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The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations
Suicide loss changes everything. The Leftover Pieces® Podcast explores life after suicide through honest conversations with survivors, experts, and grieving parents learning to live forward after unimaginable loss. Parents, partners, siblings, and friends share what it means to keep living when the world has been forever changed.
Hosted by Melissa Bottorff-Arey, whose 21-year-old son Alex died by suicide in 2016, the show blends intimate conversations with survivors, healers, and mental health professionals with short solo reflections you can actually use. Together we explore child loss, trauma and nervous-system care, anniversaries and seasons, stigma, faith and meaning, legacy, and the everyday practices that help make life livable again.
At its heart, this podcast is about learning to live forward after loss. We never move on from the people we love, but we can learn to carry the grief differently. This road can feel incredibly lonely—but you are not alone here.
For supporters, educators, and professionals, these conversations also offer insight into the realities of suicide grief and what genuine, non-fixing support can look like.
If you’d like to share your story or expertise, you can request to be a guest through Melissa’s website.
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Content Note
This podcast speaks candidly about grief and suicide loss and may feel activating for some listeners. We avoid graphic descriptions and discussion of suicide methods. Please care for yourself as needed. Melissa is not a doctor or licensed therapist, and nothing shared here should be considered medical or mental-health advice.
The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations
[New August 2025] START HERE; Meet Melissa, Intro Episode
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This is the definitive “START HERE” episode-- the trailer if you will.
Welcome. Get THE Leftover Pieces APP & don't miss anything! CLICK HERE
If you’re a new listener, absolutely begin here.
If you’re not new—but haven’t listened to this “first” episode since before February 2025 or earlier—I’ve updated it again as of August 2025, and you just might learn something new. I hope you’ll give it another listen.
Welcome to The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations podcast.
My name is Melissa Bottorff-Arey, and I am both the creator and host of this show, which I launched in 2020 amid an unprecedented global pandemic that was both being shadowed by and working in tandem with an even more pervasive global crisis: suicide.
Today, I want to take a moment to share my story with you—a story that transformed my life in an instant, and my response so far that has ultimately brought me here, to this space, talking to you. Knowing me a little is essential if you are to trust me enough to listen to me talk about possibly the worst thing you could ever be asked to carry in life. If you are to allow me into your sacred space of grief, you deserve to hear it.
This podcast exists because having persistent, consistent, and meaningful conversations about suicide, mental health, stigma, trauma, and grief helps others feel seen and supported—and it is how we will bring about awareness and, ultimately, change.
And because we need community. It is essential in this sacred work of grief.
So, for today, this is where I’ll leave you. This episode shares who I am—and why I’m doing this. I’m so sorry you’re here, but I’m honored to hold space for you. Thank you for being here—it truly means so much.
On this podcast, we will continue to explore the questions that haunt us, seek the courage to uncover the healing tools within us, and offer the comfort of a community we all need. Come along with me—because this is so very lonely, but we do not have to be alone. Together, let’s choose to find meaning and even happiness amid the leftover pieces before us.
New in 2025:
I now also release Daily Nuggets mini-episodes multiple times a year—offering short, soul-centered reflections for grief support you can carry in your pocket.
💻 You can find me—and everything I offer—at theleftoverpieces.com:
– My 1:1 grief coaching programs (Destination: Me™ & Soul Tides™)
– The $9/month Lightho
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Get THE Leftover Pieces APP & don't miss anything! CLICK HERE
💜 The Leftover Pieces is support central for grieving hearts.
🔗 Stay connected: Join my free email community for weekly check-ins, resources, and encouragement.
🌟 For moms: Explore the $9 Lighthouse Community — safe connection, tools, and hope.
🛠 Resources for all grievers: Start here.
🤝 One-on-one grief coaching for moms after child loss to suicide: Learn more here.
📞 Need help now? If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts, dial 988 in the U.S. & Canada, or text HOME to 741741.