Grief Out Loud (The Dougy Center)

It's rare for a story to have just one side, especially in grief. This is true for Eddie, whose father died of suicide in 2021. One side of the story is how Eddie's father was in the world - extremely successful and well-regarded. Another side of the story is how he was at home and in his relationship with her. In grief, Eddie has had to reckon with missing her dad while also being confused about why she is missing him. She's also had to navigate living in the world without a dad who was such a force in shaping everything she thought she wanted in life. Eddie is committed to talking openly about grief and mental health and wants to ensure there is room for her and others to tell both sides of the story. 

When Jonna's mom, Anita, died just a few days after Jonna's 26th birthday, she prepared herself to completely fall apart. She imagined not getting out of bed for days, never laughing again, and for life to come to a standstill. When grief didn't look like that, it was confusing and left her worried she was doing something wrong. Jonna talks about her mom, their relationship, what it's like for grief to show up over time, and reckoning with how grief is changing her hopes and goals.

If you or someone you know is struggling with feeling hopeless, please reach out for help. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text Hello to 741-741. 
This episode references The AfterGrief by Hope Edelman. 

Many of us end up working in the grief world because of our personal experiences. We want to give others what we most needed. This is especially true for Melody Lomboy-Lowe and her niece Gracelyn Bateman, who co-founded Luna Peak Foundation in the hopes of supporting both those affected by cancer and those grieving a death. Melody was diagnosed with cancer when she was 6 and went through intensive treatment until she was 9. Gracelyn's dad, and Melody's brother-in-law, died of a cardiac event while running in 2016. Through their books and social media channels, Luna Peak provides multicultural stories of survivorship and hope. 
Places we go in this episode:
Grieving during the holidays.
What Melody needed from adults while she was going through treatment.
How interviewing those affected by cancer and those grieving a death has impacted them. 
Their hopes for Luna Peak Foundation going forward. 

Books mentioned:
Beyond Remission
Beyond Grief
Holiday Griefings

"How do I tell my children?" When someone dies of suicide, parents and caregivers want to know how to talk with their children about the death. Jana and Joan Schweizer Hoff explain why it's so important to tell children the truth about suicide and offer concrete suggestions for how to talk with them. For additional information, please see The Dougy Center's Suicide Resources Tip Sheet

Katie Arnold is a writer, mother, grieving daughter, and ultra-marathoner. After her father died of cancer, Katie developed intense anxiety about her health - every headache and muscle pain felt life-threatening. A runner from a young age, Katie took to the trails and started running longer and longer distances, eventually becoming an ultra-marathoner and running 50K, 100K, and 100 mile races. She recently published her memoir, Running Home, where she interweaves memories of her father and the present day maneuvering of grief. 
Be sure to check out Running Home - A Memoir & Katie's website. 
Listen all the way to the end of the episode for a clip of Jana's interview with Danny Koordi on the Screwed Up Moments podcast!

Grief is intensely personal and sometimes it’s intensely private. When Anne Moss Roger's son Charles died of suicide, she decided to go public with her grief and the story of his life. Inspired by her son’s innate skill for connecting with others, she’s now dedicated to helping people who are struggling with grief, suicidal thoughts, and substance use.  

To learn more, visit Emotionally Naked, Anne Moss's blog. Her website includes links to her new book, Diary of a Broken Mind, and her TEDx Talk - Can A Blog Save Lives?

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out. National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)

Crisis Text Line: Text Hello to 741741

In 2000 Doreen Wiggins, MD began having vivid dreams that her husband was going to die. These dreams, combined with a session with an intuitive healer who confirmed her fears, prompted Doreen, who was already an accomplished surgeon, to seek out training in supporting grieving children. Then in 2009, while skiing in Colorado, her husband died suddenly due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Doreen’s fears had become a reality. Devastated and still needing to parent their 5 children, she first turned to therapy and then yoga, finding a lifeline in what would become a daily practice. This overlap of her medical training and the benefits of yoga sparked her interest in researching how grief affects us physiologically, emotionally, and spiritually. 

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help.

24/7 Crisis Text Line: Text Hello to 741741
24/7 Crisis Phone Line: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)

We deliberated for a long time about whether it was appropriate for us to do an episode on pet loss. We know from those grieving the death of a person that it can hurt when someone tries to relate to their loss by sharing about their pet who died. We also know that grief is grief. Pets bring us joy and laughter and frustration and tears and love - just like humans do. In the end we decided to do this episode because we want to honor that for many people, their pets are family members, and the grief when one of them dies is real and valid and worthy of recognition and support. As our guest, Debrah Lee, Veterinary Well-Being Program Director for DoveLewis Veterinary and & Specialty Hospital, says, "These relationships matter."

Mentioned in this episode:
DoveLewis's Pet Loss Support Program
Additional Resources

Camille Sapara Barton is a social imagineer who is reimagining how we define and relate to grief. As a writer, artist, and somatic practitioner, Camille is looking to create a new grief narrative expansive enough to include multiple forms of individual and collective grief, especially for queer, trans, and BIPOC communities. In Camille's book, Tending Grief, they offer rituals and embodied practices for feeling into and metabolizing grief. 

• Camille's lived experience with grieving death & non-death losses
• Support for grief that falls outside the traditional box
• Grief as a generative process
• Camille's learning from Dagara spiritual traditions and Sobonfu Somé
• Collective grief that comes out of displacement, colonization, and threats to queer & trans people around the world
• How we numb our grief and the cost of doing so
• The narrative Camille is hoping to create around grief
• Examples of embodied practices to tend grief 

Be sure to check out Camille's new book, Tending Grief - Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community. 

In May of 2015, Jayson Greene's first child, Greta, had just turned two and was spending the day with her grandmother, Susan. While she and Susan were sitting on a bench in Manhattan, a piece of masonry fell from a building, hitting them both. Susan survived, but Greta did not. From the first days of grief, Jayson turned to writing, documenting all that was unfolding. These initial writings became his stunning memoir, Once More We Saw Stars. We talk about Greta, grief, and parenting Jayson's second child, Harrison. 

What does it mean to be grief-informed? In 2020, Dr. Donna Schuurman, EdD, FT, and Dr. Monique Mitchell, PhD, FT, authored the paper, "Becoming Grief-Informed: A Call to Action," which outlines: what it means to be grief-informed, why it's so important, and Dougy Center's 10 Core Principles and Tenets of Grief-Informed Practice. This paper is based on the foundational understanding of grief as a natural and normal response to loss that is interwoven into a sociocultural context. It recognizes grief not as an experience that needs to be fixed, treated, or pathologized, but one that deserves understanding, support, and community. 

Donna L. Schuurman, EdD, FT, is the Senior Director of Advocacy & Education at Dougy Center. Dr. Schuurman was the Executive Director of Dougy Center from 1991–2015. Dr. Schuurman is an internationally recognized authority on grief and bereaved children, teens, and families, and the author of Never the Same: Coming to Terms with the Death of a Parent (St. Martin’s Press, 2003), among other publications. 

Monique B. Mitchell, PhD, FT is the Director of Training and Translational Research at Dougy Center. Dr. Mitchell is a nationally recognized authority on children, teens, and families who are grieving in foster care, and the author of The Neglected Transition: Building a Relational Home for Children Entering Foster Care (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Living in an Inspired World: Voices and Visions of Youth in Foster Care (Child Welfare League of America Press, 2017), among other publications.

We discuss:

• Donna and Monique's connection to this work
• What it means to be grief-informed
• Why it's necessary to be grief-informed
• Examples of responses that are grief-informed and not grief-informed
• Seven core principles that describe what grief is and is not
• Three core principles that address how to provide grief-informed support
• Suggestions for how we can all work to be more grief-informed - for ourselves and others

Sign up for our Grief Education Webinar - Becoming Grief-Informed: Foundations of Grief Education. Thursday, January 18th, 2024, 10 - 11:30 am PST. 

This was supposed to be an episode about going back to work with grief, but it's not. Emily did have to navigate going back to work after her partner Chantel was killed in a hit and run, but this conversation ended up being about love. And loss. And the magical powers of caring for a dog named Indie. It's also about bringing the love you had with a partner who died into a new relationship and what it's like to grow that love with someone else. 

We discuss

What if there was a place you could go in your grief and be both perfect and broken? That's the kind of place Laura Green dreamed up with her friend and co-founder, Sascha Demerjian. Together they created The Grief House, a community space for people to explore grief through movement, conversation, creativity, and care. Since she was very young, Laura can remember being afraid of death. Afraid of losing everyone and everything she cared about, especially her mother. Three years after starting The Grief House, Laura had to face that biggest fear when her mother, Grace, died in the summer of 2023.  

