Help Dena Heal after Multiple Losses

I am writing on behalf of my friend, Dena Herman, whom I first met ten years ago through one of my best friends from graduate school.

Dena has been through an incredible ordeal over the past month. To me it feels like an incomprehensible one two punch.

I am hopeful we can gather around Dena and support her during this unimaginable time of loss.

First a bit about Dena:

Dena is an incredibly hard working single Mom (and daughter of a single Mom) who has raised her two boys with love, compassion and a lot of hard work. She is a professor of Nutrition at CSUN/UCLA and also spends time supporting families with constrained resources to achieve food and nutrition security and fights for health equity.

After her divorce, she had been renting out her home so she could afford to continue to pay the mortgage and she moved to a small, more affordable apartment.

First gut punch:

Dena's Mom passed away on December 31 from Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a form of blood cancer. This, in and of itself, would be a huge loss given the closeness of Dena and her Mom; two women bonded by hard work and the desire to raise kind, accomplished children.

Second unimaginable punch:

Not even a week after the death of her Mom, Dena lost everything in the California Wildfires. She fled her apartment with her cat and the clothes she was wearing.

In the fires she lost years of hard work in a matter of hours:

She lost the apartment she lives in and everything in it.

She lost the home she owns but was renting out.

She lost her Mom's home.

She lost all tangible memories from photos to clothing and everything in between.

Everything was totally destroyed in the fires.

And the worst part of it all is she can't even pick up the phone and talk to her Mom.

My head explodes when I think about the cumulative loss and grief that Dena is experiencing.

Please consider a donation to Dena. Even the smallest amount will make a difference not just financially but to offer Dena much needed hope while she tries to make sense of the myriad emotions she is cycling through. Logistically, of course, it will help too with a host of unexpected costs.

Please share this with your social network.

With gratitude.