Victoria Noe

Award-winning Author, Speaker, Activist

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Philip Seymour Hoffman

Friend Grief's Top Five List for 2014

Dec 19, 2014 by Victoria Noe
The year is almost over and I thought it would be a good time to look back on the posts that generated the most interest this year.The funny thing about writing is that you don’t always know what resonates with people. Sometimes you write something that you believe is so brilliant it will change the lives of everyone who reads it – and obviously, everyone in the world will read it. That usually doesn’t happen. Sometimes you write something that’s definitely not your best effort, but there’s something about it that hits a nerve.This list certainly surprised me:#5 Update on Friend Grief and AIDS The second book in my series has been the most popular by far. It’s also the...

Another Celebrity “Friend” Dies

Another Celebrity “Friend” Dies
Feb 26, 2014 by Victoria Noe
suntimes.comThere’s been a lot on the news, on the internet, in the papers the past 48 hours about the death of writer/director/actor Harold Ramis; even more here in Chicago, because he was one of “us”.Again – as we saw recently in the case of Philip Seymour Hoffman – people are sharing their grief as if he were a close personal friend.And again, others are asking “Why?”Why do we mourn the death of someone we’ve never met?Why do we feel as if we’ve lost someone who was a part of our lives?Why do we act as if they were our friend?Certainly, the internet and social media like Twitter and Facebook have enabled millions to share their thoughts and feelings with the world....

Anger, Condemnation and Philip Seymour Hoffman

Feb 06, 2014 by Victoria Noe
As I work on the next book in my series, Friend Grief and the Military: Band of Friends, I’m immersed in stories of survivor guilt. Men and women are haunted for years about what they see as their failure to prevent the death of their friend, even if their friend died from suicide. Rarely is there a situation where that guilt is logically justified, but that doesn’t stop it from tearing people apart.Lately, the news is full of the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman from an apparent heroin overdose. I’ve heard very little from his friends in terms of survivor guilt. What I have heard should disturb us all.“He didn’t love his kids enough to stop using.”“Celebrities think nothing...