David is one of the world’s foremost experts on grief and loss. He’s also had two very personal losses: the death of his mother when he was just 13, and the death of his younger son when his son was 21.

David has just come out with a brand new workbook, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook.

I had such a great discussion with Michelle Glogovac for this episode. Michelle lost her dad when she was 7, and I’m so grateful that she was willing to come on and speak with us for this special discussion that is our first episode of this year’s Children’s Grief Awareness Month.

By talking about her journey, Amanda-Lee gives us permission to talk about the things that are our own realities. She also shares practical tips for navigating the hard conversations with her boys – right after it happened, and in the years to come – that are I think important for all widowed parents to hear.

I had such a great discussion with Jeanette Koncikowski for this episode. We first talked five years ago, when Jeanette was my guest way back in episode 10. I invited her back now because she’s out with a brand-new book, Shipwrecked: A Memoir of Widowed Parenting and Life After Loss. It’s a “teaching memoir,” in which Jeanette both shares her family’s journey and explores themes, issues, and questions common to newly widowed parents.

I had such a great discussion with Jessica Waite for this episode. I’ve had a number of listeners recently asking for more discussions with widowed parents who have complicated situations. Or, as one listener put it, “the end-of-life stories that are really ugly.”

One of the gifts Jessica is giving us with her new book is that she’s writing about stuff that not everyone is willing to write about. When her husband died suddenly, she discovered that he was living a secret life. She found too many secrets – all at once – and asked herself: If he lied about all that, what else did he lie about?

In the end, though, The Widows Guide to Dead Bastards is a love story, and it’s about getting to a place of healing and reconciliation when facing the unthinkable. I hope you’ll check it out.

Sara Wingerath-Schlanger is from Tuesday’s Children, which was founded in the wake of 9/11 to serve families affected by that tragedy in 2001, including the 3,051 kids who lost a parent that day.

I had such a great discussion with Lisa Keefauver for this episode. You may know Lisa from her popular podcast, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch, and now she has a brand new book out by the same name. In this episode we talk all about ambiguous losses, disenfranchised grief, how the three most important rules of scuba diving also apply to life—and, of course, the origin of her podcast and its name. Lisa is a widowed parent and a therapist, and her book has “invitational” language, not “instructional” language. I invite you to check it out. And for the Grief Allies out there, Lisa reminds us to remove the words “at least” from our grief support vocabulary and that’ll go a long way toward supporting our friends who are grieving.

I had such a great discussion with Ryane Moates for this episode. I love what Ryane is doing with her YouTube channel, Ryane to the Rescue, where she educates on all things home repair, yard care, and more that widowed people find themselves responsible for after the death of their partners. Ryane herself felt so empowered after she started learning and doing all the things her husband used to do around the house – which was all new to her – and she knew she wanted to share this message of hope, healing, and empowerment with other widows.

I had such a great discussion with Jordan Arogeti for this episode.

Jordan and her company have a new tool called Support Now. It’s a bit like a mashup of some tools you may be familiar with, such as CaringBridge, Go Fund Me, and online meal trains. But it’s SO much more than that.

In preparing to speak with Jordan, I had an “Ah-Ha!” moment:

Support for the newest grievers is all about ORGANIZING and ORIENTING a widowed parent’s own community.

ORGANIZING: Support Now is a comprehensive tool that facilitates exactly this. Listen to my discussion with Jordan for a good overview.

ORIENTING: I have LOTS of thoughts. Some of them you can find now at GriefAllies.com, where you can download my free tips & resources for supporting grieving people. (And stay tuned for more on this!)

I had such a great discussion with Dr. Linda Shanti McCabe for this episode. We haven’t tackled the topic of art and how it can help with grief on the show before, so I was excited to talk with Linda about that as well as her program called the Art of Grief which is starting soon. Linda is a widowed parent herself, and she’s also a licensed clinical psychologist. Listen, too, as she shares the major change she made shortly after her husband’s death, and what she’s planning as her son prepares for his 13th birthday.

I had such a great discussion with Dr. Katie Davis for this episode. This week we tackle a thorny parenting topic: screens. The pandemic period of online school, work, play dates, happy hours, fitness classes, therapy sessions, music lessons, and so much more has taught us that asking whether screens and screen time are “good” or “bad” are not necessarily the right questions anymore. Technology has become too central to our lives. Katie is a researcher at the University of Washington who directs the UW Digital Youth Lab and has a new book for parents called “Technology’s Child: Digital Media’s Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up.” Plus, she answers that question everyone with young kids want to know: if young kids aren’t supposed to have screen time, what about facetime with grandparents who live 3,000 miles away?

Today’s discussion is such an important one. For families who have been touched by suicide losses, for sure – and also for any parents of grieving teens from any death losses. Joanne tells us today about her new film, “Talking Out Loud - Teens & Suicide Loss: A Conversation.” I’ve seen it, and I have to say it’s such a privilege to hear directly from teens about such a sensitive topic. They knew their parents were watching live during the filming, but they apparently all forgot about that and the cameras and they had a really honest, unfiltered discussion. I’d like to thank Joanne and her team for bringing us this incredible film, and also for coming here to speak with us about it this week.