Grief and Rebirth: Finding the Joy in Life · Podgo

The Grief No One Prepares You For When a Friend Dies

April 1, 2026·32 min·2 clips

Hannah's iPhone contact photo updated itself on her friend's birthday with a picture of them together.

Lauren is the center here. Irene Weinberg talks with Hannah Rumsey, a Chicago-based writer, podcaster, certified grief educator, and founder and director of Friends of Grief. Hannah's grief work began in 2015, after her beloved friend Lauren died. She calls friend-loss grief disenfranchised, the kind of sorrow people often fail to respect because the relationship does not fit the usual script. That dismissal landed hard. One exchange made her feel pushed aside, and Irene does not dress it up. She simply agrees that people often misunderstand another person's grief. The conversation stays close to that wound. Hannah describes years of despair and isolation before writing gave her a way to keep living with the loss. She began tiny. A five-minute story in class brought so many tears that people could barely make out what she was saying. She kept going anyway. That first broken telling became a ten-minute story, then a fifteen-minute story, then a full one-hour show. Her body was in it too. She says those early pieces could hurt as if every cell ached. Moving through them slowly changed what felt possible. Irene notices the courage in that, especially for a shy person standing in public to speak about a beloved friend. Nothing here is neat. The healing comes in baby steps, repetition, shaky public honesty, and the gradual ability to stay coherent while still grieving. Friends of Grief grows from that need, turning one friendship, one death, and one long ache into a podcast and community for people grieving a friend.

As heard by us

A clear look at friend-loss grief and the slow work of turning pain into words.

Hannah Rumsey's account gives clear shape to friend-loss grief, naming it as disenfranchised and often overlooked. It follows the loss of her friend Lauren and the isolation that can settle in when others do not know how to meet that kind of pain.

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Why you'd press play

When friend loss feels invisible, this episode gives that grief a name and a place.

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