Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom

By Marcy Larson, MD

When pediatrician mom of three, Marcy Larson's 14 yo son, Andy, was killed in a car accident in 2018, she felt like her life was over. In many ways, that life was over, and a new one forced to begin i... more

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The podcast currently has 373 episodes available.

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Number 1: Episode 363: Grieve Out Loud - O's Mom
Heather has always loved out loud. She has always talked about her boys to anyone who will listen, shown pictures to strangers, shared memories on social media without a second thought. It never dawned on her not to. And when she lost her youngest son Owen, whom everyone called O, it never dawned on her to stop. O was funny, mischievous, and big-hearted in equal measure. The kind of boy who once spent $40 of his own money on meat sticks at thirteen years old just to hand them out to classmates and leave one on his teacher's desk because she was having a bad day. The kind of boy who left notes on his desk at home that said, you mean my heart to me. So when she lost him, she did not go quiet. She started collecting "O signs" almost immediately, writing every one of them down in a notebook because she was so afraid of missing a single one. She built the chaos garden she and O had planned together, grew hundreds of flowers, preserved every bloom, and turned them into art that now goes out into the world carrying a little bit of his love in each piece. She created a journal for others to record their own signs from the loved ones they have lost. She organized a second line, a Louisiana-style brass band parade through the streets of her town, on what would have been O's first birthday after his death, inviting everyone who had lost someone to suicide to come celebrate how their person lived, not how they died. She carries O's photo everywhere her family travels, because she promised him they would see the world together, and she intends to keep that promise. None of it was planned. None of it was strategic. It was just love, looking for somewhere to go, and finding it. Near the end of our conversation, Heather shares a poem she found on one of her hardest days, written by Sharon Marsh. She reads it at the second line every year. I think it is the most beautiful summary of everything she has done since losing O. I'll live for you. Your life was cut short, but there is still so much living for you to do. I will live for you. I will take you with me everywhere I go. Drink coffee in dimly lit cafes, travel to foreign places, put my toes in the sand, create memories. So that whenever I see you again, I can tell you all about it. And she will. She already is. At the end of this conversation, she shares one more story. A man she met in Antigua, who never knew O, sent her a message months later to say his daughter had been born. And then he said, "Don't worry, Heather. I'm going to teach her to love like O." A stranger who never met O. Teaching his newborn daughter to love like him. That is what grieving out loud does. It lets the people who loved your child keep loving them. And it lets the people who never knew them love them too.
August 27, 20261h 8min
Number 2: Episode 366: It Was Never About the Grief - Ben's Mom
When Ben was in treatment, he had a signature move. He would flip on some music, put on his headphones, and check out. Not in a sad way. In the way of a boy who had discovered, long before anyone taught him the term music therapy, that sound could carry him somewhere the chemo could not reach. He was five years old when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. He was eight when he died. And in between, he wore a Michael Jackson curly wig and a sparkly glove to the grocery store, demanded Olive Garden in Times Square after immunotherapy, and once stood up on a procedure table before a bone marrow biopsy and told his doctor, show me all your supplies first. He was never defined by his illness. He was just doing cancer, as his mother Wendy puts it. Because that was what was there. The rest of the time, he was dancing through the city. When the news ran their memorial piece after Ben died, they described him as having lost his battle with cancer. Wendy wanted to scream. He didn't lose anything. He got dealt a crappy hand in this life. And then he inspired a community, countless people, people she will never meet. How do you call that losing? In the years since, Wendy has channeled everything she learned in those three and a half years of treatment into the Benjamin Goldberg Foundation, which advocates for what she calls the healing arts in healthcare. At Sloan Kettering, a dance therapist had walked into Ben's treatment room one day and changed everything. His blood pressure dropped. He needed less medication than the other kids. The nurses came in and danced. And Wendy thought, I want to bring this home. She did. Today, every child who walks into their local children's hospital in Virginia has access to music therapy, art therapy, dance therapy, yoga, and Reiki, because of Ben. Because of one little boy with headphones and a heart full of music. The foundation has since expanded into social prescribing, partnering with a regional health system to explore the formal prescription of music and art to reduce anxiety, depression, and hospital visits. And Wendy has written it all down in her book, Mom's Book: It Was Never About the Grief, just published last month, because that is the whole truth of it. It was never about the grief. It was about Ben. And Ben is still in every room. You can find Mom's Book wherever books are sold. Learn more about the Benjamin Goldberg Foundation and the BGF Podcast at benjamingoldbergfoundation.org.
September 17, 20261h 1min
Number 3: Episode 365: Right Before the Finish Line - Ellory's Mom & Dad
Celeste had a perfect pregnancy. She felt great. She stayed active all the way to term. Every appointment, every ultrasound, every check was textbook. The nursery was painted pink, because Hannes had opened the can by himself two days after their appointment, on camera, finding out the gender before Celeste so he could have something special just for him. The bassinet was next to the bed. The car seat was in the car. The postpartum cart was stocked with diapers and snacks. Ellory was 40 weeks and one day old when Celeste woke up feeling a little crampy and tired. She decided to rest, and fell asleep with her hands on her belly, feeling Ellory kick. And then something shifted. Just a feeling. Something telling her she needed to get Ellory to move. She ate spoonfuls of Nutella. She tried different positions. She called Hannes and said, something's wrong. It had only been two hours since she had last felt her move when she arrived at the ER. A nurse put a monitor on her belly and couldn't find the heartbeat, and Celeste already knew. There was no heartbeat. Ellory had grown to 7 pounds and 3 ounces. A big, healthy, beautiful baby girl who made it all the way to the finish line. She