Heroes in Grief

Patricia Mazza Vlamis is an artist and photographer who aspires to use her talents to help others
As an adult bereaved as a child, others who have experienced loss at a young age are near and dear to her heart. Her hope is that this book will help them process their feelings and remember their loved ones who have died. She is on a mission to create more resources for grieving children.
Pat's Book - My Memory Journal: A Coloring Book for Children Who Have Experienced Loss and Grief: https://amzn.to/4sI4FIB
Pat's Portfolio: https://pmazzavlamis.myportfolio.com/
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Please consider supporting the podcast here: https://buymeacoffee.com/heroesingrief
NEW!!! Purchase the book Tom is in 'Stories of Friends and Family Lost': https://amzn.to/3SXtG1v
Heroes in Grief: www.heroesingrief.com
Contact Tom: [email protected]
Tom's GriefTalks page (Book Tom as your Guest Speaker): https://www.facebook.com/tombendergrieftalks
Our partner 'Get Griefy Magazine': www.getgriefymagazine.com
Get Griefy Collective (Business Collective for anyone helping those in grief): https://get-griefy-small-business-collective.mn.co/share/d6W3Hzr6rS1NIhee?utm_source=manual
You also can help support Heroes in Grief by using our affiliate links to wherever you do your online shopping or ordering. Message Tom at [email protected] to inquire or get a link. No extra charges or any cost to you!
Visit the Heroes in Grief shop for products discussed on the podcast & Tom's suggestions: https://linktr.ee/heroesingrief/shop
Thank you!!!

Amy Shaw never set out to become an expert in navigating life’s hardest seasons, but through profound personal loss she gained deep insight into resilience, rebuilding, and purposeful living. She learned how to move forward with clarity, strength, and hope when circumstances offered no easy answers.
Today, Amy is a keynote speaker, author, coach, and contemporary artist who brings both compassion and perspective to her work. Her expertise is shaped by years of navigating caregiving, loss, leadership, and rebuilding—both personally and professionally—and by walking alongside others through seasons of grief, transition, strained relationships, financial pressure, and overwhelming family challenges. She helps people gain clarity, regain footing, and move forward with purpose.
Known for her warmth, creativity, and grounded presence, Amy brings depth, joy, and an unmistakable sense of life to everything she does. Her work is shaped by faith, lived experience, and a deep belief that even in the most difficult seasons, meaningful growth and lasting impact are possible.
Amy's Links:
Website - Walk the Red: https://walkthered.com/
Book - Navigating Goodbye - A Guide for those Blindsided by Terminal Illness: https://amzn.to/3Z7LOZG
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/walktheredcoaching
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-shaw-295270347/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@grainofwheat
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Please consider supporting the podcast here: https://buymeacoffee.com/heroesingrief
NEW!!! Purchase the book Tom is in 'Stories of Friends and Family Lost': https://amzn.to/3SXtG1v
Heroes in Grief: www.heroesingrief.com
Contact Tom: [email protected]
Tom's GriefTalks page (Book Tom as your Guest Speaker): https://www.facebook.com/tombendergrieftalks
Our partner 'Get Griefy Magazine': www.getgriefymagazine.com
Get Griefy Collective (Business Collective for anyone helping those in grief): https://get-griefy-small-business-collective.mn.co/share/d6W3Hzr6rS1NIhee?utm_source=manual
You also can help support Heroes in Grief by using our affiliate links to wherever you do your online shopping or ordering. Message Tom at [email protected] to inquire or get a link. No extra charges or any cost to you!
Visit the Heroes in Grief shop for products discussed on the podcast & Tom's suggestions:

Karen Bulinski Mathison was born in Buffalo, New York, and has spent her life learning that grief doesn't follow a timeline—it shatters one.
She lost her husband to a brain aneurysm. She lost her father to cancer on Christmas, her 50th birthday. She lost the last man she loved, suddenly and without warning. She's navigated pet loss, miscarriage, secondary grief, and the isolation that comes when the world moves on but you're still standing in the wreckage.
But loss also taught her something else: that raw, authentic grief work transforms everything.
Karen holds a Master's Degree in Mental Health & Wellness with an emphasis in Grief & Bereavement from Grand Canyon University. She's a Certified Death Doula through IAP Career College, a Certified Life Coach, and holds certifications in Art Therapy Coaching and Emotional Trauma First Aid.
She combines clinical expertise with lived experience—she's studied grief academically and survived it personally. That combination is rare. That combination is powerful.
In 2024, Karen founded The Naked Grief, a comprehensive grief support platform built on a simple truth: grief support should be raw, authentic, accessible, and unapologetic.
The Naked Grief's dark, heavy logo isn't accidental. It represents that initial impact—the moment loss rocks hard and cuts like glass. But the communities within are brighter and lighter because support changes the shape of your grief backpack, making it less heavy to carry. It doesn't erase the weight. It makes it bearable.
Karen is most proud of three things:
The RAW Experience Podcast — Co-hosted with spiritual healer Melissa Bishop, this podcast dissects Friends episodes to identify disenfranchised grief and demonstrate how unaddressed life challenges create a spiral effect. It's grief education disguised as entertainment, reaching people who wouldn't otherwise seek help.
The Grief Garden Series — A collection of short stories and creative tools that help people identify the array of emotions experienced during grief as companions walking with us on our healing journey. Characters like Hope, Love, Faith, Resilience, and Pain become guides through loss.
Global Grief Awareness — Her mission to make discussing grief a common dialogue that occurs before loss, not just after. Prevention through conversation. Preparation through community.

