A podcast about guilt, caregiving, forgiveness…and discovering that sometimes surviving your family is the beginning of finding yourself.
WELCOME
I didn’t kill my mother.
But for years…
I believed I had.
This is the true story of what really happened.
Episode 01 : HOW I KILLED MY MOTHER
Told with humor, candor, and an occasional trip into the spiritual and unexplained, How I Killed My Mother explores what it means to forgive a parent, forgive yourself, survive grief, and discover that our memories of the people who raised us aren’t always the whole story.
This episode introduces the story and the journey ahead.
Start here. Then listen to Episode 2 through 24 of How I Killed My Mother.
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Let’s not lose touch.
One of the strange things about getting older is realizing how many people have passed through your life.
Friends. Family. Coworkers. Clients. Neighbors.
People you laughed with, cried with, worked with, got into trouble with—and people you simply assumed would always be around.
Then life happens. People move. We move. Years go by.
And suddenly you realize you haven’t spoken to someone you once cared about in five years. Or ten. Or twenty.
So if this podcast puts me in touch with you, I’m glad I made it.
If you’d like to stay there, leave your email below.
I’ll occasionally send you something about the podcast, my writing, what I’m working on next, or whatever strange turn my life takes from here.
No daily emails. No nonsense.
HOW I KILLED MY MOTHER is a deeply personal memoir podcast from writer and storyteller Jon-David, author of Mafia Hairdresser and The Glow Stick Gods. How I Killed My Mother is about mothers and sons, complicated family relationships, guilt, grief, forgiveness, and what happens when we finally confront the stories we’ve spent a lifetime telling ourselves.
Despite the title, this isn’t a murder podcast.
It’s the story of a son who spent years believing he was somehow responsible for his mother’s death—and the unexpected journey that followed as he began looking back at their life together, his childhood, her choices, his choices, and the complicated love between them.
Why Ordinary Things Become Precious After Someone Dies
When I was six years old, I made my mother a construction-paper Mother’s Day card. Decades later, after she died, I found it. Apparently neither of us knew what I was really giving her.Mother's Day CardMy first-grade teacher was named Mrs. Shakespeare. Yes....
When Everyone Expects You to Be the Strong One in Grief
I had spent years learning how to command a room. Then my mother died, and suddenly I wanted to disappear into one.By the time my mother died, I knew how to perform. Not perform grief. Perform, period. I had been an actor. A speaker. A writer. A producer. A public...
Caregiver Guilt: Why We Think We Should Have Known
One of the cruelest tricks grief plays on caregivers is convincing us that because we understand something now, we should have understood it then.There is a particular sentence grieving people seem to love torturing themselves with. I should have known. I should have...
Can Loved Ones Still Guide Us After Death? | Jon-David
I don’t know exactly what happens after we die. But I have developed a theory: maybe the people we love don’t stop helping us. Maybe they simply change departments.I pray to my mother. Actually, that’s not quite how I describe it anymore. I spirit-text her. That’s the...
How to Notice Signs From Loved Ones Who Have Died
I don’t consider myself psychic. I don’t think I have special powers. But over the years, I’ve become much better at noticing the things I used to dismiss.I have been around psychics. Mediums. Intuitive people. Spiritual people. People who say they can communicate...
