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Parenting Through Loss: Lessons from Grieving Moms · Groove with Portia

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Group Porsche, the podcast that uncovers the hidden
0:09
Speaker 1: treasures within grief. I'm your host, Porsche the Producer, and
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to join me on a transformative journey
0:15
Speaker 1: where we were exchange laughter, of course the best medicine
0:18
Speaker 1: of them all, reflect on cherish memories, remember that time
0:21
Speaker 1: that the little boy grabbed my hand instead of his
0:23
Speaker 1: mother's at the amusement park yikes, And of course, discover
0:26
Speaker 1: gratitude while navigating one of life's hardest challenges lost. So
0:31
Speaker 1: get ready to grow with me, Porsche the Producer, let's
0:35
Speaker 1: dive in. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Groul Porsche.
0:46
Speaker 1: I am your host, Porsche Booker, and I apologize in advance.
0:50
Speaker 1: I'm coming under the weather with something, but I'm not
0:52
Speaker 1: gonna cancel on you, guys, because I've got some amazing
0:55
Speaker 1: people with me today. Those of you who know I
0:58
Speaker 1: have been doing Groul Porsche since twenty nineteen, and my
1:02
Speaker 1: show holds a special place in my heart because it
1:04
Speaker 1: received its name from my mother and as those of
1:07
Speaker 1: you know my grief story of losing both my parents
1:09
Speaker 1: nine months apart. One of the things that I noticed
1:13
Speaker 1: is that people tended to want to coddle me with
1:16
Speaker 1: regurgitated platitudes, and sometimes, let's be realistic, there are no
1:21
Speaker 1: words to say when you lose your person. So today, everybody,
1:25
Speaker 1: I have a special treat for all of you. I
1:28
Speaker 1: am joined by three amazing women who came together through
1:31
Speaker 1: the loss of their sons and they want to share
1:35
Speaker 1: their story and also inspire others to not have to
1:39
Speaker 1: hold their grief inside. So I am joined today by
1:42
Speaker 1: Miss Anastasia Brown, Miss down Hughey, and also Miss Valerie Allen,
1:47
Speaker 1: who are the host of There Are No Words, but
1:50
Speaker 1: we have a few podcasts. So welcome ladies to Gruel Porsche.
1:53
Speaker 1: How are you today?
1:54
Speaker 2: We're good, No good, Thanks for having us. We're excited
1:59
Speaker 2: to do this.
2:00
Speaker 1: Look, I am honored because when I saw the platform
2:04
Speaker 1: that you've created, because there's so many people out there
2:07
Speaker 1: that have lost children and they're stuck in their grief five, ten, fifteen,
2:13
Speaker 1: twenty years later and they don't know where to begin,
2:16
Speaker 1: they don't even know how to even talk about it
2:18
Speaker 1: without breaking down, and they feel isolated from their families.
2:22
Speaker 1: So for starters, I'm doing this a little different than
2:25
Speaker 1: I normally do. So don Anna Station Valerie. With the
2:29
Speaker 1: three of you, please introduce my audience to your sons
2:33
Speaker 1: who have made their physical transition from this earth. Tell
2:37
Speaker 1: us a little bit about them, and what memory of
2:40
Speaker 1: theirs still continues to brighten your day.
2:43
Speaker 3: Oh that's a great question. Well, well, or don do
2:46
Speaker 3: you want to start?
2:47
Speaker 4: Why don't you?
2:48
Speaker 5: Why don't we let Don go first? Oh?
2:51
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm Don Huey and my son Ryan Huey died
2:58
Speaker 2: by suicide. It's still to say the words. It just
3:01
Speaker 2: doesn't sound right. Eleven years ago after a sund mental
3:07
Speaker 2: illness that we are uncertain.
3:10
Speaker 4: How or what it was.
3:12
Speaker 2: Will We won't know the full answer until we see
3:16
Speaker 2: him again, which I truly believe we will. It was
3:20
Speaker 2: a a quick descent from Wednesday he started acting acting
3:26
Speaker 2: different to Saturday when he took his own life. So
3:30
Speaker 2: it literally was a matter of days, which is such
3:33
Speaker 2: a unique story. And I will say one thing that
3:41
Speaker 2: my memory of him is just his laugh and his
3:45
Speaker 2: smile and his kindness. You know, and everybody says that
3:50
Speaker 2: about their their child who is no longer here and
3:55
Speaker 2: can't irritate them anymore. But he really lit up a room.
