Good Grief

When Molly Peacock's husband died, poetry supported her grief. Already a published poet with several books, she captured her experience of grief, navigating the twists and turns through creative expression. Some grievers rely on the skills they already have and some must learn new ways of being. But even for those of us who continue to do what we did before, the way we do those things is often pro...

After a lifetime of deep loss, her parents at twelve, and many others after that, Casey Mulligan Walsh longed for a family. She married young and had three children but ultimately lost the marriage. Still, the epiphany she had after her sons death at 21 pushed her to capture her own story and write it all down. The resulting memoir, The Full Catastropher, speaks eloquently about grief, resilience,...

Women of color are reliably at the forefront of every progressive movement, both in sheer numbers and in activism. Yet there are many factors that limit their leadership and put an undue burden on them, resulting in a loss to the movements themselves. Former Groundswell Fund founder and executive Vanessa Priya Daniel knows first hand the toll these underlysing factors take. She also interiewed som...

When a child grows up with a single mentally ill mother, chaos seems normal. How did Sarah LaBrie find her way to a life not defined by fear and confusion? In part, it was through writing, whether or not she knew she was trying to heal on the page. And in part it was through love. Her memoir, No One Gets to Fall Apart, follows her as she finds her way, with inevitable gains and losses. In beautifu...

Our guest this week, Kim Cantin, is a powerful symbol of resilience, having survived the devastating Montecito mudslides of 2018 that claimed 23 lives, including her husband and son, and left her daughter buried alive. Through unimaginable loss, Kim has fought to rebuild her life, driven by a fierce commitment to hope. Her five-time award-winning memoir, Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: A True Story of...

Guest bio: Larry Carlat is a  grief coach  and group leader for bereaved parents at Our House Grief Support Center in Los Angeles. He has written for  The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, Men's Health ,  Psychology Today  and AARP . His new book,  A Space in the Heart: A Survival Guide for Grieving Parents , was published by Rowman & Littlefield.

The Last Love Note tells the fictional story of a young widow trying to find a way to move forward. Its heroine, Kate, has continued to parent, work, and keep her sense of humor but has had very little time to give her grief the space it needs. How many others in these modern times are in the same situation? The author, Emma Grey, knows first hand what happens when loss drops into your life and no...

Bridey Thelen-Heidel had a chaotic and traumatic childhood with a mother who brought dangerous men into the house and failed to protect the little girl called Bright Eyes. But Bridey was determined to face her traumas and find her way to a beautiful life. In her memoir she describes the road she took to find her way out of the chaos her mother had created. In the process, we can be inspired to ima...

Darnell Lamont Walker makes it his life's mission to seed joy everywhere he is. How do his callings intersect? He is a children's television writer, a death doula, a filmmaker. In every case he hopes to inform, encourage and uplift his audience. In the end, all he does is about supporting everyone he encounters to heal, to make room for joy and to love ourselves. Join us as we talk about how he se...

A week before their wedding, Kate Truitt's fiancee died unexpectedly. In deep grief and trauma she saw no way forward and, even as an informed investigator of the way trauma affects us, she could only live the reality. It was a very long time before she could see the potential for growth and flourishing. In telling her story she invites us along on her path of discovery; her road back to herself....

In a three part series for the non-profit When You Die, Johanna Lunn has explored questions of dying and death. She shared her first film on Good Grief, and now we welcome her back to talk about her third, Architecture of Death: The Inner World of Dying. What has she learned in her years immersed in death informed conversations? How does that affect her own life? What allows her subjects to trust...

How does a traumatic history affect a family? Even though Brooke Randel's grandmother never talked about living through the Holocaust, it was a part of the fabric of the family tapestry. And then one day, it came out of the shadows when her grandmother asked Brooke to tell her story. The resulting book, Also Here, tells the story and also what made it so challenging to tell. What came out of the s...