We discuss:

• Laura's current grief expression - clay
• Why she feels so lucky to be her mother's daughter
• The fear of death she's had as long as she can remember
• How her mother's death story has influenced Laura's grief story
• Why it was so important for Laura to spend time with her mother's body
• The physicality of death and grief
• The Grief House's origin story
• What Laura and her co-founder are dreaming up next for The Grief House

Listen to Laura and co-founder Sascha on their podcast, Portals.

Follow The Grief House on IG. 

Lingering. Shivering. Simmering. Splintering.

These are the words DJ Arsene Versailles wrote to describe grief after his mother, Florcie Yves Versailles, died of COVID-19 in May of 2020. This grief was and continues to be layered - as most grief is - and some of these layers are specific to his mom being a Black woman who died during a pandemic, of a disease that has come to be so much more than just a medical diagnosis.

DJ's mom was committed to social justice and this inspired him to do similar work in the wake of her death. After meeting Kristin Urquiza, co-founder of Marked by COVID, he became involved in their effort to establish a COVID Memorial Day. 

Listen to DJ's interview with Sarah Betancourt.
Learn more about Marked by COVID.

For those who are grieving, birthdays and anniversaries of a loved one's death can loom large. What we do to mark these days is as individual and unique as our grief and the relationship we shared with the person who died. In this episode, Jana talks with Jodie about how her family approaches the birthday and anniversary of her baby Silas's death. For the past five years, Jodie and her family have organized Celebrate Silas, a community 5K run/walk that bring friends, family, and the larger community together to honor Silas and his birthday. 

This year's event is happening on 3.6.16 in Portland, OR. If you would like to participate or contribute, you can register and donate here: www.celebratesilas.com

100% of your donation goes to The Dougy Center and is fully tax deductible.  If you cannot join us for the walk or run, please consider celebrating in spirit by making a donation to help us meet our fundraising goals.

Eleanor and Litsa from What’s Your Grief join us as special guests to talk about becoming a parent when you’re grieving the death of your own parent or sibling. Listen in for suggestions on how to help your children build a relationship with the memory of the person who died and ways to make time for your own grief and self-care. 

Resources for talking with children and teens about death:

http://www.dougy.org/grief-resources/how-to-help-a-grieving-child/

http://www.tdcbookstore.org

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/supporting-a-grieving-child/

http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/supporting-a-grieving-teen/

Article mentioned by Eleanor:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/05/mother_s_day_gift_the_value_of_writing_letters_to_your_children_while_you.html

Book mentioned by Litsa:

The Disappearance is a memoir by Genevieve Jurgensen whose two young daughters were killed in a car crash. She seeks ways to help her other children, who were born after the crash, to know and feel connected to their sisters. 

When it comes to finding the right avenue of support in grief, it can be hard to sort through the options. How do you decide between a peer support group or individual, family, or group therapy? Our guest, Matt Modrcin, LCSW, specializes in individual, couples and family, and group psychotherapy. He has over 30 years experience as a clinician, educator, and trainer, he is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy and the National Association of Social Workers. He received both his M.S.W. and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. Jana and Matt discuss similarities and differences between peer support and therapy and identify ways to decide which (or both) is the right fit when someone is grieving. 

Music written and performed by Leila Chieko and Doctor Turtle
Doctor Turtle/“Which That Is This?”
From the Free Music Archive
CC BY
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/Jonahs_Message_for_New_York/Which_That_Is_This

Valentine's Day is one of the many holidays that shift and change while grieving. As with so many other holidays, the lead-up can be really hard. Advertisements and casual conversations about plans can leave grieving people left out, or eager to flee.

In this episode of Grief Out Loud, Jana and Brendon talk about strategies for approaching Valentine's Day in a way that opens up space to express love and appreciation.

Some ideas mentioned in this episode:

• Decide on what traditions you and/or your children want to uphold and then figure out who will be responsible for what.
• Connect with others you find to be supportive - this might look like setting up a phone call, email chat,  or getting together for dinner.
• Schedule some self-care that feels replenishing: go for a hike,  check out a new movie, take a yoga class, meet up with friends,  journal, or cook a nourishing meal.
• Ask your kids what helps them feel energized or calm - we sometimes forget that kids need self-care too.
• Volunteer for an organization or event that is meaningful to you.
• Send cards, flowers, or an email to friends and family who might also be going through a hard time.
• If it feels right, create a ritual or activity connected to the person who died. Ideas include, make a meal they enjoyed, go to their favorite restaurant, make or buy a card for them.
• Many kids like to bring something - card, flowers, balloons, to the grave site. If there isn't one, you could put them where you keep the ashes or visit the place where the ashes were spread. Or if that's not possible, display an image of that place.
• Write a card or letter to the person who died. You might write about: events you want them to know about (your son's first soccer game, a promotion at work, a description of a sunrise you recently saw, etc), things you are grateful to them for,  ways in which you and your family have grown or changed, or anything that comes to mind. You can keep, bury, or burn what you write.

Whatever you decide, go easy on yourself. There can be so much pressure, both internal and external to think or feel a certain way. Know that it's okay to feel whatever you feel (sadness, anger, numbness, irritation, etc), leading up to and on the actual day.

What does it mean to integrate grief into your life? To respond to it as something that doesn't need to be fixed or eradicated? Mari Gonzalez is the co-founder of the Grief Rites Foundation and creator of workshops and classes for those dealing with grief. We discuss how grief shaped so much of Mari's life - from her career choices to how she engages with the world. We also talk about what's coming up in her grief related to the current COVID-19 pandemic. 

Be sure to check out the Grief Rites Foundation to learn more about their monthly reading series (now offered virtually) and Mari's website, The Grief Revolution. 

Back before you could ask Google anything from, “What’s the best way to clean shower grout?” to “How do I grieve my parent?” when it came to answering these kinds of questions, we turned to bookstores and libraries to search for answers. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, even if you did go looking for information about grief, you’d be more likely to find a dense, clinical textbook than something that could help you understand what you were going through. Then in 1994, Hope Edelman published her groundbreaking book, Motherless Daughters. A book that spoke to thousands of women grieving their mothers. Brennan Wood, Executive Director of The Dougy Center, was one of those readers. Soon after the release of Motherless Daughters, Hope and Brennan met for the first time on the Leeza Gibbons daytime talk show. Twenty-five years later they’re together again for a conversation about being motherless daughters who grew up to be motherless mothers. 

Learn more about Hope's writing and work. 

For a lot of us, the end of year holidays + grief = the (not) most wonderful time of the year. Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence, Pathways Program & Group Coordinator at Dougy Center, is back for our annual Holidays & Grief episode. We discuss negotiating with family and friends around how we want to celebrate or not celebrate and how the past few years have shifted our priorities. Rebecca also shares how she and her family are approaching the holidays with a new type of grief, her mother having Alzheimer's. 
If you missed our past Holidays & Grief episodes, be sure to listen to Ep. 27, 98, and 174. 
Tips For Getting Through the Holidays & Holiday Plan Worksheet.
Register for our "Navigating Grief During the Holidays" webinar happening on Thursday, 12.1.22, 10 am - 11:30 am PST. 

Jill, a longtime educator, incorporates mindfulness and other strategies for emotional regulation in classroom settings. We discuss how grief, stress, and trauma affect our bodies, brains, and emotions. Jill also shares some easy to implement suggestions for both adults and children to increase awareness and ease in response to stress, grief, and trauma.   

Maria Collins, Vice President of the New York Life Foundation, joins Grief Out Loud to discuss three new initiatives to support grieving children and their families: 1) The Golden Sweater, a children's book about grief, 2) Speaking Grief, a multi-platform public media project, produced by WPSU, and 3) The Brave of Heart Fund which provides direct monetary support to children and families of those who die working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affecting communities of color, especially the Black and Latinx communities, and that these communities also face economic disparities and a lack of access to services, the Brave of Heart Fund is a vital resource. 

Resources
Download The Golden Sweater children's book
Learn more about The Brave of Heart Fund
Watch a trailer for Speaking Grief
New York Life Foundation's Ask the Experts series
COVID-19 School & Community Resources
Grief Sensitive Schools Initiative

For Camila, death came barreling into her world with zero warning. When she was 21 her world shifted on its axis on an average morning in September. She woke up in the house she shared with her mother in the Bay Area expecting just another day. Then, she went to check on her mother, only to find that she had died in her sleep. There were no warning signs. No indicators that anything was amiss. Her mom was there and then she wasn’t. In the 9 years since that morning, Camila has grieved intensely and intently. She’s searched for connections with her mother, finding an outlet for expression in writing.

Check out Camila's recently published book of poetry: The Progression of Grief. 

Full text of the poem Camila reads at the end of the episode:

It's impossible to speak for an entire community, especially when it comes to grief, but Sharice Burnett, LCSW, knows a lot about the ripple effect of loss in the Black and African American community in Portland, OR. Born and raised in the community, Sharice is a clinical mental health therapist and consultant dedicated to naming and dismantling the larger systemic barriers that stand in the way of Black children and families having access to culturally relevant support, particularly mental health and grief support. 

