When my cousin Andrea walked through the unimaginable path of grief after her mother passed, she found solace in the snips and buzzes of hair shears, channeling her pain into the pursuit of her dream. Now, she sits down with me to share how embracing her journey through mourning led to the birth of her own salon, proving that within the heartache there can be room for growth and the realization of dreams. Our conversation moves through the tender recollections of loved ones and the laughter that echoes from memories shared, underlining the notion that grief, while deeply personal, can also be accompanied by moments of joy and humor.
One thing's for certain, grief knows no universal shape; it molds itself to our unique experiences and the tapestry of our relationships. As Andrea and I navigate through the emotional landscape, I reveal my own encounters with grief's unpredictable waves—how they have caught me off-guard amidst life's simple routines and taught me the importance of self-care and embracing change. We talk about the strength found in the connections we foster, and how these bonds become our lifelines as we chart new territories in our lives post-loss.
And let's not forget, grief isn't confined to the realm of death—it can result from the end of a friendship, the departure of a cherished pet, or the abandonment of a long-held dream. As we wrap up, Andrea and I reflect on the holistic impact of loss, likening our lives to a jigsaw puzzle where missing pieces affect every part of the picture. We discuss the healing power of support, the therapeutic release in our tears, and how self-compassion can guide us through the complexities of grief. This episode is an intimate exploration of the transformative path from sorrow to strength, and the courage to honor our emotions on this journey.
When my cousin Andrea walked through the unimaginable path of grief after her mother passed, she found solace in the snips and buzzes of hair shears, channeling her pain into the pursuit of her dream. Now, she sits down with me to share how embracing her journey through mourning led to the birth of her own salon, proving that within the heartache there can be room for growth and the realization of dreams. Our conversation moves through the tender recollections of loved ones and the laughter that echoes from memories shared, underlining the notion that grief, while deeply personal, can also be accompanied by moments of joy and humor.
One thing's for certain, grief knows no universal shape; it molds itself to our unique experiences and the tapestry of our relationships. As Andrea and I navigate through the emotional landscape, I reveal my own encounters with grief's unpredictable waves—how they have caught me off-guard amidst life's simple routines and taught me the importance of self-care and embracing change. We talk about the strength found in the connections we foster, and how these bonds become our lifelines as we chart new territories in our lives post-loss.
And let's not forget, grief isn't confined to the realm of death—it can result from the end of a friendship, the departure of a cherished pet, or the abandonment of a long-held dream. As we wrap up, Andrea and I reflect on the holistic impact of loss, likening our lives to a jigsaw puzzle where missing pieces affect every part of the picture. We discuss the healing power of support, the therapeutic release in our tears, and how self-compassion can guide us through the complexities of grief. This episode is an intimate exploration of the transformative path from sorrow to strength, and the courage to honor our emotions on this journey.
Welcome to grief sucks life after loss. I am your host, linda, and I am here with Andrea. This is her second time joining us, so, andrea, why don't you introduce yourself and Tell them how we know each other and A little bit about your life? Yes, perfect.
Speaker 2:Okay, so sorry, my dog is begging to be on my lap because I have snacks and I'm home. So anyways, introduction wise Hi, I'm Andrea. I am Linda's cousin by marriage on my husband's side, and I've been a part of the Carter plan for Going on 16 years this month, so that's exciting.
Speaker 1:It's a long time to be part of this claim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, it's a fun tribe. Honestly, we have some wacky ideas, but I'll be interested to see which ones. You know how far they actually get.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's always fun and it's always an adventure though. So the life is not boring. Oh, certainly not. Yeah, and you have a salon. What was that? You have a salon? You want to tell them about your salon?
Speaker 2:Yes, Okay. So In 2020, whenever my mom passed away, part of me dealing with my grief with that was Me trying to figure out what my next step was going to be. I always wanted to be a hairstylist. I always valued Relationships with people. I was always the girl that got the Notes on a report card like talks too much in class or doesn't finish assignments well and like you know, like all these pointers and stuff and it used to like Really bother me, but I'm learning to over time to let that go. So part of my healing journey with my mom's passing is Me starting to actually follow my dreams on my own super proud of you for that and I I know the feeling that's.
