• Growing up with her father’s illness and the threat of him dying 

• Running from guilt & shame in grief 

• Overachieving as a coping mechanism 

• Wanting to be a “geriatric kid” at Josie’s Place, a peer grief support program for children & families  

• What Laurel learned about grief from being a volunteer facilitator in that program 

• Learning a new way of being in the world & staying open to love 

• Having a “cosmic do-over" in helping her mom at the end of her life 

• The co-existence of love and sadness

At the age of 27, Dr. Peg Sandeen faced an impossible request. Her husband, John, who was dying from HIV/AIDS, told Peg that he couldn’t stand the pain anymore and wanted her to help him end his life. It was the early 1990’s though and there was no legal avenue for Peg to help John in his wish to die with the dignity he had in life. Peg went on to get both a Master's and Ph.D. in social work. Throughout that time, the memory of John’s last wish motivated her to work towards changing the landscape for people facing the end of life. Dr. Sandeen is now the Executive Director of Death With Dignity, working in end-of-life advocacy and fighting for medical aid in dying laws across the U.S.  

In our conversation we discuss:

• Meeting and falling in love with John
• Getting the news of John's HIV diagnosis
• How Hannah and John talked with their daughter Hannah about her father's illness
• The shame and stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS
• Caregiving for a dying husband as a young mother and wife
• The current state of right to die laws across the U.S.
• Moving from an intellectual to emotional understanding of grief
• Learning to support Hannah in her grief

Dr. Sandeen's HuffPost article: My Husband Asked Me to Help Him Die. I Couldn't Do It - and My Life Changed Forever 

Meet Me Where I Am, a new film by Grant Garry, explores the topic of grief through individual stories of loss, love, and hope. The film aims to normalize grief in our culture and explores how we can actively participate in helping others through grief. Grant has always been curious about grief, from his first experience when his grandmother died when he was a teenager to his most recent loss, the death of his uncle. Meet Me Where I Am is the culmination of that curiosity, and a dedication to ensuring we all feel better equipped to talk about grief. 

Follow Meet Me Where I Am on Instagram to see clips from the film (@meetmewhereiamfilm). 

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

When Jessica Schaffer's partner of 25 years, Patrice, died in March of 2021, she found herself untethered. In the early days of grief, Jessica went within, needing to find her orbital pattern in this new solar system without Patrice. During this time she also germinated seeds of creativity. Seeds that were planted by Patrice when she gifted Jessica an iPad, just days before she learned she was dying. In the fall of 2021, Jessica picked up the iPad and started drawing. This process inspired her to start The Chrysalis Imagery, a company where she offers a line of greeting cards and other inspired imagery. 

In this conversation we discuss:

• What is was like to midwife Patrice through her dying process
• How the early days of grief felt
• The image that came to Jessica soon after Patrice died
• How creativity changed everything
• The ways their dog Kirby grieved
• Jessica's hopes for The Chrysalis Imagery

Jessica on IG - @thechrysalisimagery and Facebook - @thechrysalisimagery

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 Tida Beattie's Thai immigrant parents died in 2019, she went from being a long-distance caregiver to an overwhelmed & grieving daughter. In her search for support, she found what so many do, a lack of culturally specific or informed resources. This experience motivated her to change this for others by creating spaces for immigrant families to receive support before and after a death. Tida is a Thai-American end-of-life doula, grief support facilitator, immigrant advocate, and co-founder of MESO, dedicated to supporting caregivers and those in grief with compassion and a cultural lens. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Growing up as a Thai-American and her family's experience of cultural bereavement.
• How her parents' immigrant experience informed their approach to end-of-life.
• What it was like to be a long-distance caregiver.
• Tida's search for culturally relevant grief support.
• The importance of acknowledging cultural bereavement.
• The goal and mission of MESO.
• Learning to hold both joy & grief.

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. 

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. 

We wanted to release this episode at the beginning of the new year, because it hits on a topic we haven’t explored much before – psychic mediumship. It’s something that comes up in our groups at Dougy Center and the people who bring it up usually do so with a lot of trepidation and concern for how others will respond. We figured if it's coming up in our groups, many of you out there might also be curious about this kind of work. Patty Montoya is a psychic medium, energy healer, anticipatory grief coach, Reiki practitioner, and death doula. She came to this work from her personal experience. When she was 18, her younger brother died of leukemia. A few years later, her mother also died, from a fast-moving disease. Patty turned to this work in the hopes of providing others with the support she most needed in her grief.  We get into: Common misperceptions about psychic mediumship. What kinds of messages Patty receives and how she translates them. What to expect in a session. How she responds to skepticism about her work. Examples of messages Patty's received from her family members. How she cares for herself in this work.  www.titipoza.com Follow Patty on IG & FB