Our team prides itself on speaking to the elephant in the room, so can we talk about this new wave of grief so many of us are feeling these days? Delta variant, anyone? It seemed as though we’d soon be returning to our pre-pandemic lives. We don’t know about you, but we were pretty excited to hug and dance and dine without holding back, to get back to in person dinners and camps and all of the gatherings that get us out of bed in the morning. As we write this, the headlines are telling us that life this year is not going to snap back to how it was. As grievers, if there’s one thing we know it’s that there never was a “going back to normal” after a loss, anyway. Some of us are grieving the idea of continued isolation. Some of us are grieving the thought of not being able to return to the schedules that kept us balanced. A lot of us are just really tired of pandemic life, TBH - but we’re doing what we gotta do to keep ourselves and our people safe and sound. For some of us, we lost much more than balance. We lost people. With over 600K deaths due to COVID in the US alone, there’s nearly 5 million newly bereaved in our midst. While words like “sorry for your loss” always feel like they fall short, we do have one heartfelt message to those who’ve joined our grief club this year: welcome to the table. Since the pandemic began we’ve watched our community come together virtually and we’ve been blown away by the connections built. We are so PROUD of how we’ve shown up for each other, whether we’re in the final month of this pandemic or in the months and years before; whether we’re a table that’s been meeting for 5 years straight (shoutout to Emily’s table in Charlotte, NC!) or eagerly awaiting joining your first table, or being matched with a buddy, after learning about TDP just last week. It’s a little overdone now but we still hold it to be true. We’ve got this, TDP fam. Even as we mask back up, scale down our birthday parties, and rethink travel plans this fall. Definitely got this. So, in the meantime, talk to us. What are YOU grieving at this moment? Anything you need to vent about, from petty to powerful? Tell us below.

For better or for worse, 16 people are deciding whether bereaved Americans will have job and wage protections following a death in 28 short days. We've been in partnership with workplaces to bring more grief readiness into organizational culture, but this work isn't a company to company problem. It's a nationwide, systemic one. This legislation is an important step in the right direction towards recognizing the impacts of bereavement on workers (there is currently ZERO federally required days of bereavement leave) and putting into place more progressive definitions of whose grief matters. Please join us in supporting evermore who's spearheading the charge and make some phone calls at their website here: live-evermore.org/ and through our link in bio. AND tell us about your experience being a griever at work below…

Hello Amanda (alaska_webb), @mandypatinkin , and all of our fellow Princess Bride fans grieving along with Inigo Montoya, and “learning to dance with a limp” (@annelamott).

What a day! We woke up to our inboxes and notification tabs flooded with people looking for a community to be with in their grief, people who GET IT in the way that only someone who's also lived through a loss possibly can. What caused the surge? Our friends Kathryn Grody & Mandy Patinkin, and this response to a TikTok video from a griever named Amanda. You may fondly know of Mandy as Inigo Montoya, the sword-wielding swashbuckler avenging the death of his father in The Princess Bride. Amanda’s dad, who passed away last year, was a big Mandy fan, and she was curious to know if — as legend has it — Mandy channeled his own father-loss grief when playing the role. For ways to get involved check out our website, our link in bio, and DM with any q’s! Let’s show up for each other. #patinktok #mandypatinkin #princessbride #griefandloss #griefsupport

Join us for Part 3 of our Emotion Through Motion series! This time we'll be led by Art Therapist @intersectiontherapy , Colombian Dance Hall Pioneer @tania.mulahttaz , Globetrotting musician  @bisimusic and the founder of @blackgirlyoga ! Swipe through to meet them all, and we'll see you on Saturday August 28th at 10:30am PT / 1:30 PM ET for 2 hours of Wellness dedicated to the BIPOC community.   We offer you this time to come together to both grieve and find joy collectively. RSVP at bit.ly/emotionthrumotionpart3 or through our #linkinbio

Looking at the UN reports on climate change, looking at wildfires, sea levels, deep hurt for people and place, and holding on tight to the power of grief - not something to get over or to avoid, but a force that can help us clarify who and what and why we love, and how to do it better. Thank you Robin Wall Kimmerer for this quote, we're breathing it in deeply.

