Latest / Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories / Mothering Through Loss: Resilience, Healing and Mental Health with Traci Kovacic

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Mothering Through Loss: Resilience, Healing and Mental Health with Traci Kovacic · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome Back to my 41st episode of the Incidence podcast. And I have Tracy Kovacic here with me today. Tracy and I quite literally have known each other for multiple decades. Growing up in the same northern suburb of Pittsburgh with what I think she would, and I would agree was a pretty classically great upbringing. Massive public high school is about as typical as like 80s and 90s, early 2000s can get. Grew up in a, you know, pre digital age, we absolutely, we had no.
• 0:37
  Speaker B: Problem finding each other.
• 0:39
  Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. I always say people said find your friends. Like our kids find their friends. I'm like, how did we find our friends? We literally found them. We had to go find them.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: We did.
• 0:48
  Speaker A: So anyways, Tracy is someone who knows acutely what it means to begin again and to begin again. And as the mother of two children with profound autism, separated by two and a half years and knowing that it was never on my radar that this was the life and the motherhood, Tracy also feels that similarly, but in a different capacity. So, Tracy, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us who you are now and what led you to the Tracy today.
• 1:17
  Speaker B: Who I am now. Who I am now is a businesswoman. I'm an entrepreneur and I have a business. My business is Shine On Investments. We're located here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and our tagline is where we all shine on. I created this business to because and out of the tragedies that I've had in life, I became the poster child for life insurance back in 2015. On October 25, 2015, my third 32 year old husband was running a race and his heart went into an arrhythmia. He collapsed and he died at the finish line. I got a phone call that and excuse me, he didn't die at the finish line. He died in the hospital about five minutes later. But I got a phone call that they were working on him and that they, when I got there, they just, they couldn't save him. In my entire life, everything that I had known to be true. My husband, my two children, they were three and five months old at the time. Everything just exploded. And I had to wake up the next day and figure out what it is that I, that I was going to do. I continued to work. I continued to work because I am lucky enough to be in an industry where we help people. We help people make sure they have the right life insurance and they have the right investment set up for their future. And because we were lucky enough to have the right life insurance, I felt as though I became an Instant poster child for. For needing the right life insurance. So I stayed. I stayed in the career. I got my securities license and I started with investments. Because the other side is if you should suffer a tragedy and you need to use the life insurance, we always sell it, you know, with term policies. You don't want to. You want to waste this money, you want to waste this money. You want to grow.
• 3:02
  Speaker A: Please let this go to waste.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: Yes. But if you need it, it's going to be the best money that you've ever spent. And I've been spreading that message now for. For the past 10 years. And then I've learned to live, how to live off of investments as well. The other part about me and my adaptability is that my daughter, my. I have three children. My daughters are Sydney, who's 6. I have Calvin, who's 10 years old, and I have Josie, who's 12 years old. And Josie and Calvin, they lost their dad, Michael, 10 years ago. I was lucky enough to find love again. And I have another baby. Her name's Sydney. Three years ago, we suffered another tragedy. Our family did. My daughter Josie was in a ski accident and she. And she was hit so hard by a snowboarder that she was internally decapitated. She was dead on the mountain for 10 minutes. And by the grace of God, by a miracle, and I believe that we had to lose her dad all those years ago because this accident was going to happen. And he saved her, I think he did. And because she's a medical miracle. And it was. We were in the ICU for 30 days. We were in a rehabilitation unit for another 60 days. And then when we came home, I was her nurse. And so on top of financial advisor, on top of mother, on top of insurance agent, on top of friends, sister, daughter, Beyonce. I was also an ER nurse. And. But where we're at today is so important and why I'm here talking to Sarah. And we've reconnected through social media. We've been able to follow each other's stories all this time. So I've taken all this tragedy and I've turned it into shine on investments where people can come and they know that they're working with someone who's already been through the wringer. I've already. I've needed life insurance. I had life insurance. I've needed investments. I have investments. And I'm more so than anything. My goal is to be able to talk to people with a clear vision. I never want anybody leaving my office being like, what do we talk about right and so, you know, we're both in our early 40s here and it's, I still think my parents are 40.
