Dear Dougy

Halfway through her junior year of high school, Lily's father died suddenly of a heart attack. In shock and angry about everything that would be different in her life without her father, Lily was devastated. As she made her way into this new landscape of grief, Lily sought to fulfill her father’s wish that she do what he didn’t have the opportunity to do - graduate high school, attend college, and grow into the powerful whirlwind of a woman he raised her to be. Lily shares tangible suggestions for teachers, counselors, family, and friends on how to show up and support a teen in grief. Be sure to watch Lily's powerful documentary about her father. 

Ryan's favorite person in the world is his older sister. Seven years ago he got one of those phone calls - the kind that changes your life forever. In that call, he found out his sister was dealing with an aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis. Since then, he's learned a lot about how to be a support for his sister while also taking care of his own emotional, mental, and physical health. Ryan shares suggestions for what to ask (and not ask) when someone's family member is dealing with an illness and also what he's discovered about caring for someone while honoring their agency and independence. 

Jana's dad's dad, Antonio DeCristofaro, died in 1963. She talks with her dad, Tony, about how his dad's death when he was 14 drastically changed the course of his life. This is the third in our series looking at how the approach to supporting grieving children has or hasn’t changed over time. We’ll be talking to people who had parents die in different decades, starting in the 1940’s. We’re hoping to discover how parents, kids, and other adults such as teachers and coaches reacted to children after a death. For more information on supporting grieving teens, check out our Tip Sheet.   

This episode is part of a series looking at how the approach to supporting grieving children has or hasn’t changed over time. We’ll be talking to people who had parents die in different decades, starting in the 1940’s. We’re hoping to discover how parents, kids, and other adults such as teachers and coaches reacted to children after a death.  Cathy was just 5 and a half when her mother died of suicide. While she knew her mother died, Cathy didn't fully understand what happened because the death wasn’t clearly explained to her. As a teenager and into her early twenties, Cathy filled in the gaps of the story with new information. Information and that enabled her to make more sense of her mother's death and how the grief continues to be part of her life, 40 years later. 

This is the first in a series on how the approach to supporting grieving children has or hasn’t changed over time. We’ll be talking to people who had parents die in different decades, starting in the 1940’s. We’re hoping to discover how parents, kids, and other adults such as teachers and coaches reacted to children after a death. Did they talk about it? Avoid them? Act like nothing had happened? We know that even today, in 2018, children are often shielded from the truth of someone dying and as a result, left out of the collective grieving process. Sometimes this happens because people think children are too young to understand and a lot of the time it’s because it’s really painful for parents and caregivers to be present with children’s grief. Today’s guest is Dean Conklin. Dean is one of two volunteers at our program for grieving children and families that started over 30 years ago. That translates into thousands of hours spent listening to and playing with children and teens facing the heartbreak of a pa

Is it grief or typical child or teen behavior? Most parents and caregivers will have this questions at some point in their grieving child's life. Dr. Kitty Huffstutter, LCSW joins us to talk about ways parents and caregivers can best support their child's grief while also setting limits and responding to big behaviors. We explore the idea of a recovery environment, finding the right time and place to problem-solve, and the importance of identifying natural and formal supports for both caregivers and children. Parenting and grief can be extremely hard work and if you're seeking more support in the form of therapy or counseling, please reach out for resources. You can email us at help@dougy.org or contact your county's mental health program. If you or your child is experiencing a mental health crisis, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or text HOME to 741741.  To learn more about Dr. Daniel Siegel's work, check out his website. 

In December of 2014, Eidan was a young professional moving up in her career as an engineer. In the last year and a half she’d gotten married, started a new job, and she and her wife Michelle were busy doing what they loved - going to live music, doting on their five animals, and spending time with friends and family. Then, on January 13th, 2015, everything changed. Eidan went for an MRI and before she made it back to her car, the doctor called and asked her to return to the hospital. They had seen a mass in her brain. The eventual diagnosis: a grade 3 astrocytoma wrapped around her brain stem.   Three and a half years later, Eidan is living with cancer. We talk about what it's like to be a young adult with this diagnosis that has no cure and no definitive course. We also discuss how she and her wife are making decisions about finances and the intentional way they choose to spend time and energy. Eidan shares suggestions for supporting those dealing with a cancer diagnosis, including what questions to ask (and

When we are grieving there can be emotional hot spot days throughout the year. Some of these might be known quantities like a birthday or the anniversary of the death or diagnosis. Others are unexpected - random moments and days that catch you off guard and bring the grief into stark relief. How we approach these significant days can be as unique as we are. In this episode, we hear from a variety of people about how they navigate these days. It's not a recipe for how to do it the right way, because there is no right way, but just a variety of ideas and perspectives. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this episode!    

Five years ago Sarah was 23, doing what a lot of 23-year-olds do - working, hanging out with friends, starting life as a "real" adult, and living at home with her mom and dad. Then on a totally average day in May, Sarah walked into the house to find that her mom had an aortic aneurysm. The paramedics came and she was rushed to the hospital where she died later that night. How do you go from being in one world - the world where your person is alive and washing dishes and folding laundry and calling your name down the hall - to another where this person no longer exists in their physical form? How do your brain and body and spirit even begin to make sense of that? Sarah talks about the extremely close relationship she had with her mother and how she worked to bridge this before and after world of grief.   

