As of April 29th, 2021 over 3 million people across the globe have died of COVID-19, including 575,000 in the U.S. What gets lost in  these numbers are the actual people who leave behind family and friends, grieving without access to the rituals and routines we've come to rely on when someone dies.  Sandra McGowan-Watts is a mother, a physician, and a widow. Her husband Steven died of COVID-19 on May 8th, 2020. She and their daughter have spent the past year trying to figure out how to live without a husband and father who did so much to support them.  Read more about Sandra's story in The New York Times, "The Other Half of My Soul - Widows of Covid-19 Bond over Sudden Loss."

Dr. Jill A. Harrington grew up surrounded by superheroes on television and in comic books and movies. As a parent and a professional, she turned to superheroes as a way to connect with her children and clients around loss, grief, and transformation.

She recently teamed up with Dr. Robert Neimeyer to publish Superhero Grief: The Transformative Power of Loss in an effort to bring superheroes into the limelight of grief support – offering a cross generational, cross-cultural way to help all of us become more grief informed. 

Superhero Grief: The Transformative Power of Loss

Just weeks before Adam Mansbach's wildly popular book, Go The F**K To Sleep, was published, his brother David died of suicide. In interview after interview promoting the book and talking about its success, Adam worried that someone would ask about his brother, would catch him off guard with a question about the grief that was raw and painful. In the years after David's death, Adam found himself writing about everything but that loss. Now, almost a decade after David's death, Adam's newest book, I Had A Brother Once, is a memoir in verse about David's life, death, and the confusing aftermath when someone dies of suicide.  Note: this episode contains some strong language. Follow Adam on IG. Sign up for one of his book events. Learn more about his work.

On Valentine's Day of 2018, Fred Guttenberg rushed his two children, Jaime and Jesse, out the door to school. He had no idea it would be the last time he saw Jaime who was shot and killed later that day in the Parkland School mass shooting. Jaime was murdered just a few months after Fred's brother Michael died of as a result of being exposed to toxic substances when he ran into the World Trade Center as a first responder after the 9/11 attacks. 

In his new book, Find the Helpers: What 9/11 and Parkland Taught Me About Recovery, Purpose, and Hope, Fred chronicles his grief, the people who helped him along the way, and his commitment to saving lives by fighting for gun safety.

Follow Fred on Twitter @fred_guttenberg Orange Ribbons for JaimeMeaningful Moments in the Aftermath of Gun Violence - Fred's TED Talk. 

One day while driving between visiting her mom who just had knee surgery and caring for her dad who had a progressive illness, Priya Soni wondered, "Where are the others?" By others, she meant the other adult children caregiving for parents and family members. Years later, this question would lead her to start The Caregiving Effect, an organization dedicated to bringing adult children caregivers together through stories, support, and mentoring. 

The Caregiving Effect Follow Priya and The Caregiving Effect on Instagram & Facebook

Breeshia Wade's new book, Grieving While Black: An Anti-Racist Take on Oppression and Sorrow, puts grief into a wider context. The context of our relationships and the larger systems that shape who has access to resources like time, power, and the space to grieve. Breeshia is an author, end-of-life caregiver, and grief coach. 

Get your copy of Grieving While Black. Connect with Breeshia and her work.  Follow Breeshia on Instagram. 

How do we live with grief over the course of our lives? Hope Edelman, author of the groundbreaking book, Motherless Daughters, joins us again to talk about her newest book, The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss. The AfterGrief is what happens as we move out of the initial acute distress when someone dies and into a lifetime of learning to live with what that loss means for us.  Hope's website. The AfterGrief. The AfterGrief Facebook Group Motherless Daughters Facebook Group. 

What is collective grief and how does it affect members of communities with marginalized identities? Dr. Amber Nelson, PsyD talks about both her professional and personal experiences with recognizing and supporting collective grief. Specifically the collective grief of bearing witness to the highly publicized murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, George Floyd, and the others who were killed this past year, many at the hands of the police. 

Dr. Nelson’s S.A.F.E.T.Y. Acronym for attending to the effects of collective grief:Self-care  Ask for help Find community Engage in social justice work Tend to your whole essence Yank the plug (engage in mindful isolation) 

Mariyam was six when her father, Nurtay, died just before his 34th birthday. Over the next 14 years, she would experience the deaths of four more family members, including her mother, Bagitgul, and maternal grandmother, who both died this past summer during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mariyam's home city in Kazakhstan. Now 20, Mariyam is figuring out how to live without both of her parents. We talk about how COVID complicated everything about grieving these two new deaths. We also cover how well-intentioned phrases like "I can't imagine what you're going through," "You're so strong," and "I could never survive" can be painful to hear. The poem Mariyam reads at the beginning of the episode is "The Mountain" by Laura Ding-Edwards. Follow Mariyam on Instagram @marikoyes

When you think of the word "widow" what image comes to mind? When author Melissa Gould's husband Joel died, she didn't fit what she imagined widows looked and acted like, even if she felt like one. This dissonance led her to come up with the term "Widowish" which is also the title of her new memoir. Widowish is the story of her husband Joel, their love, and how she and their daughter Sophie found ways to grieve the heartbreak of his death. 

Follow Melissa on Instagram @melissagould_author Visit her website: www.widowish.com