• 5:24
  Speaker A: So it's like my mom definitely still thinks she's 40. She's like, I don't understand. I'm like, well, mom, you're in your mid-60s, I don't tell you.
• 5:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, so it's working with, you know, working with families from all ages, families that are established, like mine and Sarah's age and their kids are younger, all the way up to people who are retiring. We work with everybody.
• 5:48
  Speaker A: I hear in your voice something that I know I'm drawn to as someone who has, has experienced a different kind of life altering grief. There is something that rises when you survive. And hearing you talk about China on investments allows me to witness yours. And I think hearing you talk about that, the strength of your voice, the grief and the emotion, I mean that, that fuels how you even just spoke about why you're doing what you're doing. You must find over and over again on the daily that you get to do this. Right. Like there's no alternative in the mind of Tracy Kasic. Right? Like this is what you get.
• 6:29
  Speaker B: Recently, I've had a huge mind shift. And I have been saying how lucky that I am. And it's taken me, it's taken me 10 years to be able to look at myself in the mirror and see how lucky that I am. But Greece, I think that grief should be its own diagnosis. Gosh, not just, oh, you're grieving or it's grief, it's a, it's serious. And it really changed me for a long time. I, I, There was a period of time after Josie's accident where I was 35 pounds lighter than I am right now. My body was in complete fight or flight mode totally. And just watching her recover, watching her recover her resilience and her strength and the fact that they gave us no projection at all for her because her injury was so severe. Just watching her and then reassuring myself every day that she is okay. She is okay.
• 7:28
  Speaker A: And she's watching you.
• 7:30
  Speaker B: Yes, yes.
• 7:31
  Speaker A: That's always the biggest call, I think.
• 7:34
  Speaker B: The kids are always watching.
• 7:36
  Speaker A: It doesn't matter what I say to my typical oldest, but she is watching me begin again. She's watching me go through the motions of grief in my own capacity. And they're watching, man. They are, they are watching.
• 7:54
  Speaker B: And you know, I, I'm one for expressing my feelings. I have not shielded my children from my grief and my pain. They have been with Me. Right. They've been my best friends. And I think that it's made all of us, all of us stronger. I, I had many people in my life over the years who didn't necessarily agree with the fact that I was able to cry in front of my kids. And I just think it's so important to be able to show them that it's okay to be sad.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: The range of emotions that one does feel when you're knocked to your knees. Millie being diagnosed took me rock bottom. I remember looking up and being like, this isn't my life. This is not my life. And then Matt got diagnosed and I was like, silly you. I'm sure your first wave of grief or how you experienced grief one way didn't. Doesn't make the second wave different.
• 8:42
  Speaker B: No, it doesn't. And the shock factor, the shock factor in it, you know, the second that you hear that your baby is diagnosed or the second that you hear that they're working on them and you, this is your baby and you're. Yeah, you. We talked earlier today about how, you know, we do have a choice. We do have a choice. And so many people, when they go through these traumatic events or these life altering situations in life, you do have a choice. You can lay in bed all day, you, you can really hate the system and you can be filled with hate, but that's not going to get you anywhere.
• 9:21
  Speaker A: I think that what you're speaking to is that while mental health is real, I believe it's physical health. Right? Until you go through something that is actually so life altering that, that it's not until then that you realize you do have a choice. I mean, cause I can look back and think I had raging, you know, anxiety and depression at the end of college. I remember it feeling pretty shitty. But when I put one foot in front of the other and like, got to exercise classes, like, gosh, I really ended up feeling better.
• 9:52
  Speaker B: Let's run. You do still have a choice. And after the we have these earth shattering events happen, it's definitely not easy to make it to the gym. It is not easy to make it to the grocery store. It is not easy to go out in public and be surrounded by what feels like so much normalcy, even though we have no idea what's going on in other people's lives every day. And, but the weight of grief and the weight of these life challenges can be very isolating. And you know, I really look up to you for starting this podcast and talking about your struggles that you've had and raising Mac and Millie and because there. And the reason why I'm starting to be so vocal and sharing my story with the world is because we didn't have any hope for Josie. I mean, everyone around me had hope. Everyone around me had hope. Everyone around me was praying, but my baby was in that bed.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: Yep, it was yours.