Speaker 1:That's kind of how the Actual physical studio yeah, so, absolutely so. Today I thought we would. I found 2. Kind of articles and both of them are Basically 10 facts or 10 things you need to know about grief, and they're kind of similar and they're kind of different. So we're going to go through both and kind of See how they resonate with each of us and maybe discuss them a little bit, because I think the wordings, the wordings, very much different on both. So but they're both really good, make it like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, I would like to set an intention for Our talk today that I'm bringing myself my best, but forward and being as honest and open about the grief process as I can. It's something that I think is a really cool opportunity to be able to have it locked in in a voice sense. That's something that, losing my parents, I've learned that their voice is something I always want to keep a hold of.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, alright. Number 1 is grief is normal, says grief is not a disease, that is normal Human response to a significant loss. Admittedly, saying that grief is normal does not minimize its difficulty. But you're not crazy or weak or not handling things. This one for me, I think I felt crazy a lot of times, not even week, but just like this. Shit's not normal.
Speaker 2:Yes, I definitely had similar feelings to that and I'm still Having similar feelings to that, like all these years later, but I'm recognizing the signs to it a lot faster than I have in the past, so that's really cool.
Speaker 1:Number 2 is the worst kind of brief is yours when you lose a significant person from your life, whatever the relationship it hurts, and nothing takes away your right to fill the loss and grieve the absence of the person from your life. I think that goes back to a lot of times when you I know, especially for me there was A lot of people that said, well, I'm hurting, but not like you're hurting, and it was kind of compared or like they were Didn't want to say something to me about how they were feeling or grieving the same person, because they felt like their grief wasn't as significant as mine. And I mean that kind of hurt because I'm like, but I want you to talk about it with me because it's still important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been Doing myself some future favors and working through some of that. Right now, my grandma's not in great health. I went and visited her today, so that was really fun, taking a trip down memory lane a little bit, yeah. And you got to graduate from her home health visits, so that was really cool. I got to see her exercising and she took a lap around the house, and it was really cool, yeah. And then I, so that I can, so that I can visit her next next Thursday, I'm going to go there and I'm going to cut her hair for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and my grandma always like to have her nails done and her hair done, and when she wasn't feeling her best. That's good. I hope you get to spend lots of lots of time with her before Something happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's interesting because it reminds me a lot of Norma in some ways. As far as I was, I feel like I was brand new to the family At that point. I had met Norma a couple of times but, like I knew, I loved her.
Speaker 1:Oh, she was, and she was great, he really was.
Speaker 2:We were so like.
Speaker 1:We were just talking about her and so Norma, let me introduce Norma. Norma is the grandma is grandma To my husband and Andrea's husband and she was a blast. A lot of, lots of memories of laughing, laughing with her. My favorite was I don't even know how she came to this conclusion, but she spent a lot of time with us at my parents and every time she seen my dad she said I know you, you're that stripper. And she always thought dad was the stripper.
Speaker 1:I don't know what strip club she went to. I don't know what she was doing in a strip club, but dad was the stripper and he just went along with it and they had a good ass.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I caught myself like having when my grandma would kind of repeat herself In a different way. I kind of recognized her struggling to have the conversation that she wanted To have or felt like needed to be said, just to air everything out a little bit, and it was really cool to be able to like I look a lot like her whenever she was younger and I just ran across some of those pictures recently and I was like, holy crap, I didn't realize how much I look like my dad's side of the family. So my grandma is my dad's mom and she's 84. Oh wow, and my grandpa is 89. Goodness, and he's still taking care of her man. It's so cool. I've been married for like 70 something years.
