Making Grief Grool (Cool + Griefy)
Celebrating October 3rd—AKA Mean Girls Day
By Kera Sanchez (Originally Published in Get Griefy Issue 2)
I saw Mean Girls for the first time on my 16th Birthday. I actually went to see it with my mom, and I remember being entranced with the film. Everything about it so correctly and comically embodied what it was like to be a teenager in the early 2000s. The hair, the makeup, the shoes, the cliques — all were incredibly accurate and, in my personal opinion, iconic.
Fast forward to January 2020, right before the world shut down, and I found myself at the age of 33, having cocktails at the London House Chicago with my mom, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, my mom’s sorority sisters, and their daughters, all gushing with excitement to see Mean Girls the Musical. Seventeen years later, the idea behind Mean Girls still had a hold on us; we still found it relatable. It was then that I realized that the message behind the plot still applies to other aspects of life, not just the students at ‘North Shore High’.
To be honest, as far-fetched as it may seem, I believe this film and the quotable lines from this legendary film very much apply to my grief journey and how I got here today, starting a Magazine, all about grief, where the pages reflect life and pizzazz, a concept that confuses many. So get in, loser, we’re cracking open that burn book and walking you through my Mean Girls-inspired grief takeaways.
Where you Sit in the Cafeteria is Crucial
When I first found out that my mom unexpectedly died at the age of 57, I had just given birth, and she was on vacation in Italy. Suddenly, my world stopped spinning, and I couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening. I vividly remember the early days, after the services, and the shock was beginning to wear off; I felt completely alone, like no one else had to carry this weight, and I was a victim of my situation.
I desperately searched for other people who were ‘like me’. After sitting with the girls who ate their feelings for a bit, and skirting around the JV jocks, burnouts, and sexually active band geeks, I decided to create my own table for the greatest people you’ll ever meet. Thank goodness for social media because I quickly learned that other people like me did exist, and they had gone through tragedies much worse, yet were still smiling. I knew I needed to create a space for us to show up and bravely share our stories for others who were just starting their first day at ‘grief school’, only carrying with them their home school knowledge of what grief is supposed to look like.
Where you sit is crucial and you can totally sit with us.
If you’re from Africa, why are you white?
Not like any of us are obligated to justify ourselves, but many people are confused to hear that I have started a Grief Magazine that looks like this—a visual party that embodies what it would look like if a sorority girl threw up on their designer shoes. A sparkly, messy, ‘visual rager’, if you will.
Well, for one, that is because I am a sorority girl who, at one point (or multiple points), has thrown up on her designer shoes. Secondly, my mom was also a sorority girl who taught me to follow in her footsteps and make life a party! Thirdly, just because we are grieving doesn’t mean we need to change everything about our lives to accommodate the grief. In fact, it’s the opposite—our grief needs to fall in line and fit in with the life we have already established for ourselves.
The reality is, my mom unknowingly wrote the guidebook for me, ‘How to raise kids and live life when you feel like dying yourself.’ She lost her dad when she was just 22, and I was 6 months old. While I do have some memories of her visiting the cemetery and shedding tears over home movies of them together, what stands out is the memories of her being the most alive person I knew.
My mom, short in stature, was what we like to consider ‘fun-sized’, and she quite literally crammed 10 lifetimes of adventures into her 57 years of life, and I am so proud of her for turning her lemons into lemonade, with a splash of vodka.
My only wish is that she embraced her grief more; that she talked more openly about how much she missed her dad, and quite frankly, anything that made her sad.
And I can’t blame her; she was a product of her environment. We live in a society of ‘black and white’, ‘this or that’, and we really make it hard for people to embrace the spectrums of life.
So if I’m grieving, why do I make light of it? Why do I crack jokes? Why do I paint grief to be beautiful and not ugly? Why am I hopeful? Why am I pink, not black?
Because it’s Wednesday, and the apple lemon did not fall far from the tree.
The Limit Does Not Exist
A huge revelation that I’ve learned, and that has helped me to accept and move forward with my life, is understanding that my mom physically died, but not the love we shared. Not the lessons she instilled in me. Not our hopes and dreams.
As a mother myself to two young girls, I know how I would want them to live their life if something happened to me, and none of those plans involve staying ‘stuck’ in the grief.
By creating, connecting, and building a community in her honor, and in the style we lived our life together, is truly the most loving thing I can do to carry her legacy forward. With this outlet, the love we share knows no boundaries and will continue to spread for infinity.
The limit to our love does not exist.
Don’t Let the Haters Stop you from Doin’ your Thang
No matter which way you slice it, someone is going to have a problem with the way you grieve. The reality is, it’s not one size fits all, or even three sizes fit all (1-3-5). Once you join the grief club, you are definitely shopping at Sears. Mostly because we stopped caring about frivolous surface-level sh*t that doesn’t really matter, and we need more selection. We don’t need to shrink down our grief to fit in, and how big we love directly correlates to how big we grieve.
Haters will either judge you for moving on too fast, or make comments like ‘they seem happy still’, or will side-eye you for taking grief with you everywhere you go. So let them sip that haterade, and do you! Be authentically you, including how you grieve.
Don’t let the haters stop you from doing your thang...
About the Contributor
Kera Sanchez is an educator, entrepreneur, writer, and grief advocate. After unexpectedly losing her mother in 2022, she turned her experience with grief into resources designed to help others navigate loss.
She founded Get Griefy Magazine in 2023, creating a community-centered space for stories, resources, and conversations about grief. Sanchez also created guided journals, including Legacy Letters and No Legacy Lost, and developed Grief U for EDU to help educators better support grieving students and colleagues.
In 2025, Sanchez was named People’s Choice Grief Educator of the Year by TalkDeath. She is also the founder of MILSPO Social Co. Magazine and a military spouse and mother of two.
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