Grief Out Loud
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, 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. Now, almost a decade later, 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.
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On Valentine's Day, 2018, Fred Guttenberg rushed his two children, Jaime and Jesse, off to school. He had no idea it would be the last time he saw Jaime, who was murdered later that day in the Parkland School shooting. Jaime was killed just a few months after Fred's brother Michael died of as a result of being exposed to toxic substances when he ran into the World Trade Center as a 911 first responder. In the aftermath of Jaime's death, Fred dedicated himself to saving lives through ending gun violence.
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One day while driving between visiting her mom who had just had knee surgery and caring for her dad who had a progressive illness, Priya Soni wondered, "Where are the others?" By others, she meant the other adult children caregiving for parents and family members. Years later, this question would lead her to start The Caregiving Effect, an organization dedicated to bringing adult children caregivers together through stories, support, and mentoring.
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Breeshia Wade's new book, "Grieving While Black: An Anti-Racist Take on Oppression and Sorrow," puts grief into a wider context. The context of our relationships and the larger systems that shape who has access to resources like time, power, and the space to grieve. Breeshia is an author, end-of-life caregiver, and grief coach.
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How do we live with grief over the course of our lives? Hope Edelman, author of the groundbreaking book, Motherless Daughters, joins us again to talk about her newest book, The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss. The AfterGrief is what happens as we move out of the initial acute distress when someone dies and into a lifetime of learning to live with what that loss means for us.
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What is collective grief and how does it affect members of communities with marginalized identities? Dr. Amber Nelson, PsyD talks about both her professional and personal experiences with recognizing and supporting collective grief. Specifically the collective grief of bearing witness to the highly publicized murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, George Floyd, and the others who were killed this past year, many at the hands of the police.
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Mariyam was six when her father, Nurtay, died just before his 34th birthday. Now 20, Mariyam has experienced the deaths of four additional family members, including her mother, Bagitgul who died this past summer during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in her home city in Kazakhstan. Now 20, Mariyam is figuring out how to live without both of her parents. We talk about the well-intentioned phrases like "I can't imagine what you're going through." "I could never survive" and how they feel to Mariyam.
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When you think of the word "widow" what image comes to mind? When author Melissa Gould's husband Joel died, she didn't fit what she imagined widows looked and acted like, even if she felt like one. This dissonance led her to come up with the term "Widowish" which is also the title of her new memoir. Widowish is the story of her husband Joel, their love, and how she and their daughter Sophie found ways to grieve the heartbreak of his death.
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What does it mean to train to be a death doula for your community? Chrystal Wàban Toop is the founder of Blackbird Medicines and she joined us to talk about how her early experiences with grief grounded her in the the work she does as a life spectrum doula and her commitment to helping people reconnect with traditional knowledge and cultural practices to guide individual, family, and community transitions throughout the life span.
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Even if you don't really celebrate it, Valentine's Day can be rough when you're grieving. This year, we decided to bring you a compilation of love stories from listeners. Even though Valentine's Day is usually marketed as only about romantic love, this episode is about the love that exists in any connection. The idea for this episode came out of our conversation in episode 162 with Alesia Alexander, LCSW.
info_outlineGrief 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