Speaker 1:My dad's parents. They I think grandpa was 91 when he died Always took care of grandma. They had like 14 kids and it was crazy. But yeah, he was always taking care of her and she passed before he did. Yeah, he lived a long time. It's crazy because you don't. I don't feel like you see that as much anymore. Next up number three is the way out of grief is through it. We need to find the courage to go through this experience of grief Learning this is the major key to recovery. I 100% hands down. Think that if you do not fill it all the way through, then you're never going to heal.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I agree with that, definitely this. Since we spoke last, actually, I've been kind of in my feels doing my like winter solstice evaluation, fourth quarter closeout, you know, kind of thing in the analytical side of my head and I'm like, okay, now it's been a complete year since you went from like, oh shit, we're gonna do this, we're gonna start a business, it's gonna happen. And you've walked the walk, talk the talk, and now it's time for you to take a step back and look at what you've done, check the painting, see what needs to be adjusted, and we're gonna continue on from here. Let's figure out our yearly plan. So that's what February, when I'm doing Perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's working for me. What's working for you?
Speaker 1:It's gonna be right. Number four your grief is intimately connected to your relationship. The fully interpret. To fully interpret our grief response, we need to understand what the relationship brought to our life, therefore what has been lost from our life. And obviously each relationship is different and each impacts us differently, more or less. Or my loss of my grandma was much different than my loss of my husband, so those brought two different type of losses into my life. Five grief is hard work. Holy fuck, is it not? A grief response is often referred to as grief work. It requires more energy to work through than most people expect and, I think, more than most people are willing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's for sure. I was in a meeting the other day and I saw this man was giving a presentation and the analogy he had on the screen was iron sharpens iron. I was like, well, yeah, that's true, like you just have to keep kind of going and figuring it out. Yeah, I kept myself a lot recently searching for like little clues that I've left myself over the last year and I'm like, okay, where did I put all of the things that I hid myself?
Speaker 1:Number six your grief will take longer than most people think. How long will grief last? Is it finished? When it is finished? When it is finished, as John Donne says, he who has no time to mourn has no time to mend. I don't think it even does it end.
Speaker 2:I think that you live in a version of hell for longer if you don't face it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I remember having those type of feelings in the past.
Speaker 1:I did a lot of self-reflection, a lot of self-healing and learning about myself to get through the grief and I mean, obviously, the grief doesn't ever go away but I can honestly say that just over two years in, I'm in a good place. Yeah, I feel like I'm in a really good place. I feel like, finally, this year, I'm like this is my year. This is the year that I start to live life again, because I clearly wasn't fully doing that previously. But now, yeah, been a good place. But it took a lot, took a lot of fucking work to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 1:Grief is unpredictable. Just when you think you haven't figured out, something comes along to surprise you. In fact, the one predictable thing about grief is that it's unpredictable. I mean, when you're, I've clearly been in the grocery store and just lost my shit because something came across that made the grief happen. Yeah, the story was playing, or whatever.
Speaker 2:I have one of those moments, or a couple series of those moments recently where I just like worked myself up into like a panic attack and I'm like what the hell is happening? Thomas was telling me he's like you're not sleeping enough, first of all, you're not eating enough, second of all, third, of all You're not taking care of yourself.
Speaker 2:You're not sleeping. Yeah, he was like. You've officially put yourself back to the bottom of the list. It's time for you to reevaluate. Yeah, not in so many words, that's not how we said it, but that's how I understood what happened.
Speaker 1:As long as you understood what was said.
Speaker 2:Yes, I definitely. He told me I am not allowed to watch dramatic romance stuff before. Like to fall asleep too that I haven't watched before, because it's when I'm super anxious that'll like send me spiraling. Well, don't do that. I know, isn't that funny though, romantic comedy.
Speaker 1:It's so weird. Number eight there may be secondary losses. To deal with the deficit of an individual, difficult as that may be by itself, may also precipitate many other changes in your life. There may be many losses environment status, alterate status, alterations of relationships because of the death. Each one has its own impact and each loss needs to be mourned. I feel that straight to the fucking core and General, I think, just the surrounding people. I Feel like yeah we lost environment there's a huge role in that, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I Mean there was a shit ton of people that you know. Kj was a people pleaser. He fucking had to friend everybody and there's just so many people that after he died would just you don't hear from anymore. Mm-hmm which is fine, just weird, I guess.
