A Podcast About Loss
Conversations about losing a parent — and what comes after.
Parent loss doesn't end at the funeral. It follows you into adulthood, into your relationships, into how you show up for your own kids. Unparented is a podcast about what grief does to identity — and what's possible on the other side of it. Host Robert DelFave is a grief coach, author, and someone who lost both parents young. Every episode is an honest conversation about loss, rebuilding, and what it means to carry it forward.
The grief that follows losing a parent is one of the most universal human experiences — and one of the most isolating. We talk around it. We perform being fine. We quietly wonder if we're grieving correctly.
Unparented is a show for people who want to stop performing and start naming what's real. Each episode is a genuine conversation — with other people who've lost a parent, with grief workers, with faith leaders, with anyone who has something honest to say about what it means to carry this.
No scripts. No formulas. No tidy resolutions.
"This show exists because I needed it to exist. I couldn't find anything honest enough when my father died. So eventually I made it myself."
What you'll hear
Real conversations with people who lost a parent — not just the story of the loss, but what it did to who they are.
Solo episodes from Robert on grief, identity, and what the Carried Forward Framework looks like in real life.
Honest, unpolished conversations about what it means to build a life after losing the people who were supposed to shape you.
Who this is for
This show is for anyone who lost a parent and is still figuring out who they are because of it. Whether it happened last year or twenty years ago — if the loss is still pulling at you, you're in the right place.
Solo Episode · Robert
Ten Years of Running
Ten years away from Rochester — the place where I grew up, where my parents died, where my grandparents finished raising me. This one is just me, telling you what happened when I finally went back.
With Sylvia Wolfer
I'm Sick of Grief Taking So Much Away From Me
Sylvia lost her father at seven, her younger brother at 17, her older brother at 40, and her mother shortly after. She got angry — not at the loss, but at how much grief had taken from her. A conversation about neuroscience, grief triggers, and fighting back.
With Angie Hawkins
A Surfer's Mindset: A Lesson for Life and Grief
Angie lost her dad in 2017 and found her way through grief on a surfboard in Hawaii. A raw conversation about loss, identity, estrangement, and why the surfer's mindset might be the best metaphor for living with grief.
With Zulma Williams
Grief Is Love With Nowhere to Go
Zulma lost her mom and dad within seven years, navigating cancer, depression, and abusive relationships along the way. She reminds us that grief is love with nowhere to go — and there's nothing to "get over."
Solo Episode · Robert
Parenting After Losing a Parent
What happens when you grow up without parents and then become one yourself? I share how losing my dad at 14 and my mom in my mid-twenties shaped the way I parent my own kids.
Solo Episode · Robert
Losing My Parents Young
The first episode. I share my journey of losing both parents — my dad at 14, my mom in my mid-twenties — the loneliness of navigating life without them, and how therapy and faith helped me carry the weight.
Episode 09
Angie Hawkins
Author of Running in Slippers. On surfing, estrangement, grief, and finding her way back to light after her dad's death in 2017.
Episode 15
Liam J. Wakefield
Psychotherapist and former British Army soldier. On what happens when your identity completely fractures — and how you rebuild.
Episode 14
Erica Richmond
Founder of Open Sky Stories. On losing her ex-husband to suicide, dark humor as survival, and why she grew to resent being called resilient.
Episode 11
John DeDakis
Former CNN Senior Copy Editor. On feeling "orphaned at 45," the guilt that arrives long after you think you're fine, and grieving in silence.
Episode 10
Alan Lazaros
CEO of Next Level University. Lost his father at age two. On turning a lifetime of grief into purpose — and why the chip on his shoulder saved him.
Episode 07
Sean Foster
Single father whose wife died 12 hours after giving birth. On carrying your own grief while holding space for children who don't yet have words for theirs.
Episode 06
Zulma Williams
The Swearing Therapist. Lost both parents within seven years. On why grief is love with nowhere to go — and nothing to get over.
Episode 08
Lisa Espinosa
Writer, speaker, and grief counselor. Lost her mom at 18. On learning to carry grief instead of getting over it — and what faith actually looks like in the dark.
If something in the podcast landed for you — or if you're in the middle of grief and need a real conversation — the 30-minute discovery call is free and no-pressure.
Book a Free 30-Min Call