• 10:48
  Speaker B: And time and tenacity and just in weeding out the events around and the even people around you that aren't going to support your vision, support your life and, and if you're too much for somebody else, then it's just negative energy.
• 11:07
  Speaker A: I find that when you know, great loss, you know, great, you know, true, true Luxury High, not any, not a thing, not a place, but I believe Luxurious High now is being loved for who I am and to see the world like, like full stop. It's just like the two things, love and adventure.
• 11:25
  Speaker B: Like you say love because love is like my biggest. Like we went to a concert years ago and we were joking because the artist said I love love, but it's it. I have hearts tattooed all over me like I can't get enough of it. And I just think that if you practice and you intentionally, with love, love everyone around you and compliment people and smile at people and even though we have all this pain on the inside, to be able to, you know, just share, show some love and to treat people with love and kindness, it is, it makes all the difference in the world.
• 12:01
  Speaker A: So I live by this like park and there's a bridge and it's such a long story about why the bridge is significant to me. But when I walked this morning, I just like started bawling on the bridge. Right. Every so often I start bawling on this bridge. And, and there were other walkers that came by. I mean, it's like a dense, woody, wooded area. One was a man who kept his head down and three were older women. And they all smiled and said good morning. I looked like I was about to jump into the lake, but they looked up and smiled and they're like, good morning. And I was like, good morning.
• 12:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Speaker A: Gosh, I love that about people. I love that about women. I especially love that about older women. Like give me all the 80 year old grandmothers to be friends with that have like lived life. Um, because it's true, like acknowledgement, witness. I don't need to fix anything for anyone. I can't. We were talking about this before we pressed play. I will never. I could never, ever, ever even attempt to make a better decision for Josie, Calvin and Sydney than Tracy. Can ever like full stop. There is. There is not one person in this world that can make a better decision for Josie, Calvin and. And Sydney than Tracy. There isn't. Prove me wrong.
• 13:05
  Speaker B: We are their mothers. We are their mothers.
• 13:06
  Speaker A: There is a mother's intuition and it is for whatever that grates against in other people. It's something that doesn't. Didn't allow them to do the same. Right.
• 13:16
  Speaker B: When your child. When it's your child, that is the center of what? Of your universe. And your child is struggling in any sort of way. Nobody can come around you and empathize really to what you're going through. It is one of the most painful things to see your child struggle. And as a parent, I mean when I lost Michael, I knew that he was gone. There was nothing that was going to change that because that's just. That's life. But when Josie was hanging on to the grips of life.
• 13:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:55
  Speaker B: My mother instinct kicked in. It kicked in. And I learned everything I possibly could about her injuries. And the doctors, they. I. I think I knew more than they did.
• 14:07
  Speaker A: Sometimes you gotta trust moms. Your data about Josie and. And Calvin and Cindy. But like specifically for Josie in that situation.
• 14:15
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 14:15
  Speaker A: There was no one that was going to tell you that you were not the best advocate for her. There was. There's nothing. I'm so sorry. But we survived as a species. Like evolutionary biology is fucking real. Okay? It's real. Because that's why we're here today. Right? Like me, men. Men protect and women tend and befriend and we. And we protect the nourishment of our loves. And we have an intuition.
• 14:39
  Speaker B: There was. There was one night in the hospital where her color was not right. And I knew her color was not right. And if I wouldn't have been there, we could have lost her that night. The blood was swelling in her brain. And the other.
• 14:52
  Speaker A: No, I was.
