Podcast: How to Talk with Your Kids About Death and Loss (Alyson Punzi)

September 22, 2025 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Teaching Your Kids to Hope in What Is True Through Grief

In this podcast Alyson Punzi talks about how she has clung to the Lord through immense grief after the loss of her husband and how this has shaped her parenting. Alyson discusses how to lead a child through the pain of loss to the hope of the Gospel and how her new book He Always Hears teaches children to rely on God through pain by remembering the redemptive story of the whole Bible.

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He Always Hears

He Always Hears

Alyson Punzi

In this poignant picture book, Jane faces challenges when her seemingly perfect life takes a difficult turn. With the help of her parents, she learns how to lament and make her pain known to God.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:41 - A Story of Loss and Hope

Matt Tully
Alyson Punzi is an author who is passionate about discipleship and theology. She became a widow in 2022 after her husband, Frank, who was also a pastor, died suddenly of leukemia. She now writes on lament, grief, and single motherhood. Her new book is a picture book for kids called He Always Hears: A Story of Loss and the Hope of Things Made New from Crossway. Alyson, thanks so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Alyson Punzi
Thanks for having me.

Matt Tully
You’ve written this new book. It’s beautifully written, but it’s also just incredibly practical and helpful for kids. I’m excited to talk about the book in a little bit. But I think before we get into the book itself, it would probably be helpful to know a little bit more about your own story, which really connects to the book in an important way and kind of serves as the foundation for why you wrote this book and how you approach the book itself. So to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about your husband, Frank?

Alyson Punzi
I met my husband working at camp, and we were both Bible students at Cedarville University. We got married while we were still in college. I was twenty. We finished college. He took a pastoral job. He was a youth and worship pastor in Ohio. During COVID he started that job, and we also had a baby, and we moved.

Matt Tully
A lot going on all at once.

Alyson Punzi
All the things all at once during a pandemic.

Matt Tully
So you had your daughter, Lois, in the middle of 2020?

Alyson Punzi
June of 2020.

Matt Tully
So just a couple months after everything kind of shut down.

Alyson Punzi
Yeah. I wouldn’t recommend doing all those things all at the same time, much less during a pandemic.

Matt Tully
And so then in June of 2022, while traveling as a family, something happened. I wonder if you could share about that.

Alyson Punzi
We were in New Jersey for a wedding, and I found Frank having a stroke. I called 911, took him to the hospital, and that really started this massive ball rolling of what went wrong? He was twenty-five years old, there was no clear reason, and all of the easy answers weren’t the answers. So through that they were able to find out that he had cancer—a rare and aggressive kind of leukemia that was behaving in some unpredicted ways, which was causing some strokes.

Matt Tully
As you look back on that season when you were trying to figure out what was going on and I know he was in and out of the hospital a little bit, do you remember what that was like for you—hyou processed that with him and with your young, young daughter?

Alyson Punzi
Those early days, when we knew he was very, very, very sick and he most likely had cancer but before we knew what cancer it was, I felt like we were just kind of in a constant state of panic, waiting for that next emergency. We were blessed with family that really took care of our daughter so I could be in the hospital. She wasn’t allowed in the hospital, and I could just take care of him because my daughter was taken care of. So we didn’t really have time to stop and talk to her about it. She had not even turned two yet. She was about turn two, and we thought, She’s having the time of her life with her grandparents. We’ll talk about it later. And that was kind of our strategy. We’ll be honest if she asks questions, but we’re not going to sit her down and talk to her about what cancer is right now. We want her to enjoy coloring with daddy, even if coloring with daddy is in the hospital or maybe watching a movie. All those things happened in the hospital, but we weren’t having those deep conversations.

Matt Tully
And at that age, kids are pretty flexible and maybe easygoing. They don’t always ask some of those questions about what’s going on.

Alyson Punzi
She asked some questions about things she noticed, like the tubes and the medicines and the bruises and stuff like that. But other than that, she wasn’t asking these deep, theological questions. They were all practical questions, wanting to know what’s happening. And we were still processing. We were still trying to figure out what was going on. And there was just so much panic feeling and trying to work through that and grieve that and lament that, because the outcome was not clear. Everyone was optimistic, but even if the best case scenario had happened, we still would lose so much. And that was very clear to us in those early weeks.

Matt Tully
Share a little bit more about what happened. How did that story unfold?

