Episode 370: Ready – Matthew’s Mom

For six years, Deborah carried this alone. Not entirely by choice. Just by circumstance, by distance, by the particular kind of grief that comes when your child dies as an adult with his own family, his own home, his own life four hundred miles away. The grief that...

Episode 369: Get Into the Pit – Max’s Mom

Erin starts every conversation about her son the same way. He was the most interesting person I have ever known. And she means it. Max was quirky and eccentric and tender-hearted in equal measure. He spoke in full sentences at fifteen months. He memorized a...

Episode 368: You Are Doing a Good Job

Grief needs tending. That is one of the truest things Gwen said in this conversation, and it is also one of the hardest things about being a grieving parent. Because your children need tending too. And you cannot always do both at once. This episode is the audio...

Episode 367: Leaning In – Maggie’s Mama

Her name is Magnolia Song. Her father had always loved the name Maggie. Her mother Erin, a botanist, found the perfect origin for it, the magnolia tree, the oldest flowering species on earth, known for resilience and beauty. It felt exactly right for the little girl...

Episode 366: It Was Never About the Grief

When Ben was in treatment, he had a signature move. He would flip on some music, put on his headphones, and check out. Not in a sad way. In the way of a boy who had discovered, long before anyone taught him the term music therapy, that sound could carry him somewhere...