Speaker 2:I've been, that's been on my mind a lot lately too, and I actually Reached out. I made a conscious, just a conscious decision this week to Reach out to the people that I really like, want to make sure that my relationships going forward for the this next, you know this next year of my life, I feel like I'm in a good place with those. So, yeah, I'm just kind of I Don't know, like I said, figuring it out as you go.
Speaker 1:Are those relationships that have been ongoing, or you feel like they fell off, or you know, I mean the rides always bumpy in different situations.
Speaker 2:But as a new business owner like you, run into different Relationship things that you're like, oh okay, well, didn't see that happening that way, or oh, I reacted that way to it. No, I wish it would have gone this way. Yeah, so now I have. I feel like I have a little bit more feedback as to what the baseline of Me running a business looks like at this point, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Look at you growing and being conscious about all the things.
Speaker 2:I'm awake right now. This is Oscar Hi.
Speaker 1:I ask her. I Mean I'm gonna need the big fuzzy dog.
Speaker 2:This is my mom's dog. I Got him for her before she passed away as, like her little companion. Yeah, I thought it would help and I knew getting her a puppy was a really bad idea. But I wanted a dog and Thomas wasn't ready for one. Yet I was like, ooh, if I do it this way, I look at you did, I can get an animal, because if it doesn't work out, I'm not gonna let my mom just get rid of this dog, I'm gonna have to take it over. No, you cannot have my snap.
Speaker 1:Well, you ended up with Oscar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so here's my little nephew brother, baby dog, that's weird.
Speaker 1:Very, carter fasted. That's true story. Number nine yeah, he comes and goes just when we think we're getting over it. We may experience another devastating setback. This can be discouraging to those who do not know what is happening. We need to realize that this is the way grief works itself out and trust the process, difficult as it is, is Helping us work towards reconciling reconciliation. I think there's always I Don't know, I don't think I feel like for me they're setbacks. I Think sometimes grief pops up and I have that maybe a moment to cry Real quick and then keep going or cussing out or you know something small like that. But I don't, I don't personally feel like it sets me back, but it does come and go for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's definitely number 10 effective grief work is not done alone. I Think you were learning that, mm-hmm. Try to find a support group counselor, clergy member, spiritual director or grief companion who can help or Talk to someone who has been through a similar experience. I believe in the power of shared experiences and often others who have been through the deep places can be a real help. Grief is about coping with the loss of a relationship and often in a helping relationship, relief can be found. I Spoke to a lady today which I'm very excited about. I have an appointment for changing locations here.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I have a. We have a meeting next week to do a podcast with her and she is a life and grief coach, which I'm super excited to talk with her. I'm definitely. That is definitely something that I have looked into but the there's no clear direction of how to go get into that, like there's so many different, because it's not like an actual Certification, if you will. It's kind of All over the place, right. Super excited to talk to her and get her take on the subject and see how she helps people In their grief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's awesome. That sounds really really cool. Yeah, I'm super excited.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited for you. And then I know you like to see a therapist, so You've got help with somebody else and I Didn't do the therapy route, I talked to friends. So I think we all come up with our own little circle of how we can help each other, or who we can, who we feel comfortable talking to, I guess, of how we get help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's Definitely no coincidence in my head that my call to you before we started the podcast and I said what I said and then you're number ten thing that you said and I was like, funny, right on, right, on par where I'm supposed to be. That's good, I like to hear it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I like it. So the next list is another ten things you should know about grief, but it's it's a little bit different and definitely worded differently. So number one is grief is about loss, not death alone, which I try to Make sure that's known, especially on the Facebook page, because we can grief so many different things.