Episodes
Oct. 25, 2017
Leaving a Trail
Kate Kendell's courage and conviction helped win the battle for marriage rights for all Americans, including those in same sex relationships. Her fierce advocacy and legal strategy have made her a popular speaker and social m...
Oct. 18, 2017
Grief: A Love Story
When all we know leaves us unprepared for loss, we must find a new way to respond. And when suicide is involved, the weight of what could have been can be weighty. Tara Caffelle’s former husband and good friend died, and she ...
Oct. 11, 2017
Big Love
How does someone find his way from the murder, at age 14, of both his parents to a life guided by big love? Scott Stabile evolved from putting his grief aside and going on with life to honoring and respecting, even inviting, ...
Oct. 4, 2017
Prison Terminal
As the United States increases its levels of incarceration and the length of sentences, more and more inmates are aging and dying in prison. How are they to be supported at the end of life? At Iowa State Penitentiary, the med...
Sept. 27, 2017
Survivor Cafe
What is the legacy of trauma to future generations? Recent epigenetics research reveals that even the DNA of children, grandchildren and beyond are affected by severe trauma in generations before them. And so, the killings of...
Sept. 20, 2017
Living With Dying
Jahnna Beecham and Katie Ortlip were friends and neighbors who sometimes had interesting conversations about Katie's work in hospice. She'd sometimes come home talking about a good death she'd experienced that day. The conver...
Sept. 13, 2017
Expect the Unexpected
When Bill Philipps was fourteen, he watched his mother die after a life without peace. A few days later, he experienced the first manifestations of his unusual gift when she came to him to tell him what it was like now that s...
Sept. 6, 2017
Caring for Red
Mindy Fried resolved to take the best possible care of her father as he neared the end of his life. That commitment was complicated by distance, a lifetime of relationship and the usual difficulties of care management, both h...
Aug. 30, 2017
Time to Fly
When Laura Lewis children were three and six, the love of her life, the father of her children, killed himself without warning. In the years that followed, she struggled to regain her balance, experiencing a destructive rebou...
Aug. 23, 2017
Dying to Make a Difference
After years of work in end of life care, Mary Matthiesen was blindsided by the death of her mother. She was also filled with inspiration resulting from the conversations they had and the choices her mother made about completi...
Aug. 16, 2017
You're Alive!
After the death of his mother, Ned Buskirk wondered why we don't talk about death more. As a producer and artist, he found a way to invite the conversation when he hosted a small event in his home, called You're Going to Die:...
Aug. 9, 2017
Unbroken
As a young and innocent 13 year old, Madeleine Black experienced an unimaginable and brutal rape which changed the course of her life. Although she spent many years affected by the experience, she was able, through her own pe...
Aug. 2, 2017
Caravan of No Despair
Mirabai Starr was decades into a deep spiritual practice. Then on the day her first book, a translation of Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, came out, her daughter was killed in a car crash. All she knew went o...
July 26, 2017
Choosing to Die
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 empl...
July 19, 2017
Recovery
People experiencing serious mental illness are likely to suffer numerous losses; of family, jobs, stability and security. How can they be supported to identify their own goals and move towards accomplishing them, even if thei...
July 12, 2017
Living the Fullest to the Very End
Until recently, very little attention was paid to the quality of our lives at the very end of our lives. But that is changing, fueled by patient demand but also by a group of medical practitioners who are passionate about mak...
June 28, 2017
What Abi Taught
Lucy Hone was already an expert on resilience when she faced the worst nightmare of her life; her daughter, best friend, and best friend's daughter were killed together in an auto accident. How did she use what she knew about...
June 21, 2017
A Letter to My Wife
As a person who had a long time meditation practice, Joe DiNardo had carried himself through hard times with presence and grace. But his wife's diagnosis with pancreatic cancer required that he bring every resource he had to ...
June 14, 2017
Messages
From the time Fleur was 4 years old, she communicated with the souls of people who were no longer alive. By good fortune, her family recognized that this was a gift, that she was different in a good way. Still, she didn't ant...
June 7, 2017
I Remember
Filmmaker Matt Wolf is compelled by the people who nurture the legacy of artists who died of AIDS. He has made films about and interviewed many people who lived through the worst of the AIDS epidemic and fight to keep the pub...
May 31, 2017
Great Day To Be Alive
How does a cancer diagnosis change a life? When Patricia Bahia was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, it resulted in a commitment to live her bucket list. For her, this meant committing her life to two things; well-being and musi...
May 24, 2017
Meant for Heaven
Holland Young was an impish and active 3 year old when she started complaining to her parents that she had a headache. In short order, she transformed from a very healthy to a very sick child. As the Youngs navigated the agon...
May 17, 2017
Insomniac City
Bill Hayes left his life in San Francisco for New York City, hoping to heal from the loss of his partner and find comfort in the sharp rhythms and landscape of the New York skyline. Unexpectedly, he fell in love with Oliver S...
May 10, 2017
Radical Survivor
Nancy Saltman has had and survived cancer twice. But that could not have prepared her for the worst losses of her life. On an ordinary day, she got the phone call telling her that her husband and two sons, her whole family, h...