4:03
Speaker 2: He was trying to do stand up. He had a
4:06
Speaker 2: great sense of humor, and I'm not sure how the
4:14
Speaker 2: darkness took over so quickly. Again, I've never heard that
4:19
Speaker 2: story before. The last time we saw him, he was
4:23
Speaker 2: trying to explain to us the idea of a reverse peacock,
4:28
Speaker 2: which because he was dressed really almost borderline like a
4:33
Speaker 2: homeless person, and he was explaining that he wanted people
4:37
Speaker 2: to love him for who he was on the inside.
4:41
Speaker 2: He didn't want to have surface intangibles make people like
4:50
Speaker 2: him better or worse. And it's such a you know,
4:57
Speaker 2: a pie in the sky idea that like a young
5:00
Speaker 2: child would have yo, and here he was twenty seven.
5:06
Speaker 2: But that was that was how his heart was on
5:12
Speaker 2: that morning when he took his life. So again that's
5:16
Speaker 2: what points us to kind of a manic euphoria that
5:21
Speaker 2: we saw that then turned into a manic depression because
5:25
Speaker 2: it was just a matter of hours later that he.
5:27
Speaker 4: Took his own life.
5:30
Speaker 2: Oh, I wasn't prepared for this question, so I'm going
5:34
Speaker 2: to pass it to the next mom and here hear
5:40
Speaker 2: another story.
5:41
Speaker 6: Thanks Porsche, thank you, don thank you.
5:43
Speaker 1: I know, but I want this platform to always be
5:46
Speaker 1: a space where people are remembered. I talk about my
5:48
Speaker 1: mom all the time. So I know it's hard because
5:51
Speaker 1: sometimes I still break down talking about my mom. So
5:53
Speaker 1: I appreciate you sharing that and being so vulnerable. Don
5:56
Speaker 1: thank you.
5:57
Speaker 5: Go ahead, Okay, So okay. So my son's name is
6:03
Speaker 5: Rosino and nicknamed z Z. I want to say is.
6:09
Speaker 5: I'd like to say is because I believe he's with
6:11
Speaker 5: me every minute of every day. So he is an
6:15
Speaker 5: incredible artist, thinker, philosopher, musician, pisces. He was a pissy,
6:23
Speaker 5: super huge heart. Taught me about jazz and he was
6:30
Speaker 5: one of my greatest teachers actually because he was such
6:33
Speaker 5: an old soul, he kind of his energy. He struggled
6:38
Speaker 5: with acclimating to being a human on planet Earth. He
6:42
Speaker 5: found humanity to be cruel at times, and he had
6:46
Speaker 5: a difficult time fitting into kind of society in general.
6:53
Speaker 5: So as an artist, he started to isolate and then
6:57
Speaker 5: eventually discovered drugs and addiction and then eventually addiction. A
7:03
Speaker 5: seven year battle with a heroin addiction took his life.
7:07
Speaker 5: But god, it's crazy to think about him because I
7:12
Speaker 5: wasn't Also, I was not prepared for this question, but
7:16
Speaker 5: he passed in New Orleans in this on this incredible
7:21
Speaker 5: courtyard with these gigantic oak trees in the quarter, and
7:25
Speaker 5: he left as he came in in a very poetic sense.
7:30
Speaker 5: And recently, you guys, I've had a breakthrough about memories.
7:35
Speaker 5: So I have been for the last few weeks taking
7:39
Speaker 5: his memories and turning them into light and warmth and
7:45
Speaker 5: love versus something that derails me and takes me down,
7:50
Speaker 5: do you know what I mean? Like, So it's funny
7:52
Speaker 5: because in grief, in my grief and in hanging out
7:56
Speaker 5: with Zee from the other side, it's the bigger chat
8:00
Speaker 5: challenge is how do I touch the universe every day
8:02
Speaker 5: to grab on to him in the now. So I've
8:06
Speaker 5: been really kind of focused on being with him in
8:09
Speaker 5: the now, creating new memories, and actually even the last
8:13
Speaker 5: couple of weeks, I've been able to laugh with him
8:16
Speaker 5: because he, through meditation, comes through to me. But that said,
8:21
Speaker 5: I'm really focused on creating new memories, if you will,
8:25
Speaker 5: and turning the experiences that I've had into positive light
8:30
Speaker 5: experiences for myself versus the negative. The negative because ultimately
8:36
Speaker 5: I've concluded that I had no control, have no control,
8:40
Speaker 5: and we all cross over at some point on planet Earth.
