Episodes
Dec. 20, 2017
More Beautiful Than Before
What happens when a person who has supported others through their hardest times faces his own hardest time? In Rabbi Steve Leder's case, a crisis in his own life led to a deepening understanding of what it takes to come throu...
Dec. 13, 2017
Healthy Healing
When Michelle Steinke-Baumgard's husband died suddenly, she found her few moments of peace in exercise. First depending on that time as a lifeline, she soon found a deep passion for the healing effects of endorphins on her gr...
Dec. 6, 2017
Death Hangout
How can talking about death make living more meaningful? Olivier Larvor and Keith Clarke, two men who gave up successful careers in top companies to form their own life coach practices, believe that contemplating death can le...
Nov. 29, 2017
The Dinner Party
Loss can leave you alone and confused, with no one who gets what you're going through. If loss comes at a relatively young age, there may be no one in your friendship network who has been through it. After her father's death,...
Nov. 22, 2017
The Weight of Honor
With improvements in field medicine, an even greater number of soldiers have come home from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq disabled and in need of care. Their families then pick up the majority of that care and must adjust to a...
Nov. 8, 2017
Stroke of Luck
When Diane Barnes, an accomplished physician, experienced a devastating stroke, she relearned many things. In the process, she learned how to live differently, leaving her profession and finding a new path as an actor and pla...
Nov. 1, 2017
Legacy
Keeping memories alive of people we've lost is a way to continue our relationships. As society becomes more comfortable talking about death and loss and grief, public remembrances also become a more universally accepted pract...
Oct. 25, 2017
Leaving a Trail
Kate Kendell's courage and conviction helped win the battle for marriage rights for all Americans, including those in same sex relationships. Her fierce advocacy and legal strategy have made her a popular speaker and social m...
Oct. 18, 2017
Grief: A Love Story
When all we know leaves us unprepared for loss, we must find a new way to respond. And when suicide is involved, the weight of what could have been can be weighty. Tara Caffelle’s former husband and good friend died, and she ...
Oct. 11, 2017
Big Love
How does someone find his way from the murder, at age 14, of both his parents to a life guided by big love? Scott Stabile evolved from putting his grief aside and going on with life to honoring and respecting, even inviting, ...
Oct. 4, 2017
Prison Terminal
As the United States increases its levels of incarceration and the length of sentences, more and more inmates are aging and dying in prison. How are they to be supported at the end of life? At Iowa State Penitentiary, the med...
Sept. 27, 2017
Survivor Cafe
What is the legacy of trauma to future generations? Recent epigenetics research reveals that even the DNA of children, grandchildren and beyond are affected by severe trauma in generations before them. And so, the killings of...
Sept. 20, 2017
Living With Dying
Jahnna Beecham and Katie Ortlip were friends and neighbors who sometimes had interesting conversations about Katie's work in hospice. She'd sometimes come home talking about a good death she'd experienced that day. The conver...
Sept. 13, 2017
Expect the Unexpected
When Bill Philipps was fourteen, he watched his mother die after a life without peace. A few days later, he experienced the first manifestations of his unusual gift when she came to him to tell him what it was like now that s...
Sept. 6, 2017
Caring for Red
Mindy Fried resolved to take the best possible care of her father as he neared the end of his life. That commitment was complicated by distance, a lifetime of relationship and the usual difficulties of care management, both h...
Aug. 30, 2017
Time to Fly
When Laura Lewis children were three and six, the love of her life, the father of her children, killed himself without warning. In the years that followed, she struggled to regain her balance, experiencing a destructive rebou...
Aug. 23, 2017
Dying to Make a Difference
After years of work in end of life care, Mary Matthiesen was blindsided by the death of her mother. She was also filled with inspiration resulting from the conversations they had and the choices her mother made about completi...
Aug. 16, 2017
You're Alive!
After the death of his mother, Ned Buskirk wondered why we don't talk about death more. As a producer and artist, he found a way to invite the conversation when he hosted a small event in his home, called You're Going to Die:...
Aug. 9, 2017
Unbroken
As a young and innocent 13 year old, Madeleine Black experienced an unimaginable and brutal rape which changed the course of her life. Although she spent many years affected by the experience, she was able, through her own pe...
Aug. 2, 2017
Caravan of No Despair
Mirabai Starr was decades into a deep spiritual practice. Then on the day her first book, a translation of Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, came out, her daughter was killed in a car crash. All she knew went o...
July 26, 2017
Choosing to Die
Phyllis Shacter's husband made a series of radical choices about how his life would end. When he received two life limiting diagnoses within six weeks of each other, Alzheimers and cancer, he refused cancer treatment and empl...
July 19, 2017
Recovery
People experiencing serious mental illness are likely to suffer numerous losses; of family, jobs, stability and security. How can they be supported to identify their own goals and move towards accomplishing them, even if thei...
July 12, 2017
Living the Fullest to the Very End
Until recently, very little attention was paid to the quality of our lives at the very end of our lives. But that is changing, fueled by patient demand but also by a group of medical practitioners who are passionate about mak...
June 28, 2017
What Abi Taught
Lucy Hone was already an expert on resilience when she faced the worst nightmare of her life; her daughter, best friend, and best friend's daughter were killed together in an auto accident. How did she use what she knew about...