• 14:58
  Speaker B: Well, what they did was they checked her vitals. They do what? They do they. Because really to them, you know, as much as I don't want to say this, you really are a number in a hospital. And they have their protocols and their procedures. And that particular night my baby's skin was looking yellow. And I didn't understand. But to them, they maybe have not even noticed that. And what happened was that her. Her brain was filling with blood. And I was able to say something is going on here. And they checked her vitals. They couldn't tell what was going on. And it was probably 30 minutes later before they rushed to get her a CT scan. And I was just. It was, it was awful.
• 15:33
  Speaker A: I mean, listen, as cheesy as it sounds, we're all on our own hero's journey. Even people that probably are naysayers to how we make, like Tracy and Sarah make life choices, they're on their own hero's journey too. There is something like I. I came down the steps of my old house when Mac was 11 weeks old and I looked at someone and I went, he's autistic too, 100%. And I was told, you're postpartum.
• 16:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:01
  Speaker A: You're exhausted. Millie's going through a lot right now. You're. You're manifesting this. I'm like, I have a typical child. I have an atypical child. And now I have a third child who is trending similar to the second. I know what it's like to nurse a baby. That's typical. I know how the struggles are, and I know and I'm seeing things. I had so many specialized physicians and specialists say basically, like, we're not diagnosing three month old with, with autism. It'll be. One of the things I grieve the most is that I didn't, I couldn't get a diagnosis. I didn't start Mac on anything until I was 19 months old and he got diagnosed and he's exactly the same diagnosis as Millie.
• 16:42
  Speaker B: And I knew it. The whole, the whole time I knew it.
• 16:45
  Speaker A: I. Systems drive behaviors. Hospital systems, family systems, they drive behavior. So if the system is set up to do X and you challenge that system, they're coming for you. I challenge, like I always say, they're coming for me. Like, oh, you're going to be the one that diagnoses. I said to this one doctor, I go, wouldn't it be really cool if you were the first doctor in New Jersey to diagnose a five month old?
• 17:08
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:09
  Speaker A: How cool would that be? I don't have to take credit for it. You can take all the credit for that. And she was like, she looked at me, she's like, I am not diagnosing him at five months. I was like, well, see you next month.
• 17:18
  Speaker B: And how did that same doctor react to you as time went on?
• 17:22
  Speaker A: She was sympathetic, but still thought that I was making up the severity of it. Mac doesn't even have mild autism. He has profound autism like his sister. It's not like I was getting, okay, maybe he's just as burgers. No, it's exactly the same. And so I think that, that again, I just go back to the mother's intuition of, like, what you saw versus what I saw. How is that not seen as data? I don't understand. I. I truly don't understand. It needs.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: It needs to be seen as data. And every single. Every single baby that comes in and every sing. Every single mother who talks, it all needs to be data, and it all needs to go into the books. And there needs to be more advocacy for. For families. There needs to be more advocacy. And, you know, I wish that I could be everybody's advocate when they walk into the hospital. Like, I. I didn't have an advocate, but I. I didn't leave her side. And there's so many parents that. There's so many parents that don't have the resources like you do to be able to help our children, too.
• 18:27
  Speaker A: I say that all the time. I will. I will slap myself and remind myself of my privilege a lot.
• 18:32
  Speaker B: And that is why I could. And I have changed my mindset from, you know, woe's me, you know, and I. I've never tried to play the victim, but I. You know, it's been hard. It's. It's been really hard.
• 18:47
  Speaker A: No one in a million years wakes up at 32 and goes, all right, I'm gonna have my husband die this morning, and then a few years later, my daughter's gonna be on life support. Like, cool. Yeah, I'm gonna choose that.
• 19:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 19:01
  Speaker A: No. One. That's. That's ridiculous. And it elicits laughter, I think, because it's so ridiculous to think that you would not be foundationally changed by that.
• 19:12
  Speaker B: It is ridiculous to think that you would not be foundationally changed.
