Giving Grief Grace, a Grief Podcast for the Sandwich Generation
Loss changes everything. But it doesn't have to have the last word. Giving Grief Grace is a podcast dedicated to those in the throes of caregiving and loss with honest, compassionate conversations about grief, healing, and what it means to keep living after loss. Hosted by Lisa Hartung, a speaker, HR professional, and fellow griever, each episode creates space for the stories we don't always know how to tell.
From disenfranchised and hidden grief, to grieving while parenting, to the ways men experience loss differently, to the unexpected power of creativity and legacy, this show covers grief in all its forms. Featuring expert guests, real stories, and practical tools you can use right now.
If you've lost someone you love or are in the throes of caregiving, you belong here.
New episodes drop every Sunday. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Episodes
62 episodes
Episode 60 - Vacation Starts Now: How to Stop Waiting to Really Live
What does a Zanzibar vacation have in common with a terminal diagnosis? More than you'd think.In this solo episode, Lisa reflects on a pattern she noticed during her recent trip to Tanzania — every single day for five days, there was
Episode 59 - This is Your Permission Slip: A Guided Meditation from Zanzibar
What does it look like to give yourself permission — really, truly, no-guilt permission to rest, restore, and fill your own cup? In this special field note episode, Lisa calls in live from her balcony in Zanzibar, Tanzania. In this ...
Episode 58 - Grief, Joy, and Clean Water: A Field Note From Tanzania
In this field-recorded episode, Lisa broadcasts live from rural Tanzania during a work trip with her day job with a water nonprofit. Visiting communities at different stages of clean water access, she finds an unexpected throughline: grief, lov...
Episode 57 - What No One Tells You About Grieving Your Mom and How She Still Shows Up
Grief doesn't wait for a convenient moment. Sometimes it finds you mid-walk, while packing for a trip, or when you are stressed, missing the woman who would have been your first call.In this solo episode, Lisa shares what she's learned a...
Episode 56 - Crafting Through Grief: How Kenya McCarthy Turns Her Mom's Belongings Into Healing Gifts
What do you do when grief meets a house full of craft supplies? For Kenya McCarthy, creator of @chronicallykenya and @k.carthydesigns, the answer was to start making things, sharing the process online, and building a strong grief community so p...
Episode 55 - 100 Years of Living: Lucy DeRoche's Secrets to Adventure, Purpose, and Joy
She feels 45. She has been all around the US. She planned a month-long trip through England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1971 with no cell phones, no credit cards, and a 9-year-old in tow, and she thought nothing of it. She lost her first husband ...
Episode 54 - From Surviving to Thriving: The Grief Recovery Method with Dawn Michele Jackson
Have you ever carried grief you didn't have a name for? Today's guest, Dawn Michele Jackson, a registered nurse, bestselling author, and Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist, spent decades watching patients' unprocessed emotions show up as...
Episode 53 - The Little Things Are the Big Things: Obituaries with Mary McGreevy of Tips from Dead People
What if the most profound life lessons you ever received came from the dead? In this episode of Giving Grief Grace, Lisa sits down with Mary McGreevy, the creator of @tipsfromdeadpeople and author of an upcoming HarperCollins book (Aug...
Episode 52 - A Year of Giving Grief Grace: What No One Tells You About Starting a Grief Podcast
One year. 52 episodes. 62 countries and territories. 454 cities. Thank you for a year of grace, gratitude, and being part of this grief journey. In this special solo anniversary episode, Lisa Hartung pauses to celebrate what
Epsiode 51 - Free Smiles: The Tiny Act That Lifts a Grieving Heart
What if the simplest thing you did today — curling up the corners of your mouth — could make you feel even 1% better? In this solo episode, host Lisa Hartung laces up her running shoes and shares a reflection born from the road: smiles are free...
Episode 50 - It Takes a Village: How Schools, Friends, & Communities Can Support Grieving Children with Carrie Silver of A Haven
According to A Haven, one in five children will experience the death of someone close to them before they graduate high school. That means grief is already in your classroom, your neighborhood, and your faith/athletic/artistic community, whethe...
Episode 49 - The Whole Family Grieves: Supporting Every Child in the House, Even When They Grieve Differently with Carrie Silver of A Haven
Grief doesn't arrive at the door of a family and touch everyone the same way. One child draws. Another runs. Another goes silent. And somewhere in the middle of it all is a caregiver trying to hold everyone together while barely holding it toge...
