Welcome to Rumbel Strip, Vermont. I'm Erica Heilman.

For the last couple years, in addition to producing this show,

I've also been doing interviews for an organization called The Wake Up to Dying Project.

The basic goal of that project is to encourage people to think

and talk more about the fact that we die and at the heart of that project is a

sound exhibit that features audio stories.

Last month I did an interview for this project with a mother who had lost a baby after three weeks of

life.

I was incredibly nervous about this interview and I realized not very proudly that I was worried

that by talking about the loss of this child I'd feel even more afraid of it than I already do with my own son.

I didn't want to be that close to something that scared me so much.

Well, I did the interview, and I left the interview feeling strangely comforted.

There is something comforting in talking about this thing we try so hard not to think about,

and though there's much sadness and confusion in this story, there's also

tremendous resilience and love. This is Susie Walrab. She's a painter and she lives with her family in the deep woods of Callis, Vermont.

18 years ago, she lost her son, Grayson, to a virus after three weeks of life.

Here are excerpts from our conversation. Welcome.

Would you be comfortable starting with the story?

Sure. I had one child, Forrest, and he was two and a half years old,

and I was pregnant and do with Grayson and three weeks before his due date I all of a sudden

started to experience really extreme abdominal. It was extreme. It was as if someone

were stabbing me in the belly with knives. It was so extremely rushed to the

...