Met My Brother At 51

A middle school Spanish teacher calls before first period to talk with Gethard about her deskless classroom, eating chocolate in front of her students, and finding an identity beyond teaching through slam poetry. Plus: a treacherous hike and an even more treacherous situationship ...  Show more

Smoking a cigar on a riverbank in Alaska, this caller tells Gethard about the therapist's offhand suggestion that sent him north, and the long, rambling road that led him there. From sleeping in a college library to living on Greyhound buses, with many stops in between, he and Ge ...  Show more

<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The 31-year-old tells her first-hand account of her brother's suicide 11 years ago, the unrelenting flashbacks she experienced, feeling suicidal herself, good and bad therapy, and how her current career helps t ...

In this Esther Calling, we meet a woman who feels that her brother's wife is standing in the way of her relationship with her brother. For years, she has compared the closeness she shares with her brother to all of her romantic relationships. And because of it she has found herse ...  Show more

Dear Steve and Shirley, for the past year I have been sleeping with my best friend's little sister. When I went to college, I lost all contact with her until we reconnected last year at her brother's 4th of July party. I hadn't seen this woman since she was a young girl and my oh ...  Show more

The loss of a sibling can be devastating. It means the severing of a shared history and common memories. But the grief can be overshadowed by that of children, parents and partners. Kim Chakanetsa talks to an Irish writer and an academic from Botswana about how the death of a ...