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it says we need to allow people going through all kinds of personal problems, disappointments, hurt and life-changing events to have their grief. No point in saying there are others worse off. When you're experiencing your own unwanted or unexpected life events, you can only feel your own pain. It's valid, it's normal, it's called grief. So, yeah, losing a whether it's in death or friendship, or dog, or what was or what could have been, or there's so many different forms of grief and I think maybe some people don't understand, they don't fully understand that a lot of people think that it's just in death.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I agree with that too. I think that, yeah, all of that made sense. I feel like, between what you read and what you said, definitely I can feel that that resonates with me. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:Number two one loss usually triggers a lot more. I Often like to I often liken it to a jigsaw puzzle. When one piece goes missing, the whole puzzle is affected, and is it held together anymore? It doesn't look the same anymore. So when one piece of your life has changed or is lost, another piece like companionship, finances, friendships, holidays, midtimes outings, family gatherings, daily routines and a whole lot more all changed to. Learning to adapt to these changes is sometimes called your grief work, and Only you can do this work yourself. And I absolutely love the way that they put this, because I don't think there could have been a better, a better saying for this, because it's like your whole world flips upside down and nothing is ever the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly what it feels like. And then I mean you live in that state of like frozen shock Through a period of time, but it feels like forever. You know, sometimes it does stretch out for a Really really long period of time if you're not dealing with it. I mean, that's what I've come to realize. Like my dad's been gone for 13 years now and that's a like, that's a big milestone. Like I was pregnant with Emma this time whenever my dad was still alive. He's gonna be turning into a teenager this summer.
Speaker 2:Time goes fast, but then, yeah, and then, like one of my friends, she's been going through it and I try not to compare our situations but, at the same token, like I ended up Trying to figure out what the best, how I felt, the best way to bridge that gap with her would be. Like I Was up one night and I was listening to the pot, the podcast and wanted to hear how you're human, shelby's conversation went and everything, and I definitely felt a lot of resignation with a lot of the things that you guys talked about. Too late, it just takes time and you have to be committed to not giving up on it.
Speaker 1:I yeah, most definitely. I think you definitely have to say this is, this is what I'm gonna do and this is how I'm gonna do it, because and it's so easy to stray from that, but I feel like you feel better and you know when you're on, when you're keeping up with that, and then, once you just stray a little bit, it's hard to get back into that healing process of keeping straight, to keep moving on. Number three grief doesn't come in neat consecutive stages. In fact, there's not much about grief that's needed. All it comes in waves, sometimes so strong that you think you're drowning in emotions. They may be scary, unfamiliar, keep you awake and stop you from eating. Many people worry and think they're going crazy. Don't expect it to be a smooth road. It just isn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have one of those not what I like to consider, not my proudest moments in life and when, in reality, like it was just showing Emma a glimpse into my reality of whenever I get so stressed out, the, sometimes the, the hot boils over and the water goes everywhere and it just creates a mess. You know you're just like geez, like right now, seriously, I'm not ready for this. And I was. I like woke Emma up out of the dead sleep, made her come back to our bedroom and climb in bed with us and like the end of the Titanic, it was the weirdest thing.
Speaker 1:And she's probably like what the fuck is the mom? What is wrong with you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I feel like the crazy mom, like, and whenever you were watching sitcoms growing up, like there's always an episode oh, there's, like you know, the same type of characters and I always try and pick out which one I fall into and sometimes it's so weird that you know, sometimes I'm like I point at the math but what happens?
Speaker 1:I mean that that's the truth, is things like that happen, but that's some of her reality. I mean the craziness.
Speaker 2:That's definitely. She ended up like the following day about it. She was like mom, why did you wake me up last night? And the way she the, like her cadence of the way that it reminded me so much of Nicole and the way she speaks, and I was like this is the Ante Nicole, this is like the Carter side coming out of her. But then, like her facial expressions that she was making at the time were like me and I was like this is the weirdest thing to experience right now.
Speaker 1:It's a whole combination, yeah it's been wild.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you the my chakras are aligned or something. Something is happening to me right now and I feel, I feel good. I feel karmically good.
