In the Fall of 2016, Greg Beckelhymer died after a year-long struggle with metastatic kidney cancer. He was 47 years old.
In this story, his widow, Seattle-based writer Michelle Goodmanand her sister, Naomi Goodman, talk about how acute grief is often accompanied by strong denial.
“I had to remind myself that he wouldn’t be walking through the front door to make dinner with me and to take the dog to the nearby park afterward. I had to remind myself because grief is sneaky. It fools you into thinking the impossible is possible,” says Michelle.
Michelle Goodman wrote an essay for the Washington Post about the in between space between acute grief and moving on, alone.
In this midweek installment of Sound Effect's podcast, host Gabriel Spitzer and producer Jennifer Wing give this story a listen, and talk about how it came together.
Note: This is part of an experiment with Sound Effect’s podcast: We will feed a condensed version of the full show on Saturdays, withholding an especially memorable story. Then we’ll hear that segment, and some of the story behind the story, in a new weekly podcast installment that will be in your feed on Wednesdays. You can still always catch the full, broadcast-style version of the show on the web site(at the bottom of the page).
We’d love to hear what you think of the new podcast format -- give your feedback in the comments below, or email SoundEffect@knkx.org.
