Episodes

Audrey is a fictional character who resembles her author, Gail Marlene Schwartz. They both suffer from anxiety. They have both lost friends to suicide when they were young. And they are both queer women constructing the families they dream of, with the nuanced questions that implies. In writing the book, what did Gail rely on from her own experience? Did writing it contribute to a better understanding of herself? And what does she hope readers will learn from the story?

When the unimaginable happens, each of us enters our own grief language, unique to our deepest selves. When Mike Bernhardt's wife died in 1991, poetry (both writing and reading it) connected him to his own pain and, over time, healing. As time went forward, he wanted to share the gift of poetry with other grievers and began collecting poems that spoke to him, resulting in a compilation; Voices of the Heart. 30 years later, during COVID, Mike is re-releasing the collection, adding poetry that ill...

Grief touches us at the outer reaches of our experience, challenging us to respond to new and unfamiliar terrain in our own souls. Finding rituals and pathways to carry us through the mysterious territory of loss encourages new ways to look at life and at ourselves. When we encounter a seasoned guide to walk with us through the unfamiliar terrain, grief can become a journey full of meaning. Francis Weller is such a guide, gently encouraging us towards new territory and integrating many Western a...

In this episode we turn the tables to talk about Good Grief host Cheryl Espinosa-Jones and her novel, An Ocean Between Them. The story is about a mother and her lesbian daughter estranged and alienated. It is also a story of deep redemption and transformation, as they work together to repair what has been broken. Dawn Gross, radio host of Dying to Talk and palliative care physician at UCSF, will turn the tables on Cheryl and explore how the book came to be written, what matters most to Cheryl in...

Running from death was a big part of Sue William Silverman's response to early adulthood. Over time, she began to see that running from death was also about running from those things in her life that she didn't know how to cope with; fearful and traumatic events. Over item, Sue would unravel those fears and face up to what she came to realize she could not escape. How did she find her way? And what has resulted from making the trip? Sue has written a compelling book about what scared her, why, a...

Religions like Jehovah's Witness promise their followers certainty and safety. Leaders demand obedience to proscribed standards of behavior, beliefs and practices. But what happens when a follower begins to doubt? For Amber Scorah, leaving the Witness meant giving up everyone and everything in her life. On top of this severing of every tie, she would have to live with uncertainty in a way she never had before. Growing up in the culture, which she now saw as a cult, brought what she thought of as...

As human beings, we wonder what awaits us after this life is over. When death has come to those near us, the question often becomes compelling! In her quest to understand the many ways people think about what comes next, Claire Bidwell Smith investigated and wrote about various beliefs and practices about the time after death. How do each of us imagine or believe it to be? How does this connect or disconnect us from those we love after their deaths? What can we gain by asking these questions and...

For sixty years, Rachel Naomi Remen has lived with a diagnosis, Crohn's disease, that was considered universally terminal when she was first diagnosed. How did that affect her life? She became a physician who worked with terminal illness, a New York Times bestselling author and a fierce advocate for compassionate medicine. She founded the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI) at Commonweal and is also co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She worked with thousands of p...

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 other people in the same situation? And how does it change her life and perspective? Join us as explore...

Roshni Kavate and Rebecca Servoss noticed in their own grieving the lack of services to support grief, especially for people across all identities. They committed to creating a new paradigm for grief support, built on hope, joy, and the strength of the human spirit. Their organization, Marigolde, they sought to support grieving boldly, loving tenderly, and celebrating the blooming, visceral transformation that unfolds in grieving people. As two nurses trained in offering support and committed to...

Faced with numerous losses and feeling deep grief, Jamie Thrower could not find grief services that understood how to support a queer griever. Struggling through the feelings and inevitable difficulty of their own grief, they became intent on doing their part to save others from what they experienced. Queer Grief Club was born! As a death doula, workshop leader, writer and artist, they have made it their mission to offer safe spaces to grieve for members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

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, discovering what is meaningful to them and doing her best as a mortician to create ritual that inco...

