Tennessee Voices, Episode 319: Ali Drescher, Alive senior director, mission based services

David Plazas, Nashville Tennessean
·1 min read

Over the last 32 months that I have produced the Tennessee Voices video podcast, I frequently have been asked who my favorite guest is.

That's hard to pick, but one conversation that has always stuck with me is the one from Episode 9 with Ali Drescher, who was then grief center director at Alive hospice, which aired on April 6, 2020.

That was about a month after COVID emerged in Tennessee. The calm way she spoke about death, rituals and mourning left an indelible mark at a time we knew little about the virus and were seeing so much sickness and death.

She is back on this episode and now has the title of senior director of mission based services at Alive. This time, we talked about the culture of mourning, the increase in the intensity of people's grief and new COVID-era rituals around death.

Tennessean Opinion Editor David Plazas spoke to Alissa Drescher, grief center director of Alive, on April 1, 2020.
Tennessean Opinion Editor David Plazas spoke to Alissa Drescher, grief center director of Alive, on April 1, 2020.

Drescher told me that people who participate in death-related rituals tend to experience less death-related grief.

She recites a daily mantra and takes a moment to set time for herself. Self-care is even more important today nearly three years after COVID appeared in the U.S.

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About Tennessee Voices

The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.

Please email your ideas for future guests to me at dplazas@tennessean.com. Thank you for watching.

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Watch past episodes: Tennessee Voices videocast

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Tweet to him at @davidplazas. 

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Voices: Ali Drescher, senior director, Alive hospice