Heather Jackson is the co-founder and CEO of the Realm of Caring Foundation (RoC), an internationally acclaimed nonprofit primarily serving families who are dealing with life-limiting and chronic health conditions. The number of people her organization has served has grown over 10,000% since 2013, from 400 families to over 53,000. Her “why” is her youngest son Zaki. After he journeyed from hospice to health using Charlotte’s Web, Heather made it her mission to empower families who find themselves in the same position her family was in.

Heather has over 11,000 hours of research tucked under her self-taught belt, is a published researcher, author and speaker and has presented in six countries.

Heather is leading a movement to reimagine the way we think, talk and respond to cannabis and hemp and the people who use it. Heather’s work has been featured on Dateline, the New York Times, National Geographic, TIME, Good Housekeeping, 60 Minutes Australia and CNN with Sanjay Gupta, to name a few.

Oh the magic of “just doing something” …

First, when you ask what they need, they won’t really say what they need. Our culture is really screwed up here. The Mayan culture is one to be admired and mimicked when it comes to mourning.

Grieving people won’t say anything for two reasons. They don’t know. They really can’t think about it. They’re spending a good amount of time reminding themselves to breathe. Or secondly, we have built this super hero culture of not needing any help. Subconsciously at times.

So, you start doing stuff. You show up with food. They’ll mention their restrictions like gluten free. Ahhhh … more info. They’ll mention they have family coming. Excellent. Bigger portions.

You show up to clean, and you will hear the needs of the family. They really want their friend to come in for the funeral. So you raise some money to purchase a plane ticket.

You’re just there to be there. To sit and hand tissues and love and laugh and cry and they say something like, “I need all this medical shit out of my house. I can’t look at it anymore.” So you rally troops to handle shit.

It’s not hard. It doesn’t make you a hero. But in my experience, it helps. And it works.

And if they want you to leave them alone, trust me. They’ll tell you. That’s not usually the case though.