Episodes

How can grief be a road to freedom? When Kaye Cleave's 18 year old daughter died, she felt imprisoned by her loss, unable to even connect to any reason to live. Desperate, willing to try anything to find a way through the agony, she began to practice mindfulness meditation and ultimately, found her way through each and every feeling and thought. So when she met a Nepalese man trying to support a school in a remote part of Nepal, and learned he had lost both parents at just 16, she found a callin...

The death of Erica Buist's father-in-law sent her into a tailspin. The world suddenly seemed unpredictable and unsafe. She was unable to find her own ground and began to devise ways to stay in her apartment, working at home and avoiding the world. But somehow through that time, she became intensely curious about death itself. Why don't we talk about it? What are we missing? How could it be different? A journalist by profession, she began to explore how people in other parts of the world confront...

Facing any significant loss challenges all our abilities and ideas about ourselves and our lives. But what happens when that loss is somewhere across the globe, in an unfamiliar and difficult environment? When Roselee Blooston got the call letting her know that her husband had had a stroke in Dubai while working there, she and her son rushed to his side. And when he died, she was faced with an alienating and unimaginable job: sorting out what she needed to do to deal with the practicalities whil...

After a loss, it can come as a surprise that we still feel love for and feel connected to the person who is no longer in this world. How do we continue to find ways to carry out that relationship in our everyday life? Author Allison Gilbert, out of her own losses, began to find ways to creatively and joyfully connect with her loved ones, making quilts of neckties and plates printed with her grandmother's recipe for cake. In countless ways, she took the actions that resulted in an ongoing joy in ...

How does a parent survive watching their 8 year old child hit by a truck and killed? How does the heart heal enough to welcome another child and to love her wholly? Robert Goor wrote letters to his son Andrew naming his deep agony and, ultimately, the winding path to recovery. Rob learned to accept his grief and all the feelings that came with it, including the love and continued connection to his son. Becoming a person with deeper feelings of every kind, his letters became a book as Rob looked ...

What is the connection between love, generosity and grief? In countless ways, our hearts close when we avoid the feelings connected to our small everyday losses. But in profound grief, our hearts break open and we learn how to love ourselves through it. Grief connects us to the human community and the losses we all suffer. As we walk the path of open hearted love for ourselves, we naturally become more and more generous in our connection to others. Through her own painful grief, Marianna Cacciat...

What helps people recover from severe trauma? Belleruth Naparstek, a leading expert in healing from trauma, believes methods that employ imagery and activate the intuitive brain work much better than traditional talk therapy. She has developed powerful tools for helping people find their way after experiencing traumatic events: war, traumatic loss, abuse, natural disaster- any extreme stress. Her guided imagery audio tapes and her three books offer a clear direction for people who are hoping for...

When Anne-Marie Cockburn's fifteen year old daughter died of an Ecstasy overdose, her grief took her in some unexpected directions. She was compelled to write her way through the grief, overcoming an old hesitation to write, which she'd always loved. She was moved to forgive the boy who gave her daughter the drugs. And she was moved to work, with all she has, to decriminalize drug use, believing that if the drug she took had been legal, Martha, and many others like her, would not have taken too ...

The time after a death is filled with detail, set against the backdrop of emotion. In an overwhelming expanse of paper and planning and demand, we often find it hard to cope. But Heather Vargas and Daniella Guzman, both consummate business people, were shocked to find how hard it was for THEM. When they experienced deep losses in their lives, they too found it difficult to take care of the business of death. And once they had gotten through the initial period of mourning, they wondered how they ...

What happens when a couple, both dedicated supporters helping others through profound grief and loss, confront their own crisis? Robert and Andrea Zucker, faced with Andrea's cancer diagnosis, have devoted all their time, resources and emotional energy to paying attention to this life experience. They have pushed everything aside to go through it together: honestly, truly and with love. They have supported each other and shared the experience. And they have looked for ways to be of service, to o...

How is it that some of us live difficult early lives and find a way to a beautiful and meaningful adulthood, while others get lost along the way to addiction, depression, hopelessness and despair? Winston Price found in facing up to the experiences of his life the inspiration for his life. He learned that he could have an impact on how he responded to the negative. He determined that he could create positivity out of negativity. And he learned, through the discipline of martial arts, how to insp...

What compels a successful film, television and commercial ad company to make numerous films about death? Sara and Bobby Sheehan have maintained a commitment to improving the conversation about end of life, guided by their own experiences- especially with the death of Sara's father. They wanted to use their considerable expertise to create films of beauty and strength that would capture the viewer with powerful stories and well filmed footage. Making these films, including Mortal and Hope, requir...

