Afleveringen
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Nora Martinez lost her father Ken to gastrointestinal (GIST) cancer almost twenty years ago when she was just five years old. As someone who has benefited from having support for her grief throughout her childhood and adolescence, Nora provides a fascinating window into childhood grief through her ability to reflect on it with clarity and perspective. I have encountered many people my age who lost a parent or other close family member in childhood who did not get much support and still struggle to talk about the loss or even admit that it has affected their lives.
I love talking to younger people who have grown up in a culture and family that is more open to talking about grief and getting mental health support. Nora started attending Comfort Zone Camp at age nine and credits her ongoing relationship with CZC and the people she met there with her ability to be the loving and compassionate person she has become. I loved her description of her grief as a kind of "golden armor" that gives her strength but also allows her to respond with empathy and wisdom.
We spoke about Comfort Zone Camp which I can't recommend more highly for anyone who has dealt with the loss of a parent or other important family member early in their life. They have free, weekend-long camps for kids, teens, and young adults. And if you are older and curious about the camp, I recommend looking into volunteering. I have done it twice and will continue to do it as long as I can because volunteering is just as beneficial as being a camper.
We also talked about the book, Abuela, Don't Forget Me by Rex Ogle.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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It was an honor to interview Edwidge Danticat, one of my favorite writers on death, dying, and grief about her early losses and what she is trying to achieve in her work. We spoke about her new book "We're Alone," a collection of essays about her life as a writer straddling her life as a Haitian immigrant with strong ties to her home country. I also asked about some of her earliest books ("Breath, Eyes, Memory," "Brother, I'm Dying," and "Krik? Krak!") because she has written so beautifully about death and loss, both through the eyes of a child but also throughout adulthood. Having been separated from her parents for eight years at the age of four, she has written extensively about the particular experience of loss due to displacement and how that early loss echoes through her later losses of her parents. We discussed the contrast between the ever-changing mourning rituals in Haiti and in the U.S., and how the younger generations are adapting traditional practices to suit their needs. We also talked about Christina Sharpe's amazing book "In the Wake: On Blackness and Being" and how she and Danticat have both tried to address the magnitude of Black grief in their work.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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In this episode, I interview journalist and author Mona Gable about growing up in the 1950s with her mother who was mentally disabled by brain surgery right after Mona was born. Mona was never told what had happened to her mother which only contributed to her feelings of shame and isolation as a child growing up with a mother who was incapable of caring for her and instead required constant care. Mona says, "My mother was a complete mystery to me." All she knew was that none of her friends had a mother like hers. It's the kind of "ambiguous loss" that no one talked about at the time, and it's incredible to hear how resilient and driven Mona was from a very young age. She managed to leave home, get herself through college, and get the support she needed to pursue a successful career as a writer. Her work has focused on many things including health issues, parenting, travel, and indigenous issues.
