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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
Mindfulness Shifts Grief: Reshma Kearney Guides Others
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Check out the BECAUSE THEY ARE LOVED Poetry & Letter Anthology HERE
& Get 10% OFF either (or both) with Code: PODCAST10
Now, for our episode-- Today, I’m joined by Reshma Kearney — a trauma-informed mindfulness and healing guide who helps people navigate grief and the life transitions after suicide loss with compassion and resilience. After losing her husband, Sean to suicide in 2022, Reshma has chosen to dedicated her life to creating spaces where grief can be honored, healing can be nurtured, and hope can be rediscovered. She works with adults, teens, and children, blending grief education, mental health awareness, mindful parenting, and trauma-informed support to help others live meaningful lives after loss.
Our conversation weaves through resilience, parenting, and the power of mindfulness, including:
- Age-appropriate ways to talk with kids about difficult topics, including loss
- How having mindfulness tools in place before her husband’s death — including with her children — shaped their healing journey
- Parenting through grief and why a child’s outcome is so connected to the resilience of their mom
- Her husband’s military service, including three deployments, and how that affected his mental health
- How children’s yoga became a powerful practice during the pandemic and continues to be a foundation in her family’s life
- Why skills for mourning and grief are different than skills for living and thriving — and how she supports others through one-on-one coaching
This is a heartfelt, real, and hopeful conversation about meeting grief with presence, nurturing resilience, and finding ways to live fully while carrying what we cannot change.
FIND HER HERE:
Her Instagram --- give her a follow!
Check out the BECAUSE THEY ARE LOVED Poetry & Letter Anthology HERE
& Get 10% OFF either (or both) with Code: PODCAST10
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💜 The Leftover Pieces is support for life after suicide loss. Click links below
🎙 Leave me a message: Share a question, your story, or your person’s name for a future episode → theleftoverpieces.com/voicemail
🔗 Stay connected: Join my email community for weekly support, resources, and honest conversations.
🛠 Start here: Explore website for suicide loss resources for early grief, family support, and next steps.
🤝 For moms: One-on-one grief coaching for mothers navigating life after child loss.
📞 Need support right now? If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988 (U.S. & Canada), or text HOME to 741741.