Remember the last time you tried to talk about grief and suddenly everyone left the room? Hosted by Jana DeCristofaro and produced by Dougy Center, Grief Out Loud® is opening up this often avoided conversation because grief is hard enough without having to go through it alone. We bring you a mix of personal stories, tips for supporting children, teens, and yourself, and interviews with professionals. Platitude and cliché-free, we promise!
March 5th, 2026
What does grief look like when you lose your wife, two daughters, your home, and nearly everything you own - all in a single night? In this episode we talk with Michael Reed, a husband, father, and author whose life was forever changed when a wildfire swept through his community, taking the lives of his wife Constance, his older daughter Chloe, his youngest, Lily, their pets, and reducing their home to ashes. Nearly a decade later, Michael shares about the darkness he fell into, who was there to hold him and his son up, the ways he stays connected to his wife and daughters, and how he's re-engaged with life through writing and helping others. Michael Reed is the author of The Million Stages of Grief, a self-published book born from years of middle-of-the-night writing as he tried to make sense of catastrophic loss. He also became an unexpected public face of his community's tragedy - a role he has since transformed into a mission of talking openly about grief, faith, and learning to live again.
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What does it mean to grow and grow up with grief? Aliya, a recent high school graduate, spent the past three years reckoning both with her mother's death from cancer and the intricacies of their relat read more...
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Beth French started Let's Talk About Loss in December of 2016, eighteen months after her mother Susan died of cancer. She was the first in her group of friends to experience this type of loss and she read more...
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How do historic and present-day death rituals and funeral practices in the Black community serve as acts of resistance? Dr. Kami Fletcher is a historian and death scholar whose research focuses on the read more...
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What does it mean to choose joy and gratitude when you're in the depths of grief? For Ty Alexander, joy and gratitude became her two main survival strategies after her mother died of cancer when Ty wa read more...
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Grief Out Loud® is supported in part by the Chester Stephan Endowment Fund in loving memory by the estate of Theodore R. Stephan.
Dougy Center, through the Grief Out Loud podcast, is committed to learning from and sharing diverse perspectives on grief experiences and grief support. The views expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Dougy Center, its staff, or its Board of Directors.