Today's episode is Alaina's first single serving and is centered around grief and the death of a parent. 

In 2013, Alaina's father, Ed, lost his battle with Pancreatic Cancer and his death changed, well... everything. On the anniversary of his death, Alaina decided to sit down with her microphone and just talk. She talked through her experience with the dying process, feeling loss for the first time and attempting to give herself grace throughout the years. 

Grief and death is an inevitable part of life we all will go through at some point. It never gets easier, but we hope this episodes sheds a little light on a tough topic. Lean in, listen, and, when in doubt, be there for those you love. 

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says;
"There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
"Here she comes!"
And that is dying.

-Henry Van Dyke