Kristen and I are both old school bloggers, going back to 2006 when our kids were tiny. Back then, we were a small, passionate community of writers who shared our lives, our joys, our many challenges and even some painful losses. Many of us became IRL friends. Even if we didn’t know each other in person, we “knew” each other’s families, celebrating births, mourning divorces, cheering new relationships, comparing children’s milestones, and consoling each other through sometimes extremely rough patches.

Maybe some of you even feel this way about Kristen and my own families’ journeys.

Among us is Rebecca Woolf, one of the most spectacular writers in any genre, let alone blogging. You may better know her for her blog Girls Gone Child and her 2008 memoir, Rockabye, and now her remarkably beautiful and evocative Instagram feed. She was even one of the very first Cool Mom Picks writers way back when, as we first got this website started.

We watched Rebecca and her husband Hal’s beautiful, offbeat, super cool but down-to-earth family grow to include Archer (now 13, same as my oldest), their daughter Fable, and eventually, their twins Revi and Bo who are now 7.

Several months ago, Rebecca let us all know that her husband Hal had been diagnosed with a very aggressive late-stage pancreatic cancer.

This weekend, he passed. He was just 44.

All photos © Rebecca Woolf via Instagram

It’s crushing for so many of us, especially those of us who knew Hal or even met him in passing, and had the pleasure of experiencing his joyous spirit, incredible sense of humor, and fierce love for his family.

If you want to help in some way, friends of Rebecca’s have set up a gofundme to help support Rebecca with her four kids. I know things are tight for a lot of people right now, but even $5 helps. Or, if what you can offer is a thought or a prayer or a kind word, I know she’s happily accepting those too.

Our friend Georgia Getz said it perfectly yesterday: “I hardly know what to do with myself except to put it here in front of the collective consciousness…believing wholeheartedly in the way we can hold people in our hearts and in the light.”

You can find the Woolf-Isaacson Family Fund on Gofundme. Much love to you and your family Rebecca, from all of us and all of our own families.