Ep. 359 Unburying My Father: A Grief Project with Zander Masser

End-of-Life University

Learn how discovering his father’s old slides helped Zander heal his longstanding grief and understand his father’s story.

My guest Zander Masser is an occupational therapist, husband, father, musician and author of the newly released narrative photography book Unburying My Father. The book chronicles his 10-year project of exploring his own grief while sorting through ten thousand slides he found in his father’s basement. Today he shares how this project helped him find new perspective on his grief and how he is helping others use storytelling and creativity to heal their grief. Learn more at his website:

www.randymasserphoto.com

Get the book here

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Listen here:

This episode includes:

• What Zander learned about his father through this project
• How Zander gathered stories for the book
• How learning his father’s hidden stories helped Zander better appreciate his photography
• The trauma experienced by his father because of his diagnosis
• How this book has given a voice to Zander’s father and made meaning of his entire life
• How new layers of grief have emerged since undertaking this project
• The shift from focusing on our loved one’s death to focusing on their life
• How Zander was unprepared at age 14 to go through grief therapy because his family had almost never talked about his father’s illness and death
• How to use creativity and stories to explore grief
• How objects from the past can help us tell stories about our loved ones
• How Zander used social media to begin putting this story out to the world
• What medical providers can improve upon to help children deal with grief over the death of a loved one

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Sign up for Grief Coach: www.grief.coach/eolu
• Hemophilia Association of New York

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