Good Grief

When Leslie Streeter's husband, the love of her life, died suddenly after asking for kisses, she struggled to fulfill the life they had built together. Would she be able to complete the adoption of their son, not even 3 years old? How would she raise him alone? And how would she navigate this crushing grief? She would rely on community, family and humor to clear a path, taking one step at a time a...

What pushes a world class economist and sociologist to become an expert in Post Traumatic Growth? What inspires him to believe that we can heal from trauma and find our way to lives beyond what we can imagine? Dr. Randall Bell, born with a congenital heart condition, was diagnosed with PTSD early in life. His own path to Mt. Kilimanjaro convinced him that as humans, we are able to go forward from...

There is no easy path from a devastating loss to who will become. Right after the loss and for an unpredictable amount of time after it can feel like going forward is impossible. For Meg Nocero, the impact of her mother's death and her career disappointments caused her to wonder whether there was any way forward. But those experiences pushed her to explore any healing mode that might help, includi...

As a practicing medium who believed in heaven, Shauna Domalain could never have predicted how hard grief would hit after her son Jack's death. Years of pain followed and she was unable to use the tools that had served her so well before that terrible loss. But over time she began to receive signs that Jack could be found, that he was communicating with her. All she had to do was believe the messag...

How can a mother and daughter reconcile when they cannot agree on the most basic of truths? As the author of Courage to Heal, Laura Davis became an advocate for women (and some men) who had experienced incest. But her mother Temme could not accept that Laura's grandfather had been her molester. Through years of struggle, they formed a relationship despite the hurt caused by Temme's inability to co...

Diana Kupershmit had the plans for her life clearly mapped out; finish college, graduate school, marry your high school sweetheart, start a family. She was not prepared for the jolt of the unexpected that arrived with the birth of her first child, Emma, who came with severe disabilities. Feeling unable and unprepared to raise a child with such profound needs, she and her husband looked for a famil...

Trauma in our early lives, or even later into adulthood, rewires us to such a degree that life can become deeply frightening. Finding a way to foster healing involves listening to ourselves, looking for support and healing modalities that resonate for us, and finding a way to make living safe and growth-ful again. Jeanine Leblanc lost her mother young, but that was not the sum of her trauma, Feeli...

Doctors have more experience than most with navigating the end of life. Yet when illness and death come close to home, their well crafted distance and objectivity no longer covers all the bases. As Martha Calihan faced the end of her husband's life, she had to learn to be both doctor and wife, retaining her powers of critical thinking in helping him making medical decisions and her powers of empat...

Abbe Greenberg and Maggie Sarachek have literally written the book on supporting yourself through anxiety and panic attacks. And of course, they tried it ALL to deal with their own anxiety, because experience is the best teacher! Join us to talk about how they each experienced anxiety, what they did to address it, and what it is like to support others through the same struggle. So much is lost as...

When Vaneetha Rendell Risner found a deeper faith coming to terms with her childhood disabling polio, she thought that was the end of her challenges. Now, since she was walking with her hand in her God's, life would go well. But a series of deep losses, including the death of her son when he was less than 2 months old, once again shook her to her core. Join us to talk about her life-changing exper...

The worst things in Mary Potter Kenyon's life led her inexorably back to her first love; writing. Her first book dealt with her husband's cancer diagnosis and the next two with her grief after the deaths of her mother, husband and grandson. Now immersed in this new life evolving out of her deepest sorrow, her next two books encourage others to use creativity to respond to their lives, thereby brin...

Alone in a brand new city, Merissa Nathan Gerson set out to connect with her community. Her father shepherded the process, traveling with her to help her choose a house and set herself up for this new life. But very shortly after, he declined, rapidly approaching the end of his life. How does a single woman in a new city, far from her friendships and supports, get help with an unimaginable loss? M...