Speaker 1:I agree, I feel the same it was. It was something that when we got past 2023, I mean, I went into January, dylan and I both sick for almost two weeks and at that time I'm like, fuck, this is how I want to start my year off. I had these plans, but it seemed like after we healed from that, like I was on my game and have been nonstop ever since and like it seems like everything's finally aligning like Almost back to unstoppable where I was years ago.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I remember specifically at, I think, jay and Shelby's engagement party. Maybe Thomas and I came up. I think Emma was there, she was really little and we sat there and sat at a table with you, jay and KJ and Shelby. You know they, jay and Shelby were in and out, but I don't remember if Christie was there, but anyways, they ended up. We were KJ and I were talking about. Like he was like man, you seem so well adjusted after losing your mom, like how did you do that? And I was like I don't know, man, I'm just trying to make it through. Like I remember having this whole conversation about it. Yeah, so weird. And then I had another KJ moment today I was cleaning out the back of my car. I just want to share with you what I have floating around with me still Paper.
Speaker 2:Full stocking Some more bath and tissue paper. Don't worry, it's still perfect. Yes, these are my travel gift bags For just the race.
Speaker 1:I'm feeling generous, but now all the good karma Not quite uncomfortable around you. Even people you know well may not know what to say, or say things that surprise you or make you mad. They think they have to cheer you up or offer some wise words. Maybe a silent hug will be better. People just simply don't know what the fuck to say. I mean, I do it Most definitely. I caught myself the other day. Somebody had messaged me and they had just lost somebody close and I hadn't talked to them in a long time. And the first thing I say is how are you doing? And I'm like, first of all, why the fuck did you just say that Because you know that. And so I followed it up with something else. But I was like, just, I'm like you should know better. You know people should know better. To not ask that, yes, so I think no one wants to say is the hardest thing, because you want to be there for people, but at the same time, sometimes everything you say is going to be wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Number five time does not heal, just moves on. It's what you do with your time that you have the healing. Doing nothing doesn't make your grief go away. You can't avoid it. You can't hide from it, you need to go with it. You don't get over it, you just adapt, and this takes a lot of time, 100% it don't go away, it doesn't. You just adapt to your new life. And what? What is now?
Speaker 2:I remember.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry it cut out and I didn't mean to cut you off. I remember a when my mom's dad was sick and I was really little I was probably maybe about six years old or so and like I have memories of her dad, but her mom, my mom's mom, passed away before I was born. So my brother and sister have like vague, vague memories of her, but I've got nothing as far as on her side goes. So it's kind of like seems weird to me that Emma's and that same boat kind of like. It seems so on track with the way my mom's life events kind of happen that I think I've always let that kind of scare me. That's like one of my big parent anxieties that I have. Yeah, and I'm learning to work through that and, just you know, give myself tips along the way by doing stuff like this. I mean I'm scatterbrained so people aren't going to know where to look for all my stuff. I'm a crazy bag lady.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're going to go through every one of the fucking bags and see if you hit something in there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely as they should, because every day is yes.
Speaker 1:Every day is deals day. Right Number 6 grief changes you. A significant loss will always affect your life To such an extent that things and you will be different. Remember the jigsaw puzzle. So don't expect to be your old self again. Grieving requires you to learn new ways of coping, Learn new skills and learn to live without someone who meant so much. I am very much a different person than I was. I mean, I'm still similar, but my give a fucks are Way less than they was before, and I didn't give a fuck before. But at the same time I feel like I care more about certain things. But I just learned to Not give in to things that are either A waste of my time or isn't. I don't want to say benefiting, but I guess if I don't want to do it, I'm just not going to do it. Yeah, I'm more. I'm more conscious of my time, I think and how I spend it, Because we don't know how much time we have. I think that's a better way to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been on the same as similar wavelength of that of those thoughts Pretty much I guess since you launched the podcast, really like After talking with you at Cousins Christmas over the holidays and stuff, and like kind of listening to where you were with things, and I was like, okay, we seem on the same like wavelength. That's really cool. I want to like continue checking in on her and what's the?