In light of the recent added restrictions on reproductive health access, we are sharing an episode with Kassi Underwood, whose book is a thoughtful memoir on the subject. The war between so-called pro-choice and pro-life forces in America seem divided beyond repair. But where does that leave women who have made the often painful and important decision to have an abortion? As Kassi Underwood says, they are left with a choice between regret and relief, with few opportunities to talk about the exp...

When hospice is the best possible choice, families are often lost in a sea of confusion, not even sure what hospice is. At the same time, reading long descriptions of the services and goals is sometimes beyond them. After years of work in chaplaincy and hospice (and his own personal experiences of loss), Larry Patten thought he could help. What resulted was a clear, readable guide to what hospice is, and isn't, written with the uninformed in mind. Taking a light tone and sharing short chapters, ...

When playwright and actor Ann Randolph faced difficulties and losses, she applied her art to them and created comedy. Being able to laugh at what we cry about is a soothing balm for our difficulties and griefs. Creating characters that touch everyone who meets them with their humanity and depth while bringing laughter is Ann's true gift. How do we take a humorous view of our life stories while taking them seriously? Ann has taught countless people across the U.S. and the world how to do just tha...

Phyllis Shacter's husband made a series of radical choices about how his life would end. When he received two life limiting diagnoses within six weeks of each other, Alzheimers and cancer, he refused cancer treatment and employed natural methods instead. He planned and participated in his own funeral and followed what he believed was best for him, choosing to stop eating and drinking before he was unable to consciously decide how his life would end. Throughout all of these experiences and decisi...

When our friends and loved ones face a crisis, we often don't know what to say. Do we say anything at all? What if we say the wrong thing? Nearly everyone who has faced a hard time has heard things that weren't so helpful. But worse yet is silence, saying nothing. Emily McDowell faced such a time and, as a graphic designer, she chose to respond by doing what she loved- creating cards that say what is most helpful in bad times. Her empathy cards not only helped people reach out; by sharing she al...

What does a poet do when she suffers the loss of her father? She writes. Exploring the depths of her relationship with her dad, Naomi Shihab Nye writes with the beauty of love, loss and continuing relationship. Her father wanted them to write a book together, and though this didn't quite happen before his death, he jumps off of every page. His particular viewpoint as an immigrant informs her outlook too and so we are offered a rare poetic view of our culture and the danger of imposing our politi...

How has modern life disconnected us from our wisdom? Anita Sanchez shares the prophecies of indigenous elders who see a path towards reconnection and understanding.Join us to learn how to embody these principles; the power to forgive the unforgivable, the power to heal, the power of unity and the power of hope. These four gifts applied to our problems of living can change the way we operate as a society. They can even change boardrooms and businesses, bringing human understanding back to our fun...

Myra Sack and her husband Matt were very lucky. They had fallen in love with the right person, had work they were deeply committed to and had a new baby. Into the middle of their charmed life came the worst possible news; their perfect daughter had Tay-Sachs disease. She would live a very short life. A mistake in the testing they had received for Tay-Sachs blindsighted them. Reeling from the news and immersed in the question of how they could possibly live out this time, they decided they would ...

In honor of the publication of his new book, Never Can Say Goodbye, we replay this episode. 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 sees his m...

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 life, Cheryl acknowledged her experience, noticed what seemed to help her, and looked for the power...

Ken Ross grew up immersed in the work of his mother, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Unlike most people in the West, he was immersed in a world where death, dying and grief wer openly talked about and explored. How did he come to view his unique experience with the pioneering author of On Death and Dying? We will talk about his mother's work, his childhood and how he carries her work forward, honoring the legacy she left. We'll also explore how he thinks his own perspective on end of life has been formed...

When Gina Harris' parents died, she tried to stay connected to them through memory and music. As a jazz singer, over time she began to sing her sorrow, and her healing. The music that came out of this deep place in her led her to offer it to others, in performances and a podcast series dedicated to them and to her own grief process. Join us as we talk about what compelled her to create the series and how it helped her to move forward after loss. Gina Harris is a singer/songwriter and actor who ...