The Widowed Parent Podcast

LIVE with Corrie Sirota of Myra's Kids Foundation (Montreal, Quebec) for Children's Grief Awareness Month. More info: https://myraskids.ca/ -=-=-=-=- Find all episodes of the Widowed Parent Podcast & widowed parenting resources: https://widowedparentpodcast.com Tips for widowed parents: https://jennylisk.com/top10 Tips for allies of grieving people: https://www.jennylisk.com/allies  

I had such a great discussion with Natalie Adams for this episode. Natalie is the teenage founder of the website Teenage Grief Sucks. Some topics Natalie and I discuss include: Losing her dad when she was a freshman in high school; Why she started Teenage Grief Sucks; Topics that she tackles on the site; Tips for talking with teachers about your loss; Things she wishes people knew about teen grief...

I had such a great discussion with Sherrie Dunlevy for this episode. Sherrie is the author of "How Can I Help? Your Go-To Guide for Helping Loved Ones Through Life's Difficulties." It was great to talk with her about how friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors can help the grieving people in their lives. Some topics Sherrie and I discuss include: The number one thing that people she interviewed...

I had such a great discussion with Karen Phelps Moyer for this episode. Karen is the co-founder of the Eluna Network and Camp Erin, both of which are terrific resources for widowed parents and have been serving grieving families for many years now. More recently, Karen is the founder of Elite TLC, which specializes in dating support for widowed people, and others who may be thinking of dating afte...

I had such a great discussion with Hope Edelman for this episode. You may be familiar with Hope's work, as she wrote the groudbreaking book "Motherless Daughters" back in the 1990s, and has been writing, speaking, and leading workshops on grief ever since. She has a brand-new book out, and it's called "The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss." It's for all grieving people—not j...

I had such a great discussion with Dr. BJ Miller for this episode. BJ is a hospice and palliative care physician and he has worked with many patients who are seriously ill, or dying. He has such a unique and important perspective to share with us about death and about life, as well as practical information about palliative care, hospice, and navigating serious illness. I found him to be such a tho...

I had such a great discussion with Melissa d'Arabian for this episode. Today we round out Suicide Prevention Month by talking about Melissa's reflections and perspective as someone who lost her mom to suicide when she was in college. Melissa has appeared many times on the Food Network, first as the season five winner of "The Next Food Network Star," then as the host of her own show, "Ten Dollar Di...

I had such a great discussion with Joanne Harpel for this episode. We talk about a really difficult topic today: coping after losing a loved one to suicide. It seems that many people are uncomfortable talking about death in general … and even more uncomfortable when talking about suicide. This is a topic we haven't specifically covered yet on the show, although it's come up sometimes in the contex...

I had such a great discussion with Lauren Schneider for this episode. When Lauren and I talked back in episode 79, together with Maria Quiban Whitesell, we didn't have a chance to talk about the programs at OURHOUSE Grief Support Center in Los Angeles. I invited Lauren back to talk with us about that, as well as some other topics I've been getting questions from listeners about. Some topics Lauren...

I had such a great discussion with Lily Safani for this episode. Lily is the CEO of Gilda's Club New York City, and Gilda's Club supports, educates, and empowers cancer patients and their families. They are affiliated with a network of organizations called Cancer Support Community, so if you're not in New York, I'd encourage you to check out where their nearest location is, if your family, or some...

I had such a useful and fascinating discussion with Dr. Lisa Damour for this episode. Lisa is a clinical psychologist and is the New York Times bestselling author of "Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood," and the brand-new "Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls." I'm very glad to bring you my discussion with Lisa for this...

I had such a great discussion with Maria Quiban Whitesell and Lauren Schneider for this episode. Maria and Lauren have just written a book called "You Can't Do It Alone: A Widow's Journey Through Loss, Grief, and Life After." The book is a memoir based on Maria's journey with her late husband's brain cancer – which is, of course, a subject near and dear to my heart. Lauren adds her professional pe...