We discuss:

• Grieving the loss of an entire generation of elders during the Covid-19 pandemic
• The grief and displacement from the Vanport Flood of 1948
• The cultural nuances of grief
• Historic, intergenerational, and collective grief
• The unacknowledged grief of racism
• How each death & loss ripples out to the larger Black/African American Portland community
• How safety from racial harm is critical to accessing grief support services
• Sharice's hopes and dreams for creating more culturally relevant grief support
• Creative grief support & healing spaces for Portland's Black community (Black Rose Wellness) 

This episode is the third and final in our 2024 three-part series highlighting the voices of communities who have historically been underrepresented in the grief world. The series is part of an ongoing collaboration between Dougy Center and The New York Life Foundation. We are deeply grateful for New York Life Foundation's tireless support and advocacy for children and teens who are grieving.

It's our fifth annual holidays & grief episode! This time of year can be grueling for anyone, but particularly for those who are grieving. So, each year we put out an episode to help you feel less alone and hopefully more equipped to traverse the next few weeks. Today's guest, Melissa Peede Thompson, M.S., is a Grief Services Coordinator at Dougy Center. While she has lots of professional knowledge in this realm, we asked her to talk about her personal experience of grieving during the holidays. Melissa was six when her sister died of gun violence. She was 13 when her father died in a motorcycle accident. And she was a young adult when her grandparents died. Each loss shaped - and continues to shape - how Melissa and her family approach this time of year. 

We discuss:

• How her sister's death impacted her parents at the holidays
• What she remembers about the first Christmas after her dad died
• Grieving for her her grandparents before they died
• How the holidays can feel empty, even when the house is full
• Melissa's realization that grief has left her a little bit "Grinchy" 
• What she's doing to shift how she thinks and feels about the holidays
• Learning to appreciate being able to spend time with the people who are still alive
• Why St. Patrick's Day became her favorite holiday
• Taking the pressure off trying to make the holidays feel the same after someone dies

If you missed our past Holidays & Grief episodes, be sure to listen to Ep. 27, 98, 174, 240.

Tips For Getting Through the Holidays & Holiday Plan Worksheet.

Register for our "Navigating Grief During the Holidays" webinar happening on Thursday, 12.7.23, 10 am - 11:30 am PST.

This is the second in our series on Grief & Parenting.

In 2017, Brittany and Jonas were raising two young children and pregnant with their third. Then, after returning home from a business trip Jonas was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. Seven weeks later, despite intensive treatment, Jonas died. Aria, their oldest was three and a half. Her younger brother Loic had just turned two, and baby Klyde was still in utero. Brittany talks about explaining Jonas's death to their children, helping Klyde to know his father, and learning to ask for help. 

How do our early experiences with attachment and primary attachment figures inform and influence our grief? With her signature combination of humor and insight, Pearl Waldorf, MA, joins us to talk about the ways in which grief shows up in her counseling office and how an understanding of attachment states can support people in grief. 

Pearl Waldorf, MA is an individual counselor in Portland, OR. To learn more about her practice, please visit Pearl Waldorf Counseling. 

The list of things to do when someone dies is long and burdensome. If one of the things on that list was, "return to work," then this episode is for you. If you're a manager or co-worker wondering how to best support someone when they get to that item on the list, this episode is also for you. In a world where most companies provide woefully inadequate, if any, bereavement leave, many people have to return before they are ready, and when they do go back they are usually met with awkward comments or outright silence. Margo Fowkes, founder of Salt Water, an online community for grief, published her book, Leading Through Loss - How to Navigate Grief at Work, with the hope of easing this transition, both for employees and employers. 

We talk about:

• How Margo's experience as a mother grieving a son and a daughter grieving a mother inspired her to start Salt Water.
• Why it's important for companies to support their employees who are grieving.
• The power of peer support in the work place.
• How support doesn't always mean more time off.
• What employees identified as their biggest need at work.
• Examples of effective work place support.
• How writing this book helped Margo reflect on how she and her family returned to work and school after her son died. 

Listen to Margo's previous interview on Grief Out Loud. Ep. 172 Living After Your Child's Life Ends. 

Have you found yourself wishing you could hear from your person one more time? Wondering what advice, wishes, or words they would share about events big and small? When Art Shaikh's father died, he was charged with delivering letters his father wrote to various family members on important days like birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries. His father's legacy inspired Art to create CircleIt, a digital generational platform for creating, sharing, and preserving memories. CircleIt is a way to stay connected to family and friends, even after someone dies. 

Download CircleIt from Apple or GooglePlay

Sign up for BetterHelp online counseling at www.betterhelp.com/grief

Paul Denniston grew up with rigid cultural, religious, and gender expectations for what was appropriate when it came to expressing grief and emotions. This translated as, "Don't express anything besides happiness." There was no room for sadness, fear, grief, or vulnerability. After years of pushing these feelings aside, Paul turned to movement as a way to start expressing them. He began a yoga practice and then trained to be a teacher. From this start, he went on to create Grief Yoga, a program for transforming grief through sound, breath, and movement. We talk about finding emotional fluidity, sobriety, grieving the deaths of his sister and beloved dog, and the positive effects of cute raccoon videos. 
You can connect with Paul and his teaching at www.griefyoga.com

Heather Stang, thanatologist, mindfulness speaker, and author of Mindfulness & Grief: With Guided Meditations To Calm Your Mind & Restore Your Spirit, joins us to talk about cultivating self-compassion as a powerful avenue for self-care while grieving. She shares an accessible technique that you can use anywhere to get connected to your emotional and physical needs and bring ease and understanding to the some of the most painful aspects of grief. 

To learn more about Heather's amazing work and listen to guided meditations, visit her website. (www.heatherstang.com)

Who Died? was created by Aimee Craig to give voice to the memories of those we carry with us. Each episode is about one person's life and death as told by a loved one. Episode 6 is a conversation with Melissa about her father Larry. More information at https://www.whodiedpodcast.com/

When Dara Kurtz was in her late twenties, she was excited. Excited about being pregnant. She was also devastated. Devastated that her mother was recently diagnosed with stage IV cancer. As Dara’s baby grew, Dara’s mother grew closer to the end of her life. Two weeks after Dara’s daughter was born, her mother died – sweeping Dara into a whirlwind of diametrically opposed emotional states: the thrill of being a new mother and the heartbreak of being a grieving daughter. Decades later, Dara rediscovered a collection of letters and cards from her mother. In those letters she also rediscovered just how connected she is still is to her mother. The letters inspired her new book, I Am My Mother’s Daughter: Wisdom on Life, Loss, and Love.  

To learn more visit Crazy Perfect Life and find Dara on Facebook (@crazyperfectlife) & Instagram (@crazyperflife).

In the last of our three-part series on Grief & Money, we explore how fears about financial stability can be part of grief. When she was 13 and her father died of a heart attack, Shannon already had a narrative of insecurity when it came to her family and money. Even though they had access to more resources after her father died, this narrative just grew stronger. This legacy of financial fear continues to shadow Shannon, even as an adult living in a secure two income household.
We discuss grief, money, and the importance of talking openly about finances and security with children and teens when someone in their family dies.  
Big thanks to InRoads Credit Union for sponsoring this series on Grief & Money. InRoads is here for you. 
Shannon mentions her friend Nicole who is a Death Worker - learn more about her work here & on Instagram @emeraldawakenings

What do you tell children when someone in their life is diagnosed with an advanced serious illness? How do you support them and everyone else who is affected by this devastating turn of events? Mia Nyschens joins us to talk about her work with families who are faced with the knowledge that someone they love is going to die. Mia is part of The Dougy Center's Pathways Program, which provides peer support groups for children, teens, and their adult family members when someone has a life-limiting illness. 

To learn more about Pathways, visit our website.

What is it like to grieve for a father you know only from stories and photos? In August of 2018, Joy Wallace traveled to Tinian Island to see the place where her father, Kenneth, died when the plane he was flying as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Air Corp in World War II crashed. Joy's father died three months before she was born and she grew up with a longing to visit the place where he died. Her trip, which was filled with synchronicities, broke open the grief she'd been carrying for over seven decades.

It's our annual holidays and grief episode! In the past we've focused on more tangible tips and suggestions for supporting kids, teens, and adults during this time of year. This year we decided to focus on one person's lived experience with how the holidays can get really awkward when grief is involved. Ana Salazar-Walsh was just nineteen when her father died in a mountain climbing accident. A few months later, it was the first holiday season after his death, but it was actually the third Christmas in a row shadowed by grief. Two years earlier, her father left their family to start a new one with a woman he had fallen in love with. All of this, combined with moving from Spain to the United States for college, made for three very uncomfortable and awkward holiday seasons. Now that Ana is married with her own children, she's finding ways to bring her father's memory into their holiday celebrations. 

