Episodes
April 27, 2016
You're Going to Die
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 c...
April 20, 2016
Grief in the Workplace
After a loss, people often have to return to work much too soon. And what do they encounter? A workplace which understands very little about grief or how to support a colleague in the loss. Often, a lack of experience and edu...
April 13, 2016
Gen Silent
With the legalization of marriage for all Americans and the greater level of acceptance for LGBT people, we could come to the mistaken conclusion that bias no longer affected LGBT people. But far from it, aging and dying LGBT...
April 6, 2016
Gone From My Sight
At the end of life, there is so much mystery, so much we don't know. But because of the work of Barbara Karnes, we do have a map of the physical territory. Just knowing that what is happening to a loved one at the end is part...
March 30, 2016
Integrated Life Strategies- A Believer's Guide
Going through the deepest struggle is sometimes the road to new illuminations. Robin Perry Braun knows this first hand. The tremendous struggles in her early life led her to a belief that with the right practices, she could a...
March 23, 2016
Making Healthcare Better
Palliative care has been a little understood aspect of our overall health care system even as it has become more recognized within that system as a valuable resource for patients and their families. Patients often have no edu...
March 16, 2016
Turning the Corner on Grief Street
At first, grief knocks us down. we are stuck on the corner, watching almost everyone else moving down the block. But as we investigate, there is the possibility of bringing meaning to our own experience and to open up realms ...
March 9, 2016
Forgiveness: Stories for Our TIme
Our religious and spiritual teachers encourage us to forgive, as if we know how to do that and naturally want to. Yet forgiveness is actually a complex and nuanced experience, especially complicated when great loss has result...
March 2, 2016
Dying to Talk
Breaking the silence to talk about the end of life is sometimes hard, but can also be compelling. For those who have had experience with people facing the end of their lives, the conversation is crucial. And if you work with ...
Feb. 24, 2016
Dear Dead Mother: Against Grieving in Silence
When Rachel Stephenson was five years old, her mother died in a car accident and never returned home. While the rest of her family was determined to move on, replace her mom and maintain their silence, Rachel rebelled against...
Feb. 17, 2016
Sexy After Cancer
No one talks about the hidden losses that come along with a cancer diagnosis. For Barbara Musser, a single young woman in 1989 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, suddenly facing struggles with her sexuality was an une...
Feb. 10, 2016
Where There's Smoke, There's Dinner
Regi Carpenter has always used story telling to make sense of her world. By the time she faced the loss of her brother suddenly, she was well established in her story craft. And as she moved through her own experience of loss...
Feb. 3, 2016
In the Womb of Love
Aida Salazar lost a baby and quickly found herself pregnant with another. Struggling to find an open heart in the midst of fear, she did what artists, and many other grievers, do; she accessed her creative expression as a way...
Jan. 27, 2016
Five Hours
How would we cope if our brand new baby could not live beyond a few hours? Most of us cannot imagine that experience but, for others, it is a reality. Beyond a crushing grief and sense that this should not have happened, ther...
Jan. 20, 2016
Resolution Care
The obstacles to exercising our own choices at the end of our lives sometimes seem impossible to overcome. We are part of a culture that refuses to accept death, a medical system that reflects that culture and a lack of capab...
Jan. 13, 2016
Conversations That Heal
Some losses are losses of things we never had; a safe childhood where we were protected and treasured. Attention to our needs and protection from what hurts. For a person abused as a child, the grief is for what never was and...
Jan. 6, 2016
The Soul With Two Voices
How do our losses help us uncover our true purpose? This is the question at the heart of Sonika Marcia Ozdoba's memoir, The Soul with Two Voices. Losing what she thought was most valuable to her, her professional singing voic...
Dec. 30, 2015
Hope is a Good Breakfast
Tara Shuman had the kind of life you could wish for; rewarding work, a husband and two little kids. She had started a few books, a children's book, a novel, but hadn't ever finished. The cancer came, unwelcome of course, into...
Dec. 23, 2015
Fire in the Heart
How do we move through multiple losses in a short period of time? What helps along the way? When Deborah Allen lost 5 of the most significant people in her life in just a few years, her considerable resiliency was put to the ...
Dec. 16, 2015
Every Twenty-One Days
Stephanie Johnson was always a part of theater- behind the scenes. She was comfortable supporting other people's production with her talents as a lighting director. But the arrival of cancer on the stage of her life moved her...
Dec. 9, 2015
Notes From the Waiting Room
Being an advocate for a loved one at the end of their lives is so much more than reading their advance directive documents. The decisions are complex, nuanced and unpredictable. There is no way to predict what will be asked o...
Dec. 2, 2015
Climbing Out From Under
It is only experience that seems to teach us how to heal from heartbreak. Caron Post and Deborah Pardes' experiences led to their deep commitment to help others through their heartbreaks. It also led to the creation of their ...
Nov. 25, 2015
Grieving Through the Holidays
Our life losses can seem overwhelming when it appears the rest of the world is celebrating. But in fact, we are in good company! Holidays are natural times to remember people we've lost and to honor them. But how do we step b...
Nov. 18, 2015
The Complete Eldercare Planner
Planning for the end of life is something most of us delay and resist. But when we put a plan in order, it is empowering, allowing us to feel a measure of control over this most mysterious time in our lives. But how can we le...