Already a grief counselor when both of her parents died within a few years, Meghan Riordan Jarvis was undone by the full weight of her own grief. Her immense sadness resulted in a hospitalization and a long road to find her way. As she has shared twice on previous episodes of Good Grief, ultimately she dove head first into her attempt to understand what had happened to her. And being science incli...

Nichole Lee had a successful career as a business consultant, traveling the world and supporting change makers on a global level. When her mother died she continued to work just as hard, despite her grief and the global COVID pandemic isolating her in her home. Then one day she heard a whisper, in her mother's voice, telling her to quit her job! In an act of courage and wisdom, she listened, leadi...

When Molly Peacock's husband died, poetry supported her grief. Already a published poet with several books, she captured her experience of grief, navigating the twists and turns through creative expression. Some grievers rely on the skills they already have and some must learn new ways of being. But even for those of us who continue to do what we did before, the way we do those things is often pro...

How does loss become poetry? Bill Ratner's losses lived in the depths of his soul and over time, found expression. Creativity can help us to move grief through us, transforming the shape of it. What was that process for Bill? What moved him to put words to his losses? Every griever wants to be heard, but capturing grief in language is challenging. Join us to learn how Bill was able to embody his e...

Corinne Masur's father died suddenly when she was just fourteen. When grief came into a family that had no idea how to talk about it, they mostly didn't. Corinne went on to become a psychologist, writing what she came to call a MEsearch thesis on children's grief. Turning that early, confounding loss into a life's calling, she supports families struggling with the same difficult questions her fami...

If you grow up, as Julie Fingersh did, convinced you shouldn't share the family secrets, that all that messy stuff is private, how do you cope when those secrets begin to undermine your life? How do you come to terms with being unable to contain them any more? In facing up to the truth of the challenges faced by her family; mental health and chronic illnesses, loss and difficulty, Julie found that...

Charles Bock's wife always wanted to be a mother and, just a bit reluctantly, he agreed to have a child. But within a few years his wife died of cancer and he was now tasked with navigating parenting a very small child on his own. Ultimately determined to do the best he could, and to continue to do better, pushed him forward one tiny step at a time. Looking back on that time, what made his path ne...

After helping to get the Medical Aid in Dying Act passed in California and then supporting its implementation, Stefanie Elkin's passion for working in end of life only grew. When she left her job at Compassion and Choices she opened her own company, Be Present Care, to support end of life, especially for elders, and to open up conversations about how to navigate dying. She then began traveling far...

Ginelle Testa's early life with a drug dealer father and an angry mother led to just the kinds of struggles you might predict. She began the relationship with drugs and alcohol that would lead to several bottoms. She experienced anorexia and sexual assault. She looked to other people to validate her worth. Getting clean and sober was just the beginning of a long search for herself that led, over t...

After losses that took her to her knees, Siobhan Asgharzadeh searched for ways to move with her grief, recognizing that loss would not end, that life comes with grief. Over time she sought to support others along the profound road of grief, becoming a death, birth and grief doula and using ancient wisdom practices to help create a more grief-informed future. In her workshops, pilgrimages and suppo...

Her work as a special educator did not prepare Joanne De Simone for the news that her precious baby had severe disabilities. At first, she searched for answers to the questions that plagued her; what was her son's condition, what could she expect going forward and how would they navigate it? Over time she used what she had learned as a dancer to support her in finding the beauty with her son. It d...

When Jamie Lee SIlver's son, Ben, took his life, she dived into practices that she had been learning during his struggles with schizophrenia. Over time, she became certified in EFT tapping, a technique to heal through tapping. She moved within a year to the beach. She wrote letters to Ben and wrote replies from him too. Unconcerned about what others would think, she moved forward with deepening ce...

Bridey Thelen-Heidel had a chaotic and traumatic childhood with a mother who brought dangerous men into the house and failed to protect the little girl called Bright Eyes. But Bridey was determined to face her traumas and find her way to a beautiful life. In her memoir she describes the road she took to find her way out of the chaos her mother had created. In the process, we can be inspired to ima...