• 19:15
  Speaker A: I mean, I had a friend ask me that. This was years ago. It was probably right after Matt got diagnosed. And we have other college friends, and I didn't hear this, but I'm sure similar has happened to you. This other friend said to this other friend, the closer friend of mine, gosh, Sarah's changed so much. And all I heard was, can you imagine what would happen if two of your children will never speak? Of course she's foundationally changed. What. What did you expect? So I guess I asked you that too. Like, in the grief, in the Working through it, in showing up, in shine on investments. Like, what do you feel? Because it's so authentic, like, there's nothing about what you're sharing with me that doesn't ooze truth, reality, and authenticity.
• 20:01
  Speaker B: I've been. I've been moving forward at a pace which feels like a snail's pace for the past 10 years.
• 20:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:08
  Speaker B: But when I look back, I'm very proud of the fact that I was able to continue to work. I worked with my late husband's father in law for 12 years where he was my mentor and really just such a great support system for me. The longer that I stay in this business, the more people that I meet who are just like me and you, Sarah, and like, who have families with kids that are the same age as ours. And every family is going through some struggle. And that is why I created Shine On Investments where we don't charge any fees. So financial advisors, nine out of ten of them are going to charge you a financial advisory fee, which is 1 to 2% of your assets under management. And I decided that I don't want to run Shine on that way. So we don't charge any advisory fee. And the reason for that is because you don't have to charge a fee. And all of the guys up above look at me like I'm crazy. But what I want to do is I want to help people. And I know that there's ways to invest money without charging that 1 to 2% fee. And so what I do is I work with a shares and anyone who wants to meet with me, they can schedule a zoom right on my website. And my, my passion in life is helping people the way that people tried to help me when I was going through everything that I went through.
• 21:24
  Speaker A: You know, it's hard to, you know, one of my things I remind myself is that like I am healthy, I can take a walk, I am the voice of my children. I am so thankful to have friendship and love in my life. Like, and I know that I can't buy any of those, I can't purchase any of those. And that's become a thing. I'm like, luxury really isn't what we've been sold. Luxury is. Luxury is. Luxury is actually this, right? This is very truthful, this is very honest. What is it for you? What is luxurious to you?
• 21:54
  Speaker B: Now at this point in my life, the most luxurious thing is when I have all three of my children and my fiance and we're all together because with their ages being 12, 10 and 6 years old, somebody's on their iPad, someone's on an Xbox, you know, somebody's cleaning something. I'm at work. And so any time that we get to spend together is, I cherish it because I know how fast it can go away. The kids are getting older every single day. And my little one, she's only six and she's, she's so cute. Like it's, it's just. I don't know how I'll ever really be able to define success because I think that we're always working towards success and we're always working on ourselves, especially as women. But that is definitely how I find my peace. My peace these days.
• 22:44
  Speaker A: Do you feel like when you get those moments, do you think to yourself, I know the depth of this joy and happiness I feel because I know.
• 22:54
  Speaker B: Great loss even having this conversation, just thinking about when I am, when I'm with my family. Yeah. The amount of gratitude that I feel is, is, is otherworldly. Really. I mean, I have goosebumps right now because, because it's, it's been such a long time of. It's been a solid decade almost. We're coming up this year will be the 10 year anniversary from losing Mike and, and I think it's really important to talk and hear about what an amazing man that, that he was.
• 23:26
  Speaker A: I mean, I didn't know Mike all that well, but what I do remember about Mike was what you share and I can see it in your smile right now. He really was just a joyful human.
• 23:35
  Speaker B: He was a joyful human being. He was the guy that would take his shirt off, off his back for you, and I was the wife that would get annoyed and say, why do we have to give everybody your shirt?
• 23:44
  Speaker A: Right?
• 23:45
  Speaker B: And you know, and it's just, it's one of those losses that has been monumental for so many, so many people. There was almost 2,000 people that came to his funeral. And it's just. But, but, but now I can look at my son Calvin, who has the same little butt chin as him and the same, the same eyes and the same mannerisms. And I just continuously remind myself each day when I get ready and look in the mirror that I'm lucky.
• 24:12
  Speaker A: And he lives on in them. And they're going to create what I can only think of as deep joy as those parts of him come out in the kids as, as the years go on and you keep moving. I can only imagine how powerful it is to see that button chin and his laugh.