8:43
Speaker 5: So I'm trying to celebrate the idea of that because
8:46
Speaker 5: I too, like Dawn you mentioned, at some point, I
8:49
Speaker 5: will be on the other side with him and I'll
8:51
Speaker 5: get to hang out with him again in a different
8:54
Speaker 5: kind of way. So I don't know if that answered
8:56
Speaker 5: the question.
8:58
Speaker 6: Yeah, so yeah, yeah you me.
9:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
9:01
Speaker 6: See, thank you for Sharon z with us.
9:03
Speaker 1: What I love, too, Valerie, is that you're keeping his
9:06
Speaker 1: memory alive by saying is I don't I don't agree
9:10
Speaker 1: when people tell me, oh, what's in the past, I
9:12
Speaker 1: said no, because I still believe that I carry both
9:16
Speaker 1: Shay and Charles, my parents with me everywhere that I go.
9:19
Speaker 5: So was totally, absolutely, absolutely.
9:23
Speaker 1: So thank you, Thank you so much, Valerie. Thank you
9:26
Speaker 1: on the stage and you're in the hot seat.
9:27
Speaker 3: My friend, my son Wilson, he was definitely my person.
9:34
Speaker 3: He struggled with mental health my Scottish side of the family.
9:39
Speaker 3: Half of them killed themselves and and he he sadly
9:44
Speaker 3: got the bullet and he self medicated and then he
9:48
Speaker 3: got healthy for eight years and established three detalk centers
9:53
Speaker 3: in Tennessee and loved to scholarship people when they couldn't
9:57
Speaker 3: afford the talks. He loved to give. He saved hundreds
10:00
Speaker 3: of lives while he was healthy. And then he didn't
10:03
Speaker 3: tell me or anyone that he stopped taking is bipolar medicine.
10:08
Speaker 3: He just refused to talk about his mental health. And
10:10
Speaker 3: I had I was just getting over the loss of
10:13
Speaker 3: my sister, my only sibling, and when he died, and
10:17
Speaker 3: it was just it was just so uh. My ears
10:22
Speaker 3: really could not hear those words. And and and then
10:26
Speaker 3: my father died one week after we buried my son.
10:29
Speaker 3: So I I.
10:31
Speaker 5: Was a mess.
10:32
Speaker 3: I just I was just very alone. My Mom's still alive,
10:36
Speaker 3: thank god. And and I just he was the first
10:41
Speaker 3: person I wanted to talk to every morning of every day,
10:44
Speaker 3: and missus. He had the vest laugh, and he had
10:47
Speaker 3: a really unusual gait. He took up a lot of
10:49
Speaker 3: real estate when he walked. He was a real big, burly, handsome,
10:52
Speaker 3: very handsome man. He wanted five children. And so I
10:58
Speaker 3: just I talked to him through an angel reader. We
11:01
Speaker 3: all have the same one. And I said, I just
11:03
Speaker 3: missed your laugh, and he said, Mom, had I known
11:05
Speaker 3: you liked my laugh so much, I did would have
11:07
Speaker 3: done it more. And he was just just he loved
11:13
Speaker 3: my parents. He was the best grandson and great brother.
