Remembering A Life

What happens to unclaimed cremated remains, and who ensures those lives are never forgotten? In this powerful episode of  Remembering A Life , host Gail Marquardt speaks with Lanae Strovers, licensed funeral director and founder of The Final Salute, a nonprofit dedicated to honoring unclaimed individuals with dignity and care. Across the country, funeral homes quietly care for unclaimed cremated r...

End-of-Life Doulas and Funeral Directors: Transforming Deathcare and Meaningful End-of-Life Planning As more families turn to end-of-life doulas for support during the final stages of life, opportunities for collaboration with funeral directors to better serve families continue to grow. End-of-Life Doula Ashley Johnson and Funeral Director Joél Simone explore how these partnerships can create a se...

A hilarious and heartfelt chat with author John Kenney about I See You've Called In Dead , the only novel where an obituary writer's worst mistake becomes his best chance at living. Kenney shares the real-life humor, heartbreak, and funeral-home field trips that inspired the story.

How do you support someone who is grieving when words feel inadequate? In this episode of the Remembering A Life Podcast , host Gail Marquardt is joined by Camila Crews , founder of Sorry for Your Loss Cards , for an honest conversation about grief support, language, culture, and showing up with presence instead of platitudes . Camila shares how her personal experiences with loss inspired her to c...

What happens when you ask the questions that matter most? In this episode, host Gail Marquardt and guest Skip Weiss use the Have the Talk of a Lifetime Conversation Cards to share meaningful stories about childhood, legacy, loss, joy, and the moments that shape who we are. Their honest, reflective conversation shows how simple questions can spark deeper connection and help preserve life stories wi...

The holidays can be difficult when we're grieving – or supporting someone who is. Alex Mammadyarov, a writer and psychotherapist specializing in grief, joins us for a conversation about the challenges of grieving during the "happiest time of the year" and how we can continue to move forward in our grief during a time when family and friends are gathering to celebrate.

John Hill didn't start his career planning funerals. He began in ministry, dedicating his life to serving his community from a place of faith. When he felt a calling to step away from his role as a pastor, he found himself with a closet full of suits and a question: "Where could I work wearing all these suits?" The answer that came to him was a funeral home. In this episode, John shares his story.

[CW: Traumatic death, suicide and infant loss] Amanda King, a funeral director and embalmer specializing in restorative art, has given numerous families the gift of viewing their loved one after a traumatic death. In this episode she shares stories about families she has served and how viewing their loved one helped them move forward on their grief journey. Her work is truly inspiring.  

The death of a child is perhaps the most unfathomable loss any of us can imagine. Kristin James and Betsy Hawley, through their work with the Grief Network and the Pediatric Palliative Care Coalition, help ensure families have the resources and support they need to both navigate the complexities of the care a terminally ill child receives and honor the life of that child in meaningful ways.

Let's have a conversation about life, death and how we want to be remembered! Jamie Kramer, founder/CEO of Earthly After, is ready to talk about everything from how our prior experiences with death inform what we want when we die to honoring a loved one in creative ways and how nature can help us move forward on our grief journey. Jamie is on a mission to normalize talking about death – join us!

Lanae Strovers just might be one of the most creative funeral directors out there. From transforming a visitation room into a baseball field to honor a Little League coach, to creating a runway featuring clothing designed by a glamorous 1940s model, Lanae's personal touches help family and friends begin their grief journeys in beautifully meaningful ways. 

Think you know what a typical funeral director looks like? Get ready for a new generation that challenges your perceptions! In fact, the funeral directors of tomorrow are mostly women, many are people of color - and they're ready to lead the profession into the future. Leili McMurrough, president of Worsham College of Mortuary Science, and student Sioux Westby join us to dispel the myths!

Katey Houston from Return Home in Auburn, Washington, joins us as we dig into the topic of natural organic reduction, commonly referred to as human composting. This relatively new form of disposition offers a unique option for people who want to return their bodies to the earth after they die and offers meaningful opportunities for family and friends to say goodbye to a loved one.

Nicholas Welzenbach grew up in funeral service but as a young person he pursued his passions of surfing and skateboarding, convinced being a funeral director was not for him. But the profession kept drawing him back in. Now, as managing partner of Darling Fischer Funeral Homes in California, he joins us to talk about his experiences as a funeral director and why funerals are as relevant as ever.

Every year, people who are incarcerated die in prison, often without the compassionate hospice care that would be expected in other environments. Laura Musselman, Fernando Murillo, and the rest of the team from the Humane Prison Hospice Project are working to change that through an innovative program that trains incarcerated individuals to provide end-of-life care to their peers who are dying.

Richard Schoeller has served grieving families and individuals throughout his professional life, initially as a funeral director and now, since the late 1990s, as a certified medium. Learn how he realized he had this special gift and how he shares information that has helped people move forward following a loss.

Freddie Powell, a funeral director in Salford, England, doesn't fit the stereotype of a funeral director. As a participant on the #1 reality show Love Is Blind UK, he challenged the notion that funeral professionals are grim and depressing. Listen for the inside scoop on how the women on the show reacted to Freddie's profession and how the show made him the UK's most eligible funeral director.

Cemeteries are bursting with history and, as we found out on a recent visit to Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, also a fair amount of drama! Join cemetery docent Cyndi Kramer on a walkabout of this 175-year-old cemetery that is the final resting place of the famous and not so famous, including beer barons, ship builders and flappers.

Benny Capaul doesn't fit the mold of what most people think of when they think of a funeral director. He feels equally at home in the embalming room or on stage doing vocals with his ska-punk rock band. He's also a death doula, podcaster and death/grief consultant. In this episode we talk about the societal shifts that have changed how we honor the dead and why ceremony is still important.

What happens when someone is near the end of their life but they don't have family or friends to sit with them in their final days? For Tannis Dorscht, the answer is simple. She will, as a volunteer with the No One Dies Alone program, sit with someone she has never met, sometimes in complete silence, as a source of comfort and companionship as they approach the end of life.

CW: Discussion about the mass shooting at Columbine High School Chuck Bowman and John Horan were funeral directors at Horan & McConaty Funeral Home on April 20, 1999, when two assailants killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. They, Jennifer McBride, Director of Grief Support and Community Education, and coworkers helped seven families say goodbye to their loved ones.

Tim Purves, Chairman and owner of William Purves Funeral Directors in Edinburgh, managed the Scottish element of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's funeral. From the initial days at Balmoral Castle where The Queen died to the carefully managed boarding of a London-bound aircraft, Tim had the honor of accompanying The Queen on her final journey. This is a fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation.

Darnell Lamont Walker, Emmy-nominated television writer, content creator, filmmaker, healer, and death doula. His credits include writing for children's programming, including Blue's Clues & You and Karma's World ; and work as a filmmaker for Seeking Asylum, Outside the House, and Set Yourself on Fire . In this conversation we talk about his work as a death doula and grief in the Black community.

Every day, Brad Wolfe, founder and executive director of Reimagine, helps people face adversity and loss, and channel the hard parts of life into meaningful action. Inspired by his grandparents' experiences and survival during the Holocaust, Brad shares their story and how it led him to the impactful work he does today.  TW: Episode includes descriptions of experiences in WWII concentration camps....

To grieve is often to feel ungrounded. The ritualistic aspects of yoga, however, can help us adjust to an environment in which our loved one is now absent by providing a safe place of belonging in which to work through the pain of loss. In this episode, yoga teacher Meg Galarza and grief therapist Elizabeth Lewis guide us in starting a yoga practice that will help us move forward in grief.