Join Hamilton star Miguel Cervantes and be in the room where hope happens! You're invited to Focus on Hope, October 27.
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!
October 6th, 2026
From an early age, Ami Baio was curious about death and grief. As a game designer and the creator of Pink Tiger Games, she eventually turned that curiosity into Proof of Life, a conversational game about death, grief, and talking about what matters most to the people in our lives. In a professional and personal overlap, as Ami was finishing the game, her father was dying of cancer. Ami's relationship with her dad had changed dramatically over the course of her life. After her parents divorced when she was five, she and her father became separated from each other, and their relationship was complicated for many years. In 2010, Ami reached out to apologize for the distance she had created between them and to acknowledge the effort and love her father had put into their relationship. Years later, her father offered an apology of his own. When he became ill, Ami and her siblings found themselves navigating the uncertainty of his cancer diagnosis while her dad remained determined to live. Conversations about death were difficult, but Proof of Life eventually gave the family another way to talk, laugh, remember, and connect. Ami also shares what it was like to be with her dad when he died, the playlist he created for his own funeral, the waves of grief that followed, and the unexpected ways music, memories, humor, and even dancing have helped her stay connected to him.
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When physician and writer Shanda McManus was fourteen, her mother died after living with ovarian cancer. Three years later, her grandmother - the person who became home after that loss - was killed by read more...
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When it comes to children and grief, there's a lot we misunderstand. Adults might think they are either resilient and unaffected, too young to understand, or irreparably broken by the death of someone 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.