11:18
Speaker 3: He had a huge heart. When he was healthy, he
11:21
Speaker 3: was just the most wonderful human being. But he did
11:25
Speaker 3: not want his mental illness. I don't think he even
11:30
Speaker 3: wanted a diagnosis because he did not want to be
11:32
Speaker 3: like my sister who was also by bipolars. And you know,
11:38
Speaker 3: he struggled, Like the point of this, this podcast that
11:43
Speaker 3: we've been creating is he struggled alone. He didn't tell
11:46
Speaker 3: anyone about his mental illness. He didn't tell anyone about
11:50
Speaker 3: how he was self medicating. He was in Mexico. I
11:53
Speaker 3: didn't know where he was. And when I got the
11:56
Speaker 3: call and it was from this number in Mexico, and
11:58
Speaker 3: there was four prescription bottles from Mexican pharmacies and the
12:06
Speaker 3: autopsy didn't it was in Spanish. I'm wondering if there
12:10
Speaker 3: was fetanol in one of those bottles. And he just
12:14
Speaker 3: never woke up.
12:15
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's okay, that's okay. It's still fresh like
12:21
Speaker 1: it happened yesterday, right, And I appreciate you Sharon Wilson
12:27
Speaker 1: with us. You know, his laugh, I'm sure that that
12:31
Speaker 1: will keep you going, especially on the tough days. So
12:34
Speaker 1: I thank each of you for sharing. Ryan Z and
12:38
Speaker 1: also Wilson with our audience because people need to know
12:40
Speaker 1: who they are. They live through you. So let's talk
12:44
Speaker 1: about your podcast. There are no words, but we have
12:47
Speaker 1: a few. And I've heard this a lot in my
12:50
Speaker 1: grief groups that I run. I run the parent Lost
12:53
Speaker 1: group and the suicide loss group, that there tends to
12:56
Speaker 1: be no words right when you lose a child, when
13:00
Speaker 1: you lose anybody. And I'm curious for the three of you,
13:04
Speaker 1: what were some words and actions that gave you a
13:09
Speaker 1: sense of comfort from people around you.
13:12
Speaker 3: I love it when people ask to see a picture
13:15
Speaker 3: of my son. I love I love showing pictures of myself.
13:19
Speaker 6: Show one, Show one, Okay.
13:23
Speaker 3: Go ahead, don you were about to say something as
13:26
Speaker 3: I look for Will.
13:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, what was so helpful to me?
13:31
Speaker 2: And again, the impetus for us really expecting the energy
13:37
Speaker 2: to do this podcast and build out the website is
13:42
Speaker 2: people who were further down the road than I was,
13:46
Speaker 2: you know, and seeing that they could do it, you know,
13:51
Speaker 2: through the struggles, and you know, and seeing that they
13:55
Speaker 2: still were able to maintain a sense of humor, even
13:58
Speaker 2: if it's dark humor, you know. And just that introduction,
14:04
Speaker 2: one of my good friends had lost a child about
14:08
Speaker 2: ten years before I lost Ryan, and she introduced me
14:14
Speaker 2: to the idea of looking for signs. And I think
14:18
Speaker 2: for me that has been hugely helpful.
14:23
Speaker 4: Is the wrong way I have no words it is.
14:26
Speaker 2: It's it's just edifying and it's uplifting, you know, to
14:34
Speaker 2: to as val touched on before, is that idea that
14:37
Speaker 2: he's nearby, and that that cardinal tapping at the window
14:42
Speaker 2: or my wind chimes singing this beautiful song with no breeze.
14:49
Speaker 2: You know, I can hold my heart and go, oh,
14:52
Speaker 2: he's here. So I think for me, that's that's a
14:55
Speaker 2: big one.
14:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, for me. Initially, when z crossed over, I
15:06
Speaker 5: jumped just my spiritual work. I went straight into I
15:13
Speaker 5: wanted to find him. I wanted to talk to him,
15:15
Speaker 5: and I was like, okay, Valerie, there's only one way
15:18
Speaker 5: to accomplish that. This is I made my world very quiet,
15:22
Speaker 5: So initially I kept a lot of people out of
15:26
Speaker 5: my space so that I can meditate and talk to
15:29
Speaker 5: him and find him be in nature, hike, and I
15:34
Speaker 5: started to hear him come through within the first seven
15:37
Speaker 5: days of him crossing over. In fact, when he did
15:40
Speaker 5: cross over, I woke to a vision the most comforting,
15:44
Speaker 5: the actually the most comforting thing I have yet to
15:47
Speaker 5: experience in my process and my journey and walk with
15:51
Speaker 5: grief is the gift that I received when he crossed
15:55
Speaker 5: over in the form of a vision, and it was
16:00
Speaker 5: so majestic and it was so peaceful, and it was
16:03
Speaker 5: so beautiful, and I realized that he is at ease
16:09
Speaker 5: in his addiction. He left the you know, the the
16:13
Speaker 5: anxiety and the struggle of the human experience, and I
16:18
Speaker 5: got to feel the ease in which he transitioned, and
16:22
Speaker 5: I went, oh, my god, that's the feeling. And it's
16:27
Speaker 5: almost impossible to explain the feeling of this gift. But
16:33
Speaker 5: the faith that I have in the other side and
16:38
Speaker 5: in my connection to the other side is the first
16:41
Speaker 5: thing that got me through when he crossed over, and
16:45
Speaker 5: then eventually making space for other humans to come in,
16:51
Speaker 5: and that's when Dawn came into my life. Don is
16:53
Speaker 5: one of the first people I brought into my life
16:57
Speaker 5: as a result, because I knew we had this one
17:02
Speaker 5: crazy trauma like in common, and I felt safe in that.
17:08
Speaker 5: So it was making space really less words and more
17:13
Speaker 5: making space and connecting to the right energy that helped
17:16
Speaker 5: me and served me really well and still does.
17:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's my son.
17:23
Speaker 6: Ah, look at him.
17:25
Speaker 3: Ah, I do. I love talking about him, And yeah,
17:31
Speaker 3: I think it's helpful. I think people don't know what
17:34
Speaker 3: to say, so they don't see anything, and that almost
17:38
Speaker 3: kind of minimizes his role in the world. You know,
17:42
Speaker 3: he was my entire world.
17:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right when that's why I wanted you
17:48
Speaker 1: to show a picture of him to everybody, because people
17:52
Speaker 1: want to see, right, people want to.
17:54
Speaker 6: See that he existed.
17:56
Speaker 1: He still is through you, right, And I'm glad, don't
18:00
Speaker 1: that you brought up the signs This morning?
18:02
Speaker 6: Before we jumped.
18:04
Speaker 1: On here today, there was two cardinals in my front
18:08
Speaker 1: yard playing, two boy cardinals, and I you know, I
18:11
Speaker 1: have a little dog. His name is mister Fletcher. He spoiled,
18:15
Speaker 1: he loved my mom to pieces.
18:17
Speaker 6: Well.
18:18
Speaker 1: The two cardinals, we just sat there and watched them
18:21
Speaker 1: fly in the tree, fly around us, and he just
18:24
Speaker 1: sat there, both of us, and I said.
18:27
Speaker 6: Hi, Mommy, Hi daddy. I just knew.
18:30
Speaker 1: Though, right, just you you grow a custom at some
18:35
Speaker 1: point to these signs, right, whether it's the Cardinals, the Hawks, the.
18:40
Speaker 6: Numbers right right.
18:43
Speaker 1: Right, the you know, even when you're out sometimes like
18:47
Speaker 1: I had a woman one time at a wedding not
18:51
Speaker 1: too long after my mom made her transition. Lady had
18:54
Speaker 1: the same name as my mom, and she also had
18:59
Speaker 1: the same grip as my mom because she grabbed my
19:03
Speaker 1: hands because I was telling her about my mom and
19:06
Speaker 1: all the things, and she's like, Portia, you know you,
19:09
Speaker 1: you stay strong, you keep going. I literally almost start
19:12
Speaker 1: crying because I'm like, how is this possible?
19:15
Speaker 4: Wow? Wow.
19:17
Speaker 3: Within the first month I got home, I was kayaking
19:22
Speaker 3: and Wilson comes to me in dragonflies and I was
19:26
Speaker 3: kayaking and both of my arms were covered in dragonflies.
19:31
Speaker 3: No one else. I was kayaking with ten people and
19:34
Speaker 3: they were all on me.
19:37
Speaker 6: Dragonfly.
