The festive season carries such a high expectation of joy that can feel inaccessible for so many grievers. In this previously-recorded live edition of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon gathers with community to create a warm space for us to sit with our loves and our losses in the company of those who also know suffering.  Join Scalawag and Nnenna Freelon in Durham, North Carolina, on Sunday, December 10 for "Great Grief—Live! Home for the Holidays," a live music performance and uplifting conversation exploring loss, love, and how to move forward with grief during the holidays. Reserve your ti ..read more

How do we communicate with those who have “gone?” Is it even possible? In this episode of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon sets about asking the moon, the sun, and even the leaves how she might get in touch with her beloved Phil. If grief shows us that time isn’t linear, maybe sorrow is more than a season. Maybe it’s a portal.  Join Scalawag and Nnenna Freelon in Durham, North Carolina, on Sunday, December 10 for "Great Grief—Live! Home for the Holidays," a live music performance and uplifting conversation exploring loss, love, and how to move forward with grief during the holidays. Reserve y ..read more

Grief can take us to our knees—right back to the dirt, dust, and the earth, from which all things grow. In this episode of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon consults Mother Nature—and a Black woman hemp farmer—to lean into how we might grow on even in harsh environments and bitter seasons. Join Scalawag and Nnenna Freelon in Durham, North Carolina, on Sunday, December 10 for "Great Grief—Live! Home for the Holidays," a live music performance and uplifting conversation exploring loss, love, and how to move forward with grief during the holidays. Reserve your tickets today. This is episode thre ..read more

In this episode of Great Grief, we follow Nnenna Freelon on a walk through the woods, where she contemplates autumn, the changing of the seasons, and the possibility of renewal after everything dies. Read a transcript of this episode. Join Scalawag and Nnenna Freelon in Durham, North Carolina, on Sunday, December 10 for "Great Grief—Live! Home for the Holidays," a live music performance and uplifting conversation exploring loss, love, and how to move forward with grief during the holidays. Reserve your tickets today. This is episode one in the second four-episode season of Great Grief with N ..read more

Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, season 2: "Seasons of Change," launches November 28, 2023. The seasons are changing, an apt metaphor to talk about the shedding, withering, and falling away that accompanies the most painful parts of grief. In the latest series of Great Grief, Nnenna looks to nature and the cyclical movement of time to delve deeper into loss, creating rituals and making discoveries that help us reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the ones we’ve lost.  For many people, holidays are a time of celebration marked by family, faith, and food. This time of year can als ..read more

The podcast Great Grief takes shape around Nnenna’s own great grief, which she experienced after the death of her husband, Philip Freelon, in 2019. A wife for nearly 40 years, Nnenna wonders in this episode what to make of the term "widow."Perhaps loss does not make her into a widow. Perhaps it is turning her into something else altogether. Read a transcript of this episode. This is episode four in our four-part season of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, "Wailing Women," exploring the profound beauty and irreparable losses we experience as Black women through story and song. Listen to all fo ..read more

Our relationship with our hair is a complicated entanglement. It holds our history, personality, and identity. It also holds our grief. In this episode, "Hairstory," Nnenna sits us down in the chair at her mother’s beauty salon, where for generations, Black women have celebrated one another and have gathered to discuss hair—the grief over it, and the grief under it.  Read a transcript of this episode. This is episode three in our four-part season of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, "Wailing Women," exploring the profound beauty and irreparable losses we experience as Black women through ..read more

No woman makes it through life without a sister. In grieving the death of her baby sister, Nnenna alights on all the ways Black women experience sisterhood. Through faith, family, and struggle, we inhabit a deep solidarity that allows us to hold one another close, even at the very end. Read a transcript of this episode. This is episode two in our four-part season of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, "Wailing Women," exploring the profound beauty and irreparable losses we experience as Black women through story and song. Listen to all four episodes, touching on the shock of widowhood, the bitt ..read more

Grief is a woman with plenty to say. This shape-shifting step-sister of ours wasn’t originally a part of the plan, but now she is coming with—no choice there. But did you know you also have the ability to shape your grief? It's true, but first, you must be willing to meet her where she lives. In this episode of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon asks us to consider what happens if we stop running from our grief, sit down, and listen to her for a change. Read a transcript of this episode. This is episode one in our four-part season of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, "Wailing Women," exploring ..read more

Grief is your shape-shifting step-sister. While she wasn't originally part of the plan, now she is coming with—no choice there. In order to shape your grief, you must first be willing to meet her where she lives. With "Wailing Women," the first four-part installment of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon uses story and song to explore the profound beauty and irreparable losses we experience as Black women. When grief has broken not only the lover's heart but the sister's heart, the little girl, and the woman self, these layers live in thick and disorderly kinship. How does a sister speak to the widow ..read more