My Braley Pond Podcast Isn’t What You Think It’s About

People have been asking me, “What’s your Braley Pond podcast about?” or “Does your Braley Pond podcast have to do with ghosts or something?”

The answer is yes and no. Actually, it’s complicated.

This isn’t a Simple Paranormal Podcast

What Happened at Braley Pond was never meant to be just a paranormal podcast. Yes, I based my Braley Pond podcast on a 2018 article I wrote for The Dyrt, which was meant to be a Halloween-themed ghost story.

But the more I dug into the story, and all of the people involved, I realized there was so much more to tell. It was much bigger than ghosts or a spooky campsite (which, by the way, Braley Pond is quite beautiful and pleasant during the day). I quickly came to realize the story I wanted to tell was about loss and how we process grief.

“To Grieve is to Carry Another Time”

When I was in the research stage for the “What Happened at Braley Pond” podcast, I came across this wonderful essay by Matthew Salesses, who lost his wife to cancer. In it, he writes of the importance of memories and time.

“This summer, when my wife died in her Korean hometown, I held her lifeless hand and thought” Let me go back just one minute. I thought: Don’t leave me yet. Stay here. To touch her still body, completely different and yet barely changed, was to be aware that a moment is all that stands between life and death. Time was the only distance; life felt close by. It seemed as if the only reason I couldn’t go back in time was that I didn’t know where time was.”

Salesses’ essay helped guide the direction of my podcast. I didn’t want it to be a horror story, nor a true-crime or paranormal one, either. Because Christopher Kennedy the young man who was murdered at Braley Pond in 2003, and one of the subjects of this podcast, was a real person, with friends and family members who still long to re-connect with him, if they could just figure out how.

A Podcast for Anyone Who’s Lost Someone They Loved

More than anything, my podcast is about how we deal with losing loved ones and the lengths we go to keep their memories alive.

Sure, there are elements of paranormal, horror, true crime, and spirituality in my podcast. But the overall message I hope you take away from it is how we choose to remember the loved ones we’ve lost.

The first episode of What Happened at Braley Pond premieres October 15, wherever you get your podcasts.