GCMS Student Finds 'a place to carry my grief' Over Mother Death

Korah Palumbo settled into her seat in the Gibson City Melvin Sibley High School gymnasium for an assembly last fall and turned her attention to the speaker, not expecting the flood of emotions that she’d feel in the coming minutes. Sara Groom Boucek began speaking about mental health and the “invisible backpack” that individuals carry throughout their lives that contains the trauma they’ve experienced, which caught Palumbo’s attention. Boucek then detailed the story of her mother’s death by suicide when she was in high school.

“I was so caught off guard,” she said. “I didn’t know her, but it felt like I did. It felt like we were the same person. … It was an emotional wreck for me.”

Much of the time, Palumbo said, she’s able to push the thoughts of her mother’s 2013 death from the forefront of her mind. But those thoughts always linger, no matter how much they’ve evolved since she was an 8-year-old only daughter who lost her only parent.

She felt the eyes of her classmates around the gym glancing back at her with caring looks. In a small town like Gibson City, community members rally around their neighbors after a tragedy, so her classmates were well aware of the circumstances of her mother’s death.

She heard Boucek speak about the undeserved self-blame that haunts surviving family members and friends, and Palumbo was brought back to the complicated feelings that evolved as she learned more about her mother’s death. Note: Full Time - Al Cento Per Cento streaming ita

“She was raising awareness,” Palumbo said, “saying that it’s not (the loved one’s) fault, and normalizing the stages of grief, normalizing anxiety and normalizing depression.”

Palumbo lived alone with her mother in Gibson City as a young child, just down the street from her great aunt and uncle, Lori and Curt Hinrichs, whom she moved in with after her mother died.

“She was a smiley person,” Palumbo said of her mother. “She loved me very, very much, and she loved making people laugh. She had the most contagious laugh. … She was one of those people where you probably wouldn’t have seen it coming.

“To be honest, I didn’t understand when I was younger,” she added. “It wasn’t until I was older that it really started to click in my brain. I went through a time period where I was just like, ‘Why?’ And I blamed it on myself, like, ‘This is my fault. I caused all of this. Why wasn’t I enough for her to stay?’

Boucek’s talk “helped me realize that it wasn’t me. Note: CODA - I segni del cuore streaming ita

Arizona Department of Health Services

Jessica Rigler, a top official with the Arizona Department of Health Services and a state leader during Arizona's COVID-19 pandemic, is leaving her job.

Rigler's last day is April 1 and she will be moving to a position with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, state health department spokesperson Steve Elliott confirmed Thursday. Former ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ is the chief medical officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona.

As assistant director for the department's division of public health preparedness, Rigler has assumed a more high-profile role with the state ever since the departure of Christ, who left her job with ADHS in August.

Don Herrington was named interim director after Christ left and that's when Rigler began taking on an increasing amount of media interviews, becoming a public face of the department.

But Rigler has been a key figure throughout Arizona's pandemic, as her job had oversight of Epidemiology and Disease Control, Emergency Medical Services, Public Health Statistics, Public Health Emergency Preparedness and the Arizona State Public Health Laboratory.

Rigler has worked in various roles at the state agency for more than 12 years, according to an online ADHS biography.

Note: Notre Dame in fiamme streaming ita