Waiting for Dawn: Marisa Renee Lee on Living with Grief, Illness, and Uncertainty

What does it mean to live with uncertainty - especially when your body, your capacity, and your sense of self are all changing at once?

In this episode, Jana is joined again by author and advocate Marisa Renee Lee. You may know Marisa from her first book, Grief Is Love, or from her work helping people tell the truth about grief. In this conversation, she returns to share about her new book, Waiting for Dawn, and the realities of living with long COVID - an experience that has reshaped her daily life, her work, and her understanding of grief.

Marisa reflects on the many losses she's navigated over the years: the death of her mother when she was 25, a pregnancy loss, the recent death of her beloved dog, and the ongoing grief of living with chronic illness. We explore how grief shows up not only after someone dies, but also in the loss of health, identity, and certainty.

Marisa shares how she's learning to live within that uncertainty, from asking for (and accepting) help, to finding small, sustaining moments of joy, to letting go of who she used to be. The conversation also touches on parenting through grief and illness, including how Marisa talks with her young son about death, and what it's been like to watch him develop his own relationship with grief.

We discuss:

• The difference between grieving a person and grieving your own health
• How long COVID has reshaped Marisa's identity, work, and daily life
• The loneliness of illness and the challenge of asking for help
• Parenting through grief and talking with children about death
• The impact of cumulative loss and how different losses intersect
• Letting go of who you were before loss or illness
• Finding "micro joys" and small footholds in hard seasons
• The role of faith, hope, and rest in navigating uncertainty

Find Marisa: marisareneelee.com Get the book: Waiting for Dawn — available April 7, 2026

Read transcript

Want to learn more about supporting children and teens who are grieving? Sign up for our online courses here: https://classes.dougy.org/