Let's Talk Death! ... a HealGrief® program

In this episode, Dr. Spiess recognized how the medical community failed patients that they could no longer help. This awareness led him towards deepening relationships with those dying, and how it led him to author, Dying with Ease: A compassionate Guide to Making Wiser End-of-Life Decisions.

Dr. Jeff Spiess has spent his medical career with people facing serious illness and death, first as an oncologist, then as a hospice physician. He has lectured extensively and is a leader in the field of end-of-life care.

Through extensive clinical experience and numerous conversations with the dying and those caring for, Dr. Spiess has observed the burden of unnecessary or avoidable suffering and distress engendered by the American tendency to avoid facing death as an inevitable personal reality. His interest in philosophy and theology informs his medical practice and writing. He finds additional insights in depictions of dying in literature, including sacred texts, music, and popular culture. His writing provides information and inspiration, challenging readers to honestly encounter their mortality to both die better and live more fully.

Dr. Spiess authored a book titled Dying with Ease: A Compassionate Guide to Making Wiser End-of-Life Decisions.

Learn more about Dr. Spiess and his work.

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In this episode, Bonnie shares her story about her grief experience and the support she hoped to find. Although services were available, she explains why they weren't helpful and how that disappointment led her to the creation of TAPS, Tragedy Assist Program for Survivors.

Bonnie is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a retired US Air Force Reserve Officer, the surviving spouse of Brigadier General Tom Carroll, a former staffer in the Reagan and Bush White Houses, and the President and Founder of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).

Ms. Carroll founded TAPS following her husband's death in an Army C-12 plane crash on November 12, 1992. Through her vision and leadership, TAPS is the leading national Military Service Organization providing comfort, care, and resources to all those grieving the death of a military loved one.

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In this episode, Martha talks about her grief journey and how wolves seemed to play a role in her life. She shares her experiences of seeing decedents and spirits and how her friend's son channeled through her and inspired her writing.

Martha Handler grew up in northern Illinois dreaming about wolves and has always understood that her role in this lifetime is to tell stories and be a voice for nature. She has been an environmental consultant, a magazine columnist, an actress, and a polar explorer, among other occupations. Adding to her professional repertoire, Martha is now an author of a newly released book, Winter of the Wolf. She has also driven across the country in an 18-wheeler and been a grand-prize winner of The Newlywed Game.

Soon after she and her family relocated from Los Angeles to South Salem, New York, she heard wolves in her backyard. This was the start of her twenty-plus-year career as an advocate for wolves at the Wolf Conservation Center, where she currently serves as Board President. When not up near the wolves and her rescue pups, she can be found in New York City with her husband and four adult children.

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In this episode, Harold shares a childhood experience that remains very present today, which perhaps led him into the bereavement care field and his writings. Harold speaks about his most recent book, Almost Everything Worth Knowing about Harry S Truman and the grief experienced in Truman’s life.

Harold Ivan Smith is a thanatologist and independent scholar. For 18 years, he served on the teaching faculty of Saint Luke’s Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri. He also was a celebrant for Speaks Memorial Chapels, Independence, Missouri, and now for Forest Lawn Mortuary, Palm Springs, California. 

He has earned graduate degrees from Scarritt College (M.A.), Vanderbilt University (Ed.S.), and Asbury Theological Seminary (D.Min.). 

Among his writings are: On Grieving the Death of a Father; Grieving the Death of a Mother, Grieves Ask, When a Friend Dies (Augsburg Press); When You Don’t Know What to Say; When a Child You Know Is Grieving, When Your People Are Grieving: Leading in Times of Loss, and A Decembered Grief.
 
He has also published two academic books for clinicians: Friendgrief: An Absence Called Presence (Baywood) and Borrowed Narratives: Using Historical and Biographical Narratives with the Bereaving (Rutledge).
His most recent book (2020) is Almost Everything Worth Knowing about Harry S Truman.

Known for his storytelling, he lives year-round in Palm Springs, California.

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In this episode, Sarah shares her story about her journey with grief and how she hopes her books inspire and help others to find hope and happiness again, as she did.

Sarah is a young teenager passionate about life and expresses this through a myriad of artistic and altruistic endeavors. She is a children’s book author, aspiring TV presenter, and Actress. Young Author, Sarah Corbett Lynch has written a collection of self-affirming stories exploring loss, grief, moving home, and blended families through her characters amidst complex challenges faced by someone so young. Sarah hopes that despite great suffering, she can help educate and create a conversation to talk openly about grief and the challenges we face and prepare us as individuals for the inevitable challenging experience in life that comes to us all. Sarah hopes her books inspire and help others to find hope and happiness again, as she did.