Alyson Punzi
Unfortunately, it all happened really fast. In June he had a stroke. By the end of June, he was diagnosed with the specific cancer. He spent a month getting treatment at a cancer hospital, which, by all indications, was working. Everyone was optimistic. The next step for him would’ve been to get a bone marrow transplant, and we were doing preparation for that. We didn’t get the all clear, but he was close, so we did another round of chemo in the hospital. And while that was happening, he had another stroke, which really shocked everyone, doctors included. That shouldn’t have happened. Everything was working, we thought. So obviously, ICU. Everything got really intense for the next four days. We realized that the cancer had not responded, and now it was raging throughout his body, causing multiple strokes. And I’m sitting there, and the Lord blessed me with the ability to understand what was going on medically. I don’t know why, but I knew sitting there that they can’t keep treating this cancer, they can’t stop the strokes, and that’s it. This is going to take his life. And within four days, that’s exactly what happened. And so it was very quick. The doctors were even optimistic that he would come through—even like thirty-six hours before he died. It snowballed really fast. From diagnosis to when he died was two months.

Matt Tully
When did he die? What day was that?

Alyson Punzi
August 21, 2022.

06:46 - Why?

Matt Tully
When tragedy like this happens to us, I think it’s so common for all of us, even as Christians, to kind of ask that question, Why me? Why would God allow this to happen to me, to our family? You’re a young couple with a young daughter. Your husband was on staff at your church, in ministry. Just a lot of exciting possibility in the future as a Christian family. Did you wrestle with the “why me” questions?

Alyson Punzi
Yeah. Frank honestly helped me process that a lot. He would say all the time through that process, Why not him?—in the sense that he’s not that special. And so that was encouraging to hear from him and understand he was right. Our world is broken, and we are not exempt from that. And this isn’t us doing something wrong. We’re not bringing this on ourselves. We couldn’t have done the Lord’s will better to have avoided this. I think the deeper question for me, particularly in those ICU moments, was where I would think, God, I have lived a life to get to know you and to see your faithfulness. And you know, God, that I am going to trust you. Asking me to be a widow is one thing. But why would you ask my two-year-old daughter to be fatherless in this way and this young? That was the harder why for me. And that was the harder why for Frank too. And he kept saying, “You’re going to be okay,” but not in a calloused way to me. He struggled. He could see his fear of what would happen to us if something happened to him, but his biggest fear was about his daughter. I want to be there for all those moments. I don’t want her to grow up without a dad. And so that was the bigger why that I know I had to work through.

Matt Tully
Do you feel like you’ve begun to get answers to that question, or do you think that’s the kind of question that you’re going to wrestle with for the rest of your life?

Alyson Punzi
I don’t think I have an answer to that. I think I have truth. I have that God is with me, and he’s with my daughter, and he’s good to us. And I don’t have to see the details that played out to believe that. And fortunately for us, the Holy Spirit helps us believe that when we can’t. We often pray in our home, “Thank you, God, for being with us and for being good to us, and help us believe it when the days are hard.” And we pray that all the time. And a lot of people have said, “One day you’ll understand why this happened.” And I just don’t think we’re promised that. Job asked God, and God didn’t give him a reason, but he gave him himself. And I think that’s very encouraging for us. Our hope isn’t in an earthly answer; it’s in God himself, because some things just don’t have answers.

Matt Tully
We are so naturally wired towards wanting an explanation, wanting an understanding of the why. Where do you think that come from? Why are we so in need of that? We have to very intentionally maybe put that aside, put that to death when we’re seeking to trust God.

Alyson Punzi
I think it’s a lot of things, and I think it could be different in different people. But I think part of it is we think we’re owed that. We think we could understand, if only God would tell us.

Matt Tully
That’s right.

Alyson Punzi
If only God would tell us, I could understand and I could comprehend the ways of the Lord. And that’s kind of arrogant to think. I know that for me to presume that if only God would give me the answer, then I could comprehend what he’s doing. And that has been very humbling, when I have those moments where I’m like, God, if only you would just answer my question of why are you doing this? And just that comfort of God saying, You do not know all things. But I do know all things, and I am with you.

11:02 - A Book to Help Families and Kids Through Suffering

Matt Tully
I love that. That’s something that this book that you’ve written does so well. We’re going to get into that here right now. You’re not trying to always answer the why question. You’re not trying to give the reasons for why this is all okay and all going to work out just fine. The real emphasis of the book is pointing kids, ultimately, to the Lord. He’s our hope. Ultimately, someday he’ll make all things that are broken come back together. So let’s talk about that book. Can you describe the moment that you thought, I think I want to write a book that helps to serve families and children who are experiencing real pain and suffering and grieving like I have?

Alyson Punzi
The first thought was really that I need to be able to have the language to explain lament to my daughter. And that was all I was focused on. I have some good friends, faithful friends, who asked me hard questions and pushed me to do hard things. And one of my friends is a mom, and she’s like, “Well, when you figure that out, let me know because I also need to teach my kids lament. My kids are going to face hard things. My kids know your daughter, and I want them to understand what we can do when we face hard things.” And so that was the first idea of maybe this isn’t just for me. Maybe there can be something. My perspective was that if the Lord opens doors, I will walk through them. I had friends being saying, “Write a draft. Write a draft.” That was over a few months, and the Lord just provided an opportunity to have a conversation about a possible book. And here we are.