When a child is unwanted, abused and neglected it is no surprise they struggle in adulthood. It took Sabine Gedeon a long time to realize that she was replaying her early life in choosing poor relationships, overtaxing herself and repeating what she had learned in her family. Only when she reached the lowest point she had ever experienced, ready to end her life, did an experience of her own higher...

What helps us as we face a lifetime of challenges? Boo Paterson tried it all and found that many things helped her when times were hard. But what helped the most was creative expression. She set out to find ways that people who didn't consider themselves artists could have the feeling of flow and immersion she experienced while creating art. The result is her book, First Art Kit: 25 Creative Paper...

Cheryl Krauter and her husband, John, assumed she would die first. After all, she had lived through an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis that challenged her resilience and health. But then it was him, suddenly, with no warning at all. His heart attack killed him in under five minutes. Taken to her knees but relying on the tools she had relied on to navigate cancer and every other challenge in her...

When Emily Threatt's first husband died, she didn't anticipate ever marrying again. But then, as sometimes happens with life's twists and turns, she fell in love. Her experience when her second husband died was different from that first loss and she began to think we can actually get better at grief, that we learn things that help us navigate the losses in our lives. She felt drawn to help other p...

It was a day in the life of a talented entrepreneur and her family. The kids were headed off to games and an audition, set to showcase their talents. The adults were their chauffeurs and cheerleaders. And then, into this beautiful day came the gunman, an antisemitic assailant to stole the lives of three people. Two of them were Mindy Corporon's son and father, at the synagogue for the young man's...

Our picture of widowhood conjures a grey haired woman, maybe a grandmother, mourning the loss of a life long love. But that picture does not always fit the facts. Melissa Gould was young, still raising a child, when her husband, the love of her life, died. How would she move forward into a life she never anticipated? What would support her along the way? In her intimate and illuminating memoir, we...

What does it mean to us when we dream about a person in our life who has died? Sometimes we are working to understand the loss or move forward from it. Sometimes we are plagued by the need to know that they are ok. Sometimes we hope for just one more moment, one more time to feel as if they are with us. Whether our dreams are positive or negative, they are significant. Joshua Black had a dream aft...

Just getting a call that someone you love has died brings grief and profound impact. But what if the second call is from a police officer theorizing that your uncle, your mother's brother, has killed her? This stark and terrifying day sent Kory Marie on a quest not only to navigate her own grief, but to try to discover what had happened. And then, it became clear over time that there were aspects...

What we create as a result of learning to navigate our grief is unique; a creative expression of our deepest lives. For Reid Peterson, creating the Grief Refuge app reflected his deep desire to offer a daily companion to people who had experienced loss. But first he had to work with his own grief for the two men who had fathered him; his father and stepfather. After each of their deaths, he chose...

Nothing prepares us for the three words you have cancer. How do people facing this frightening diagnosis navigate the emotional fallout which, for most, will be a significant aspect of their cancer experience? When Cynthia Hayes faced her own diagnosis, she felt ill equipped to help herself. Over time she gathered new skills and trusted advisors to support her. She felt compelled to offer what she...

Faith Wilcox faced the unimaginable. Her healthy, accomplished and intelligent 13 year old was diagnosed with a lethal form of cancer and, despite the best efforts of her health care team, she died in less than a year. In the meantime, Faith had left the bad marriage she had endured for years. She knew she could not help her daughter through this illness and stay married to her husband. Her older...

When Lily Dulan gave birth to her baby girl, it seemed like the culmination to years of work to create the life she'd envisioned. Despite complications at the start, her child was given a clean bill of health and she and her husband joyfully headed home. But not long after, her beautiful baby Kala died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. None of the work she'd done n the past to heal from her traumas...

Arriving for a weekend trip, Lisa Goich was unprepared to hear that her beloved mother had just 2 weeks to live. Suspending her everyday life, Lisa devoted herself to her mother's care, fulfilling a deep commitment to honor their relationship. In the process Lisa's relationship to death itself changed. Resulting in two books; 14 Days: A Mother, A Daughter, a Two-Week Goodbye and I Wonder: A Guided...