Having lived in North Carolina for four years, she currently resides in Limerick, Ireland, with her Aunt and Uncle and 3 Brothers.”

You can learn more about Sarah, her book, and her music at Sarah Corbett Lynch

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Dr. Shear discusses her work know called, Prolonged Grief Disorder, and how it is now considered a formal diagnosis in the World Health Organization.

Dr. M. Katherine Shear is the Marion E. Kenworthy Professor of Psychiatry and the founding Director of the Center for Complicated Grief at Columbia School of Social Work. Dr. Shear is a clinical researcher who first worked in anxiety and depression.

For the last two decades she has focused on understanding and treating people who experience persistent intense grief. She developed and tested complicated grief therapy (CGT), a short-term targeted intervention and confirmed its efficacy in three large NIMH-funded studies. CGT is strength-based and focused on fostering adaptation to loss.

Dr. Shear is widely recognized for her work in bereavement, including both research and clinical awards from the Association for Death Education and Counseling and invited authorship of articles for Up-to-date and the New England Journal of Medicine.

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In this episode, Heren & Joe speak about their grief journeys influence their music and connects them to their audience and they share how grief connected them to a meaningful friendship.

Influenced by a traumatic past, Italian singer-songwriter Heren Wolf transforms his grief into grace and invites us into the depths of his consciousness with cinematic soundscapes and crooning heartfelt vocals. In 2018 Heren gained recognition from blogs like Keep Walking Music, Alternative Fruit, and Caesar Live’n Loud and performed a choral version of his debut single 'Phoenix'. Heren is now building a new song's repertoire and promises new original material to be released in October 2020.

Based in London, Joe Asteroid is a melancholic indie rock artist with glitter tears. Joe recently released her debut single 'Big Balloon', followed by a music video. Joe and her band are known for their energetic performances and have played London’s popular venues. The music has memorable, uplifting choruses influenced by bands such as Arctic Monkeys and The Killers, combined with melancholic lyrics inspired by The Smiths. They use glitter as symbolism for turning every tragedy into something beautiful.

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In this episode, Miki speaks to her experience as a 13-year-old who struggled to "feel" normal after her mother's death and why she had to finally embrace her grief, about ten years later.

Author, a musician, and talk show host, Miki Speer, was 13 years old when her mother passed away from cancer. For the better part of a decade, she ran away from her grief as she tried to convince herself she didn't need to "go there." Eventually, the good student found herself barely passing her college classes, struggling to enjoy being on the volleyball team, and uncontrollably crying at the drop of a hat - something needed to change. 

Through counseling, she realized that her mother's death finally needed to be processed, and she decided to "go there."  

Miki now combines her passions into creating free grief resources she wished she had right after her mom passed. You can find her free grief workbook, "My Heart Still Remembers," on her website and her hit song, "See Me." You can catch Miki weekly on her Facebook Live show, "The Healing Half: 30 Minutes of Growth," every Tuesday night that features musicians and speakers that offer insight and hope.

For more information, please head to www.mikispeer.com 

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Cheryl shares her story about living with her wife's cancer for about ten years, the grief following her death, and how it led to her work. 

Cheryl Jones, M.S., is a grief counselor, educator, and radio host. She developed and taught in a three-year Continuing Education program as Manager of Professional Education at the Women's Cancer Resource Center in Berkeley, CA. Her weekly radio show, Good Grief, focuses on the transformations that sometimes come about after profound loss. Her interest in illness and grief originated in the ten years while her first wife lived with cancer before her death in 1995. She recently published a novel, An Ocean Between Them. Though it is fiction, it is deeply informed by the experiences of cancer in her own life and those of her clients' lives.

Her resilience in hard times comes from her personal and professional experience supporting herself and her clients. It is richly enhanced by the more than 300 interviews on her radio show about transformation after a loss.

www.weatheringgrief.com
[email protected]
Good Grief Radio: www.voiceamerica.com/show/2264/good-grief

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In this episode, Greg shares his experiences with grief as a young boy and the inspiring lessons he learned. He shares the inspiration to his book, Adam Gets Back Into The Game and his hope to inspire children of all ages.

Greg is Program Coordinator for the Center for Good Mourning and Staff Bereavement Support at Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH). During his 29 years at ACH, Greg has worked in oncology and helped start the Center for Good Mourning and the palliative care program. The Center for Good Mourning includes grief support groups for children, teens, and families, community outreach and education, and an electronic grief/loss newsletter, The Mourning News.

In 2019, Greg wrote an illustrated children's storybook about coping with grief and loss called Adam Gets Back in the Game. Greg is a member of the Association of Death Education and Counseling where he earned the credential of Fellow in Thanatology: Death, Dying, and Bereavement. 

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