We started out talking about her latest book, Searching for Savannah. To find out more about Mona and her work visit her website.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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This episode is jam-packed with wisdom from Maya Puterbaugh, one of my younger guests, who knows a ton about grief and overcoming the trauma of a fatal car accident. After attending Comfort Zone Camp, Maya became a volunteer Big Buddy and now trains other volunteers for Comfort Zone Camp. She is so knowledgeable and a true leader when it comes to advocating for grieving kids. Maya shares very openly about what she went through when she lost her mother at sixteen. Maya's parents were divorced, so her father regained sole custody which meant moving back to California after living in Las Vegas, changing high schools, and leaving her two-year-old half-brother and stepdad. She had sustained injuries in the accident so there was a lot of change, grief, and recovery happening all at once. Maya credits Comfort Zone, therapy, and both her father and stepfather for understanding the complexity of her situation and knowing how to support her and her siblings.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Tim Tattu left a creative career in film production to become a hospice nurse after studying Zen meditation with an instructor who asked him to help set up a place to care for people who are dying in Washington State called Enso House. His whole life story is fascinating and I loved talking with him about grief and dying and his own childhood losses. Tim brings so much presence, wisdom, and compassion to this deep discussion about grief and how it affects us early in life and as we grow older. The most powerful thing he had to share was the idea of staying present to the mystery of death at the end of life and how that can help us be more present in our experiences of death and grief.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, John Biggs takes us through the heartbreaking odyssey of losing his wife Samantha to a sudden mental breakdown. Seemingly overnight, Samantha went from being an incredible mother and artist to someone who could no longer function when their kids were just 12 and 14. John is a very entertaining storyteller so we laughed even more than we cried as he recounted the years when he had to become a full-time dad, caretaker, and breadwinner as Samantha was in and out of institutions. John's honesty, vulnerability, and openness as he described the most challenging moments of his ordeal is deeply moving. Samantha eventually died of her illness in 2022 so his kids are now in their early twenties and beginning to process the trauma of losing their mother to mental illness and then death. John's appreciation of his kids' grief and his instincts to protect them from the hurtful comments of others is a truly inspiring story of a man beautifully parenting his kids through the worst circumstances.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, I speak to the amazing Mackenzie Mazen about being a little buddy and then a big buddy at comfort zone camp after her father died by suicide when she was ten. Once again, I was so impressed by another GenZer who is open to sharing her experience of grief. Mackenzie is very light-hearted and loves to joke and laugh about her childhood trauma which made our conversation fun and engaging. She shared about all the grief support she had growing up and how she continues to engage and participate in multiple grief spaces while pursuing her work in the non-profit sphere. Even though the topic of our discussion is heavy, Mackenzie brings a lightness to everything she does without shying away from the horrors of her father's death.
We talked about The Dinner Party, Comfort Zone Camp, and Amazen Cookies
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, I talk to journalist and author Dan Keoppel about how he centered his role as a father when choosing his treatment for bladder cancer. As a science reporter, he approached his diagnosis with curiosity and extensive research to figure out how to manage his cancer while being the Dad he wanted to be. Dan is so knowledgeable about his disease that he has been able to make the most informed decisions possible regarding his treatment. But his goal is not to "beat" cancer. Instead, Dan's aim is to live as well as possible alongside his disease so that he can enjoy the life he has. This is a deeply moving conversation with someone who looks at death squarely while exercising his curiosity and sense of humor, which is a wonderful way to live.
To find out more about Dan, click here.
To read the piece that made me want to talk to him, click here.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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I had so much fun interviewing Evin Rose Terranova who I met volunteering at Comfort Zone Camp earlier this year. She has been volunteering at the grief camp for kids for several years and has learned a lot from supporting grieving kids. Evin was just eight years old when her father died by suicide and she was lucky enough to have an amazing mother who supported her beautifully with therapy and grief support. But even under those circumstances, grieving the loss of her Dad has been a long journey that challenged her sense of who she was and what she wanted from life. This search landed her in a beautiful career as a self-love and relationship coach. It is clear from listening to Evin that she understands the importance of community and connection when it comes to healing our deepest wounds. What a gift she is to the world and I am so glad to be able to call her my new friend.
You can find Evin on Instagram @EvinRose or her website EvinRoseCoaching.com
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this deeply moving episode which is also packed with useful information, Dr. Lucy Hone shares her unique perspective, expertise, and personal knowledge of resilience. Resilience is a tricky word because it sometimes gets used inappropriately with kids as a way to discount their experience. We've all heard the phrase "kids are resilient" which is often true but is not an excuse to assume they don't need support to recover from a trauma and/or loss. As Dr. Hone explains, kids do better with the right support at home, but can also learn to strengthen their resilience given the tools she writes about in her book "Resilient Grieving." Having lived through the devastating earthquakes in New Zealand in 2011 and then losing her young daughter and two friends in a car accident in 2014, Dr. Hone has direct experience testing the theories of resilience she has focused on throughout her career.
