PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/category/first-person/)
Heather Bradley is the executive director of Pittsburgh Bereavement Doulas. From the Source Host Jourdan Hicks speaks with Heather about her 20-plus-year career as a doula, how the prevalence of poor prenatal experiences for women make her work essential, and the need to reduce the stigma around death and grief.
Compelling personal stories
told by the people living them. My high school’s Friday night showing of “Beauty and the Beast” starts in an hour. As Lumiere the candlestick does his sound check, the rest of the cast is waiting onstage for our own. Our lighting designer is running through cues, making the hot stage lights jump from bright white to blue to red and back again. Someone is playing the piano in the green room (probably a “Hamilton” song). I’m in my huge Mrs. Potts costume and I can’t quite figure out how to breathe.
The things that impact me at a university are not things everyone has to be concerned with, and no amount of diversity training has changed that fact in the last 16 years.
On Memorial Day, my father passed away in the hospital, 10 days after having a surgery to remove part of his colon with a tumor. He was 80 years old, but until the last few months of his life, he had been physically active, working small jobs and helping his siblings clean and sell their family home. He had more life to live.
First person: Despite gains in LGBTQ rights, discrimination in Pennsylvania is an ongoing problem, both from institutions and in navigating personal relationships.
Medicare and Medicaid are supposed to give us the care we need. Here, they limit options and rip away our ability to meet our basic needs. It's a specific kind of deprivation of services that is all too common, government-sanctioned neglect of one of its most vulnerable populations.
In Pittsburgh, gendered bathrooms are the literal law. While you might find an occasional all-gender restroom, these bathrooms exist either outside of Allegheny County’s plumbing code or are possible only after gender-assigned fixture counts have been met.
Compelling personal stories
told by the people living them. I fall into this thought experiment from time to time where I imagine what it would be like if I jumped ahead in my life by exactly a year to the date. I performed this thought experiment at the end of April 2019. I was about to exit one phase of my life and enter into an indefinite period of unemployment. However, I had some plans in store, ranging from grad school to teaching overseas.
Compelling personal stories
told by the people living them. Editor’s note, trigger warning: The essay discusses suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know are struggling with suicidal ideation, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), or message the Crisis Text Line at 741741. The programs provide free, confidential support 24/7. The author's full name is being withheld to protect his privacy.
With 39 candidates running for nine open seats on the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, this is an issue that candidates and voters should carefully consider both before and after the election.