Looking for our past episodes about the holidays & grief?
Check out: 

Have you ever struggled with the idea of finding closure in grief? Given grief’s ongoing and evolving nature, the search for final closure can be a misguided pursuit, one that leaves us disheartened and even ashamed. In this episode you’ll hear from a variety of grieving young adults as they break open the idea of closure and identify significant turning points in their process. You’ll learn about moments of clarity, confusion, new understandings, and what it's like when the sharp emotions rise up again. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to this episode.

How do we help children when a family member is dying? The diagnosis of a terminal illness brings uncertainty, fear, and heartbreak into their lives, leaving the adults who love them unsure of what to do or say. In this episode, Jana talks Tony Grace about how to best support children when a family member has an advanced serious illness.

Here are some suggestions for ways to talk with them about the illness and activities to help them process their reactions, fears, and concerns.

• Children need space, time, and language to understand the changes that are taking place and that will take place in the future. If you have multiple kids of different ages, it is important to use words and phrases that are age appropriate for each of them. When communicating as a family, a good rule of thumb is to engage in conversation on a level so that the youngest child can understand, Have separate conversations with the older children and invite each child to have an individual conversation through the weeks and months ahead.

• In those conversations mentioned above, share what is happening, why it is happening, and what is most likely to happen if that is known. Be specific with names and diagnosis, but give simple explanations. It is ok if you don’t know the answers to their questions or even to your own questions.  You can make a list of questions for the next doctor’s visit or visit a local library. Librarians are a tremendous resource and they can help you and your child look for age-appropriate materials, videos, and references. Additionally, many hospitals now include a family resource center or a patient medical resource center. Ask your doctor or nurse if your facility has one.

• Don’t be afraid to mention the word death; it is not giving up on hope but a recognition that we are all mortal beings. If we are alive, our death will be inevitable at some point. Being able to talk about death, whether it be about our own, someone else’s death, or the death of an animal, can actually provide a very deep and lasting connection between family members.

• In mentioning hope, it is good to be reminded that hope can and will be redefined over and over and over again. Hope may go from wanting to live long enough to you see your children’s children to hoping that your children will grow up to be an emotionally healthy and capable adult having being taught by your role modeling.

• It is also helpful to be reminded that our stories don’t end when we die, they continue in the lives of our loved ones...including our children.  The illness and perhaps death of this family member will be part of that story, but it won’t be the final chapter.The current story that is being created is being “authored” not just by the illness, but by you, your family, and the people in your life. There is an opportunity for the story to be written in a way that can be beneficial for each person involved. Families will need to determine what that specifically looks like but generally, it looks like each person feeling informed, connected, valued, and able to express themselves.

• Many children and teens have vocalized the need to have a tangible connection to their sick family member throughout their lives. Some have asked for a memory box where they can put pictures, clothing, and other personal items. Others have wished for letters, videos, or tidbits of advice they can access as they get older. One family collected stories of the person who was ill so that their children can learn about who their father was from others. Another family had children videotape and interview the person who was ill, so in the future, they can be reminded of their interactions.

• Children with a sick family member often exhibit a lot of energy and in need of a lot of attention…and paired with a home that typically needs quiet 24/7 and focuses on the person who is ill, can often leave children feeling isolated and their energy stifled. Help identify positive ways to daily release that energy...running, sports, martial arts, gardening, dancing, etc… Neighbors, friends, and extended family members can be a great resource to help keep children active when a primary caregiver’s attention or energy is needed elsewhere.

• No one likes to feel helpless, including children and teens. Many will want to be able to care for the person who is ill, including young children. Exploring ways that can demonstrate they care, can be really helpful it helping ensure that each person feels valued. Contributions can be as simple as the drawing of a picture to hang in the person’s room, to getting water, reading a book, or massage lotion onto the person’s skin.

• For friends and family, it may be hard for families with a person who is ill to ask for help, but getting through all the challenges of a serious illness without any support is unlikely. The illness takes away many choices families have, so for those who want to help, offering to help with a menu of possible activities, rather than offering advice, or just doing something, is often advisable.  Once something has been talked about, ask how the person would like it done. This also provides another opportunity for the family to have agency over their lives.

This episode first aired in December, 2018. Nothing says end of the calendar year holiday stress like grief. Dougy Center staff member Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence is back with more suggestions around planning for and making your way through the December holidays when you and your family are in the midst of grief. We recognize too that for families who don't observe the December holidays, daily life can become very stressful in the midst of the frenzy that gets created by those who do.  

Follow The Dougy Center on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@thedougycenter) for more Dougy's December Tips. 

In Episode 4 of Who Died? host Aimee Craig talks with Brandi Maxell about her mother. 

Music written and performed by Lida Husik.

Our guest is Darwyn Dave, creator and host of the Dealing With My Grief podcast. In 1978, when Darwyn was ten years old, his father was killed. 38 years later, in January of 2016, Darwyn turned to podcasting as a way to explore grief and how it continues to shape the adult he is today. With his unique mix of candor and insight, Darwyn illuminates the interior world of what it was like to be 10 and suddenly without his father. 

Heat Smith's mother, Jan, died of cancer almost 18 years ago. Heat, who was 25 at the time, became her mother's full-time caregiver. We talk about their intense and complex relationship, how Heat honors her mother's memory, and what it's been like to become a brand new parent without her mom. 

When Reshma Kearney's husband Sean died of suicide, her immediate concern was their three young children. She needed to figure out how to talk to them about his death - and his life - all while meeting their emotional and physical needs. Pretty quickly she realized her needs also had to be met so she could keep showing up for them. Reshma and her kids had an established mindfulness practice before Sean's death and those practices became integral for tending to their grief and finding ways to keep engaging with life. 

Note: this episode discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out. You can call 988 or text HELLO to 741-741. 

Connect with Reshma on IG.

Listen to her kids on Ep. 303: Let's Hear It For The Kids - Grief In Their Own Words.

The COVID-19 global health crisis is an unprecedented time of uncertainty, change, and concern - three things that often accompany grief. For those who are already grieving, elements of this pandemic may feel familiar and bring us back to times when we had to readjust everything in our lives. Leslie Barber is a grieving widow, parent to a grieving child, and the founder of Grief Warrior, which creates gift boxes for grieving people. We talk all about grieving in this time of COVID-19 and how she and her daughter are navigating the disruptions to daily life while carrying their grief. 

Leslie's company - Grief Warrior
When Your World is Already Upside Down - Supporting Grieving Children & Teens During the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis - a Tip Sheet from The Dougy Center.
https://www.dougy.org/grief-resources/tip-sheets/

What does it mean when grief becomes part of our dreams? In this episode, we talk with Joshua Black, a Ph.D. student at Brock University, about his groundbreaking grief dream research. Joshua shares his findings on themes in grief dreams, how to better remember dreams, and suggestions for changing negative ones. To learn more about Joshua and his research, check out his website: www.griefdreams.ca 

TJ Jackson had just gotten his driver's license as a teenager when his mother, Dee Dee Jackson, was murdered. Almost three decades later, TJ and his brothers Taryll & Taj, started a non-profit in her memory. The Dee Dee Jackson Foundation is dedicated to supporting others in their grief through music workshops, grief education, and their podcast Power of Love.  

In this episode we talk about how grief changes over time, what it was like to grieve as part of a very public family, and how becoming a father connected TJ to his grief in a new way.

When someone dies, we often discover things about them we didn’t know before. Those discoveries can range from mundane preferences like realizing your dad didn’t love chocolate to huge revelations that alter your entire perspective on the person and the life you shared with them. What author Jan Canty discovered about her husband after he was murdered changed everything and left her shocked and angry. Now, 30 years after her husband’s death, Jan is working on a book entitled Till Death We Did Part: A Memoir of Deception/Murder and Recovery.

Ways to connect with Jan and find out more about her upcoming book:

Facebook 

Website

Sweaters, shoes, a favorite coffee mug, the pen always angled a certain way - items, big and small, form the landscape left behind when someone dies. Nicole Leslie was 15 when her mother died and at first it was too painful to go through her things. A few years later, as she and her sister began the process, Nicole discovered clothing she had never seen her mother wear before. This discovery became the originating point for Nicole's turn to fashion and creativity as ways to express her grief. She started Remembrance Wardrobe, a blog where she posts photos of herself wearing outfits that are a combination of clothing from her mother, grandmother, and her own collection. She pairs each outfit with a line from her mother's poetry, opening a window into the life of a woman who lives on in Nicole's memories and creative expressions.   

Check out all of Nicole's posts at Remembrance Wardrobe.

In the two years since his dad died, Mike bought a house, got married, and is expecting his first child. This episode explores what it means to grieve the person you would have turned to the most for advice and guidance on these major milestones in life. It's the story of a son whose father's values, principles, and personality continue to influence who he is and how he lives. 

