 |
Life After Loss
By Natalie s. Knudsen
Photo by Jeff Silker
When she was twelve years old, her grandfather’s brother shot his wife on the church steps as she left Mass. After learning that there had been threats of violence reported to police but ignored, she wondered why. A social worker was born the day her great-aunt was killed.
“While other kids were reading mysteries and novels at the public library, I spent my time researching human suffering pertaining to violence, social issues and crime,” remembers Carolyn Carlson from Owatonna, Minnesota, host of the radio show Life after Loss. “I kept wondering why no one had helped my great-aunt even though she had asked the police for help.”
Learning about loss
After graduating from high school, Carolyn considered becoming a nun. But the idea was put aside when one of her high school teachers said she’d never amount to much. At twenty she married her high school sweetheart Lee and they started farming and raising a family in Meeker County, Minnesota.
On their fifth anniversary with three children under the age of three, the bank presented them with a foreclosure notice on their farming operation. “Farming was a life we both wanted and for the first time I really questioned my faith,” Carolyn points out. “Why did God let this happen to us? We lost everything and moved to Willmar while Lee went back to school earning a degree in accounting.”
After relocating to Owatonna where her husband found work, Carolyn began speaking out about farmers losing their farms in the farm crisis of the 1980s. “I spoke to religious groups and anyone else who would listen about the devastating impact of losing a farm and a way of life,” she says.
Carolyn shares this bit of wisdom, “It’s been said that people have religion until they face a life-changing loss and then they have faith.”
Training for a life of social work
Carolyn started out as a trainee for a crisis line helping callers deal with all types of crisis including battered women and sexual assault victims but soon became the crisis line training coordinator. “This work just fed my soul,” remembers Carolyn, “I felt this was my calling.”
Enrolling in Mankato State University to earn her degree in social work was easy, the biggest hurdle was driving alone the one hour each way to Mankato to attend classes.
“The first time I had to go to Mankato, I begged my husband to drive me but he just handed me a map and said, ‘You can do it,’” she says now with a laugh. “At the time I hated him, yet driving alone to my destination was empowering and I’ve never looked back.”
After working in homeless prevention, as a medical social worker and in hospice bereavement, Carolyn felt she needed some time off from the “loss” found in all areas of social work. After a year break, she was back working this time with the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention program. She recalls thinking throughout her time in hospice and suicide prevention that she needed a way to reach out to larger groups of people experiencing pain in their lives.
“Sitting in the kitchen of a family who’d lost a loved one to suicide, I began praying for a way to reach more people dealing with loss in their lives,” explains Carolyn. “I said if this is my path then show me the way to do something about it.” Slowly, small speaking engagements presented themselves and she began to consider the idea of a radio program.
Life After Loss
Carolyn says that when she approached a colleague in New York about the idea of a radio show on death, dying and bereavement, she was told that all of the market research indicated that it wouldn’t work. People didn’t want to hear about death and loss.
After an interview on grief and loss on The Talk of the Town with Pete Steiner at KTOE Radio in Mankato, Minnesota, she thought this was the opening she had been praying about. After a meeting, Mike Perry, KTOE station manager, and Pete agreed to give her new program a seven-week trial run. “They were doubtful that the program could be successful and told me in no uncertain terms that I had seven shows in which to prove myself,” stresses Carolyn.
After four weeks, they gave her the go ahead for an unlimited number of shows. The response from listeners was overwhelming.
The Life After Loss with Carolyn Carlson radio show explores and celebrates the resiliency, faith and healing associated with loss in people’s lives. From interviews with trauma and loss experts Dr. Francine Shapiro, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Ira Byock and Dr. Alan Wolfelt and people with Minnesota ties including Linda Walker, Dru Sjodin’s mother, to celebrities including Judy Collins, The Lennon Sisters, Mariette Hartley, Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister Denise Brown, Rhonda Britten and Melody Beattie everyone agrees this subject has to be talked about.
“All of these people are yearning to tell their stories,” stresses Carolyn. “They’ve gone through difficult times and changed so much that they want others to learn from their experiences.”
And how does a local Minnesota radio show attract big name celebrities? “I believe there’s a group of angels making my connections,” Carolyn says with a smile. “The agents for these celebrities are contacting me and there are links on their web sites to our show.”
The Life After Loss radio show is broadcast live on KTOE 1420 AM Monday afternoons at 1:35 p.m. and can be accessed by anyone in the world through their Web site www.ktoe.com. In addition, the shows are archived for playback access at anytime.
Subscribe today! |