Looking for a new book to dig into? 🛋 Want to brush up on your 'showing up for others' skills? ☎️ In the mood to develop a personalized grief ritual? 🕯 We've refurbished our resource page for you all to find whatever you and your grief are hungry for. 🍳 Check. It Out. thedinnerparty.org/resources and through our #linkinbio

Repost from @toms 📚💥 Knowledge is power and school is in session! 💥 📚 Join us for our brand-new series — The School of Grassroots Good — where we’ll be passing the mic to the people creating change at the grassroots level, driving progress from the ground up. In the first episode you’ll hear from TOMS Ambassador and youth mental health advocate @amy_lee and TOMS Giving Partner @thedinnerparty Director of BIPOC Wellbeing, @sundaribliss as they share knowledge about surviving burnout, navigating the upcoming back to school season, and finding community through it all. #GrassrootGood #TOMSPartner

Want a way to brighten up your week? Come to our two part training for ALL of those who are interested in becoming a host of your very own #lifeafterloss table. The training will take place on Tuesday July 13th (Part I) and Thursday, July 15th (Part II) at 5pm ET. For BIPOC-identified folks in our community, if you’d like to take the training and experience a Dinner Party yourself, you're invited to our first virtual BIPOC Host Meet-up on Thursday, July 22nd. Facilitated by Sundari Malcolm, our world- wide BIPOC community is invited to good food and great conversation in a safe space. Set your own happy atmosphere. Cook, or order in, your favorite meal! Arrive wearing your most comfortable clothes. This is going to be a night to remember! You can RSVP for the training, the event, or BOTH by clicking the link in our bio. #grief #lifeafterloss #thedinnerparty #BIPOCgriefsupport

TDP fam, WE ARE HIRING! We’re looking for a brilliant, part-time, remote human to become our Community Support Coordinator. Here are the deets. Apply via the link in our bio by July 19! 🎉🎉🎉 “Our Community Support Coordinator will oversee a suite of essential tasks for Dinner Partiers. The role includes, but is not limited to, leading host training for our Dinner Party Table program, assisting in matching Buddies for the Buddy System, and providing troubleshooting and support to all Dinner Partiers through our various support inboxes and channels. This role is best suited to someone who is detail-oriented and committed to community-building, whether that involves 1:1 or one-to-many communications and touch-points. This position reports to the Director of Community Experience. This is a part-time position that is not to exceed 10 hours per week, but there will likely be opportunities to expand the role over time.”

To our dearest Dinner Partiers, As we mark another Father’s Day, one of many Hallmark holidays we’ve come to ridicule as grief-traps but still cannot escape, we’re reminded there’s also a chance this weekend for something that has nothing to do with capitalism or annoying marketing emails. It can be a time for remixing traditions, for ritual, for ceremony, for deeper connection, in whatever way feels good for us. We sat down with our friend @solguy - a father who knows what it’s like to lose a father - and talked about how these days can be a time to pause and acknowledge. Sol’s been spending beaucoup time reflecting on how to honor our late fathers, and his answer to that inquiry hit the big screen of @tribeca this weekend with the premiere of his documentary @mytwofathers . Join us for a deeper discussion about his film on June 24th, RSVP through our link in bio. In our convo, Sol talked about finding space to see these days as a moment to honor, to point our energies towards all those who father - whether you’re brunching with them, far from them physically, estranged from them, working through the difficulties of your relationship, grieving them deeply or decades after their death. Make it whatever you want, do something for yourself, do something to honor those who came before, do something to enrich those coming after. For Sol, the act of doing is where the healing lives. Don’t know where to start as you think about turning Father’s Day into a moment of ritual for yourself, your TDP table, or your family, chosen or otherwise? Explore our grief ritual toolkit through the link in our bio that we developed to aid in your brainstorming of what might feed you this weekend. Bottom’s up! To all of you who took the time to share your stories this year, to choose to be together in the acknowledgement – thank you. To meet some of the incredible father figures who bring people to our table, swipe through and read the full collection on our website. Introduce us to your father, father-figure, the one who made you a father, and tell us what life after loss has looked like for you. With love, Team TDP

Juneteenth marks the day on 19 June 1865 when enslaved Black people in Texas learned they had been freed more than 2 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. For some, it is the reminder that the true liberty of Black and Brown folks has never been the mission of America. For others, it is a day of celebration, joy and the tradition of food and drinks tinged with red because red is the reminder that Africans were free in their homelands of West Africa. At The Dinner Party, Juneteenth is a chance to learn more about the truths of Black history and grief in this country and how we can effectively SHOW UP, particularly as a predominantly White organization. As we deep dive into our own reading material on this historical day, we thought we'd share some of what we can't put down. Have a look at our list of books from a non-colonizer perspective on grief and loss in our bio. Share with us how YOU'RE spending Juneteenth. We want to hear from you.