Kelly loved her dad, then she lost her dad. Kelly loved her grandpa, then she lost her grandpa. Now that Kelly’s a mom herself, she wants to ensure that her son knows he’s loved, no matter what comes.

There are some stories so plainly horrifying, some crimes so gut wrenching, that it can be hard to imagine the perpetrator as anything other than a villain. A drunk driving accident that killed 6 people does not sound like the beginning of a redemption story. But this episode isn’t about redemption — it’s about learning to live alongside an unthinkable mistake.

When Laura gets a call from the hospital telling her that her dad has severe frostbite and could die, Laura is shocked. Not because of the whole frostbite part ... but because her dad is alive. She hasn't seen or talked to him in years and honestly assumed he was long dead.

This is a story about what happens when we realize our parents are, in fact, real people — and that real people mess up and make mistakes.

Jamie Hahn was 29 years old when she was murdered by Jonathan Broyhill — the guy who had been the best man in her wedding to her husband, Nation.

The intrigue surrounding Jamie's death and her killer's subsequent murder trial created non-stop news fodder ... and the story quickly became about Broyhill — his lies, his deception, his crimes.

Nation wanted to tell his and Jamie's story without putting her murderer at the center of it. And in this episode, he does exactly that.

Religion often gives people a sense of belonging. It tells them who’s in and sometimes (depending on the faith, or depending on the microcosm of the faith they're raised in) who's out.

That's how Patricia grew up — in a faith where leaving your religion meant leaving behind everyone you love. She is a former Jehovah’s Witness who left the church when she was in her mid-20s.

This episode looks at what's worse: keeping the people you love at a distance, or showing them your true colors and losing them forever.

Charlotte’s career is built on theoreticals. As an operating room nurse, she has a protocol for every tragedy — a “then” for every “if.”

That all changes one night when, on her way home, Charlotte encounters a teenage girl on the wrong side of a guardrail on an overpass above a highway.

Charlotte wasn’t this girl’s mother, or sister, or best friend. She didn’t even know her. But Charlotte was the last person who spoke to the girl before she died. She was THERE. And now, she doesn't know how to get back to the way her life used to be.

The Achilli siblings would like you to know that if there was a Dead Parent Contest (there's not), they would win the gold medal. In 2008, their dad was murdered by a hitman in a dispute over a girlfriend. Four years after their father's killers are tried and convicted, their mom dies after driving her car off a cliff.

This is a story about being orphaned as young adults and the family ties that keep siblings together.

Grieving is a lonely experience. Many of us who have been through it wish there was a handbook to lead us through the experience. When comedy writer Jason Roeder lost his mom, he decided to write the guidebook that he wanted to read.

This episode of Terrible Reading Club is a chat with Jason about his book Griefstrike!, a humorous guide to grief.

Jason Roeder is comedy writer, and is the former senior writer and editor of The Onion.

In April 2022, Marlin Sill’s father died from a head injury caused by a cycling accident. A few weeks later, he embarked on a months-long hike through the Western United States. Throughout last summer, Marlin sent the TTFA team voice memos of himself processing his dad’s death while he hiked. In this episode we take you on the trail with Marlin as he starts to grieve, and also throughout the rest of the first year without his dad.

Nora's dad died in 2014 from pretty much all of the cancers, leaving her mom Margaret without her life partner of almost 50 years ... and leaving Nora without a dad. Does a 40-year-old married woman with four children of her own need a father figure in her life? Nora thinks so! But what does Margaret have to say about dating as a widow in your 70s?