Stories are meant to be spoken as much as written.
Some things change when they’re said out loud.
These are conversations I’ve been invited into about Kahlia, grief, suicide, mental health and what it means to keep living when someone you love has died.
Some are quiet and reflective. Some go into the places we’re often uncomfortable talking about. Some are about grief itself, others about the systems, silence and assumptions that surround it.
I don’t have neat answers in any of them.
Just my experience, what I’ve learned, what I still question, and the things I think we need to get better at saying out loud.
Listen, watch or read whatever speaks to you. You don’t need to take it all in at once.
Remembrance Picnic
What grief actually looks like when the world keeps moving
In September 2026, I was invited to speak at a Remembrance Picnic, a gathering for people remembering those they love who have died by suicide.
For 27 minutes, I talked about Kahlia, about the reality of suicide loss, and about what grief looks like long after the casseroles stop arriving and everyone else has gone back to ordinary life.
This isn’t a polished talk about overcoming grief.
It’s me, speaking from inside it.
Watch the full talk · 27 minutes
Go With Grace Podcast
One conversation can change the way you see something.
I joined Katy Mandeno for a conversation about Kahlia, suicide, grief, and the silence that still surrounds so much of it.
We talk about what happens when suicide stops being something that happens to other people and becomes part of your own family’s story, what grief looks like from the inside, and why awareness alone isn’t enough if we’re still too uncomfortable to have the harder conversations.
This is about loss, but it’s also about what we do with what we know, how we talk about suicide, how we support people who are grieving, and what needs to change.
NZ Herald
Grief has no timeline. Neither does love.
In this NZ Herald feature, I spoke about what life looked like after Kahlia died, and the strange reality of living in a world that keeps moving when yours has changed completely.
It explores the shock and disconnection of early grief, the expectation that somehow we should move through it, and why I don't believe grief is something we eventually leave behind.
Because the person died.
The love didn't.
And perhaps learning to live with grief begins with understanding that distinction.
Emotionally Unavailable with Malisa Hepner
Pain and peace can exist in the same life.
This conversation with Malisa goes into what it means to live after a loss that changed everything.
We talk about Kahlia, mental health, trauma, and the pressure to look “okay” when your internal world bears very little resemblance to the life people can see from the outside.
But we also talk about something I've had to slowly understand, that moments of peace don't mean the grief has gone anywhere.
You can laugh and still miss them.
You can build a life and still wish desperately for the old one.
You can experience something beautiful and carry enormous pain at exactly the same time.
One doesn't cancel out the other.
This is a conversation about learning to hold both.
Listen to the conversation →
Eavesdropping with Spencer Wise
What happens when there is no fixing what happened?
In this conversation with Spencer Wise, we talk about the reality of living after suicide loss, and what “after” actually means when the person you love is still woven through every part of your life.
I talk about Kahlia, grief that doesn't resolve neatly, and the strange work of continuing to live alongside something you would give anything to change.
There is no transformation story here.
No arriving at the other side.
No version where losing her becomes okay.
There is simply the life that existed before, the life that came after, and the complicated reality of learning to carry both.
A conversation about love, loss, survival, and living with what cannot be fixed.
RNZ Life & Books
The story behind The Year After Kahlia.
In February 2026, RNZ Life & Books featured The Year After Kahlia and the story that sits behind it.
This piece explores the first year after Kahlia died, the memories I was terrified of losing, the way grief changed my sense of who I was, and why writing became somewhere to put what I couldn't otherwise hold.
It is about suicide loss and the reality of life afterwards, but also about the relationship that continues beyond death.
Because the book was never only about losing Kahlia.
It was about loving her, remembering her, and finding a way to keep telling the truth about both.
RNZ Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan
What if we understood grief better?
In this conversation with Jesse Mulligan, we move beyond what grief feels like and into how we respond to it, in ourselves and in each other.
We talk about Kahlia and suicide loss, but also about the things people often misunderstand about grief, why there is no timeline for it, what genuinely helps, and the well-intentioned responses that sometimes make things harder.
At the heart of the conversation is something simple:
We don't need to know how to fix someone's grief. We need to get better at being willing to sit beside it.
A conversation about love, continuing bonds, and how we can show up better when someone's world has changed.
Unsilence Grief
Losing an adult daughter, and refusing to make her death unspeakable.
This conversation goes back to something at the heart of everything I do, Kahlia. I talk about who she was, what it has meant to live after her suicide, and the particular reality of grieving an adult child, someone whose life was already full of history, relationships, plans, humour, complexity and a future you assumed would keep unfolding.
We also talk about suicide grief and the silence that can surround it, the things families are often left carrying, and why I believe speaking honestly matters.
Not because talking makes any of it easier.
But because Kahlia's life deserves to be spoken about, not reduced to the way she died.
The Deeper with Zoë Marshall
Living alongside what cannot be changed.
In this deeply personal conversation with Zoë Marshall, I talk about Kahlia, her death, and what it means to continue living when the shape of your life has changed completely.
We talk about grief not as something to overcome or eventually leave behind, but as something that becomes part of the life you are still living.
About love that continues.
About identity after loss.
About finding moments of life alongside enormous pain.
And about the complicated truth that continuing to live is not the same thing as leaving someone behind.
Grief isn't something I need to get over. Kahlia isn't something I need to get over.
She remains part of who I am, and so does my love for her.
Listen on The Deeper with Zoë Marshall →
Subscriber-only episode, “The Gift of the Grief”, available through The Deeper+ on Apple Podcasts.