Dr. Donna Schuurman is back - this time talking about the dangers of pathologizing grief. While the term "complicated grief" has been used in various grief settings for years, it wasn't until March of 2022 that Prolonged Grief Disorder made it into the DSM-5-TR - the Diagnostical & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - as an official diagnosis. This conversation explores the concerns Donna and others in the field share about the move to pathologize grief.

We discuss:

Twelve years ago today - August 30th - Canada Taylor was having an amazing night. She and her husband Rick were sitting outside, talking about life and work and dreams for the future - their future. Then everything changed. Rick had a medical event, and Canada became his first responder. Hours later, she became his widow. In the twelve years since, things continued to change. Canada's two sons grew up and grew into their grief. She changed the course of her career - moving from behavioral health to suicide prevention and grief justice. Throughout all these changes, Canada has found ways to honor who Rick was in this world and the love they share.  

We discuss:

• What Canada's husband saw in her that no one else did
• The last day they spent together
• Being a first responder for Rick & the trauma that brought
• Supporting her two children 
• The challenge of finding culturally relevant grief support for her kids
• How difficult it was to find skilled support for herself
• A preview of how grief informs the work Canada does in the realm of suicide prevention & postvention
• How Canada plans to honor the anniversary of Rick's death this year

Connect with Canada on IG @canadalauren and Linkedin

Tips for grieving through Mother’s Day

• Whether you want to acknowledge the day or want to ignore it, know that the lead up, for many people, is the worst part. It can help to make a plan for the days leading up to Mother’s Day.
• If you are supporting a grieving child, talk with them and their teacher ahead of time about possible activities at school. Work with the teacher and the child to come up with alternatives and options. 
• Let children know they can still celebrate Mother’s Day - and that it’s okay if they don’t want to. Don’t force children to pick another adult to honor, unless it’s something they want to do. 
• Know that there will be an inundation of advertisements in many places. If needed, come up with some strategies to navigate shopping and social media. 
• Consider a social media fast for the day - or - plan what you want to post. Maybe choose a favorite picture and think ahead about what you want to write. 
• Identify other women in your life you would like to celebrate- and - it’s okay if you don’t want to. Don’t pressure yourself to put someone in that role if it feels inconsiderate, impossible, or dishonoring of your mom. 
• Plan something for yourself - massage, hike, brunch with friends, etc. Decide what environment you want to be in, knowing that you are likely to run into moms and families.
• Get together with or reach out to others who are grieving the loss of their mom. 
• Focus on a category - say food, movies, activities, color, or music - choose a few from one or all the categories that your mom loved. Plan part or all of the day to do something with those elements. Maybe it’s eating a favorite meal while watching a loved movie and wearing their favorite color. This is a great one to include children. 
• Volunteer - doing for others can often take us out of our own experience and create a sense of contribution, belonging, and connection. 

Jana is joined by Dougy Center staff member, Heather Dorfman, to talk about what helps (or might help) in grief, outside the realm of more formal support. As you listen to this episode, keep in mind:

• These ideas may help for some, not others. What’s helpful can be unique for each person and very much informed by culture and other identities (just like grief).
• Some may have more options around taking care of self and children than others. Support people can focus their efforts on creating opportunities for their grieving loved ones to engage in self-care and compassion.
• Grief is holistic – involves emotions, body, mind, spirit/heart, community/relationships. Engaging in intentional activities to support each of these dimensions can be helpful.
• Consider writing down the ideas you’d like to try - it can sometimes be tough to remember them in the moment they’re needed.
• If accepting help from others is challenging, consider that your acceptance of support is often experienced as such a gift by your friend or loved one – so do it for their sake if necessary! 

Body/movement –

• Grief can show up in our bodies as sluggishness, excess energy, stomach and sleep upsets
  • Walking, hiking or otherwise moving and spending time outside
  • Dancing, yoga, swimming
  • Punching pillows/bed
  • Knitting
  • Setting a fitness goal that is safe for you
  • Pay attention to what sorts of foods help with stomach upsets, and activities that help with settling into sleep and staying asleep at night.

Mind –

• May experience a slow/foggy feeling in the brain, inability to concentrate/focus, confusion, rumination. Activities that help with focus, connection, and slowing things down can help.
  • Learning/sharing new facts. Making calculations – concrete activities
  • Reading (grief-related and non-grief books), podcasts, tv shows
  • Meditating
  • Crosswords/word searches/Sudoku/other games
  • Debating

Emotional/spiritual/social –

• Many receive support from a spiritual or other community. Your community might look like being in the trees, at the ocean, in a gym or library, participating in a support group, mosque, temple or church. Here are some other ideas:
  • Meditation
  • Ceremony/ritual, which can offer a sense of control, routine/structure, marking important experiences, dates
  • Making or listening to music; making/experiencing other art (even coloring sheets). It may be helpful to make the activity simple for you
  • Humor – which might look like dark, silly, or wry humor
  • Cooking for self and others – or not cooking!
  • Volunteering, which can offer the opportunity to step out of your own story for a while

To find more formal grief support in your community, visit our website to search for help near you.

After a death, it’s not unusual for children to have an increased sense of fear and anxiety. (It’s not unusual in adults, either.) When bad or sad things happen, it’s natural to be afraid more bad things will happen. The questions and concerns are normal: How will we live without the person who died? Who will take care of me?  Will someone else die? Where do people go after they die?  Will I die too?

There's PDF tip sheet included with the podcast. The tipsheet can also be found here: http://www.dougy.org/docs/TDC_Fears_Tip_Sheet_10_14.pdf

What does transformation mean and how does it connect (or not) to grief? How can people make their way into everything that comes with this kind of loss and still keep track of themselves?

Phelica Glass is a Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker in Topeka, Kansas. In her private psychotherapy practice, Phelica works with children, teens, adults, and families who are facing major life transitions, including grief.

In this episode, we talk about :

• Grounding techniques for when the grief tide rolls in
• How therapy can help ease the anxiety that is often present in grief
• Transforming our relationship with the person who died

In 2015, Diane Kalu was living in Nigeria with her husband and their three young children. One day, about eight weeks after the birth of their third child, Diane’s husband went to work and never returned. A few days later she got the news that he dad died. She was suddenly a widow, responsible for raising three children under the age of five, in a country with several widowhood customs and traditions that are harmful to women. Thankfully, Diane had her mother to help her survive those early days of widowhood. Then, about five years after her husband's death, Diane's mother also died. Through both of these losses, Diane discovered a lot about herself, including a passion for helping others. That led her to start the WiCare Lekota Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting widows in Nigeria through social, emotional, financial, and educational support programs. 

We discuss:

• Grieving for her mother
• Telling her children their grandmother died
• How her mother supported her after her husband died
• Grief brain fog and how Diane recovered her memory with singing & sticky notes
• Widowhood customs & traditions that are harmful for women
• The ways Diane broke with community expectations for widows
• Pity vs. compassion
• The mindset that helped Diane survive
• What Diane's husband would think of who she is now
• Starting the WiCare Lekota Foundation to support other widows

WiCare on Facebook

Cristina Chipriano, LCSW, Dougy Center's Director of Equity & Community Outreach and Melinda Avila, MSW, CEO of OYEN Emotional Wellness Center, are committed to changing the landscape of grief support for Latino families. They bring personal and professional grief experiences to the work of ensuring that every Latino family has access to dual language grief support that honors their cultural values.  

We discuss:

• Cristina & Melinda's personal connection to this work
• Why it's important now, in 2024, to have this conversation
• What is unique about grief & grief support in the Latino community
• The concept of family in the Latino community 
• How grief challenges our sense of self and identity
• The ways people have been taught to suffer in silence
• How culture informs grief and grief informs culture
• Why it's critical for services to be truly bilingual
• The barriers to accessing services
• The first thing service providers should be thinking about when meeting with a Latino family
• Cristina & Melinda's hopes for the future of grief support for Latino families

This episode is the first in our 2024 three-part series highlighting the voices of communities who have historically been underrepresented in the grief world. The series is part of an ongoing collaboration between Dougy Center and The New York Life Foundation. We are deeply grateful for New York Life Foundation's tireless support and advocacy for children and teens who are grieving. 

How would you tell your children that their father murdered their grandparents? This is the heartbreaking question Jenn, whose children were 6 and 10 at the time, faced when she got the news that her ex-husband killed his parents. This is the story behind the facts that we read in the news. The story of three people navigating grief that changed every aspect of their lives. It's also a story of love. Of anger. And of hope.

If you or someone you love is affected by abuse and needing support, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or if you’re unable to speak safely you can log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474.  

Tips for Supporting Children & Teens Grieving a Murder or Violent Death.
After a Murder Workbook.

Nothing says end of the year holiday stress like grief. Dougy Center staff member Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence is back with more great tips on planning for and making your way through the holidays when you and your family are in the midst of grief. We also share some new activities to try that can be done solo or as a family. 