Receiving a cancer diagnosis plunges your life into a whole new dimension, challenging what you thought it would look like. Receiving a brain cancer diagnosis at 29 is an even deeper challenge to all you know. When Liz Salmi received that news, she began to blog, depending on social media to share her experience and gather support from her Liz Army. How did her use of digital media impact her experience? And when her health was stable, what drew her as she moved forward in her life? It led her t...

When the twin towers fell in 2001, Elizabeth Hack was hit hard. She'd visited family many time there, considering it a home away from home. She felt the pain of all those losses and the impact of hopelessness and anger coming from it. So the next day, she began to blog about it, and eventually evolving the blog into an organization; San Francisco Peace and Hope. The organization seeks to offer solace through the arts for the world's suffering. They have continued to grow, sponsoring poetry and o...

Grief is a heroes' journey, sending us into our own wilderness and requiring that we step out into the unknown. What guides us on this fearsome path? And what might we find at the end? When Therèse Tappouni's 11 year old son died, she was catapulted into just such a journey. And as she travelled, she found her own way and also the calling of her life; to help others navigate the territory of grief. How could she encourage other's to trust their own grief so that, while grief will be with them al...

When Azim Khamisa's only son, twenty year old Tariq, was murdered by a fourteen year old boy, his immediate thought, beyond reason, was that two lives had been lost. Drowning in a sea of grief, he knew he had to bring meaning back into his life if he was to truly live again. But what could he do that would somehow honor his son and contribute in the world? Founding the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, he put his energy into doing all he could to prevent other young people from meeting the fate of his s...

Watching our own parents face the end of their lives often illuminates questions about how we want to navigate that territory. What will support our own end of life experiences? What are the limits of medical intervention? How do we create a gentle circle of care to hold us through our dying time? How do we live fully right up to the end of life? What can we put in place to make our wishes, hopes and dreams clear to those who may take a role in guiding the end of our lives when we are no longer ...

When Dr. Paul Kalanithi faced a stage IV lung cancer diagnosis in his last year as a neurosurgical resident, his wife, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi faced it with him. In the twenty-two months that followed, they continued to work, had a child and he wrote a best selling book . But since his death, how have her grief and her love showed themselves? She made sure that his book, when Breath Becomes Air, was published and promoted, most importantly by her. She carried his love forward into her own life and pa...

Are there human acts that are un-forgivable? Perhaps, but as human beings, some of us are able to find a way to forgive the person or people who have hurt us. Marina Cantacuzino's mission is to collect the narratives of people facing unspeakable difficulties who have moved towards reconciliation and peace; people on the opposite sides of war, or murder, or hate crimes. Then there are those who have committed these acts engaging in the attempt to forgive themselves and to dedicate themselves to r...

For Claudia Bicen, curiosity about the meaning of life inevitably led to curiosity about facing death. But how would she explore that deepest of human questions? A self taught artist, she decided to interview and draw people in hospice. She would visit, get to know them, then create an audio visual portrait of how they were facing this last chapter. Perhaps she expected deep and profound wisdom, an otherworldly sense of transcendence. Instead, she came close to people, being human, reflecting on...

Keeping a sense of humor at the worst of times seems impossible until you're actually living through the worst of times. No one knows that better than Nora McInerny Purmort, whose husband died of brain cancer when she was 32, with a two year old, within a short time of her fathers death and a miscarriage. In those circumstances, humor becomes a balm, a way to keep your perspective, a healing salve. And then, when that humorous outlook on bad times becomes a book, we are all invited to look at ou...

How does a parent cope with the illness of a child? We want to protect and insulate our children from all harm. But when a child is diagnosed with cancer, we watch them experience many pains and ills. Purvi Shah's son Amaey was sick for six years, ultimately passing away at the age of 9. She searched for ways to cheer, comfort and sooth him (and herself) and found, in the arts, just what they both needed. Along the way, she founded Kids & Art Foundation, matching artists with families facing jus...

In times of profound loss, what do we turn to? Some of us look for a way to express our experience through writing or art or movement. Some of us write. Some of us turn to the comfort of the natural world, finding our place in the order of things by connecting with the outdoors. Mark Liebenow turned to his beloved Yosemite when his wife died, then wrote about what he experienced there. His writings turned into a book, Mountains of Light, and led him to a new path; writing about the landscape of ...

Ned Buskirk did not consciously intend to open a conversation and create a movement about dying and death. But when he thought about what would make his open mic events meaningful, the title popped into his mind. What if he called it, You're Going to Die? Deeply impacted by the death of his own mother, he longed for artistic ways to express the way his life was changed by the fact of death. From this seed of an idea grew his art events, and ultimately, an international movement. Going from stric...