Grief is a Sneaky Bitch

Some words become excruciating in the wake of loss. For my guest today, Katie Joy Duke, that word is expecting. After a whirlwind romance and engagement, Katie and her fiancé were over the moon with the discovery that they were expecting their first child together. A beautiful wedding ceremony and a fairy tale pregnancy, as Katie describes it, left them both shocked when after going into labor, they were told that their daughter Poppy, whose beautiful home had been Katie’s womb for the past 9 months, was dead. Katie’s relationship to her daughter, herself, to life, to the very notion of expectations is forever changed. In this episode, and in her beautiful memoir, Still Breathing, Katie brings vulnerability, wisdom, heart, and insight to the much-needed conversation around grieving stillbirth, something that affects 1 in 175 pregnancies in the U.S. EPISODE RESOURCES:Katie Joy Duke is an attorney turned life coach who published her debut memoir, Still Breathing: My Journey with Love, Loss, and Reinvention in May 2022. Still Breathing is a heart-breaking love story that captures Katie’s experience birthing Poppy, her first daughter, who was stillborn at full-term in 2015. You can learn more about Katie and the work she is doing as a speaker and life coach at www.katiejoyduke.comPick up your copy of Still Breathing here along with many of the books featured on this podcast.STRAIGHT INTO:(33:00) Katie shares how and why she had developed a forever changed relationship with the words expecting and expectations. This shift comes not only because of the stillbirth of her daughter poppy, but more recently her diagnosis and treatment for stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. (47:00) Katie shares her hard-worn wisdom about the grief support she had (and wanted) in the wake of the stillbirth of her daughter, Poppy.                                                                          STAY CONNECTED1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver

Bethany Harvey, author of the beautiful memoir Dipped In It, shares the experiences and lessons she’s learned from several losses. Some we’ve explored in past episodes, such as the loss of a parent and other losses we haven’t touched on much over the seasons, the grief that results from divorce. At the end of Bethany’s marriage, her now ex-spouse came out as gay and trans-gender. And while Bethany shares that she initially grieved the loss of the “he” she was married too, she quickly realized that this person who now uses the “she” pronoun was the same exact person that made her laugh like crazy in her marriage and drove her nuts too. Bethany brings humor, metaphor, and deep wisdom to our conversation about things like secondary losses, grieve waves, grief expression and so much more.  EPISODE RESOURCES:Bethany Harvey is an award winning author whose debut memoir shot to the bestseller list at Barnes & Noble on the day of its release in 2021. “Dipped In It, a Memoir” is a deep dive into grief as Bethany explores her emotional well after the death of her father and the dissolution of her marriage. With heart and humor Bethany explores the question, “Can grief and gratitude co-exist?” Sharing so openly about her life, loves and losses has further deepened Bethany’s understanding that grief—in all its forms—changes us in ways we never imagined. New paths appear and we may need help illuminating the way forward. To that end, Bethany has recently completed training as a personal coach with renown coach, author and speaker, Martha Beck. Bethany is currently accepting coaching clients on her website www.dippedinit.com.Pick up a copy of Dipped In It at your favorite local bookstore or online here or wherever books are sold.JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:(30:00) Bethany explains how differently she and her now ex-spouse communicated and processed the divorce, a decision they came to in a therapy session at the end of their marriage. Bethany explains that though their verbal communication styles are very different, they shared some tender moments of grief expression in the month following the decision that didn’t rely on words. (44:00) Bethany shares how the overwhelmingly personal and thoughtful response from readers to her memoir got her thinking about how she wants to show up in the world, both for herself and for others.                                                                                               STAY CONNECTED 1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver

