Bury Me In NJ Bury Me in New Jersey

This week, I’ll be sharing my interview with my long-time friend Kristen Fowler as we both speak candidly about our shared grief experience in a topic not often discussed: the grief that comes after divorce.During our conversation, we discuss some of the complicated aspects of loss related to divorce that go beyond the dissolution of the marriage, including the other relationships that become collateral damage during the split; attempting to navigate blindly into a new normal, and reconciling...

This week, I’ll be sharing my interview with Laura Smothers-Chu, CEO & Founder of Befriended Heart, who speaks candidly about her fertility journey. During our conversation, which was recorded in October during National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, we explore the various situations she and her husband have navigated in their desire to become parents, including numerous invasive procedures and miscarriage, and the subsequent grief that followed. We discuss how the percep...

This week, I’ll be sharing my interview with my long-time friend, Joyce DeStasio. During our conversation, she shares her experience giving birth to her baby girl, Alaina, at 27 weeks, and the subsequent 104 days Alaina spent in the NICU before passing away the following February.Joyce shares how her initial documentation of her daughter’s medical care soon evolved into writing about her experience from a more personal point of view, and later enrolled in a memoir class to further develop the...

This week, I’ll be sharing my interview with Jillian Ryan, my long-time friend, and fellow S. Jerseyean where we discuss her experience with losing her daughter, Isabelle, during her 8th month of pregnancy. During this discussion, Jill talks about how she handled her grief in the weeks and months immediately following the loss of her daughter; how the experience has shaped her as a mother; and the ways she’s dealt with her loss in the subsequent years since losing Izzy. Although we’ve be...

This week's episode features Effie Anolik, founder of Afterword, an online funeral planning service offering virtual and in-person memorials, as well as a combination of the two. Effie garnered inspiration for Afterword after experiencing the sudden loss of her own father, and realizing that the funeral industry offered no convenient ways to funeral plan online. Using her extensive background in eCommerce as her guide, Effie mapped out a way for families to experience personalized funeral pla...

This week, we're sharing our conversation with Lori LoCicero and Lisa Pahl, creators of The Death Deck, a game and conversation tool consisting of 112 cards, allowing friends and family to share thoughts, stories, and preferences about life and death in a relaxed way.Lori and Lisa first met when Lori’s husband, Joe, was on hospice and Lisa was their hospice nurse. The two felt an immediate connection during that time, and after Joe’s passing, their healing sessions continued for more than 2 y...