Mary Lou Holland of East Falmouth, a grief therapist who spent many years helping people find hope and even joy after loss and sorrow, died at home on December 24. She was 90. âWhen a real crisis happens, you learn that you can be desperate and bitter, or you can grow from it. We only grow through pain, unfortunately, and the hope is that we will grow in compassion and empathy,â Ms. Holland said during an interview with the Enterprise in 1997. âIt is essential for survivors to talk about their grief.â More than 20 years before that conversation, Ms. Hollandâs then 16-year-old son, Gerald, was diagnosed with epitelial sarcoma, a form of cancer, and given six months to live. Shortly after their 1976 return from a Rudolf Steiner clinic in Switzerland, where Gerald began to recover, another son, 18-year-old Brendan, was killed in a car accident. Reeling with pain, Ms. Holland went to a lecture by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, lecturer and author of several books on death and loss, and decided she wanted to work and study with her.