For more information on Dr. Hone click above or here. And to find her book "Resilient Grieving" you can go anywhere you order books or find it here.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Sarah and Ben Satzman are both in their early twenties and were very close to their grandfather Joel Satzman when he died unexpectedly last year. They were able to be with him at the very end of his life and that experience had a huge impact on them. You can hear in their stories about him how much they adored their grandfather and the unique role he played in their lives. He was a great support and strong presence, calling often and showing up to important events throughout their childhoods and they both depended on his special brand of attention. I loved hearing the differences and the similarities between Ben and Sarah's experiences, and it was beautiful to hear how well they supported each other when he died. In the year since that day, Ben and Sarah have both learned a lot about themselves and their grief. Young adults are often my favorite guests and my best teachers, and Sarah and Ben taught me a lot about how family can sometimes be the best support system after a loss.
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Terry Chatkupt is a visual artist whose current show at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California is about the 2020 lockdown and its effect on his family. This podcast was started, in part, to address some of the reporting on adolescent mental health in the aftermath of the pandemic that was sorely lacking. Stories in mainstream media missed an opportunity to interview young people and instead turned to experts who had little knowledge of childhood grief. So I was excited to do an episode addressing the pandemic from the perspective of one man investigating how it affected his own family while trying to convey his appreciation the privilege of having a safe place to live. Terry is also a teacher, so we talked about what we have observed in our students as well as our families and what it may mean for an entire generation to have missed some crucial parts of their social and emotional development as a result of the isolation we all endured for a time.
https://www.terrychatkupt.com/
If you would like to support this show, please subscribe to my Substack where you will receive bi-weekly episodes and a bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox. You can also support the show monetarily by becoming a paid subscriber there.
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Acclaimed author Sara Zarr has published ten novels for young readers, as well as two books of non-fiction about creativity. She’s a National Book Award finalist and two-time Utah Book Award winner. Her first book, Story of a Girl, was made into a 2017 television movie directed by Kyra Sedgwick. She also hosts the podcast "This Creative Life," all of which you can find on her website below.
I'm a huge fan of Sara's books because she writes about many different forms of loss and does it beautifully, realistically, and honestly without glossing over her characters' struggles. Her latest book, "Kyra, Just for Today" is a follow-up to her previous book, "A Song Called Home," both of which feature young characters living in alcoholic family systems. I love Sara's writing because she takes on kids' hardships while showing us how her characters learn and grow from them. We talked about why she writes about dysfunctional families and the toughest aspects of growing up and why she often gives her characters creative outlets. I appreciate Sara's thoughtful approach to addressing the economic realities of the worlds she creates, and her sharing her motivation and approach to writing about grief from a young person's perspective.
To find out more about Sara:
https://www.sarazarr.com/books
If you enjoy the show please rate and review! You can also find me here @annbfaison on Instagram, or contact me through my website.
Please subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use, or on my substack: I'm Listening
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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I'm excited to kick off the second season with another interview with a young adult. In this episode I talk with Léa Greenberg, a junior in college, about losing her mother and maternal grandmother by age fifteen. Her mother and grandmother were both French so Léa also lost a big piece of her French identity. We could have talked for hours so it took a lot of work to edit our conversation to fifty minutes. Léa articulates why it was hard as a teenager to deal with pity from adults and all the other hard lessons of losing her mother at a young age. As usual, when talking to a GenZ guest, I was filled with hope for her and gratitude for our conversation. Léa is amazingly clear about what is most difficult about not having a mother, and how she uses her experience to help others. For an extra fifteen minutes of our conversation, you can listen to the bonus episode.
You can find me here @annbfaison on Instagram, or on my substack, or contact me through my website.
Please subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use, or on my substack: I'm Listening
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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This is an extra fifteen minutes of my conversation with Léa Greenberg. It won't make much sense if you haven't listened to the full episode but we talk about Harry Potter, holding onto her French identity and what she plans to do for her career.