Karen is passionate about one thing: disenfranchised grief—all the losses that come with or separate from the death of a person. The lost promotion due to grief brain. The warning at work because productivity suffered. The trauma and isolation that happens when employers and society don't recognize grief as legitimate.
She believes that mental health support in the workplace isn't a luxury—it's a retention strategy, a productivity multiplier, and a basic act of humanity. When people feel seen and supported through life's hardest moments, they don't just survive. They transform.
Karen was born in Buffalo, New York, and plans to eventually join her family in Holy Trinity Cemetery in Lewiston, Niagara County—a full-circle return to her roots and a reminder that grief, legacy, and connection are all intertwined.
She's honored to be here with Tom Bender and the Heroes in Grief community, talking about the losses nobody talks about and the support everyone deserves.
Karen's links:
Website: thenakedgrief.com
Support Assessment:

With over five years of experience companioning others in grief, Terri believes that healing begins not with fixing, but with feeling. Her work is not about offering quick solutions or rushing through sorrow. It is about holding space gently and patiently, without judgment. She witnesses grief in all its rawness and stays present with it, honoring each person's pain as sacred and deeply personal.
Terri’s understanding of grief is not only professional, it is deeply personal. She has experienced profound loss herself, including the deaths of her first husband, her son, her father, and her sister. Each loss shaped her perspective and deepened her compassion. Through her own healing journey, Terri learned that grief doesn’t have a timeline and that love doesn’t end when life does. Her personal experiences allow her to meet others in their grief with genuine empathy, a tender heart, and the knowing that healing is not about moving on, but about learning to live fully while carrying the love forward.
Her approach to grief support is rooted in presence and trust. She listens with her heart, not just her ears. This companioning model, one of walking beside rather than leading or pushing, is central to everything she does. Whether in private sessions, community workshops, or conversations sparked by her writing, she offers a steady presence, a soft place to land, and a reminder that you do not have to go through it alone.
Terri has had the privilege of co-authoring the best-selling book Unstoppable and sharing her voice in various publications. Yet the deepest honor comes in the quiet moments when someone allows her into their grief. When they cry. When they reflect. When they trust her enough to let their guard down. Terri believes in the possibility of healing, not by forgetting or getting over it, but by learning how to carry both the love and the loss forward.
As a Grief Companion & Educator, Terri also teaches others how to walk beside the grieving through her accredited certification programs. These programs reflect the same heart-centered, presence-based philosophy that guides her own work. It is a sacred privilege for her to walk beside someone in their grief, to witness their heartache, and to remind them that even in the midst of sorrow, they are never alone.
Terri's links:
Website: https://www.myhealingheartscommunity.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terri.chaplin/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griefcoachterri/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresa-terri-chaplin-54043352/
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Please consider supporting the podcast here: https://buymeacoffee.com/heroesingrief
NEW!!! Purchase the book Tom is in 'Stories of Friends and Family Lost': https://amzn.to/3SXtG1v
Heroes in Grief: www.heroesingrief.com
Contact Tom: [email protected]
Tom's GriefTalks page (Book Tom as your Guest Speaker):

Graham Maxey is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas and Pennsylvania and the Clinical Director for the Center for Grief and Traumatic Loss in Libertyville, Illinois. He holds a B.A and an M.Div. degree from Texas Christian University, and an M.A. in Behavioral Science from the University of Houston/Clear Lake. Part of his job as Clinical Director is to train licensed mental health workers in the Induced After Death Communication therapy technique discovered by Dr. Allan Botkin, Psy.D. He lives in Arlington, Texas with his wife, Shannon, who is a certified grief counselor and evidential psychic medium.
Mr. Maxey has trained therapists in the IADC method all over the United States and Canada, as well as in Turin, Italy at the University of Turin, and in Germany at the Milton Erickson Institute in Heidelburg.
Graham was invited to produce the program for Humana Medicare insurance on healthy grieving presented in all 39 Humana Neighborhood Learning Centers across the United States and trained all Learning Center directors in its presentation. He was the leader for Humana’s associate grief support group from 2015-2021. As part of the Humana Clinical Education series for licensed mental health associates Mr. Maxey presented on the topic of Counseling Clients Who Have Had Spiritually Transformative Experiences.
Graham has been a speaker at the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling conference in 2017, and his address to the International Association for Near-Death Studies in 2015 is still available on YouTube. He co-authored Case Studies in Induced After Death Communication Therapy for the journal Grief Matters: The Australian Journal of Grief and Bereavement. Grief Matters. He is the featured IADC therapist in the documentary film by Stephen Berkley, Life with Ghosts: The Healing Power of After-Death Communication, scheduled to be aired on PBS.
He has written two books awaiting publication: Seasons of the Soul: The Repeating Cycle of Psychospiritual Development, and Five Great Things Anyone Can Get from Listening to the Dead—the Mental Health of After Death Communication.
Contact Graham:
growtherapy: http://www.growtherapy.com/
Email: [email protected]
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Please consider supporting the podcast here: https://buymeacoffee.com/heroesingrief
NEW!!! Purchase the book Tom is in 'Stories of Friends and Family Lost': https://amzn.to/3SXtG1v
Heroes in Grief: www.heroesingrief.com
Contact Tom: [email protected]
Tom's GriefTalks page (Book Tom as your Guest Speaker): https://www.facebook.com/tombendergrieftalks
Our partner 'Get Griefy Magazine': www.getgriefymagazine.com
Get Griefy Collective (Business Collective for anyone helping those in grief):