Matt Tully
You mentioned the word lament a minute ago, and I think oftentimes, at least for me growing up, when faced with tragedy or pain or any kind of difficult situation, I might think in terms of trust, having faith, perseverance perhaps. But lament is maybe not a category or an activity that we often think about. You write in the book that “lament is the pathway to hope and comfort.” I wonder if you can expand on that. What do you mean by lament, and why is that such an important part of how a Christian can respond to grief.

Alyson Punzi
One of the ways that I’ve described lament is crying not to God because of who he is and telling him how much it hurts to live in a broken world. And there are a couple pieces of that that are important. One, there’s an orientation to our cry, and that is to God. And that is on a foundation of who he is and his character. And so we’re appealing to that. We are crying out to him because we actually have hope and belief. But we’re also honest about how this feels. And I think Scripture is very freeing in that because of how it provides us many examples of what that honesty can look like.

Matt Tully
Because sometimes we can ironically feel like, I know I should pray to God, but I’ve got to tell him what he wants to hear.

Alyson Punzi
Right. Like, I can’t ask that question. He already knows the answer. That kind of thing. Or, That sounds too much like doubt. That sounds too much like complaining.

Matt Tully
Faith should mean it doesn’t hurt that much.

Alyson Punzi
Right. Like, I should be able to make this make sense, and then I will be okay. But the grace of lament is that we actually don’t need to do that. We can bring that to the Lord because he’s big enough to handle all of our tough questions. And I think even Jesus modeling lament on the cross—he quotes Psalm 22, which is a lament psalm. And I think that is very freeing to think of God himself, God the Son, articulated honestly how much it hurt to die in our broken world. And I can go to God and tell him honestly how much it hurts to be widowed and to watch my husband die. I’m okay to do that because God is good, he’s with me, and it’s safe to do that.

Matt Tully
And not only is that good for you and your own soul but it’s also so helpful for your daughter, as you model that. And that, again, is kind of what this book does. So I wonder if you could walk us through the structure of the book, because I think you’ve structured it in a very intentional way—a progressive, building-on-itself way—that really models the lament process for young kids. Can you walk us through that?

Alyson Punzi
It’s a narrative story. It follows a little girl named Jane. And Jane faces some hard things. It starts with her having a toy that’s ruined, and her parents meet her and that hurt, and they show her lament. I’ll pause there to say that I think that’s really important, because the parents are taking advantage of a moment that, as adults, we would say that’s a pretty small hurt. But that’s an opportunity to introduce this idea of lament before something really, really hard happens. I think sometimes we push off conversations about grief and lament to when a grandparent dies or a pet dies. But our kids face hurts that we can meet them in.

Matt Tully
And those are real hurts for them even though they may not be for us.

Alyson Punzi
And then the story kind of builds from there. Jane’s friend moves away, and so she faces this circumstance where nothing really wrong happened, but a relationship is lost, and that really hurts. And her parents again remind her, “What can we do, and how can we lament?” And then Jane’s dad gets really sick, and he has to go to the hospital, and things are really hard, and they hurt. The mom is able to remind Jane of truth in the hospital. The story ends with Jane reminding herself of what her parents have been teaching her about lament, and it ends with her lamenting for herself. One thing I like about the story is that it ends without the solution. We don’t know what happens to the dad in the story, and there is some strategy to that. One, lament psalms often don’t have a resolution. The circumstances often remain open. The hope is clear in a lament psalm about the character of God, even if the circumstances don’t change.

Matt Tully
It’s not like when we lament, that all of a sudden we feel okay.

Alyson Punzi
Right. And then the other strategy was practical. I wanted this story to be practical for families if they were facing the death of a loved one or not. It’s deep enough for families to have a conversation about death, but you also don’t have to have a conversation about death reading this story. And that was important to me because as we see in the story of Jane, lament is not just about what happens when someone dies.

17:41 - Our Hope in Suffering

Matt Tully
There’s something about lament that can be applied in so many different situations. It’s not just for the most extreme trials that we might face, but it also isn’t not for those things as well. Each of those scenes in the book that you just described, the three stages of grief or trials that Jane is facing, they each end with the same refrain. It’s one that Jane’s parents introduced to her and recite to her, and then ,as you said, by the end she actually recites it herself. I wonder if you could just read that for us, and then I’d love to hear how you came up with that. What were the intentional things that you built into that refrain?