In this episode, my guest Aly Bird shares the journey she’s been on since the untimely death of her young husband, the secondary and ambiguous losses she continues to uncover, and the inspiration to help create a culture of positive grief support which resulted in her beautiful book, Grief Ally. I can’t wait for you to meet her!  EPISODE RESOURCESSince her husband’s untimely death, my guest Aly Bird has poured her heart into helping those who feel helpless during an unexpected crisis. Her extensive study of grief psychology and culture, combined with her own devastating first-hand knowledge, led her to create a roadmap for those committed to supporting the bereaved. A registered psychotherapist (qualifying), coach, and speaker, Aly offers a clear path to those who have the courage to take on the vital role of being a grief ally.  Pick up a copy of Everything Left to Remember at your favorite local bookstore or online here JUMP STRAIGHT INTO(25:00) Aly shares how fortunate she was to receive tremendous support from her community. She was surprised to discover this wasn’t the case for most people and dismayed there wasn’t much out there on how to be a strong grief supporter, which is how her book Grief Ally was born. (45:00) Aly and I explore this place we get to in our grief where we move from surviving to asking ourselves what does thriving look like. We also explore some of the key components of what it means to be a good grief ally, including not putting early pressure on the griever to be strong and in thriving mode.                                                                                               STAY CONNECTED 1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver 

Steph Jagger explores one of the most common ways we experience ambiguous loss - when someone we love is in the grips of Alzheimer’s Disease. In our conversation, just like in her exquisitely written memoir, Everything Left to Remember, Steph reveals what she learned when she took her mom, who was diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s, on an adventure into big nature under the big Montana sky. While what she learned on this trip wasn’t what she expected, she gained more than she bargained for including insights on childhood, motherhood, personhood, the lessons of Mother Nature, and what it means to love someone who doesn’t quite remember the person she spent her lifetime becoming. EPISODE RESOURCESSteph Jagger is a sought-after mentor and coach whose offerings guide people toward a deeper understanding of themselves and their stories. Her work, including speaking and facilitating, lies at the intersection of loss, the nature of deep remembrance, and the personal journey of re-creation. Steph grew up in Vancouver, Canada and now lives and works on Bainbridge Island, WA. Everything Left to Remember is Steph’s second book. Her first, Unbound, was published in 2017. Pick up a copy of Everything Left to Remember at your favorite local bookstore or online here JUMP STRAIGHT INTO(30:00) Steph explores what she had hoped to discover on this trip through big nature with her mother versus the gifts she received along the way. (47:00) As we wrapped up our conversation, Steph and I explored what it means to practice being with our emotions in grief and the suffering we experience when we resist or hang on too tightly.                                                                                               STAY CONNECTED1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver

My guest Laurel Braitman is an absolute damn delight! In today’s episode we’re exploring her beautiful brand-new memoir What Looks Like Bravery: An epic journey through loss to love. I appreciate so much the humor, wisdom, and insight she brought to our conversation about the expansiveness of grief in her life, from the death of her father as a teenager, to lost loves, pets, a home in the wildfires of Northern California, and more recently the death of her mother. Her adventurous spirit, which has taken her all over the globe, shows up in our conversation and her approach to living fully in the wake of loss. EPISODE RESOURCES:Laurel is a writer, teacher and secular, clinical chaplain-in-training. She wrote a NYT bestselling book Animal Madness: Inside Their Minds. She also has an amazingly cool job, one I would love to have – as the director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford School of Medicine’s Medical Humanities and the Arts Program where she helps clinical students, staff and physicians communicate more clearly and vulnerably for their own benefit and that of their patients. Pick up a copy of What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Love and Loss at your favorite local bookstore or online here JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:(30:00) Laurel and I dive deep into how hyper-vigilance can show up for those of us who’ve experienced profound loss, in ways that don’t always make sense to others, or to ourselves for that matter. (59:00) As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked Laurel to explore what she learned from the opportunity to be with her mom at the end of her life and how her parents love of storytelling was a gift to her and one she got to return to the them at the end of their lives.                                                                                               STAY CONNECTED 1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver

