The Work & The Why Beneath It

Akilah S. Richards | Grief Literacy Educator | Savorist | Speaker

I help people become more fluent in the language and labor of loss—not to “get over it,” but to get with it. My work centers grief as an ever-present force in our lives, one that deserves our attention not only in the aftermath of death, but in the everyday endings we often rush past: roles we’ve outgrown, friendships that fade, beliefs that no longer fit, and identities we’re still learning to release.

Grief is how we savor loss. It is also how we learn to live honestly inside change. I offer frameworks and space for people to get more comfortable naming what they’ve let die—on purpose or not—and to notice what’s trying to live in its place.

My background in integrative thanatology, liberatory education, and Blackness as a cultural identity shapes this work, but I don’t teach from a podium—I invite people to practice. We reflect, we co-sense, we build *release valves for the parts of us that can’t keep holding it all.

Whether through a keynote, workshop, retreat, or podcast episode, I bring a mix of structure and soul. Practical tools meet personal truth. Spiritual insight meets story. I don’t lead people to closure—I help them build capacity. And when resistance shows up—in our homes, our institutions, our own bodies—I treat it like information. A signal that something old is being challenged, and something new is asking to live. Because grief isn’t just something to name—it’s guidance, if we let it be.

I work with individuals, teams, and communities ready to make space for grief—not to solve it, but to better move with it. If you’re seeking grounded, grief-informed support in your space, I’d be honored to collaborate.

* I want to honor that this term "release valves" came from a member of the very first I Let It Die grief caravan. She said that she joined the caravan to get release valves for what she was experiencing with grief, and I felt that so much that I've now kept it in the language of what I do and why I do it. Big shout out to "J" for showing up for herself and for us with this language.