Speaker 1:you know what's a more creative way for us to do that basically, yeah, yeah, and I love that because I mean having somebody To do that or go through that together is amazing, and not everybody has that opportunity, or even those people that they click with or feel like they can go through that journey with. So, yeah, when you said something about that today, I was very, very happy to hear that, because not everybody has that opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most definitely, and I feel like you know, you and I have gone through enough bullshit in our lives To this point that, like we've earned some really good credits, some karma credit and maybe it's time for us to talk a little bit of that in and then use it on ourselves, and that's okay too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every single thing that you do in life is a give and take, and it's a balancing of the scales, and as long as you're doing it with the purest intent of not harming anybody, then I feel like that's a win.
Speaker 1:And sometimes it takes loss to realize that to get to where we're both at Like I don't know that had I not lost him, that I would be mentally in the space that I'm in today. So yeah, that's. The unfortunate part of it is sometimes that it takes that loss to get to where we are in a good place.
Speaker 2:I've been letting myself romanticize my life recently. I'm like we fall fall back in in the month of February. We are falling back in love with ourselves. You know, I don't know what this is.
Speaker 1:That's a very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I realize you know over. Just I've let the noise kind of get in the way a little bit and part of my self healing journey back to finding myself this for this version of what I'm doing where I'm at yeah, I'm here for it, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Number seven there will be wise and what ifs, except that some things will never make sense to you and even if you get answers, they still don't make things right or fair. The trick is to learn to live without those answers. I think that is huge. Um, I feel like I spoke to somebody not too long ago that was still trying to figure out why, and I'm like you will never know that you will never, ever, ever have that answer Because we're not the ones, we're not the ones that, hey, it's your time. Um, so you'll never know that answer, and I think that was one thing.
Speaker 1:I personally tried to make sure that I didn't. What if? What if I did this? What if I did that? What if we? And why is? Because I honestly think that eats people up sometimes, like you just can't, I don't think, oh yeah, you'll just spit and spit out man, oh man, and I've seen many people do it and I mean those are things that you can't control. There's probably plenty of things that I say, well, what if I did this? Would that have changed the outcome? But at the end of the day, I fully don't believe that it would have. I think when it's your time, it's your time and there's not necessarily anything you anybody can do to change that, unfortunately, so I I pushed really hard not to be in that headspace Number eight.
Speaker 1:I agree with that Crying is coping. It just makes others feel awkward. So they often urge you to be strong and think of of all your happy memories. Crying is okay and not crying is okay. Not crying is okay. But it said that crying with someone has a better effect on you than crying alone. I think I don't know. I don't know that I've cried with too many people.
Speaker 2:I myself am a hopeless romantic to the core and I'm very empathetic. So sometimes there are definitely people in my life that I noticed kind of Well, try and turn the tables around on me. But I've gotten really good at spotting those people over and over again in time. I mean like okay, no, you're the one who's trying to fuck this up for me. This isn't going to happen. Like I, if I'm I've learned in my 16, in my 16 years of marriage to become very strategic, because Thomas is a very strategic person. He responds well to that. So I have to figure out a way that, like he and I still continue to mesh well together and get everything that we want.
Speaker 1:Number nine, closure is an odd concept. It's not realistic to ask someone to close off their love for someone. Like you would close a bank account or close a door. These days we say that finding ways to keep the bond of love connected are more akin to healthy grieving, and that makes sense For me. I think it was. We didn't ever not talk about KJ Like I feel like we've, and still to this day, we talk about him often, so we're still keeping that connection. And I mean I also know a lot of people who just cut it off and don't talk about it At all. And number 10, thank you for, are you still there? I can hear you, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay, I can hear you, but you're breaking up. Yeah, you keep breaking up.