Please consider subscribing to the podcast on whatever platform you use or on my substack: I'm Listening
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Coming soon! Season two is shaping up nicely and I should be posting the first episode in a couple of weeks. This trailer is about what you can expect from the next season and how my thinking about adolescent grief has expanded and changed.
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I'm so pleased that my daughter Grace Muller was able to come on the show for the last episode of the first season. Grace is an artist and a junior at Bennington College in Vermont, so we sat down to record while she was home for the holidays. It's a more casual, less edited conversation but we went deep into the ways that she understands her relationship to grief and I had no idea where the conversation would go. But it went in very interesting directions from talking about how she responded to loss as a toddler and small child to the difficulty of grieving a romantic partnership as an adult. We got very silly at the beginning and the rest of the conversation maintained that joyful spirit, which was a great way to end the season.
I'm taking time off before the next season to organize my list of guests, so if you would like to be invited as a guest or have ideas for people I might invite on the show please reach out to me. I am always looking for teens and young adults, but anyone who feels they have a perspective on the topic that they would like to share.
You can DM me @annbfaison on Instagram, find me on my substack, or contact me through my website.
Please consider subscribing to the podcast on whatever platform you use or on my substack: I'm Listening
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the song "Time Does Not Bring Relief" from her album "We Fall."
If you would like to support the show you can become a paid subscriber on Substack. Thank you!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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This week I speak with Elise Gaul, a therapist specializing in grief and loss who works in multiple modalities including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing) therapy. Elise explains why EMDR works well to address "covert grief," a term she coined for the parts of childhood grief that can profoundly affect a person's life, often without their awareness. Her stints as the executive director of a grief center called Peter's Place and the director of Camp Erin, a bereavement camp for children led us to talk about what parents and caregivers can do to minimize the long-term negative effects of grief on kids. I loved Elise's attitude about grief as a learning process and her curiosity and interest in working with adults to try to unlock some of the negative beliefs that childhood grief can create.
To learn more about Elise and her work please visit her website
To read Elise's fascinating article on Covert Grief that led me to invite her on the show read this blog post
To learn more about EMDR visit APA or EMDRIA
Please take a moment to rate and review the show or leave comments on my Substack "I'm Listening."
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the intro and outro music from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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I'm thrilled to have my son Skops Faison and his friend Sean Dillon on the show to talk about the grief that results from coming out as trans or nonbinary. Skops and Sean are both seniors in high school who came out to their families as trans during the pandemic. There are many parallels in their stories and many contrasts as well. The conversation was wide-ranging in terms of the many losses and gains that come with identifying as gender nonbinary. We talked about losing family, watching parents grieve their expectations of who their kids are, and the different advantages and disadvantages of being identified by others as male versus female. I was fascinated to learn so many things I'd never considered about straddling those different social groups and identities through middle and high school. As always when talking to teenagers or young adults, I feel very optimistic after hearing how articulate and aware they are of what they are going through.
I open the discussion with a reference to the book Lost & Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz
Please take a moment to rate and review the show or leave comments on my Substack "I'm Listening."
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the intro and outro music from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, I talk with Fran Mason who lost her mother when she was 11 years old. It's interesting how different it was for her than it was for me because she was three years younger than I was when my mom died. Hearing Fran talk about going through early adolescence without her mom highlighted the difference it made to have three more years with mine. We talked about memory and how her perspective on her loss kept shifting as she was growing into adulthood. Fran is writing a book about her experience and shares how that process has helped her understand herself better. I appreciated Fran's perspective on her childhood which she developed through her writing and from rereading the journals she kept at the time. Fran's tendency toward practicality and optimism seems to have contributed to her ability to thrive despite having little emotional support while she was growing up.
You can read more about Fran and her writing on her blog and her substack.
To leave comments, please rate and review on Apple podcasts or visit me on my substack: "I'm Listening."
Special thanks to Josephine Wiggs for the intro and outro music from her album "We Fall."
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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