Hero of 2024: An actually good, soul-enriching Instagram

The staff of Mother Jones is rounding up the heroes and monsters of the past year .

This is a completely non-exhaustive and subjective list, giving our reporters a chance to write about something that brought joy or discontent.

One of the heroes is New Yorker staff writer Amanda Petrusich , whose husband died suddenly in 2022 .

LZ Granderson lost her husband, Bret , in June 2013 .

She says she struggled to be honest about her grief because not being honest felt antithetical to the work of grief.

LZ: Grief is a universal experience, but we're all so ill-equipped to navigate it alone.

Both motherhood and grief are also invisible burdens, a weight you carry that no one else sees.

Taking care of a baby alone through that early period of grief was by far the hardest thing I have ever done.

The act of caregiving is profound and life-changing work, even if the culture does not necessarily frame it that way.