19:38
Speaker 1: Oh, I can go on a whole tangent about dragonflies,
19:42
Speaker 1: just the different colors that I've seen around without water
19:46
Speaker 1: mind you, you know, and also blue herons. I've been
19:50
Speaker 1: saying I had a near death experience over the summer
19:53
Speaker 1: and a blue heron was flying over me with mind
19:57
Speaker 1: you no water nearby. So but that's a whole nother
20:01
Speaker 1: story in half. One of the things that I noticed
20:06
Speaker 1: about the loss of each of your sons is that
20:10
Speaker 1: there's a stigma attached with overdose and suicide, and I'm
20:16
Speaker 1: curious for the three of you, how do you navigate
20:20
Speaker 1: that on a daily basis and how can you encourage
20:23
Speaker 1: others to not still be in that grief hit of
20:28
Speaker 1: shame around how their sons or their children have made
20:33
Speaker 1: their transition.
20:34
Speaker 6: You guys call it crossover. I call it transition, but
20:36
Speaker 6: same thing.
20:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not talking about it people. I mean, that's
20:42
Speaker 3: where we're doing this podcast, is we want to change
20:45
Speaker 3: the stigma around mental health and addiction. It's something that
20:51
Speaker 3: if you don't talk about it, how can you change
20:53
Speaker 3: the stigma?
20:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, especially with boys.
21:00
Speaker 2: You know, it's a very rare boy who's got a
21:03
Speaker 2: large group of friends where they share their struggles that
21:08
Speaker 2: they're going through. That idea that suicide comes in a
21:15
Speaker 2: really dark place, and so many people, you know, have
21:20
Speaker 2: battles with depression anxiety, and to help them understand that
21:27
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's a reaction to that when you
21:32
Speaker 2: don't feel there are other choices. It's not a weakness,
21:37
Speaker 2: it's just a I need to stop the pain, which
21:41
Speaker 2: is behind a lot of addiction. You know, I just
21:44
Speaker 2: have to stop the pain. I don't know how else.
21:47
Speaker 2: I can't go on in this pain. Yeah, that doesn't
21:51
Speaker 2: really answer how to stop this stigma, but just I
21:54
Speaker 2: think for me, it's to openly talk about my dark
21:58
Speaker 2: places that I've gone who and how I have made
22:02
Speaker 2: bad choices in avoiding pain, and how that does not
22:08
Speaker 2: work well for me.
22:10
Speaker 5: And it's also dawn like I also feel like it's
22:16
Speaker 5: not like a failure, you know, like addiction is not
22:22
Speaker 5: you know what I learned through Rosino so deeply is
22:25
Speaker 5: and he because he was so brilliant, I mean, such
22:28
Speaker 5: a talented human. I do now know the type of
22:34
Speaker 5: pain he was in because of the pain I feel
22:38
Speaker 5: now in lost, you know what I'm saying, Yes, And
22:41
Speaker 5: I realize the stigma of mental health, the stigma of addiction,
22:49
Speaker 5: is that there's something derogatory about it or there's a
22:55
Speaker 5: failure that exists in that and it's just not true.
22:59
Speaker 5: It's not true. It's navigating the human experience is so
23:04
Speaker 5: deep and so complicated, and it's a learning process every
23:08
Speaker 5: step of the way. And I shook through the stigma
23:12
Speaker 5: of heroine so early on because I live in an
23:15
Speaker 5: artist community with a lot of layers of the human
23:20
Speaker 5: experience going on and being expressed through art music, et cetera.
23:24
Speaker 5: And so it's more more accepted in the art communities
23:29
Speaker 5: than it is in the general population in the sense
23:32
Speaker 5: of addiction. And early on I realized, like, you know,
23:38
Speaker 5: I had no control over the situation as a parent.
23:43
Speaker 5: What I could do is, you know, fight the fight
23:45
Speaker 5: in the way that I could offer it to him
23:48
Speaker 5: to help him find a better way of being, or
23:53
Speaker 5: to find some kind of relief in his addiction or
23:56
Speaker 5: in what he was internally struggling with. But we all
23:59
Speaker 5: come in unique souls and with unique issues fully loaded,
24:03
Speaker 5: and I learned that all I could do is just
24:06
Speaker 5: love him and not judge him. And I feel like,
24:10
Speaker 5: I think that we attach judgment and failure to the
24:15
Speaker 5: idea of suicide or addiction, and it's not It's part
24:19
Speaker 5: of our human experience, just like anything else. It's so
24:23
Speaker 5: I look at Rosino like it was part of his
24:27
Speaker 5: life experience. And I don't have regrets for him or myself,
24:32
Speaker 5: or I don't have any I don't carry that weight
24:35
Speaker 5: about it, you know, like it is part of it
24:39
Speaker 5: and it was his choice, and I don't know, I
24:42
Speaker 5: don't know if that speaks to the stigma of it,
24:46
Speaker 5: but it's just the more loving and lack of judgment.
