What If Grief Care Is Preventative Care? Dr. Kailey Bradley
Grief Out Loud
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Kailey Bradley about support for grieving a death loss, but also the more overlooked non-death losses, including chronic illness, infertility, shifting identities, and the futures we imagined but don’t get to live. Dr. Bradley is a clinician and educator who specializes in working with children and families navigating grief and illness. Kailey shares her experiences growing up with chronic illness and being diagnosed with premature ovarian failure at age 12, and how those layered losses affected her at different life...
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Throughlines: Keeping A Connection With My Mom
Grief Out Loud
Jeremy’s mom was a protector, an optimist, and someone who held onto a sense of lightness - even after a cancer diagnosis that led to her death just a few months later. In this episode, Jeremy shares what it was like to navigate such a short window between his mom's diagnosis and death, and how her outlook continues to shape him and his grief. From visiting her just before her death to to time spent in the woods bow hunting, he describes the ways he still feels connected to her. After her death, Jeremy's connection to nature and hunting became a foundation for staying close with his mom....
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Waiting for Dawn: Marisa Renee Lee on Living with Grief, Illness, and Uncertainty
Grief Out Loud
What does it mean to live with uncertainty - especially when your body, your capacity, and your sense of self are all changing at once? In this episode, Jana is joined again by author and advocate . You may know Marisa from her first book, , or from her work helping people tell the truth about grief. In this conversation, she returns to share about her new book, Waiting for Dawn, and the realities of living with long COVID - an experience that has reshaped her daily life, her work, and her understanding of grief. Marisa reflects on the many losses she’s navigated over the years: the death of...
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Words Matter: What To Say When Someone Is Grieving - Shelby Forsythia
Grief Out Loud
is well acquainted with grief. After a series of losses that started in her late teens and culminated in the death of her mother from cancer, Shelby became an expert in avoiding and outrunning her grief. Then, an incident with a stolen wallet broke through that avoidance; in the aftermath of letting those feelings out, she realized she needed to give herself permission to grieve. Since then, Shelby’s done so much in the realm of grief support—as a coach, author, and host of the podcast. Shelby’s newest book, , written for friends, family, and community members, provides answers to the...
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The Million Stages Of Grief - Michael Reed On Finding His Way After Catastrophic Loss
Grief Out Loud
What does grief look like when you lose your wife, two daughters, your home, and nearly everything you own - all in a single night? In this episode we talk with , a husband, father, and author whose life was forever changed when a wildfire swept through his community, taking the lives of his wife Constance, his older daughter Chloe, his youngest, Lily, their pets, and reducing their home to ashes. Nearly a decade later, Michael shares about the darkness he fell into, who was there to hold him and his son up, the ways he stays...
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Tending To The Roots Of Ritual With Joél Simone, The Grave Woman
Grief Out Loud
In this episode of Grief Out Loud, we talk with death & grief care professional, educator, and cultural advocate Joél Simone, also known as . Joél shares the story behind a childhood drawing that declared her future as “the grave woman,” and how that early curiosity about death grew into a lifelong vocation in funeral service, grief education, and cultural competency. Drawing from decades of experience, Joél reflects on the spiritual, cultural, and embodied dimensions of grief,...
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Restrung: Music, Grief, And Fatherhood With Matt Fogelson
Grief Out Loud
When father died of lung cancer during his senior year of college, he turned to music to express what words couldn't - rage, self-loathing, and grief so profound he didn't know where to put it. In this conversation, Matt - author of the new memoir - talks about the silence that surrounded his father's terminal illness, the vacuum left by an absent but beloved parent, and how grunge music (especially Soundgarden and Pearl Jam) created space for him to feel what was hard to put into words. Matt shares how his Aunt Wendy became his unlikely...
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When Grief and Trauma Collide – Christina Babich, MA
Grief Out Loud
When partner, Alex, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm while they were visiting his family in Italy, her world shattered in more ways than one. In addition to the grief of losing the person she loved and the future they were building together, Christina was also left to navigate the aftermath of a deeply traumatic event - one that profoundly impacted her nervous system, sense of safety, and identity. In this episode, Christina shares what it was like to grieve a sudden, “out-of-order” death while also navigating the...
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Echoes Of Her - Adell Coleman On Grieving Her Mother & Finding Community
Grief Out Loud
In this episode of Grief Out Loud, we talk with Adell Coleman about her mother who was killed when Adell was just 24 years old. Adell reflects on the closeness of their relationship and how her mom’s death radically shifted her sense of safety in the world. She shares how the circumstances around her mother’s death, including being the person who found her, has made it difficult to remember how her mom lived, without reliving how she died. Adell also talks about what it’s been like raising two daughters who never met their grandmother, but somehow...
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Why Grief Isn’t A Journey (And What It Is Instead) - John Onwuchekwa
Grief Out Loud
What if grief isn’t a journey for us to eventually finish, but more a language we become fluent in? In this first episode of 2026, we talk with , , and , John Onwuchekwa, whose life was profoundly shaped by the death of his brother Sam in 2015. John shares how Sam’s death altered not just his relationships and priorities, but his understanding of grief itself. Rather than framing grief as a journey with an endpoint, John offers a different metaphor: grief as a language that we learn over time, one with past, present,...
info_outlineWelcome to a special "podcast takeover" episode. This week, Lindsey Whissel Fenton, creator of Speaking Grief and Learning Grief, steps in to interview Jana. Their conversation centers on Jana's beloved Boston Terrier, Captain, who died in December 2024 at the age of 15. Lindsey understands this heartache well, as her own sweet dog, Birch, died in May 2022. As a skilled interviewer and a thoughtful friend in grief, Lindsey was the perfect person to explore Jana's experience of loving and grieving for Captain.
Together, Lindsey and Jana delve into how Captain came into Jana's life, the complexities of caregiving for an aging pet, the difficult decisions surrounding their end-of-life, and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways pet grief can be minimized or dismissed, by others and sometimes even by us.
This conversation weaves between the personal and professional, touching on:
- How Captain became a cherished part of Jana's life
- The physical and behavioral changes Captain experienced in his last two years
- Navigating personal loss as a grief professional
- The challenging dynamics of deciding when and how to say goodbye
- Captain's last day
- Jana's evolving relationship with Captain's belongings
- Expressing grief through writing and sharing on Instagram (@Captain_the_Furpig)
- The struggle of making space for pet grief within a field primarily focused on human loss
- How grief rituals evolve over time, and the importance of allowing ourselves permission for these changes
A quick content note: we’ll be discussing end-of-life caregiving for a pet, including the decision-making process around euthanasia. We know these are tender topics, so please take care as you listen.
The resource we mention: Supporting Children & Teens After the Death of a Pet or Companion Animal
Lindsey Whissel Fenton, MEd, CT (she/her) is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker, international speaker, and grief educator. In her current role as a senior producer/director and instructional designer at PBS/NPR affiliate WPSU, Lindsey focuses on projects related to grief, trauma, and mental health. She is the creator of Speaking Grief and Learning Grief, founder of Empathic Media, and serves on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Children's Grief (NACG). She’s also an instructional designer and content creator for the Yale Child Study Center’s Grief-Sensitive Healthcare Project. Lindsey earned her bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Digital Arts from Point Park University, her master’s degree in Learning, Design, and Technology from Penn State, and is Certified in Thanatology through the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC). She’s a dog mom, avid reader, and rock climber.