most well-meaning family members. Talking about the logistic aspects of death ahead of time — including your legal and medical rights during and after dying — can help you, your loved ones, and your community act with clarity and conviction. But for some, talking about the logistics of death is the easier part — there are steps to follow, forms to fill out, bills to pay. Instead, it's the emotional consequences that are far more difficult to grapple with. This was the case for Kayla Evans, whose dad died in 2013. Growing up, her family didn't talk about death unless it was about practical matters. 'There was a very utilitarian response,' Evans recalls. 'Like, it's sad, but we have to move on.' From her mother, there was an unspoken message that 'people who were very sentimental about death were silly.' 'Nobody taught me how to deal with grief and nobody taught me how to deal with death.' Then, when she was 18, during her second week as a college freshman, Evan's father died unexpectedly. 'Nobody saw it coming,' Evans, now 30, says. 'As he was dying, my mom was like, We need to transfer your name over to these financial documents … the administrative tasks that follow death, things like that, were very well taken care of. I don't think any of us together processed the emotional side of it. That was something I had to do on my own.' Without anyone to talk to, Evans turned to 'extreme productivity' as a coping mechanism in the months after, piling on projects and jobs and schoolwork — a strategy that came at the expense of her relationships and emotional wellbeing. ' I would like to say I grew from [my father's death] or something, but honestly it was just really fucking hard,' Evans says. 'Nobody taught me how to deal with grief and nobody taught me how to deal with death.' Twelve years later, 'I feel it still trails [my mother] especially, and it trails me, too,' Evans says. Talk about death is, weirdly, life-affirming It's not always easy to have conversations about death. But, clearly, it's not easy to avoid them, either. If you want to start grappling with the reality of death, the first step is to ask yourself questions about the end of your own life, though it can feel scary. What does a life well-lived look like for you? How do you want to die? How do you want to be remembered? Taking the time to reflect on your own can help you clarify what you want and better prepare you to tell others what you need. When approaching loved ones about end of life wishes — either your own or theirs — Kathryn Mannix, physician, palliative care specialist, and author of With the End in Mind recommends breaking down the conversation into two parts: the invitation to talk and the conversation itself. For example, you may say something like, Dad, I want to be able to step up and care for you when the time comes. Do you think we could talk about the care you do and do not want towards the end of your life? Could we talk sometime over the next few weeks? 'Talking about our wishes at the end of life is a gift to our future self and to the people who love us.' Alternatively, if you'd like to start the conversation about your own wishes, Mannix suggests something like: Kids, I'm not getting any younger and there are things I'd like to talk about to put my mind at ease. When can we talk? This approach matters because it allows the conversation to happen when all parties have had time to think and prepare. 'Talking about our wishes at the end of life is a gift to our future self and to the people who love us,' Mannix wrote in an email. 'Talking about dying won't make it happen any sooner, but it can make it happen a great deal better.' But these conversations shouldn't just be about end-of-life care or medical decisions — it's also an opportunity to give and receive stories, explore your spiritual beliefs, get existential with your kids, and connect over grief, joys, and regrets. For example, you may approach an elder and ask: What are some of the defining moments of your life? You may ask a child, What do you think happens after we die? Or you may ask a friend, Have you ever navigated death and grieving? Finding your own way to incorporate death into your life can also serve as a corrective to a wider culture of silence. 'I'm currently getting more and more comfortable with death through spiritual practice and connecting to my family's roots of Santeria,' says Romero, who checked their sisters' breathing at night. She connected to Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion that originated in Cuba and blends traditional Yoruba practices and Catholicism, through her grandmother, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. 'I also find that I'm coping a hell of a lot better than other people in my family because I do have this comfort in knowing that … I will always have a relationship with her, even in the afterlife, through my spiritual practice.' Evans, whose father died when she was 18, decided to talk about death and grief during her wedding earlier this year. In her vows, she talked about the sensation of watching her husband sleep at night, and the 'creeping dread' of knowing he was going to die some day. ' I think that other people appreciate when you talk about things like that, even if it's hard to, and it was important for me,' Evans says. 'I did feel kind of empowered, or at the very least like I had confessed something, you know, it was a relief.' For Evans, talking about her preemptive grief wasn't morbid — it was a testament to her deep regard for her husband.

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