Downloads to explore:
The Gift List article
Chef for a Day activity
Holiday Plan & Worksheet

Listen to Ep. 27: Grief And The Holidays

Just weeks before Adam Mansbach's wildly popular book, Go The F**K To Sleep, was published, his brother David died of suicide. In interview after interview promoting the book and talking about its success, Adam worried that someone would ask about his brother, would catch him off guard with a question about the grief that was raw and painful. In the years after David's death, Adam found himself writing about everything but that loss. Now, almost a decade after David's death, Adam's newest book, I Had A Brother Once, is a memoir in verse about David's life, death, and the confusing aftermath when someone dies of suicide. 
Note: this episode contains some strong language.

Follow Adam on IG.
Sign up for one of his book events.
Learn more about his work.

Sonja was 15 when we recorded in the summer of 2023, but was just 10 when her father, Matt, died in September 2018 from injuries due to a car accident. Sonja, her mom, and two younger siblings lived in NYC at the time of his death. They eventually moved across the country to Portland, Oregon where they attended peer grief support groups at Dougy Center. Sonja shares what she remembers about hearing that her dad was in an accident, how their community showed up while he was in the hospital, and how they kept showing up after he died. We also talk about her dad and what it's like to be the oldest sibling who had the most time and memories with him.  

This series is a part of an ongoing collaboration between Dougy Center and the New York Life Foundation. We are deeply grateful for New York Life Foundation's tireless support and advocacy on behalf of children and teens who are grieving. 

Download a copy of the New York Life Foundation's newest resource for teens who are grieving - Lost in the Middle.

V was six when her father died from cancer, but it wasn't until two decades later that she consciously engaged with her grief. A seeming random encounter at a local craft store cracked open emotions she wasn't able to explore as a child, leading to an avalanche of grief she never expected. As an adult, V turns to art and connections with others who are grieving for solace and understanding. 

After someone dies, we rarely get the chance to talk about how they lived because any conversation about them tends to focus on how they died or on how we are doing in our grief. The lack of opportunity to talk about our people - who they were, what they loved, how they influenced us - is what inspired Aimee Craig to create a new (amazing) podcast called Who Died? Grief Out Loud is guest hosting Aimee's podcast as it builds an audience - which we know won't take long at all! We'll be interspersing Who Died? episodes with our regular content and hope to post one each month. Who Died's first episode is a conversation with Doug Wells whose wife Neeley died in 2015. To learn more about Who Died? check out their site.  https://www.whodiedpodcast.com/

What does it mean to grow and grow up with grief? Aliya, a recent high school graduate, spent the past three years reckoning both with her mother's death from cancer and the intricacies of their relationship. As Aliya confronted the more painful aspects of their connection, she created space for remembering the other parts -the ones that were loving and joyful. As Aliya heads off to college this fall, she does so with a new confidence in her ability to navigate the ways her grief continues to unfold. 

Sign up for BetterHelp's online counseling and support www.betterhelp.com/grief and receive 10% off your first month. 

Jana's dad's dad, Antonio DeCristofaro, died in 1963. She talks with her dad, Tony, about how his dad's death when he was 14 drastically changed the course of his life.

This is the third in our series looking at how the approach to supporting grieving children has or hasn’t changed over time. We’ll be talking to people who had parents die in different decades, starting in the 1940’s. We’re hoping to discover how parents, kids, and other adults such as teachers and coaches reacted to children after a death.

For more information on supporting grieving teens, check out our Tip Sheet. 

Being a step-parent is complicated under the best of circumstances, but what happens when your children's other parent dies? Paige Smith was just settling into her new family with her husband and his two children that he co-parented with his ex-wife, Danielle, when they got the news that Danielle had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. When Danielle died and the girls moved in Paige and her husband, Paige found herself entering the new role of full-time mother, but without the support and guidance of Danielle. We talk about how Paige and her husband, together with their girls, are working to honor Danielle's memory and navigate grief individually, and as a family. 

Valenca Valenzuela, MSW, was born on Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) which seems fitting for someone who grew up to hold space for people before and after a death. Valenca is the Volunteer and Group Coordinator at Dougy Center, supporting children, teens, young adults and their adult family members who are grieving a death. As a death doula, she supports people who are facing the end of their lives. She is also an instructor for the Going with Grace program, readying others to do similar work.  
Valenca comes to this work as someone with a lot of lived experience. When she was 16, her father died of cancer. As an adult, she was with her grandmother at the end of her life. A trip to Ireland to connect with her maternal lineage solidified her passion for working as a death doula and starting conversations about end of life.  
Valenca shares about what it was like to be 16 and grieving for her father, what she’s learned from working with kids and families in our peer grief support groups, what it means to have a "good death," and ways we can all be better prepared for end of life.  

In 2017,  Caroline Wright was working on her third cookbook and raising two kids with her husband. Life was busy and full in only the way it can be when you have two kids under the age of five. Then one day everything changed. It was the day she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor, and given a year to live. 

After surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and radical changes to her lifestyle and diet, Caroline is now considered cancer free. Since her diagnosis she’s written a memoir about her experience based on the Caring Bridge site she used to keep family and friends updated. She also wrote and published a beautiful children’s book, Lasting Love, as a way to help her children know her love will always be with them, no matter what happens. 

www.carolinewrightbooks.com

When grief enters our world, many of us expect to cry and feel frustrated, but we aren’t as prepared for the intense fear and worry that can also be part of loss. Someone being 10 minutes late getting home sparks visions of a car crash or getting a call from the hospital. A random ache or feeling extra tired leaves us thinking we must be dying. Maybe sleep eludes us as we spin over how to do day to day life without our people. Sometimes the hardest part about anxiety is how it can catch us off-guard, either because we’ve never dealt with it before, or because the anxiety we already knew well has ratcheted up to untenable levels.

Claire Bidwell Smith, a licensed counselor, author, mother, and grieving daughter recently published her new book, Anxiety, the Missing Stage of Grief, that delves into all the ways anxiety can be part of grief. Before Claire was 25, both of her parents died of cancer. Her adolescence and young adulthood were deeply etched with their illnesses, treatment, and deaths. Out of this devastating grief grew her desire to help others facing similar situations. 

Be sure to visit Claire's site to learn more about her work. 

Even though most of us know and accept that grief doesn't have an end point, it can still be surprising to witness how much it impacts almost every aspect of our lives, including our relationships. This was true for Daniel, who was two days away from his 8th birthday when his father died of a brain tumor. When he was a kid, grief impacted Daniel's relationship with a sense of safety and security. As a young adult, it affected what he was looking for in his dating relationships. Throughout his life, it's shaped who and how he feels safe and comfortable connecting with. 

We discuss:

• What Daniel remembers about getting the news that his dad was going to die.
• How the enormity of this loss became more real as he got older.
• The challenges he faced with trusting men, which affected his experience as gay man.
• How his coming out process may have been different if his dad was still alive.
• The parallels Daniels found in coming out as gay and coming out as having a parent who died - how both have left him feeling othered. 
• How his grief impacted his dating relationships.
• What he's learned from volunteering in a peer grief support group for young children.
• What he's come to understand about grief over time. 

• How Barri's mom, Ellen, was a woman before her time
• The day her mother died and the last sounds she heard
• What the early days of grief felt like
• The untenable expectation to get back to "normal"
• Finding Hope Edelman's book, Motherless Daughters
• The grief tending tools Barri turned to over the past 31 years
• Her daughter turning the age Barri was when her mother died
• The newer grief of being a caregiver for her father who has dementia
• How The Memory Circle came to be and Barri's work as a grief coach
• One of Barri's favorite ways to engage with grief - writing

Barri Leiner Grant is the founder and Chief Grief Officer™, of The Memory Circle for grief support--a place and space she created in 2019, for those learning to live with loss. She left a longtime career as a journalist and motherloss peer guide, to pursue full-time work and training as a Certified Grief Coach and Educator. Connect with Barri on Instagram and Substack. 

Anne Moss Rogers never imagined she would dedicate her working life to reducing suicide risk and supporting those grieving a death by suicide. She first came to this work in search of answers after her son Charles died of suicide in 2015. Most recently, her focus has been on helping teachers and school adminstrators respond when a student is struggling with thoughts of suicide. Part of that focus is also on postvention - the steps schools can take to supporting their community when a student or teacher dies of suicide. Anne Moss is co-author of the new book, Emotionally Naked: A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Suicide and Recognizing Students at Risk. 
Visit Anne Moss Roger's website to learn more. 
If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help.
Text HOME to 741741
Call 1-800-273-8255 24/7
The Trevor Project hotline for LGBTQIA youth: 1.866.488.7386.
Therapy for Black Girls

Jana and Donna Schuurman discuss terms to avoid, and what to say instead, when talking about suicide. Here is a link to download our Tip Sheet on how to support children and teens who have had someone die of suicide.