24:50
Speaker 5: We should leave judgment behind and kind of help and
24:54
Speaker 5: love and understand and hear and listen all those things.
24:58
Speaker 1: And now that I'm glad you brought up the love
25:00
Speaker 1: piece right because we all have love that has had
25:05
Speaker 1: to pivot now right the way that we still love
25:09
Speaker 1: you love Rosino, don loves Ryan and Anastagia loves Wilson.
25:13
Speaker 1: That love energy is still here. I had to pivot
25:18
Speaker 1: it to a different form and be open to how
25:21
Speaker 1: our love is received. And to your point about addiction
25:24
Speaker 1: and the stigma around mental health, I think more people
25:28
Speaker 1: need to realize that people are doing the best that
25:30
Speaker 1: they can and to love them where they are.
25:32
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, And there's nothing wrong with where someone's at.
25:37
Speaker 5: That's just judge. You have to like, go, Okay, I'm
25:40
Speaker 5: going to meet you where you're at. At least I'm
25:42
Speaker 5: going to do the very best that I can and
25:44
Speaker 5: meet you where you're at and figure out how I
25:48
Speaker 5: can add to the experience or you know, what my
25:52
Speaker 5: gift might be to offer or just make space, create
25:56
Speaker 5: space for another, Like I learned Rosino gifted all of
26:00
Speaker 5: those things.
26:01
Speaker 1: The gifted be that excellent, excellent you know we're going
26:05
Speaker 1: to be wrapping up here soon, don Anastasia and Valerie,
26:09
Speaker 1: and let me just say it has been an honor
26:11
Speaker 1: to have the three of you here to share your
26:14
Speaker 1: story about your children and also the mission that you're
26:17
Speaker 1: doing out into the world to encourage more parents to
26:21
Speaker 1: open up, to let them know that their grief doesn't
26:24
Speaker 1: have to be the nil and their own cross for
26:26
Speaker 1: the rest of their life. You know, I'm curious for
26:30
Speaker 1: our audience. One of the things that you guys talked
26:32
Speaker 1: about in the podcast was acclimating, and let's be realistic,
26:37
Speaker 1: acclimating to the loss of your person and also acclimating
26:41
Speaker 1: to how your family is grieving or not grieving the
26:47
Speaker 1: current loss that's in front of you. Even though you
26:49
Speaker 1: all have that connection through this person, I've each of
26:52
Speaker 1: you learned to acclimate watching your family grief and also
26:57
Speaker 1: being able to hold space for them and yourselves.
27:02
Speaker 5: One of the first things, if I may, one of
27:04
Speaker 5: the first things Rosino channeled to me within the first
27:08
Speaker 5: seven days of him crossing over was Mama, be selfless
27:14
Speaker 5: with your grief. And I was like, Okay. It took
27:17
Speaker 5: me a minute to figure it out because I was like,
27:20
Speaker 5: so overwhelmed that I wasn't considering anyone else's experience with
27:25
Speaker 5: the loss they were having of him, right, And so
27:31
Speaker 5: I was told from the other side to be selfless
27:34
Speaker 5: with my grief. So I wrestled with that and made space,
27:38
Speaker 5: you know, for my friends to fall to their knees
27:41
Speaker 5: in front of his altar and let them have that space.
27:45
Speaker 5: And it didn't have to always be about my pain,
27:49
Speaker 5: so you know, and I learned that through loving my
27:52
Speaker 5: friends and loving my family to let them hurt too.
27:56
Speaker 5: You know, it's a journey, though, it's a process. It
27:58
Speaker 5: takes a minute.
