Grief Circle with Sammy

Join me on this short episode as I talk about something that I have waned to talk about for a long time: the grief that kids must deal with during this terrible conflict. In the wake of the anniversary of October 7th, I found it necessary to talk about the feelings, that I can only even begin to hit the top of the iceberg of, that the kids who have lost people in their lives to this war feel.

This episode I had the pleasure of speaking to Jessica Fein, author of Breath Taking. At only 17, Jessica's daughter Dalia died of a rare genetic disorder, leaving behind her siblings and parents. I got to speak to Jessica to hear the perspective of losing a kid young as well as what it was like for Dalias siblings to lose a kid. At the end we exchanged one of my favorite parts of speaking to guests: learning about their favorite grief metaphor.

Welcome to episode 30! I cannot believe it's been 30 episodes of grief circle. That's a lot of time reflecting that you all have done with me and I thank you for it. For this episode I wanted to reintroduce myself and my story for all my new viewers. I also wanted to take the time to reflect on the highlights of Grief Circle over these past 30 years and talk a little more about my future goals for the podcast.

On this episode I speak on something that I think a lot of children who lose someone have to think to themselves which is, "How old is too old?"; its something that I know I find myself asking a lot. In my opinion what this means for grieving kids who have lost a parent or sibling is: how is my grief different than those who have lost an 84 year old grandparent. This is something that we really mentally fight with in our heads, and something I speak a lot about this episode.

On this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Annie Orenstein who is a full-time tech employee, but on the side has taken up the trade of writing about grief. She has recently published the book Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief, about her brother who died in Afghanistan. We got to speaking about how oftentimes kids are the forgotten mourners when it comes to losing a parent or sibling. The two of us got to exchange some of our metaphors for grief and talk about our experiences being the forgotten mourners.

On this episode, I come to you all with one of my recent grief thoughts which is that it's very important that as kids we maintain our dead parents our sibling's relationships with others in order to keep their memory alive. It's our dead loved ones friends who knew them in a different way than we do, and it's crucial to keep that part of their memory alive and well.

On this short episode, while I have no guests, I got to speak a lot about opinions. While you may think that's a weird topic for a podcast about childhood grief, you'd be wrong! Often times in households where there is a loved one missing from the child's life, we find ourselves deciding the opinions of our missing loved ones. However, at the end of the day, we never truly know what our loved ones would have wanted, and its important to be careful how we use our passed-on loved ones' legacies as kids or to kids. So listen along to hear my opinions on the opinions of our dead loved ones.

During this episode, I had the honor of speaking to Kate Mohan who is a therapist affiliated with Cope with School. Cope with School is an organization that aims to help kids deal with issues that can be affecting their lives in school, one of the main ones being the death of a loved one. Kate shared with me what a normal therapy session looks like and how she helps kids figure out how to... cope with school from a grieving perspective.

In this episode, I got to speak to the staff of Emma's Place which is a grief center on Staten Island. Emma's Place not only has bereavement groups for kids but they also have for adults as they are focused on a whole family approach. They aren't just limited to grief circles, they also have educational support for schools and businesses as well as events that they plan for the whole community. Emma's Place is the true definition of a community of people who come together to help strengthen each other. The full care support that they have for the kids they care for is truly inspirational and one day I hope that there will be more grief centers like Emma's Place.

To learn more about Emma's Place, find the link below:

https://emmasplacesi.org/

In this episode, I got to speak to Matthew Burgess who is a children's book author based out of Brooklyn, NY. In 2023, he published Sylvester's Letter a book that covers childhood grief. Matthew and I had a great conversation on how books such as the one he recently wrote play a huge part in developing children's sense of grief and overall emotion. We also spoke on what goes into making a book about grief for kids, something that requires a lot of self-reflection by the author.

For more reading on Matthew and Sylvester's Letter I have attached a link below:

https://www.matthewjohnburgess.com/