Perhaps you've heard the war stories from mothers who have raised teen daughters, told in the spirit of camaraderie, sympathy and encouragement.

The drama subsides, they say. The quiet resentment or open rebellion is replaced by mutual respect and affection. It's normal for these years to be fraught with tension and conflict, they reassure.

Conventional wisdom says the mother-daughter relationship nearly fractures in adolescence before it becomes whole again in adulthood.

But it doesn't always work that way, does it? Sometimes the distance breached in those years of struggling to create one's own identity is too great. The adult relationship fails to recover the way we imagine it will; it falls short of what we hoped it might become.

There's a mother-daughter team challenging this narrative with a radical notion: The teen years can be the time when mothers and daughters thrive in their relationship. It's when daughters need to keep their mothers close, argue Sil and Eliza Reynolds, in their book "Mothering and Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years."

It sounded a little pie-in-the-sky to me. I'm sure there are some mothers and daughters who are naturally gifted communicators, or emotionally intelligent savants, who breeze through the years so many of us struggle with.

But how might one spot such unicorns, let alone join their ranks?

Girls in the Know, a St. Louis-based nonprofit, recently hosted a two-day retreat led by the Reynolds mother-daughter duo to teach how this radical idea could be put into practice. I was curious to see what kind of practical tools they could teach that would deepen and calm the bond I have with my 13-year-old girl.

When I told her we were going to spend eight hours over a weekend learning how to "empower" our relationship, she rolled her eyes at me.

"Oh God. That sounds so cheesy," she said.

I hope the Reynolds are prepared for our enthusiastic participation, I thought. When we arrived and waited outside in the hallway with about 20 other mom-daughter pairs, my girl whispered to me: "There are so many other things I could be doing right now."

Well, this was going to be fun.

To my great surprise, it was fun. And moving. And enlightening.

The Reynolds kept our group together to explain some basics about emotional intelligence and effective communication skills, especially when talking about difficult topics. They used games to introduce concepts such as finding and trusting your intuition. Then, they separated the daughters and moms to give each group a chance to practice these skills among their peer group. When they reunited us, we had a chance to listen and respond to our daughters in a new way.

One of their main points was about finding creative ways to stay connected during a time when the culture encourages us to push each other away. For example, a nightly check-in that might only take a minute: Ask your daughter to share three words to describe how she's feeling, maybe when she gets home from school or before she goes to bed. Figure out one thing you enjoy doing together, whether it's watching a TV show or cooking, and make it a scheduled priority every week. Create a journal that is shared back and forth on a weekly basis.

There's never a silver bullet to making a relationship work. It takes energy and patience -- even more than many of us imagined, during the tumultuous years of rapid physical and emotional change.

But the story that Sil and Eliza told, in which teen daughters see mothers as their allies on the path toward independence, was so much more compelling than that in which daughters view their mothers with disdain or disinterest as adversaries.

Even my skeptical teen hugged me afterwards and said, "I guess it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

There's a payoff worth the eyerolls.

I was visiting the home of a close friend, near my own age, who had recently lost her mother after a prolonged illness.

A few of us stopped by to offer our sympathy.

The woman talked about her beloved mother with a measure of peace in her voice. She had been an amazing woman, one who lived a full life and had been dearly loved, my friend said.

I admired her strength despite the nearness of her loss. Then she revealed that a previous tragedy gave her perspective on her current grief. Her brother had died when he was 31. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumor while studying for his own medical boards.

His untimely death changed her and her family. But it taught her something that helped her cope with future losses: Control is largely an illusion.

"When it's your time, it's your time," she said.

Many of us reach a certain point, in midlife, when the prevalence of loss becomes more noticeable -- hitting more often and closer in intimate circles. Parents, spouses, friends, relationships, jobs, pets and, most unimaginable of all, a child, may leave our lives too soon.

So, what makes these losses easier to bear for some than others? While there is no set timetable for processing grief, there are factors that influence how it impacts us: our age, life experience, relationship to the deceased, the circumstances surrounding the death, and our support networks and belief systems.

There aren't any shortcuts in grieving. There are, however, strategies for coping. Survivors can honor the memory of the deceased by doing something purposeful in their loved one's name, spreading kindness or raising awareness. They can focus on the good in their lives, no matter how small, and hold tightly to memories. They might turn to prayer or share stories. Sometimes, it's simply a matter of moving through a single moment, day after day, until the passage of time dulls the sharp edge off of the pain.

The hurt of a significant loss is never fully erased. But it ceases to be an open, throbbing wound after enough time passes.

The way we reframe a personal loss, the narrative we tell ourselves about it, can eventually alter our emotions. Some parents who have gone through the unspeakable trauma of burying a child tell themselves that the child's life was meant to serve a purpose -- perhaps to provoke a societal change that could save other lives, or inspire others to be brave or grateful. Those who believe in a higher power and an afterlife take comfort in the hope of an eventual reunion. That ability to convince ourselves of what we gained, and what remains possible, is one of the few things within our control in times of despair.

