26 January 2026: It Is Time...
Dear ones,
With Hanna’s increasing tiredness, dependence on the ventilator, and difficulties with phlegm, we have sensed that she is in a new phase. Here is a short video from Hanna, letting us all know about her decision.
As we write this, Hanna is planning to make her transition starting this weekend. We will be sure to keep you informed as this all unfolds.
There is heavy snow this week in Pittsburgh. We have backup power for all her machines and extra supplies on hand. Please know there will likely not be capacity for visits and the folks who are with Hanna will probably not be able to respond to inquiries or requests. A lot of waking time is taken up with cough assist and nebulizer and suction and comfort adjustments.
Hanna is so beyond grateful for all the love and care in this community. Stay warm and safe out there. The beautiful story we have been telling together is not ending, but it may be about to change to a new chapter.
We will send more updates in days to come.
Marc
A message from Hanna
Dear far ones,
It pains me that I cannot say goodbye in person and that you can’t be together at my grave. As I become more isolated, the feeling that we belong to each other grows. I feel my love and gratitude for you. I’ve experienced deaths that just went by because I could not be at the funeral or in community. So the loss went unacknowledged and settled in my bones, making my steps a little heavier. I’d like my death to become an invitation to stop for a moment and feel, held in the embrace of fellow travelers.
Some of my friends—people in the community that has held and sustained me—have offered to host gatherings, in person or online, where people can come together in shared love and loss. It needn’t be a big deal. A small group is great, and it can be wherever you want it to be. They may reach out to you, we will list some of them on this site, or you may choose to gather with your people in your own way.
I hope my passing can be an occasion for gathering, for people to hold and sustain one another. This is an invitation to not let death—mine or others’—go unmarked. It would comfort me to know that my people will be together.
With so much love,
Hanna
Grieving Hanna From Wherever You Are: Resources
Here are some resources for people who find themselves grieving from afar, offered in support of your process, your being.
A place to leave a message
We’ve set up a page on Hanna’s site where you can leave messages and memories. We can’t promise Hanna will see them all, though we will do our best to read them to her. And the page will remain as a memorial collection of messages, thoughts, wishes, poems, gratitude,… whatever you choose to record.
A fearful thing, to love…
I leave you with a poem I have offered here before, and which is in the foreground for me this week. The way the ones we love become woven into our lives, the inherent certain risk of love, memorably and vulnerably expressed.
. . .
‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.
. . .
By Yehuda Halevi, or maybe Chaim Stern
(Authorship is tricky. It’s either a hundred years old, or a thousand.)