Over the course of 6 weeks when she was just 24, both of Cynthia Whipple's parents died, leaving her reeling and without a sense of home or family. We talk about what it's like to be grieving in your early 20's, the ways grief influences parenting, and how this experience inspired Cynthia's determination to create her own family.    Resources we mention in our conversation: Cynthia's essay on the site Option B.   Cara Blevin's empowHER organization for grieving girls   HBO's The Conversation - Stories That Matter Video conversation about mother loss.     

Kara Jones is a practitioner working with grieving people and professionals supporting those in grief. She is also a heART maker, exploring creativity as an avenue for expanding our definitions of grief, meaning, and self-care. We talk about Kara's personal grief after the death of her son and how that experience opened the door to recognizing how access to care and support after a death is influenced and affected by so many factors including race, gender, class, geographic location, education level, and more. We discuss how important staying curious and aware are in working to acknowledge and address these inequities.    Resources we reference in our conversation:   Kara's site for those in grief Grief and Creativity  Kara's site for professionals The Creative Grief Studio    Madness & Creativity  by Ann Belford Ulanov   LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practical Guide to Transforming Professional Practice 1st Edition by Kimberly Acquaviva:   Self-Care Sustenance (Includes link to Beyo

Heat Smith's mother, Jan, died of cancer almost 18 years ago. Heat, who was 25 at the time, became her mother's full-time caregiver. We talk about their intense and complex relationship, how Heat honors her mother's memory, and what it's been like to become a brand new parent without her mom. 

How do we hold intense joy and deep sorrow at the same time? This was the question facing singer-songwriter Licity Collins as she celebrated finalizing the tracks for her debut album, One Girl Town, on the same day her mother died from Alzheimer's disease. Licity talks about the complex relationship she had with her mother and what it was like to chronicle her grief in real time as part of her Open Diary project. To learn more about Licity's music, her Open Diary project, and purchase her album, One Girl Town, visit her website. 

How do our early experiences with attachment and primary attachment figures inform and influence our grief? With her signature combination of humor and insight, Pearl Waldorf, MA, joins us to talk about the ways in which grief shows up in her counseling office and how an understanding of attachment states can support people in grief.  Pearl Waldorf, MA is an individual counselor in Portland, OR. To learn more about her practice, please visit Pearl Waldorf Counseling. 

Who Died? was created by Aimee Craig to give voice to the memories of those we carry with us. Each episode is about one person's life and death as told by a loved one. Episode 5 is a conversation with Phyllis DeCristofaro about her father Filipo (Philip). More information at https://www.whodiedpodcast.com/

Just as she was on the verge of publishing her first book, Suzanne Anderson's husband died of suicide, tossing her into a very dark and difficult abyss. Her entire life was changed by this tragedy and she turned to the same self-care and support practices she taught as a writer, speaker, and leadership innovator. These practices enabled her to be present with each of the emotions and experiences connected to her grief. We talk about the shame and stigma associated with suicide and how she worked to dismantle both as she grieved her husband's death. To learn more about Suzanne's work and her book, The Way of the Mysterial Woman - Upgrading How You Live, Love and Lead, visit her website, Mysterial Woman.  

Leslie Browning is a poet, publisher, novelist, and soon to be memoirist with the publication of her newest book, To Lose the Madness - Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity. Leslie is also a grieving mother, who miscarried twins in 2015. This loss served as a cracking open point, leading to months of struggle into and through childhood traumas, physical health crises, and mental illness. To Lose the Madness is a personal offering and a practice in radical authenticity - a willingness to speak out about what so often goes underground, and secreted away.     To learn more about Leslie and her work, visit her website.  

In Episode 4 of Who Died? host Aimee Craig talks with Brandi Maxell about her mother.  Music written and performed by Lida Husik.

Megan Devine, writer, speaker, and grief advocate discusses her work to bring grief out of the whisper corner. We talk about how to talk about grief, the death positivity movement, Megan's book, It's OK That You're Not OK - Meeting Grief & Loss in a Culture that Doesn't Understand, and what she terms the grief revolution.    Ways to connect with Megan that we reference in the episode:   Article - Death Positivity in the Face of Grief on The Order of the Good Death website.  (www.orderofthegooddeath.com/death-positivity-face-grief)   Book - It's OK That You're Not OK - Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand (www.refugeingrief.com/book/)   Website - Refuge in Grief (www.refugeingrief.com)   Review of her book in The New York Times  - Understanding Grief: Megan Devine and the Grief Revolution in Jane Brody’s Wellness column at the New York Times. (www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/learning/how-do-you-cope-with-grief.html)   Music written and performed by Leila Chieko

What do schools need to consider when someone in their community dies of suicide? There are many decisions to make that require compassion and care. How will they share the news? What kinds of emotional support are needed? As a school, what are ways to remember and honor the person who died? Donna Schuurman, Ed.D., Senior Director of Advocacy & Training at The Dougy Center, shares ideas and suggestions for school administrators, teachers, and counselors faced with creating a supportive response plan when someone dies of suicide. For additional tips and suggestions for schools when someone dies, listen to Episode 35: After A Death - 5 Tips For Schools  You can also read our Tip Sheets: Supporting Students After A Death - Tips For Teachers & School Personnel Supporting Children And Teens After A Suicide Death  If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help. 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text Help to 741741 Music was written and performed by Leila Chieko.