Online grief education and support nationwide
Posoh — hello!
My name is Sākwātukiā, which means Evening Star Woman. I am an enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. My English name is Dr. Sharon Fredericks, though friends often call me Star.
When my 13-year-old son died by suicide, the loss shattered everything I thought I knew about strength, purpose, and healing. Drowning in guilt and pain, I began a journey to understand my grief. Along the way, I discovered a truth that changed everything: the people who truly understood my pain were those who had walked through their own.
Over time, I’ve learned how to live with many layers of loss — trauma, illness, addiction, murder, and suicide — each carrying its own complexity. Grief doesn’t always involve trauma, but trauma always carries grief. Healing came slowly, through compassion, connection, and ceremony — and it grew into a calling to help others do the same.
I hold a PhD in Education and trained under grief expert David Kessler as a Peer-to-Peer Grief Educator. For more than two years, I’ve moderated his international online grief community, Tender Hearts, supporting people from all over the world through their healing. My goal is to bring this knowledge home — adapting grief education for Indigenous communities where we carry both ancestral and personal layers of loss.
In our work together, we’ll honor your story, your pain, and your love. There’s no “fixing” grief — but you can learn to carry it differently, to find moments of peace, and to remember your loved ones with more love than pain.
“Healing doesn’t come from outside of us. The answers live within — we just need support to find them.”