Episode 48 - Fought the Fight: Grief, Easter Sunrise, and Finding Joy Again
Easter has a way of cracking grief wide open. In this solo episode, Lisa shares a raw and vulnerable reflection on how the season of resurrection intersects with loss.From waking up before dawn in a small Maine town to sing "Christ the L...
Episode 47 - When Men Get Breast Cancer: Jake Messier on Stigma, Stage 4, and Breaking the Silence
What happens when a man is diagnosed with a disease the world has decided belongs to women? Jake Messier, known as @theguywithstage4breastcancer, is living that answer every single day. After a stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis in 2...
Episode 46 - When Grief Becomes a Calling: How Kelly Edmondson Turned Loss Into Light with Timely Presence
What do you do with your grief when you've spent 25 years as a nurse helping families through their hardest moments and then overnight, you become the family in need? That's the journey Kelly Edmondson found herself on three years ago wh...
Episode 45 - It's Okay to Say Died: How to Talk to Children About Death at Any Age with Carrie Silver of A Haven
What do you say when a child asks, "Is Mommy coming back?" This week, Lisa sits down with Carrie Silver, Clinical Director of A Haven, a nonprofit child and family grief center in Exton, Pennsylvania, to explore one of th...
Episode 44 - Still Raising Hell at 97: Alton "Honky" Hartung on Living Life to the Fullest in Maine
In this episode, Lisa sits down with her grandfather, Alton "Honky" Hartung who recently turned 97 and is still living alone and driving! Honky is a living piece of American history who has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.Born ...
Episode 43 - Finding Joy Without a Cure: Melanie Ezell on INHERITED, Motherhood & Living Fully with Stage 4 Cancer
This week, we welcome back Melanie Ezell — writer, mother, yogi, and surfer from the North Shore of Oʻahu — to celebrate the release of her new book, INHERITED: A Life Without a Cure. Diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer at a yo...
Episode 42 - Ash Rose Project (Week 4): Honoring Legacy, Finding Hope, and Looking Toward the Future
In this bittersweet finale of the Ash Rose Project series, host Lisa Hartung and artist/Executive Director of the Ash Rose Foundation, Ian McCartor close out their 30-day grief journey with a conversation full of hope, whimsy, and renewal. The ...
Episode 41 - Ash Rose Project (Week 3): Finding Meaning in the Present Through Creativity & Connection
In Week 3 of the Ash Rose Project mini-series, host Lisa Hartung continues her 30-day grief journey with Ian McCartor of the Ash Rose Foundation.This week centers on finding meaning in the present moment. Lisa and Ian discuss integrating...
Episode 40 - Ash Rose Project (Week 2): Processing Grief Through Creativity, The Healing Power of Art & Legacy
In Week 2 of the Ash Rose Project mini-series, Lisa continues her personal grief journey with Ian McCartor, Founder of the Ash Rose Foundation. They move from honoring the past in Week 1 to processing grief in the present through creativity.
Episode 39 - Ash Rose Project (Week 1): Honoring the Past Through Memory, Ritual, and Reflection
In Week 1 of the Ash Rose Project mini-series, Ian McCartor of the Ash Rose Foundation and Lisa Hartung begin the most emotionally intense part of the journey: honoring the past.This episode centers on reflection. Of memories, values, r...
Episode 38 - When the Artist Becomes the Art: Inside the Ash Rose Project with Ian McCartor
This week we welcome back Ian McCartor, Founder and Executive Director of the Ash Rose Foundation, for a first-ever behind the scenes exploration of the Ash Rose Project. This episode marks ...
Episode 37 - Grief Group Support: The Power of Connection, Healing, and Community After Loss
What kind of support actually helps after loss—and what role does community play in healing? Everyone is different and has their own unique grief journey. In this episode, the original Giving Grief Grace small grief group com...
Episode 36 - Pancreatic Cancer at 34: Mom of 3 on Self-Advocacy, Surgery, FOLFIRINOX & Finding Hope
What happens when you know something is wrong—but no one is listening?In this episode, Lisa sits down with Amy Johnston, a 34-year-old mom of three and stage 3 pancreatic cancer survivor, to share the story that changed her life. ...