The five stages of grief are familiar to most adults: denial, bargaining, depression, anger, acceptance. The length of time one lingers in each stage only becomes apparent in hindsight. In the midst of it, it can look like an empty, endless road of suffering.

Dan Duffy, a St. Louis-based video producer, published "The Half Book" last month, a story about his battle with cancer. He has also filmed a few stories of cancer survivors and victims.

"When we go through loss, we think, 'No one knows what I feel like,'" he said. "That compounds the loss."

He has devoted hours to recording other people's cancer stories, convinced that they are vital to healing.

"It reaffirms that we are not alone," he said.

We can be reminded of this when we visit with friends and family in the aftermath of a significant loss they have suffered. We may show up to comfort and offer support to survivors, but it's also a chance to remember our own losses -- to share that moment of sorrow that makes us human.

Life is filled with loss. Grace enters us in how we contend with it.

At first I thought it was a joke.

Like the satirical Funny or Die video "Muslim-Meet," which offers "a surefire way to cure your Islamophobia." That video spoofs ignorant Americans being introduced to a random Muslim American and discovering their commonalities, like living in an apartment, loving soup and watching Netflix, "just like me."

The conceit of the two-minute video is humanizing a regular human to those who would believe that Muslims have retractable horns growing from their heads. It makes us laugh because the notion is so obvious, it's silly.

Well, perhaps not so obvious.

Scott McNorton, 35, an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, was so fed up with the anti-Muslim bigotry he heard that he felt motivated to do something to counter it. He didn't have any Muslim friends, nor did he know much about Islam. He grew up in Waynesboro, Virginia, about three hours south of D.C., where he said a lot of people were just like him: white and middle class.

Shortly before Christmas, he was sitting in the university's student center and saw a Muslim student wearing hijab walking across the room. He approached her and asked if she would mind taking a selfie with him.

Understandably, she was a little puzzled by the request from a stranger. She's a student, not a campus attraction, after all. He explained to her that he wanted to post pictures of himself with Muslims to help educate others who have never met a Muslim. This was his attempt to promote tolerance through exposure.

"Oh yes, that would be awesome," she replied, gave him a high five and thanked him for the selfie.

Thus began #SelfiesWithMuslims. At first he would post the images on his own Facebook page, beginning each status with "One day a Christian man meets ..." and briefly describe the encounter and Muslim he met. He has since created a separate page, which has garnered thousands of likes from around the world.

In an interview with a local paper, he said he wants people to see that Muslims enjoy being outdoors, playing sports, watching Netflix, playing video games and hanging out with friends. One of the women from his selfie encounters concurred, adding that she likes to eat bagels with Nutella, too.

It would seem satirical if McNorton wasn't so genuinely earnest and if the Muslims he approached weren't so touched and thankful for his gesture. The project has led him to visit local mosques and get to know a community he knew nothing about before.

Ironically, the social media project was inspired by GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump. After McNorton heard his call for ban on Muslims entering America, a proposal denounced by the majority of Republican officials and candidates, he could not stay silent.

"I grew up in a family that was very high on morals and values and respect," he said. "It is ridiculous that someone has to stand up and say something. But it's not about being a Catholic, like me, or a Muslim. It's about being a decent human being to another person."

Imagine how bizarre #SelfiesWithaJew or #SelfiesWithaChristian or #SelfiesWithanAgnosticWhoStillLikesToCelebrateChristmas might sound.

McNorton's efforts seem less ridiculous given the backdrop. He grew up in the same county as Riverheads High School, where a teacher recently drew national attention and local fury for giving geography students a lesson that included information on Islam and Arabic calligraphy. And Bruce Hagen, the mayor of Superior, Wisconsin, where McNorton now lives, has come under fire for a recent Facebook comment. Under a picture of Michelle Obama, Hagen wrote: "Unbelievable! She and her Muslim partner have destroyed the fabric of democracy that was so very hard fought for."

Obama has repeatedly said he is a Christian. Hagen has since apologized and accepted an invitation from the Muslims in his community to meet them for a meal at their mosque.

McNorton said he wants his own two children to learn the same values his mother taught him.

"I want them to see that it's OK to put yourself out there. It's OK to learn from others. It's OK to educate others."

He's been overwhelmed by the hugs, smiles and encouragement he's received from random Muslims he's met. One of them, Ahmed Maamoun, is an assistant professor of Marketing at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He met McNorton at a recent Friday prayer service.

"Thank you for what you are doing for us," Maamoun said to him, gladly posing for a group selfie.

McNorton says that while the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, he's gotten a few negative messages. Some people are upset by his wanting to portray Muslims as normal people. One person said he hopes McNorton "gets taken out" for what he's doing.

"People want to scare me," he said. "I'm not scared."

We've gotten to the point where some Americans are so upset by the message that Muslims are normal people that they would wish death upon that messenger.

Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish reality from satire.