Speaker 2:Okay, now you're moving.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're good, all right, Number 10, a lot of people might come to the funeral, but it doesn't mean you'll have a lot of support. It doesn't take long before the phone stops ringing and people don't drop in. Sometimes it's because they think you have your family around and other friends will be there for you. But the truth is the time after the funeral can be very lonely and isolating and many people avoid you because they don't know what to say. They do care, but they feel uncomfortable. Look, kj's funeral was huge and I had seen or heard from probably over half of them, people that was there since the day of the funeral and I, for me, I understand that the relationship was different. I was not the people person. It didn't mean that I didn't like or love some of these people.
Speaker 1:That was in our life that is no longer reaches out or we don't see your hang out with, or anything like that. But I think my biggest thing is if he meant so much to you, then why would you never reach out to his family and just say, hey, are you good, do you need something? I think that is my biggest thing throughout all of this is that yeah, I'm familiar with some of that too.
Speaker 2:When my dad was dying, my grandparents you know they were getting older. I was older, I was in my early 20s, I was 24 whenever I had Emma, and so I remember. Sorry, I totally lost my trying to thought.
Speaker 1:Funerals and people missing again.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I remember I was at my mom's house and my grandparents were over there. My dad was on hospice and you know, at the time I didn't realize what that was and by the time I did, I talked to myself like I pushed down all of those feelings so that I wouldn't have a panic attack in my parents house and I was like, okay, they need you to be strong, they need you to be strong Pressure to make sure that he knew that I was going to take care of mom. And the reality of that was those next 10 years were fucking hard, trying to hold that whole like keep that up and keep all of the other pieces that I'm trying to work into my life and make happen for myself. It was just so much to carry around, you know.
Speaker 1:And did you feel like you were in the alone?
Speaker 2:At times, yes, I'm one of those people that I can be in a room full of people and still feel very like I could scream at the top of my lungs and no one hears me. Yeah, but I forget. The key component to that scenario is all I have to do is communicate, and when I get super anxious, I just totally clean up and that's it.
Speaker 1:But at least you know that you have to communicate to get that through. Because, like my big thing was, I never asked for help for anything Like if shit. I never knew how, if shit needed done, I just did it myself. I mean, there were there were times where I needed to know we needed to move a fucking big ass thousand pound hay bill and we would just make it happen. And then KJ'd be like why didn't you wait for me? Because I'm not waiting for anybody, I'm not asking for help. Like we needed it done, we got it done. You were not coming home for a day or two because you were out of town, so we just did the shit. And yeah, so I just wasn't that person to ask for help.
Speaker 1:But after he died and I started having really bad pain, it could sound like I if I left the house, and but no, sooner I got down the fucking street or getting ready to pull and go into the store, that I just thought I had a hard deck and I had to learn and make myself call somebody and ask for help or call and say, hey, this is what's going on, can you talk to me till I get home?
Speaker 1:Or hey, can you meet me at the house. Can you just come sit with me, like I don't need you to say anything, do anything, I just need you to sit here physically, just so I know if something happens somebody's fucking here and that was hard, but I think it's. It's important to know that you have to ask for that and especially when you lose somebody, you know everybody else's life keeps going and they don't know what you need until you tell them what you need and you learn that when you do finally let that guard down and ask for help or communicate, you know your people are there. They just don't know how, they just don't know what you need and when you need it, until you you tell them that yeah.
Speaker 2:You have to use your words. Yes, absolutely Speak it loudly. Like I catch myself mumbling a lot or speaking really fast. I caught myself doing that with my grandma today and you know she's part of hearing, so you do have to make make a conscious effort to slow down if you really want to communicate with her, which right now, is a good thing for me. I could use that.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, is there anything you would like to add on your on the 10 facts of grief?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think I gave you my little tidbits that I wanted to make sure that got recorded today, my random thoughts that were floating around in my head. So now I can mentally mark journaling off of my list. Look at you go. All right, well we're going to.
Speaker 1:We're going to close it out today and we appreciate everybody listening and we will see you on on the next episode. Thank you, guys. I hit the stop button.