I had such a great discussion with Gary Ireland for this episode. Gary is a widowed dad of two college-age young adults, and he lives in New York. His wife, Nancy, died a little over a year ago. I'm grateful he was willing to come on the show and talk about his journey and his reflections as a widowed dad. Some topics Gary and I discuss include: Their family's experience with his wife's cancer, st...

I had such a great discussion with Rachel Kodanaz for this episode. Rachel was my guest way back in episode 38, discussing returning to work after loss. Her third book, "Finding Peace, One Piece at a Time," was released recently and is the subject of today's discussion. Some topics Rachel and I discuss include: Becoming a widowed parent when she was 31 and her daughter was 2; How her thoughts abou...

I had such a great discussion with Rick Wong for this episode. Rick lost his dad when he was just 10 years old. This was back in the 1960s, so Rick has a lifetime of reflections and experiences to share with us. Rick says he was totally lost from age 10, when his dad died, to around age 18. He was lucky enough to have family and teachers who saw tremendous potential in him, and some of them took h...

I had such a great discussion with Dennis Murphy for this episode. Dennis is a widowed dad in Des Moines, Iowa, and he's been raising his three teenagers by himself since his wife died almost two years ago. Inspired by the book "The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life," Dennis started his own group for widowed dads in Des Moines. Some topics Dennis and I discuss include: His family's journ...

I had such a great discussion with Mary Robinson for this episode. Mary is the founder of Imagine: A Center for Coping with Loss, which is in Mountainside and Newark, New Jersey. Mary lost her dad when she was 14 years old, and she struggled for many years after. She got into children's grief work, she says, "to make sure other kids don't lose years of their life to unresolved grief." Mary was hon...

ENCORE EPISODE - originally published May 15, 2019 I had such a great discussion with Emily Irwin for this episode. Emily is a therapist and a mindfulness expert based here in Seattle. It seems that mindfulness is all around us these days, so I thought it would be interesting to explore how it might be useful for us as widowed parents, as well as for our kids and teenagers. [...] -=-=-=-=- Thank y...

I had such a great discussion with Heather Nesle and Maria Collins of the New York Life Foundation for this episode. Heather discusses their new initiative – The Brave of Heart Fund – which provides monetary grants to the family of front-line healthcare workers and volunteers who lose their lives because of Covid-19. Please share this discussion with all healthcare workers you know – they or their...

ENCORE EPISODE - originally published December 18, 2019 I had such a great discussion with Claire Bidwell Smith for this episode. Claire is a therapist and is the author of three books on grief, including her most recent, "Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief." Anxiety is a topic I hear about a lot from widowed parents, either in relation to themselves or their kids, so it was really great to have...

ENCORE EPISODE - originally published May 8, 2019 "As activities or writing projects come up, gift-making for parents around these days, we can help prepare our children for what is the language you want to share. And even help a child come to an understanding that, yep, you've still got a mom, your mom's not walking on the earth, that her body has stopped working. She died. And it's okay to honor...

I had such a great discussion with Julie Lythcott-Haims for this episode. This is one of those episodes that is not grief-specific, it's for all parents, and it's also not specific to any age group of kids. Julie is the New York Times bestselling author of "How to Raise an Adult," and she was kind enough to come back on the show after coming on recently to talk about parenting older teens and youn...

I had the loveliest discussion with Elke Thompson for this episode. Elke is a widowed mom in Scotland – originally from Germany – and after her husband died, she couldn't find any books to answer the many questions her then-three-year-old had about his dad's death. She decided to write her own … but there were many twists and turns on the path to getting that done. If you've ever wondered whether...

Thank you to Buffy Peters of Hamilton's Academy of Grief and Loss, at Hamilton's Funeral Home in Des Moines, Iowa, for speaking with me for this pandemic special episode. We originally planned to talk about children and funerals during the pandemic, but it ended up being a broader discussion that will be useful to anyone thinking about what you can do when you can't have a funeral during this pand...

I had such a great discussion with Leslie Barber for this episode. Leslie is a widowed parent in Portland, Oregon, and is the founder of Grief Warrior. In this episode Leslie talks about losing her husband, Steve, when her daughter was almost 7, and about their experiences with grief since them. Some topics we discuss include: Dealing with physical symptoms of grief, both in herself and her daught...