just couldn't cross it. In the weeks and months after losing her, Celeste used her medical background to research. She was not going to accept unexplained as an answer. She found a Yale researcher named Dr. Kleiman who studies stillbirth and small placentas. She looked back at Ellory's placental pathology report and discovered the placenta was in the .02 percentile. Ellory's placenta was simply too small to sustain her life. No one had measured it. It is not standard of care to measure a placenta during prenatal ultrasounds — even though the capability is built into the machines, even though the measurement takes 30 seconds and 3 numbers, even though a small placenta is the most common cause of stillbirth, and even though 50% of term stillbirths are preventable. Out of that discovery came the Racing Awareness for Ellory campaign. Hannes is running 12 marathons in 12 months, in cities across the country and beyond. At each race, he carries a pair of Ellory's shoes. And right before the finish line, he drops them. Because she got all the way there. She just couldn't cross. At a race in Asheville, a stranger who had read their flyer approached Hannes after the finish and asked, are you Ellory's dad? Hannes had to have him repeat it. He had never been called that by a stranger before. He said yes. Yeah, I am. That is everything, right there. To learn more about Celeste and Hannes's campaign and the work of the nonprofit Measure the Placenta, visit measuretheplacenta.org. You can find their podcast, The Leisure Room, and follow their journey on social media at The Kiddos Diaries.
September 10, 202658min
Number 4: Episode 364: They May Never Know Her Name - Angelina's Mom
Danielle was standing in a NICU holding her newborn daughter Hope when a stranger approached her asking, "Are you Angelina's Mom?" Danielle's quiet response was, "I used to be." The woman was a pediatric oncologist from a hospital in Westchester. She had never met Angelina. But she knew exactly who she was. Parents of sick children had been bringing in pictures. Angelina ziplining. Angelina indoor skydiving. Angelina feeding dolphins. Angelina snorkeling with sharks. What do I need to do, they kept asking their doctors, so my child can live like Angelina? And when Angelina died, grief counselors had to be brought in for those parents, because if there was no hope for a kid like her, what hope was there for any of them? Those parents decided their children wouldn't just survive. They would thrive. Like Angelina. And then the doctor said something Danielle has never forgotten. There will be thousands of children who are sick, who will live and be inspired to live, and to live well, who will never know her name. Angelina was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma at three and a half years old. The tumor ran from her adrenal gland down into her pelvis, climbed her lymph channel up her stomach, wrapped itself around her aorta, and spread to her bones. On a scale of zero to fifteen, she scored a fourteen. She was given a twenty percent chance of survival. She fought for seven and a half years. And the whole time, she lived. She indoor skydived. She ziplined across Las Vegas Boulevard. She snorkeled with exotic fish, swam with sharks, and ziplined down a volcano in Hawaii. She wanted to bungee jump into the Grand Canyon. She served her mother a legal cease-and-desist letter, drafted by a friend's attorney parent, claiming trademark rights over her own facial expressions and catchphrases. She had big plans, better ideas, and absolutely no interest in being told what she could not do. The clinical trial Angelina participated in changed its criteria because of how she responded. Future treatments for BRCA2-positive neuroblastomas are being developed from her genome sequencing. Sick children across the country were inspired to fight because their parents carried her pictures into hospitals. A grandmother's quiet words to fight traveled to Danielle, who carried them to Angelina, who carried them to children she never knew existed. The lessons keep traveling. The love keeps traveling. And most of them will never know her name. Danielle's podcast, They Were Here: Lessons from Their Lives, is her answer to that truth. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
September 03, 20261h 11min
Number 5: Episode 355 - No One Right Way – Gwen & Marcy
This week's episode didn't happen the way we planned. It was supposed to be a livestream. And then, within the same week, both Gwen and I found ourselves facing something neither of us expected. My mother-in-law, who had been like a mother to me for nearly 30 years, was suddenly placed on hospice. Gwen's own mother was in hospice as well. We looked at each other and simply said, we cannot do a livestream this week. So we didn't. We let it be smaller, quieter, and just the two of us. And in a strange way, that became exactly the right backdrop for the topic at hand. This episode is built around questions we posed to our community about navigating grief alongside the demands of daily work. What tips would you share about going back to work? How do you balance the daily grind of work and your grief? Do your coworkers and bosses know the pain you carry, and how much do you disclose? The answers that poured in revealed something important. There is no one right way to do this. Some of you went back to work and told everyone everything. Others went back and told no one at all. Some of you simply could not go back, not to the same job, not to any job, at least not yet. All of those are valid. All of those are normal, depending on your circumstances, your safety, and what you personally need in order to function. Practical tips came pouring in too, like asking for help navigating FMLA paperwork, returning part-time before full-time, and clearly communicating boundaries to coworkers and supervisors rather than trying to silently muscle through. Some of you found that work became a meaningful place to honor your child, while others found it became a place to set grief aside for a few hours, a kind of necessary, temporary relief. The conversation around disclosure was especially honest. Some workplaces respond with grace and flexibility, and others do not. Some losses carry complicated layers underneath them that need to stay private for many reasons. Disclosure is not a one-time decision but something navigated moment by moment, situation by situation, for the rest of your life. And things change. I once believed I could never see patients again, retreating into administrative work instead, only to find myself months later unable to bear administrative work at all, wanting nothing but my patients back. A job that meant nothing before a child's death can become someone's entire calling afterward. Grief and work are not static, and neither are we. If you are navigating this balance yourself right now, we hope this conversation reminds you that whatever choice you have made, or are making, is the right one for you. There is no universal answer here. There is only yours.
July 02, 202655min