{"id":7250,"date":"2021-02-09T11:45:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T16:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=7250"},"modified":"2021-02-09T07:00:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T12:00:51","slug":"get-to-know-joseph-alvaro-81-celebrating-the-lives-of-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2021\/02\/09\/get-to-know-joseph-alvaro-81-celebrating-the-lives-of-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to know: Joseph Alvaro \u201981, celebrating the lives of others"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joseph
Joseph Alvaro, left, works with a family to tell their story of a loved one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Frances
Alvaro lost his wife, Frances Edwards, in 2009.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joseph Alvaro understands that it\u2019s not life’s challenges that define someone, it’s how that person responds to them.<\/p>\n

In a span of 14 months in 2009 and 2010, Alvaro lost Frances, his wife of 25 years, his daughter, his father, a brother-in-law and an uncle by marriage with whom he was very close.<\/p>\n

At the same time Alvaro\u2019s friend, Matt Seitz, who had been introduced by Frances, was also finding his way after he lost his wife. After a long conversation, Seitz asked Alvaro, \u201cHow do you deal with this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him, it\u2019s not about \u2018woe is me.\u2019 I\u2019m not that kind of guy. I don\u2019t feel that,\u201d Alvaro said. \u201cI was lucky to have been married to Frances for 25 years. A lot of people don\u2019t get to have that in their lives. I was one of the lucky ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seitz had heard that phrase from people in his bereavement group and now, hearing it again, it resonated anew. The two thought there might be something they could do to help others who are grieving.<\/p>\n

Alvaro, who graduated with a theatre degree from University of Detroit and had a long career in directing TV commercials, music videos and theatrical productions, and Seitz, a longtime television critic and the author of several books about television, realized they could do something together that might help others grieving the loss of loved ones.<\/p>\n

Taking Alvaro\u2019s 2017 memoir I\u2019m One of the Lucky Ones<\/em>, the two created a pilot for a television show called The Lucky Ones<\/em>. The show consisted of interviews with people who had lost their spouse. The stories they told were not sad \u2014 in fact Alvaro tells people who agree to be interviewed that they cannot cry \u2014 they celebrated the lives of a person they loved.<\/p>\n

Responding to suggestions, they added interviews with people celebrating the lives of friends and other family members and started showing it to television executives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all loved it, but they didn\u2019t know what to do with it,\u201d Alvaro said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t fit any category.\u201d<\/p>\n

So they looked at their options and re-edited the pilot and put it on the web. It won Best Web\/New Media at the Ridgeville Guild International Film Festival and now lives on the web at luckyonestv.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the site are more than 100 stories, a mixture of longform videos, written remembrances and person on the street interviews in which Alvaro asks people from all walks of life whether they have lost someone special and would they share a celebration of that life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of cool how many people say yes,\u201d Alvaro said. \u201cThey talk about grandparents, uncles or aunts, brothers and sisters. You\u2019d be surprised how many young people, like 21 to 30 years old, who have lost friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why does it work? Alvaro has a theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cathartic experience,\u201d he said. \u201cIn our society we don\u2019t want to talk about death because we don\u2019t want to make others uncomfortable. But people still want and need to talk about these people. What I say is these remembrances are not about death, they are about what these people did with their lives up to the point of death. Our death does not define who we are; our life does.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also says he hears from people in the depths of grief who find hope in the stories on luckyonestv.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey see people smiling as they talk about someone they loved who has died and think, \u2018Someday I\u2019ll get there, too,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 has all but put a halt to filming new videos for the website, but people can upload their own stories and photos there. During the lull, Alvaro is working as a general contractor and bringing attention to the website through national and international interviews. He and his team hope they can go back to shooting by summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually someone\u2019s going to pick it up,\u201d Alvaro said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a valuable thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Alvaro understands that it\u2019s not life’s challenges that define someone, it’s how that person responds to them. In a span of 14 months in 2009 and 2010, Alvaro lost Frances, his wife of 25 years, his daughter, his father, a brother-in-law and an uncle by marriage with whom he …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":7251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2021\/02\/featured1.jpg?fit=600%2C315&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-1SW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7250"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7250\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}