• 24:29
  Speaker B: It's. It's crazy sometimes. I mean, even sometimes I'm like a little creeped out cause like snuggle and he's like, he's like my little boy. But he's like so much like his dad. Yeah.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: But again, that's, again, that is such a life luxury to know that and to feel it. You know, I've been a big. Glennon Doyle, avid reader for years. And she said, grief is the receipt you wave in the air going, I loved. I loved. I loved really damn hard. I get crushed by the grief. That is a loss that I didn't even anticipate. As your children know, too, it's going to become foundational to why they are the humans they are.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: It was all meant to be. It was all meant to be.
• 25:02
  Speaker B: My baby, Sydney, she's. She's with my fiance, Matt. And so, you know, we have a very special family as well. And, um, you know, Josie and her little sister, they have two different dads. And you know, we really had. And Calvin was only five months old when his dad died. And so Matt, Matt, my fiance, is the only dad that, yeah, Calvin's ever had. And so the dynamics of our family. My heart breaks all the time whenever I hear Sidney say, hey, dad. And Josie's like, it's just, it's, it's every single day. And I, you know, mothers like me and you, who can, even if we have to fake a smile, we will fake the smile.
• 25:40
  Speaker A: And I think that by showing up, rising every day, especially with our oldest girls, you know, losing them to the teen years right now, when people are like, gosh, I can't believe that the girls are getting teenage years, I'm like, this is typical. This is such a cool thing to expect. I have nothing typical to expect. Have her slam the door in my face and be like, love you. Love you so much. I know you're gonna hate me, but at 25, you're gonna love me again. Like, I say that because I'm like, this is typical. Millie's never gonna slam a door in my face ever.
• 26:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I know. You know, I, I know how I, I can relate to that. When, after Josie's accident, she was so. She was. Her brain had so much healing to do and other little nine year old girls were like, full of attitude and full of this and slamming doors and stuff. And Josie was nowhere near that. And I was just wishing, I was wishing for the attitude. I was like, you're lucky that your little girl's giving you attitude. You have all that now. And, And I'm very lucky. And I love it.
• 26:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean. Like, for as much as it can drive me up the wall, I'm so acutely aware that I get to experience both. I get to experience typical motherhood. I get to experience very wildly atypical motherhood. I've got girls and a boy, and at the end of the day, like, no one's gonna look at my life on paper and go, yeah, I choose that, right? No one's gonna do it. But I'm so. I. I truly, truly am, like, so glad it's mine. I really am.
• 27:03
  Speaker B: One funny little thing before we end. Yes. Yes. I had my. I got noticed that my Social Security number was, like, broken into or something, and one of my good friends said, let them have it.
• 27:12
  Speaker A: I just take it. I just freaking take it. I take it.
• 27:15
  Speaker B: At this point.
• 27:17
  Speaker A: Someone just have a Tracy community. You're like, oh, you better think twice when you take that one.
• 27:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want that one.
• 27:22
  Speaker A: You don't want that one. Are you really sure? I know you think you're playing a great game of roulette right now. Are you really sure you want that?
• 27:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was hilarious.
• 27:31
  Speaker A: Oh, my God. That's awesome. That's really good. Well, Tracy, this literally did feel like a great friend catch up, not just an episode. And I. I am so thankful that again, we haven't connected live in a number of years. But what I do know to be true is that you seem to be so accepting of what life gave you is giving you and what is to come because of the resilience that those curveballs through. And you're talking. You're speaking about it. You have a business driving. Rome wasn't built in a day. Yeah, Rome wasn't built in a day.
• 28:04
  Speaker B: It's. It's taken me a long time to be able to get to this point, and I'm. I'm really excited, and I thank you for having me on.
• 28:10
  Speaker A: Of course. Well, we will list all of Tracy's details about how you can get in touch with her for any financial advising. And if you're local to the Pittsburgh area, she is there as well. Shine on investments. And until next time, on the Inch Jones podcast.
• 28:25
  Speaker B: Bye. Thanks.