Alyson Punzi
So the refrain and the hope that Jane’s parents give her is: “Because God made and saved us, we hope in what is true: he promises that, one day, what’s broken, he’ll make new.” And there was a lot of thinking that went into that. Rhyming is hard. It did not come naturally to me. But there were a couple things that were important. I wanted to, even vaguely, have a framework of biblical theology—a Genesis to Revelation. So we’re talking about how he made us (that’s creation). He saved us (that’s the cross). And one day he will make all things new (that’s Revelation). I think that biblical theological framework is vitally important because it situates us and our suffering rightly in what God is doing. Our hope in that he created us and he made us gives us the comfort while we’re waiting for him making all things new.

Matt Tully
That’s beautiful. I didn’t even notice that in there, but hearing you describe that, it’s such an incredible thing to teach them through that. The thing that stood out to me about it the most when I first read that refrain was that end point—that he’ll make all things new. Again, our tendency for ourselves, when we are experiencing trials of various kinds, but I think especially as parents with our kids, we want to assure our kids that everything’s going to be okay. It’s okay. Nothing’s wrong. This will get better. And we want to be able to explain maybe the why, like we talked about before. But you’re teaching children that ultimately our hope is not rooted in this life. It’s not even rooted in the doctors who might be trying to help daddy. But ultimately, we trust in God, who someday will make sure all things are made new. How have you thought about trying to instill that confidence, that hope in your own daughter as you two have processed the loss of your husband?

Alyson Punzi
I think one is my spending time in lament and in the word and in prayer. It’s hard to help your child and walk alongside my child if I’m not rooted in truth myself. And I feel that there are days where I’m like, Wow. I am not doing a great job at this, and I need to tend to my soul first. And then I think realizing that walking alongside your child in grief is just that—we’re kind of walking alongside. I don’t want her to think that I’m carrying her grief for her. I can help, but I’m ultimately going to point her to Christ, because he carries her. But there’s also this continual process. This is a daily conversation in our home. We’re not going to have a conversation, and then she get everything that she needs to know, and then we’re good. We’re not like that. We need constant reminders. And I think remembering that for kids, this is going to be a constant conversation. It’s hard right at 3:00 AM, when there are nightmares and questions that have no answers. We rely on the Holy Spirit because when it’s 3:00 AM, it’s so hard to encourage your child with truth that will help them sleep through the night much less carry them through their adulthood.

Matt Tully
What I’m struck with, too, is unlike maybe a good kid losing a stuffed animal or losing a good friend even, the loss of a father, or a much more serious loss like what you two have experienced, is something that you yourself are also carrying and trying to figure out how to process and live with. So how much of that have you had to recognize your own struggle in this regard? How do you think about that and even sharing that with your daughter in a way that’s helpful but isn’t maybe hindering her from doing the same?

Alyson Punzi
I think there are moments where I have the opportunity to be honest with her about what mommy’s grief looks like. I think one early emotion kids recognize is sad. If mommy’s crying, “Why are you crying?” “Well, I’m sad, and sometimes when we are sad, we cry.” Taking advantage of those little moments to kind of model that. Those are modeling moments, not necessarily instructing moments. And I think it’s okay for kids to see us cry, and there are moments where I get frustrated in my grief, and I stop and I model prayer out loud to my daughter: “Lord, help me. I’m frustrated that daddy’s not here and that he can’t help with this thing that’s broken. I’m frustrated. Please help me.” It’s not like this happens every day, but my hope would be that she grows up having a picture of what that looks like for her mom, as well as that formal instruction and those refrains that we say all the time.

Matt Tully
I think that’s something that we can at times struggle with as parents. We don’t want to let our kids see our own struggles. Or maybe we don’t always know how much to let them see versus how much to protect them from our grief perhaps.

Alyson Punzi
Right. Kids can handle more than we think, but not everything is appropriate for kids.

Matt Tully
There are probably two dangers. On the one hand, you don’t share anything with them and they just think that you’re fine. On the other hand, they become this crutch for you, which is not a healthy thing to do.

Alyson Punzi
Right. This is more of a practical thing, but I’m always very careful with her to never put her in a position where she feels responsible for how I process my grief. I’m the adult in the family, and I’m responsible for my own grief. That’s a more practical thing that I’m pretty mindful of in our home.

Matt Tully
Maybe as a final question, Alyson, I wonder if there’s someone listening right now who is in the middle of some kind of really deep grief. Maybe they have lost someone close to them or they look at their life and things just haven’t worked out like they thought it would—similar to what you thought your life would look like. What word of encouragement would you offer to that person, whether they’re thinking of themselves or thinking of their own kids? What would you say to that person?

Alyson Punzi
This might sound so simple, but I think one of the beauties of this story is that that’s the same hope for us. And so what I would tell my daughter is what I would tell an adult friend: God is with you, and he hears you when you cry. And sometimes in acute crisis and acute grief, that’s what we need. God is good, and he’s with you, and he hears you. And sometimes that’s all we need.

Matt Tully
Alyson, thanks for sharing your story with us and for writing this beautiful book that I think will serve so many kids and families.

Alyson Punzi
Thank you.

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