Terms not to use (and why):

1. “Committed Suicide”

Committed suicide,’ with its implications of criminality, is a carryover from the Middle Ages, when civil authorities, finding the victim beyond their reach, punished the survivors by confiscating their property. Victims were forbidden traditional funerals and burials, and suicide was considered both illegal and sinful by the laws and religions of the time.

2. “Completed Suicide” or "Successful Suicide"

These terms make it seem like something to celebrate: He completed this! She was successful!

3. “Suicided”

We don't say someone "cancered" or "car accident-ed"...

4. Using "suicide" as a noun (as in "he was a suicide") 

This reduces the person to the mode of their death. 

Better terms:

1. Died by Suicide

The Compassionate Friends was the first to officially adopt the terms ‘died by suicide’ or ‘died of suicide. ’

2. Died of Suicide 

Here's a general Rule of Thumb: If you can’t substitute the word “Cancer,” you may want to reconsider how you're using the word "suicide." He died of cancer: He died of suicide.

3. State how the person died (jumped off a bridge; took an overdose); of course, this is the personal preference of family members, something not all will choose to do)

4. “Suicide Death”

 Advocated by the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. (Some find it repetitive in that suicide IS by definition a death. (Whereas, for example “cancer” by definition does not always mean a death.)

BJ Miller is a Hospice & Palliative Care Medicine physician who works with patients facing the end of their lives. When BJ's sister Lisa died of suicide over twenty years ago, he did what so many of us do, he pushed his pain aside. It was his work, supporting patients with advanced serious illnesses, that helped him realize the importance of reckoning with his own grief. 

Watch BJ's TED Talk, What Really Matters at the End of Life.
Listen to his OnBeing interview with Krista Tippet.
Check out his new organization, Mettle Health, which offers online counseling and support for both patients and caregivers. 

Colin Campbell is a lot of things - writer, husband, friend - but the role he identifies with most is being a father. So, when his two teenage children, Ruby & Hart, were killed by a drunk driver in 2019, Colin was lost and terrified. Who was he without his kids? How would he survive the intensity of grief? Soon after their deaths, well-meaning friends and family would say, "There are no words," but for Colin, this phrase wasn't comforting. It left him feeling more alone because what he really needed were words. Words so he could talk about Ruby & Hart. Words to help articulate his pain. And words from others who shared what they remembered and missed about his children.   

Colin's book, Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss With Hope and Purpose, outlines the words and actions that helped him stay close to Ruby & Hart while learning to live in a world without them.  

Topics in our conversation:

• How Colin continues to honor and remember Ruby & Hart
• The rituals and routines that were helpful in the early days of grief
• How Colin navigates guilt and anger
• Learning to lean into the pain
• Finding ways for joy to live alongside grief
• The myth that the death of a child leads to divorce
• How Colin continues to embody being a father

Colin's article in The Atlantic - What Losing My Two Children Taught Me About Grief

Paula Becker is a writer, so when her son Hunter was killed in 2017, she searched for help in the pages of books. What she found were books heavy with text. The problem was her grief made it impossible to concentrate on that text. She recently published A Little Book of Self-Care for Those Who Grieve - the book she most wished she had in those first days, weeks, and months after Hunter died. 

Paula was a guest back on Episode 148 - Wrongful Death - A Grieving Mother's Story.
Visit Paula's website to learn more about her work. 

Paula Fontenelle is a journalist turned therapist who specializes in suicide prevention and supporting those who have had someone die of suicide. Paula's professional interest in this work is deeply rooted in personal experience. Her father died of suicide just over 15 years ago and his death set her on two parallel trajectories. Professionally, she studied everything she could about suicide. Personally, she spent hours interviewing friends and family, uncovering stories and details about her father's life and the pain he carried that she never knew about. 
Listen to Understand Suicide
Read Understand Suicide: Living With Loss, Paths to Prevention
Learn more about her work
Follow Paula on Facebook

For the past two decades, Alesia Alexander, LCSW, has worked with grieving children, teens, and families. The original inspiration for doing this work was very personal. Alesia's father died of cancer in 1994 and before he died, he asked her to find a way to give back to the community that gave so much to them throughout his illness. From this death bed promise, Alesia went on to focus on supporting those in grief through therapy, consultation, education, and writing. She is the author of two children's books: Sunflowers and Rainbows for Tia: Saying Goodbye to Daddy (1999), A Mural for Mamita/Un Mural Para Mamita (2001), and a resource for professionals: Tapestries: A Creative & inclusive Approach to Grief Support with Young People & Communities (2013). 
Recently, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, grief has come home for Alesia again. Her daughter's father recently died of brain cancer and Alesia stepped into a new role of supporting her daughter, while attending to her own grief. 

Alesia was a consultant for the Speaking Grief multimedia initiative. Watch the hour-long documentary and learn more at www.speakinggrief.org
To learn more about Alesia's work, visit her site. 

Amanda Drews is the founder of Buzzy’s Bees, the organization she started after her son Hudson, who was 13 months old, died of SUDC (Sudden and Unexplained Death in Childhood). Amanda started Buzzy’s Bees with a mission to provide financial support to families dealing with the unexpected loss of a child. Over time, Amanda realized what families really needed and wanted was a chance to talk about their children. So she launched the Give Grief a Voice Project where families meet with professional writers and artists who capture the essence of their child and their life in a unique piece of art.  
In this episode we talk about:
The stories we tell ourselves about death & grief.
What Amanda's older son needed in his grief. 
How Amanda navigates her season of grief - the time between Hudson's birthday and anniversary of the day he died. 

In 2018, The Dougy Center was selected as one of a handful of children’s bereavement programs to partner with StoryCorps and the New York Life Foundation on Road to Resilience: Memories that Move Us Forward. Road to Resilience was born out of a commitment to helping children cope with the death of a parent, sibling, or loved one.

Partnering on this project meant a group of staff and volunteers from The Dougy Center trained with StoryCorps staff to facilitate 40 minute conversations with children and their adults. At the end of each recording, families decided if they wanted to archive their conversations both with StoryCorps and the Library of Congress. They also chose if they wanted to share their recording with us at The Dougy Center.

Over the next few months, you'll hear short clips of these conversations in a series of mini-episodes. In this second mini-episode, Megan, Michael, and Mason talk about life after Michael and Mason's dad died.  
*Music by Chad Crouch.*

What does it mean to be a cultural kinkeeper and how does that idea relate to grief? These are two of the questions we explore with Anika Chabra, co-founder of Root & Seed, a platform meant to inspire people to collect and document family stories, recipes, and traditions. When Anika’s mom died suddenly in 2019, she realized just how much she didn’t know, not just about her mom, but also about their family history and cultural traditions. Root & Seed is Anika’s offering to help others have meaningful conversations with their family members in the hopes of recording those important stories and legacies.  

We discuss:

• The ways Anika's mother mothered her
• How Anika went searching for stories about her mother after her death
• What else Anika lost when her mother died
• The origin of Root & Seed and the digital and physical tools they provide to help people document their family stories and traditions
• What she most wishes she could tell her mom now

Living with an advanced serious illness

All in all, even under the best circumstances where families have substantial financial resources and savings, great medical and life insurances, medical knowledge,  access to great health care and multiple caregivers, an articulated living will or end of life directives,  and emotional/spiritual support, it will be an extremely challenging and life altering experience.

Challenges and complexities

This is not an all inclusive list, but meant to highlight only a few of the challenges:

• High Anxiety: Research has shown that children with an immediate family member who is dying have extremely high levels of anxiety and for good reason, death is ever present; Anxiety can be manifested in many forms; restlessness, “acting out,” anger, irritability, stomach aches,  nausea,  in-attention,  “on edge,” emotional distancing or clinginess to name a few.

• High Stress: Family members may respond to the stress with big energy and little energy or varying between the two extremes. They will also be trying to cope with the stress in various ways, sometimes those ways will conflict with each other.

• Exhaustion: There is usually complete emotional, physical, mental, social, and spiritual exhaustion.

• Role Conflicts: The demands of the illness almost always creates role conflicts for each family member whether that is between  the role as a spouse or the role of a parent, spouse or caregiver, son/daughter pr caregiver, employee or family member;  teen/kid or child. This is one of the greatest contributors of stress.

• Financial Setbacks: Loss of income and increased medical expenses & secondary care expenses usually confront most families.

• Relationship Issues:  Life with an illness usually demands drastic changes in where one can spend time and invest energy. Maneuvering through social, professional, and familial relationship can be a challenge, even in a supportive environment.

• Ethical Dilemmas: Most families will be confronted to make decisions that they never thought they would have to make or having to decide between options that are not favorable or agreeable. There may be differences of opinion within the immediate family. In addition,  many others will offer unsolicited advice when those dilemmas arise.