In this episode, my guest Daniel Wallace and I will explore his memoir, This Isn’t Going To End Well: The True Story Of A Man I Thought I Knew, a heart-wrenching and deeply vulnerable portrait of the life and loss of his seemingly perfect and impossibly cool hero. Our conversation explores his brother in laws rise in stature in Daniel’s imagination, the decades long friendship they forged, the movie-like adventures and mis-adventures William embarked on, the incredible care William offered Daniel’s sister as she battled a debilitating illness, and the shocking discovery of a version of William neither of them ever knew when they found his journals in the wake of his death by suicide. EPISODE RESOURCES:Daniel Wallace is author of six novels, including Big Fish (1998), and Extraordinary Adventures (May 2017). In 2003 Big Fish was adapted and released as a movie, directed by Tim Burton, and then in 2013 became a Broadway musical. His novels have been translated into over three-dozen languages. Daniel Wallace is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his alma mater.  Pick up a copy of This Isn’t Going to End Well: The True Story of the Man I Thought I Knew  at your favorite local bookstore or online here JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:(23:00) Daniel helps us see what we often miss in our grief-avoidant culture, that friendship loss can be just as devastating a blow to our sense of the world and our place in it as any other kind of loss. His relationship with his brother-in-law William was more profound than he had realized until he set out to write this book. (42:00) Daniel explores what his sister Holly did, and mostly didn’t know, about William’s struggles. He also explores how discovering William’s journals, and gaining insight into a version of him neither of them had known added a unique layer to their grief.                                                                          NEW MERCH ALERTYou asked, I answered. I finally created some GSB Podcast merch from tees to hoodies to coffee mugs, journals and stickers. Head over to the Grief Happens Shop at www.lisakeefauver.com/griefhappensshop STAY CONNECTED 1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver. Sign up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver

From her pregnancy losses to accompanying her parents and aunt through Alzheimer’s to her work in human rights advocacy and the hundreds of people she’s sat with at the end of their lives as a hospice volunteer, my guest Barbara Becker, shares what she’s learned about the art of living with the end in mind. She is the author of the extraordinary book Heartwood: The Art of Living with the End in Mind which won the Nautilus Gold Book Award and was featured by Katie Couric Media in her "Books That Will Change Your Life."Both in her book, and in this episode, she offers us the wisdom she has gained as someone who has dedicated more than twenty-five years to partnering with human-rights advocates around the world in pursuit of peace and interreligious understanding. She has worked with the United Nations, Human Rights First, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, and has participated in a delegation of Zen Peacemakers and Lakota elders in the Black Hills of South Dakota. She is an ordained interfaith minister who bridges the sacred and the secular and has sat with hundreds of people at the end of their lives. EPISODE RESOURCES:Pick up a copy of Heartwood: The Art of Living with the End in Mind  at your favorite local bookstore or online here JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:(20:00) Barbara shares what she’s learned about living with the end in mind from her colleagues in her work with global activism. I asked her to expand on a a particular story she shared in her book, about the lessons she learned from Console, a woman who survived the Rwandan Genocide. (42:00) When we come back, Barbara shares what’s she’s learned in her work as a hospice volunteer about what it means to show up alongside someone in their suffering, and how that conflicts with our notion that it’s our job to fix, when it’s not. STAY CONNECTED: SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver

I’m thrilled to bring you my conversation with Rabbi Steve Leder. Steve is the senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. He is the author of five books and in our conversation today, we explore his latest: For You When I Am Gone: Twelve Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story. We explored so much from the wisdom we gain in the wake of loss, to the most important gifts we can give others – both in our lives and in our deaths. Spoiler alert, it’s not our money, our record collections, or anything tangible – it’s our stories. He’s learned so much from his personal losses and from the decades he’s spent in his role as a Rabbi about what it is our loved ones will want from us when we’re gone. It’s such a generative and thought-provoking conversation, I can’t wait for you to listen! EPISODE RESOURCES:Pick up a copy of For You When I’m Gone at your favorite local bookstore or online here JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:(24;24) Rabbi Steve Leder explains why our current system of the last words we leave our loved ones are the legal verbiage of a will is so profoundly problematic. That’s why he suggests creating an ethical will instead.(46:00) Rabbi Steve Leder shares a beautiful phrase from the Talmud that is a reminder that we need one another. We can’t endure pain without community, without the caring support of others. Loss reminds us that we don’t need to navigate grief alone. STAY CONNECTED 1)     SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST on your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you love the show, I’d love to invite you to leave a rating and write a review. 2)    INVITE ME TO YOUR INBOX to get behind-the-scenes on the podcast and all the grief support offered by our host, Lisa Keefauver, by signing up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter at lisakeefauver.com/newsletter. 3)    IF YOU’RE FEELING SOCIAL, you can find her on all your favorite social channels too.@lisakeefauvermsw on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. Check out her tweets @lisakeefauver