The Good-Bye

by Moonpie Media

Mental Health Society & Culture

Season 2

Losing a Son: A Father's Grief | Chris Cutino

Vincent Cutino was twenty-three years old, smart, funny, fiercely loyal, just finding his footing, when he collapsed at the gym and never came home. What followed for his father, Chris, was the kind of grief that turns the world upside down and makes everything that came before feel like a different life entirely. Chris Cutino is a husband, a father, and the author of Vincent's Bookends, a memoir he never intended to write. It began as notes rattling around in his head, a way to make space for whatever healing might eventually mean. It became something much more. In this conversation, Chris talks about the fog of those first hours, the unexpected loneliness of being surrounded by people, the guilt, jealousy, and comparative grief he didn't expect to feel, and what it means to rebuild when the fairytale you promised your family is no longer possible. He also talks about what the small things, a cereal bar in the cabinet, a dog looking down the hallway, can do to a person who is trying to survive. Vincent's Bookends is available now. Learn more at thegoodbyepodcast.com.

Surviving the Opioid Crisis in Appalachia | Jabe Largen

Content warning: discussion of addiction. Jabe Largen grew up on a hillside in Appalachian Virginia surrounded by family, beauty, and loss. By his early teens, drugs had become the only thing that made him feel like himself. By his twenties, he had nothing left. And then, four months clean, standing in a small wooden church by a creek, something shifted. He is now a United Methodist minister, a husband, a father, and the author of They Call Me Jabe: A Hillbilly Tale of Life, Death, and Grace, a memoir tracing the unlikely thread connecting addiction, death, grief, and grace across a single life. In this conversation, Jabe talks about what it felt like when OxyContin hit Appalachia and changed everything, what he found on the other side of rock bottom, and what it means to sit with the dying as someone who has spent years staring down his own darkness. He also shares the story of a hospice patient, a Popsicle, and two words that have never left him: for what? To learn more about Jabe and his memoir, visit thegoodbyepodcast.com.

The Medical Athlete: Living With Chronic Disease | Valen Keefer

Valen Keefer was ten years old when a diagnosis quietly rewired the rest of her life. What followed was decades of hospital rooms, surgeries, and a body that kept asking more of her than most people are ever asked to give. Valen was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD) in childhood, spent eight months hospitalized at eighteen, lost both kidneys, and lived on dialysis until a living donor came forward. She has now carried a transplanted kidney for more than twenty-three years, and when her liver began failing in her mid-thirties, she went through it all again. Today she's a patient advocate, speaker, and podcaster who works with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to represent the patient voice within the PKD and transplant communities. In this conversation, Valen talks about the version of herself she imagines might have existed without illness, the isolation of looking well while feeling anything but, and what it means to call yourself a "medical athlete" running a lifelong marathon. She also talks about a recent two-week hospital stay, the clarity that arrives in a crisis, and what she'd tell the 19-year-old version of herself who couldn't yet imagine a future worth dreaming about. To learn more about Valen and her advocacy work, visit thegoodbyepodcast.com.

A Humanist Chaplain on Death Row | D.S. Moss

Most guests this season arrived at grief through loss. Devin "D.S." Moss arrived through curiosity, a hunch that facing death head-on might be the most life-giving thing a person could do. Devin is a humanist chaplain, a former Marine, a filmmaker, and the host of the death-curious podcast The Adventures of Memento Mori. What began as a personal project on mortality eventually led him somewhere he never expected: a ten-month relationship with a man on death row, and ultimately, the room where that relationship ended. In this conversation about grief, death, and presence, Devin talks about what chaplaincy actually asks of a person when there's nothing left to fix, how an unlikely encounter reshaped the direction of his life, and what it means to show up fully for someone in their final moments without trying to save them, fix them, or look away. He also talks about what he's still carrying from that experience, his ongoing struggle with the concept of hope, and what he came to believe about the connection between how we die and how we live. To learn more about Devin's work, including The Adventures of Memento Mori and his chaplaincy practice, visit thegoodbyepodcast.com.

80 Percent Burned: A Face & Hand Transplant | Joe DiMeo

Joe DiMeo was eighteen, driving home from an overnight shift, when he fell asleep at the wheel. The crash left him with third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body. His hands and his face were gone. What followed was months in a coma, a burn unit, and a recovery that asked him to relearn how to walk, eat, and exist in a body that no longer resembled the one he'd had. Two years later, Joe became the first person in the world to successfully receive a combined face and double hand transplant in a single surgery. It was a 23-hour operation involving more than 140 doctors and staff, made possible by a donor's family he'd never met. This conversation isn't really about the accident, or even the transplant. It's about what comes after—the strange work of grieving a face and a set of hands while learning to live inside new ones, the identity questions nobody prepares you for, and the daily discipline of rebuilding a life that looks nothing like the one you planned. Joe talks candidly about resilience without polish, about what he still struggles with, and about the people who carried him through the parts he couldn't carry himself. More on Joe's story at thegoodbyepodcast.com.

The Good-Bye: Signal Award Voting

We've been nominated for a Signal Award in the Mental Health category for Limited Series and Specials! For every nomination, there's also a Listener's Choice award, and the voting deadline is Thursday, October 15th. Here is the link for our show: Mental Health Category Thank you so much for listening and voting!

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