So what can a family do?

• Keep open, honest, and clear communication in all directions. This includes between adults but also between adult caregivers and children. Most often adults refrain from sharing the truth with children because of our own fears rather than because of their lack of ability to handle the truth. As long as we are sincere, open to answering questions, repeatedly at times, and keep it to their age level, the long-term benefits of sharing the truth far outweigh the immediate benefits of concealing information or misrepresenting the truth.  Never lie to a child.

• Communicate often.  Share what you know as you know it, even if that means you need to share that you don’t know anything.  You build trust with children when you communicate often about what it is going on and what you do know.

• Give children tasks and responsibilities to reduce feelings of helplessness. No one likes to feel helpless, even kids. Soliciting their help and offering choices to help care for the person with the illness can help foster a sense of empowerment.

• Provide structure and routine. Children and adults both need routine, especially in the midst of the chaos that so often ensues around medical issues. Provide as much structure as you can.

• Leave room to be a kid/teen. The person who is dying is important, but they are one aspect of the child’s and/or teen’s life. Children need opportunities to play, have fun, be loud, and enjoy the company of other children. Teens also need opportunities for independence and socializing with other teens.

• Role model being ok with not knowing. There will be a lot of unknowns.  Children need to see that it is ok not to know everything but still have confidence that something can be done, whatever that something may be.

• Advocate for your child, your partner, and yourself. Unfortunately, the medical system is not entirely person-centered. Furthermore, our society doesn’t handle death, dying, and grief issues well. Therefore, you may have to step outside your comfort zone and speak up for what you and your family may need.

• Acknowledge and validate emotions including guilt, fear, and anger. There will be many thoughts and emotions that each family member will experience at differing levels and at various times. All of them are normal and ok!

• Forgive.  Families are not perfect. When we are in relationships with others, we are bound to disappoint and be disappointed. Acknowledging your human limitations and giving yourself permission to not just disappoint others but also yourself at times, can address some of the guilt one might experience.  

• Anticipate future needs/wants. If it is possible, this would include preserving conversations between the person who is dying and the surviving family member and keeping memorabilia.  If it is a parent who is dying this could include writing letters of memories or videotaping advice for future milestones and events.

• Finally, find allies and peers. This might mean finding new people or touching base with people you might otherwise may not know, but surrounding yourself and the children in your care with people who understand and empathize with your situation, can be the best medicine we can think of! If there was something else, we do be pursuing that.

What can someone else do who wants to support a family that has someone dying?

• Be open.  Take a posture of listening without trying to fix, judge, rescue, minimize, advise, or silver line.  If one can do this, and do it well, it will go along way in changing a family’s experience.

• Take your cue from the family; Each family is unique and each family member is unique and what works in one situation may not work in another. So what may have helped you may not help someone else, so be open to doing or being whatever the family might need at the time.

• Only offer your advice/opinion if it is asked for. As much as we might want to share with the family our thoughts and opinions, that is not what most families need or want. We may be disappointed if they don’t ask us, but we should leave the opportunity to ask, rather than for us to share.

• Offer to help with specific tasks. Offering to transport family members, mow the lawn, care give, or go out for a cup of coffee are great tangible ways to say I care.  

• Don’t have any strings attached when you do offer support or communicate your care. Be flexible and patient. If you are not taken up on your offer or responded to, wait a few weeks and reach out again.  A simple “ I am thinking of you” communicates a lot without any added burden or pressure for the family to respond.

• Provide opportunities for respite and normalcy. Restaurant gift cards, coffee breaks, watching a movie/ sports, etc… whatever the family interests were before the illness will be a challenge to do in the midst of the illness. Providing opportunities to reconnect back to those things, however creative it might have to be,  are generally appreciated.

For more information about our Pathways Program or how to support a family with an advanced serious illness, please contact us pathways@dougy.org

When someone dies, it creates upheaval in the support system, leading to unfamiliar territory in terms of how to help those with different perceptions and expressions of grief such as language, repetitive gestures or patterning, emotional disconnect, and searching behaviors. Although the outward expression of someone’s grief may be difficult to recognize, the need for their grief to be acknowledged and supported is universal. In this episode, Jana talks with Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence, a staff member at The Dougy Center, about ways to support children and adults with developmental disabilities in their grief

Suggestions for supporting children or adults with developmental disabilities in their grief:

1. Acknowledge the loss by being present and responsive to their verbal and behavioral cues.

2. Affirm that they are not alone, name the support people they have.

3. Maintain a consistent routine as much as possible. Give a lot of advanced notice for when their daily routine may change or be unusual.

4. Facilitate activities or rituals that will acknowledge the grief. This can help children and adults to develop coping strategies and find ways to remember the person who died.

Resources:

Finding Your Own Way to Grieve: A Creative Activity Workbook for Kids and Teens on the Autism Spectrum by Karla Helbert, 2012

Everyone Grieves: Stories about Individuals with Disabilities and Grief by Marc A. Markell, 2013

Helping People with Developmental Disabilities Mourn: Practical Rituals for Caregivers by Marc A. Markell, 2005

Lessons in Grief & Death: Supporting People with Developmental Disabilities in the Healing Process by Linda Van Dyke, 2003

Kimberly Warner's father died in a car accident just before she graduated from high school. Two decades later, a DNA test revealed he wasn't her biological father. Eager to understand more about the mystery of her beginnings, she began a search for her biological father, only to find out he disappeared in a sailing accident when she was ten years old. Unfolding this part of Kimberly’s history continues to be a complex and poignant adventure of self-discovery, threading together universal themes of identity, belonging, family secrets and the strange, unconscious pull of DNA that encourages us into our fullest expression.

David Kessler is a renowned author, speaker, and retreat leader. He co-authored two books, On Grief and Grieving and Life Lessons, with another grief and loss icon, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. As with so many who are drawn to working with grief, David’s professional path started with the personal. At 13 he witnessed a mass shooting while his mother was dying in the ICU. In 2016 he became a grieving parent when his younger son, David, died at 21. David's newest book, Finding Meaning - the Sixth Stage of Grief, was inspired by his search to continue finding meaning in his own life and work.

Be sure to connect with David at www.grief.com

In this episode of Grief Out Loud, Jana and Brendon discuss some of the current mythology surrounding grief timelines. We demystify the idea that there is a recipe for grieving or one right way to go about integrating a loss. Listen to learn new ways of conceptualizing the unfolding of grief. During the discussion, Jana mentioned a couple of relevant resources:

1. Getting Grief Right, a NYT Opinionator article about grief timelines and "stages of grief"
2. 5 Stages of Grief overview, which Jana noted is a familiar cultural landmark, but not a framework that The Dougy Center endorses for those who are grieving. While each of the stages involves thoughts and feelings that grievers may experience, it’s not a clear-cut linear process. Thinking that we need to achieve certain stages in order to grieve correctly can often create more suffering for those in grief.

After her mother died in 2013, Charlene Lam faced the daunting prospect of dealing with all of her belongings. Making decisions about what to keep felt impossible, so Charlene turned to her skills as a gallery curator and asked herself: “If I was to do an exhibition about my mother, which 100 objects would I choose?” This experience transformed Charlene's understanding of how to interact with the objects of people's lives. It also inspired her to create the The Grief Gallery and become a grief coach. 

Topics we talk about:

• Feeling blindsided by her mother's death.
• Charlene's instinct to plan and do, rather than feel, in the early days of grief.
• How she eventually found ways to express emotion through creativity.
• What she learned about grief from growing up as the child of Chinese immigrants.
• How we can all think about curating the items of our lives, before we die.
• Grief and the Lunar New Year holiday.

Follow Charlene & The Grief Gallery on Instagram. 

This episode is a little different. Rather than an interview, we are sharing information from the Dougy Center's most recent Tip Sheet - Back to School with Grief and the COVID-19 Pandemic. With how tough it can be to focus long enough to take in a lot of text when you're grieving, we wanted to offer the information in this format. We'll be bringing you more Tip Sheet episodes over the next few months, so stay tuned!
Check out the Dougy Center's full Tip Sheet collection. It includes Tip Sheets for parents and caregivers wanting to supporting children and teens in their grief as well as ones for teens, young adults, teachers, and school administrators. 
In this episode we mention When Your World is Already Upside Down, a Tip Sheet specifically on how to support children and teens who are carrying grief into this time of COVID-19. 

As a child Rachel Stephenson learned first hand the pain of not knowing the truth about her mother's death. The secrecy in her family led to a disconnection with her remaining parent and added layers of confusion and fear. In this episode, Rachel joins Jana with suggestions for how to talk openly and honestly with children about grief and loss. 

Be sure to watch Rachel's TEDxCUNY Talk: Against Grieving in Silence - https://youtu.be/6zIFGl5tPQQ

and check out her blog Dear Dead Mother - https://deardeadmother.wordpress.com/