Created by People Who Understand
The Grief App was developed by Saundra Neperud, who experienced devastating loss firsthand, and Emily J. Danekas, LMFT, a licensed therapist specializing in grief care. Together, they created practical tools grounded in both lived experience and clinical expertise to provide the support you wish existed for every family.
Meet the Grief App Creators
We built The Grief App because we've both lived this gap. One of us experienced it after a devastating loss; one of us saw it repeatedly in her therapy practice. Together, we created the resource we wish had existed.
Widow & Founder
Saundra has lived a full and unusual life. She predicted Old Faithful as a
volunteer ranger, led boat tours to calving glaciers in Alaska, served in the
Peace Corps in Thailand, taught on the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation,
and owned a hotel in Maine. She started nonprofits, coordinated disaster
response, and said goodbye to countless people along the way—often
knowing she might never see them again.
She thought she understood loss.
Then at 41, she met Eric Neperud, the love of her life. Two weeks after getting
engaged, her mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and died eight
months later. Eleven years after that, Eric was told he might have stage 4
cancer too. He died before the biopsy results came back.
After Eric's death, Saundra spent a year focusing on her mental health. She
looked for grief support groups but couldn't find a single secular in-person
group in her entire city. She finally found a local Facebook group and became
a moderator, hosting events herself. She tried counseling, but the therapist
her insurance covered had no grief experience. It helped so little she stopped
going after a few sessions. She bought books, but her grief-fogged brain
could barely manage simple exercises.
It amazed her that grief help was this hard to find when people die every day.
A year after Eric's death, someone showed Saundra an app designed to help
people stop drinking. As she studied it, she realized something similar could
help people understand and work through grief. She began interviewing
hospice nurses, therapists, grief counselors, and funeral directors to
understand what people in mourning actually need.
That's how she met Emily.
Grief Specialist & Licensed Therapist
Emily is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in grief and
loss. She's guided countless people through the hardest moments of their
lives and knows what actually helps—what exercises work, what practices
support healing, what approaches make a difference.
She also knows the limitations. Traditional therapy isn't always accessible. It's
expensive. It's not available at 2am. And not everyone is ready for weekly
sessions or can afford them.
Emily wanted to make professional-grade grief support available to everyone,
whenever they needed it.
How It Came Together
When Saundra and Emily connected, they had something powerful: lived experience meeting clinical expertise. Saundra knew what it felt like to need help and not find it. Emily knew what tools could actually make a difference. They spent a year developing The Grief App, combining Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with real-world understanding of what people need when they're grieving. Professional without being clinical. Compassionate without being patronizing. Available exactly when you need it.
Vision & Mission
Our Vision
To bridge the gap in grief care by ensuring that professional-grade support is available to everyone, exactly when they need it—especially at 2am when the rest of the world is asleep.
Our Mission
- Fill the Gap: We provide the resources that friends, family, and insurance-covered counselors often can't—specific, expert-led grief support.
- Evidence-Based Tools: We combine proven therapeutic techniques with real-world understanding to create exercises that actually work for a "grief-fogged" brain.
- Normalize the Journey: We strive to remind every user that grief is normal, it has no timeline, and joy and grief can coexist.
Values ThatDrive Our Care
We are committed to bridging the gap in grief support by providing tools built on deep personal understanding and high clinical standards.
Lived Experience
This isn't a wellness app from a tech company; it’s built by a widow who lived the loss and a therapist who treats it daily.
No Timeline
We believe there are no "stages" to grief and no such thing as "should be over it by now." Your journey is your own.
Professional Integrity
Every feature is grounded in therapeutic practices that are professional without being clinical, and compassionate without being patronizing.
Radical Accessibility
You don't need appointments or insurance to access expert care. We meet you where you are, however you need it.
Lived Experience Meets Clinical Expertise
Saundra knew exactly what it felt like to need help and not find it. Emily knew exactly which tools actually make a difference. They spent a year developing The Grief App, combining evidence-based therapeutic techniques with a real-world understanding of what people need when they are grieving.
- Professional without being clinical.
- Compassionate without being patronizing.
- Accessible at 2am when you need it most.
- Built by people who have lived the gap.
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