28:01
Speaker 3: Literally, I'm still acclimating. I I didn't even think about,
28:08
Speaker 3: like I'm now just hearing where people were when they
28:11
Speaker 3: heard about Wilson's passing. Like one friend of mine was
28:15
Speaker 3: at a at the middle of a wedding and she
28:18
Speaker 3: screamed when she heard. And so yeah, I'm just starting
28:22
Speaker 3: to think about the pain that my mother went through,
28:26
Speaker 3: the pain that Wilson's friends went through. And Wilson was
28:29
Speaker 3: friends with all of my friends, and so they lost
28:32
Speaker 3: him too, And so it's it's a it'll be a
28:35
Speaker 3: lifelong journey to acclimate.
28:37
Speaker 2: I just I had somebody gifted me a reading yesterday
28:41
Speaker 2: that had some wonderful words, and one of my favorite
28:44
Speaker 2: words is alchemy. So it's it's an it's an alchemy
28:50
Speaker 2: of like an oyster that gets irritated with a piece
28:55
Speaker 2: of sand and over the years it built builds and builds,
29:01
Speaker 2: and the pearl learns. The oyster learns to to live
29:06
Speaker 2: with this piece of sand and actually makes it soft
29:10
Speaker 2: and beautiful on the inside. And that's it takes years.
29:15
Speaker 2: It you know, it doesn't happen fast. It's a piece
29:18
Speaker 2: of sand for a really long time where it's irritating
29:21
Speaker 2: and and then you know, it doesn't time takes time,
29:27
Speaker 2: which sounds dorky, but it's true that it's not the
29:31
Speaker 2: first thing I think of in the morning. So it's
29:34
Speaker 2: it's alchemized to not be as sharp, to not draw
29:40
Speaker 2: blood every time. And I love what vals said about
29:43
Speaker 2: changing the memories into light, and that's kind of like
29:48
Speaker 2: making it into a pearl. These are the gifts, you know,
29:53
Speaker 2: I don't know I went off, but.
29:54
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, that was well said. That was
29:57
Speaker 5: most said, Thank you.
29:59
Speaker 1: No, And you're in when you're right, don I mean,
30:01
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times when we're in the
30:03
Speaker 1: thick of the loss of the grief, we can't see
30:07
Speaker 1: the hitting gifts that arise from the loss, from the transition,
30:12
Speaker 1: right because my audiobook is called Finding Grace Within Grief,
30:16
Speaker 1: Her Transition, My transformation, because that was essentially the epiphany
30:22
Speaker 1: I had when I picked up my mom's ashes from
30:25
Speaker 1: the funeral home. Literally, this little thing came in the window, like, Porstia,
30:30
Speaker 1: what if your mom's transition is for your transformation? And
30:33
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it at the time. Now how I understand?
30:37
Speaker 1: Now I get it because grief is the birthplace of
30:42
Speaker 1: transformation if you're open to experiencing it.
30:46
Speaker 5: Yes, it deeply is. The expansion in it and what
30:51
Speaker 5: you discover about yourself and the universe in grief is
30:55
Speaker 5: one of the greatest empowerments I have ever experienced. And
31:01
Speaker 5: it's also you know, like like anything, you know, the
31:03
Speaker 5: pendulum goes both ways. With great loss can come great
31:08
Speaker 5: learning and expansion and transformation. You do have to allow it, though, Portia.
31:13
Speaker 2: You're right, yeah, yeah, And I'll just one one quick
31:18
Speaker 2: thing as saying I've fallen in love with is all
31:21
Speaker 2: my good friends have limbs, meaning they've all they've all
31:27
Speaker 2: had something that's kind of changed their gait a little,
31:32
Speaker 2: but there's still there's still up and they're they're they've
31:36
Speaker 2: gone through that post traumatic growth, if you will, that
31:40
Speaker 2: new term, and it is one hundred. I'm a nicer person,
31:46
Speaker 2: I'm more compassionate, I'm more empathetic now.
31:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm definitely a better daughter and a better friend
31:52
Speaker 3: for sure because of it.
31:56
Speaker 1: Well, everybody, that was miss Anastasia Brown, Miss down Huey
32:00
Speaker 1: and also Mss Valerie Allen that you heard from on
32:03
Speaker 1: Grule Portie today And that concludes another episode and until
32:07
Speaker 1: next time, everybody, Peace and hair grease everyone,