Good Grief

Finding herself still restless after the death of her husband, Judy Reeves sold everything and set out on a one year voyage around the world. Only a few of her destinations were planned and most of them could be cancelled at a moment's notice. Thus unfolded an experience of discovery; who was she now, a single woman, a widow? What would the next phase of her life look like? In the solitude of her...

What is it that helps us discover ourselves? It is often the challenges, the losses and deep pains, that over time lead us to claim our own natures. For Roberta Kuriloff, a crushing breakup led her to do what she had wanted for a long time; build her own home and live in the Maine woods. Along the way, she explored the turning points of her life, including the death of her mother when she was six...

A diagnosis of MS affects more than just the person now struggling with life, unable to continuing living as they did. When Suzanne Marriott's husband was diagnosed, they faced a re-ordering of everything in their life together. Unable to work, walk well or count on his emotional stability, Suzanne found herself managing more and more of the business of their life together. Through, psychological...

Susan Hayden experienced three sudden losses that shaped her life; her childhood best friend, her father and her husband. How did she shape these losses into the creative voice she crafted over a lifetime? How did they change her? Going forward from loss, what do we take with us and what do we leave behind? Her first published memoir, Now You Are a Missing Person, makes poetry of loss, showing us...

Theo Boyd's idyllic farm upbringing led to a life she thought was perfect until a terrible accident killed her mother. In the space of a few years, her father also died traumatically and her marriage ended. What helped her to navigate these unexpected and crushing losses? Where did she end up after it all? And what kinds of advice does she have for others facing the worst sorts of losses?

The novelist Lynn Hightower approached her grief in a familiar way- through story. Her heroine has lost everything. And that is what makes her dangerous! Heroine Junie Lagarde's husband has died in a tragic plane wreck and her dog is missing. Wrapped in mystery, she will stop at nothing to know what happened and to do all she can to find her beloved dog. Those of us who have grieved deeply will re...

After a lifetime of disapproval from her mother, especially for her lifestyle, Donna Stoneham finally had the accepting and loving connection she had always longed for. But when her mother died, the relationship they had finally formed didn't seem to have lasted nearly long enough. How would her mother help her recover from the greatest loss of her life? And why did they finally find peace only to...

Meghan Riordan Jarvis was a therapist specializing in grief and trauma. So maybe she and her highly trained friends and colleagues recognized just a little sooner that she was in trouble. After the loss of her father then her mother, she developed severe PTSD that required in-patient care. How does a therapist navigate her own extreme trauma? What does the experience teach her about supporting oth...

In grief, creative expression can speak to our heartache and capture the ways we cope with heartbreak. Kara Bowman writes poetry to describe the grief she witnesses in her work and what she feels when loss touches her life. How was she drawn to poetry and how has it helped her? We'll talk about the language of grief and the comfort in seeing your experience captured in words.

Although Donna Kendrick had planned for the future of her family, she was completely unprepared for her new role as sole planner when her husband suddenly took his own life. Wading through the decisions she needed to make right away and the ones that took years to navigate, she realized that for widows and widowers who had no experience, the task might be insurmountable! Over time, as her own proc...

Margo Fowkes' son lived with cancer for almost a decade before he finally died. In her grief, she noticed that work places were not equipped to support or even acknowledge the griever. Inspired by her son's power to live his life fully even under the threat of his death, she set out to bring change to the businesses and organizations she worked with when it came to how they handled grief. In the p...

Helping children to grieve in a culture that is uncomfortable with loss can be a difficult task. That's why it's so important that parents and the other important people in children's lives have resources to help. Still Mine faces loss directly while encouraging young children to keep those they've lost alive by remembering what they used to do together and honoring their love. What brings an auth...

When Suzanne Falter's daughter died unexpectedly, she could no longer maintain the pace or frenzy that had dominated her life. She was thrust into a world of spiritual quest, looking to her continued experience of her daughter's energy to show her the way. In the process she would have to learn to surrender to life instead of willing it to go her way. As she found her own center and her own deeper...

After the loss of her husband to a rare cancer, Kristin Meekhof searched for the book that would tell her, step by step, the answer to the question what do I do now?! She never found it, despite finding many other books of comfort. And so, after her own grief had found its place in her new life, she decided to write the book she had wanted. Enlisting the help of a former colleague and friend (and...

Those of us who work in the healthcare world experience personal losses like all other humans. Sometimes our losses lead to our career choices and sometimes we are integrating losses into already established careers. How do we combine personal loss into our roles? And what happens when a loss of health and capacity lead to the need to step away form work we have been deeply committed to? As we tal...

Losing a dream can have a profound impact- a grief of another kind. Roselee Blooston always knew she wanted a career in the theater and believed with all her heart she would make it as an actress. Accepting that she needed to redefine what success might look like and letting the dream die into new goals took her many years and much turmoil. Along the way, she realized that other dreams just as sat...

Building the skills that support us in grief, that grow our resilience, is a lifelong pursuit. Marv Weidner and his wife built these skills in nineteen years of loving and growing together before she received a dire cancer diagnosis and, nine months later, died. Now Marv would have to take the lessons further; into his own grief and the resilience he would need to create a full life without her. I...

With gun violence at epidemic rates, often directed at vulnerable communities, family face a grief which is hard to address. In particular, the threat of shootings in schools leaves both parents and children afraid of something they have no power to avoid. Michael Govier's book and film, If Anything Happens I Love you, faces those fears head on as it beautifully captures the experience of a family...

Michael Wohl's father was a hippie determined to live life as he saw fit, regardless of the consequences. Childhood was fraught with uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous lapses in parental judgement. As a result Michael and his father Herschel had a somewhat distant connection and rarely saw each other. When his father died, Michael and his siblings (one of whom he hardly knew) set out to lay him...

Mary MacCracken and her husband Cal felt blessed to have a deep and loving marriage and two successful careers. They were living a life of true happiness when Mary and others around Cal began to notice that his memory was declining. Receiving a devastating diagnosis of Alzheimers, Mary and Cal committed to see it through together. But to keep that promise, ultimately Mary had to make tough decisio...

What leads us to explore our relationship to death? For Angela Fama, it began when a terrible accident caused her to consider her own death. But she noticed that when she tried to talk about death, she met discomfort and resistance. Instead of dropping the conversation, she searched for ways to enter into it; to make others more comfortable with the subject. Out of this need of hers, the Death Con...

Amy Turner was, quite literally, hit by a truck. Although she seemed to have escaped serious injury (no broken bones, apparent mild concussion) she was haunted by symptoms for months. But even more than that, the traumas of her early childhood came hurtling back, inviting her to explore even more thoroughly how her father's attempted suicide and her mother's alcoholism had defined her life. Her de...

From the time she was a child, E.B.Bartels had a profound desire for pets in her life. Animals of every kind made her feel a kind of love and connection even deeper than many of her human relationships. But as she matured, the inherent losses she experienced with animals, who typically have relatively short life spans, caused her to explore love and grief. Now her new book, Good Grief: On Loving P...

The funeral industry does not always respond to the unique traditions and practices of their clients. What is important to the grieving person? Can the industry support grievers as they navigate their losses? Joél Simone Anthony brings her well cultivated spiritual outlook to these questions. Realizing how important her own traditions are to her she actively responds to the people who come to her,...

Zander Masser was only 11 when his father died of AIDS, contracted because of his treatment for hemophilia. How much does a child know about his parent as a full human being? How would he carry his dad in his life going forward? It was twenty years later when Zander found his father's catalogue of photographs, taken over a long career. Begun as a desire to get his work out there, it became an expl...