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heal, and get the answers you've been longing

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to hear. Do you have a

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question for someone who's transitioned? Do you

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everybody. Welcome to the Ask

2:24

Julie Ryan show. It's where we

2:26

blend spirituality and practicality to help

2:29

you live a life of purpose and

2:31

joy. We have Dr.

2:33

Liza Baros laying on the show with

2:35

us today. Liza, a

2:37

professor of social work at

2:40

the University of Houston, specializes

2:42

in young widowhood. a reality

2:44

she knows all too well. At

2:46

36, she became a widow left

2:48

with a three -year -old son. In

2:51

addition, Liza founded the

2:53

Young Widowhood Project, an

2:56

organization dedicated to advancing

2:58

research and raising awareness

3:00

on this often overlooked

3:02

experience. With my maternal

3:04

grandmother having been a young

3:06

widow with small children, I'm

3:08

interested in understanding the complexities

3:10

of this type of loss

3:12

and, more importantly, how

3:14

we can support those who endure

3:16

it. Please remember to subscribe,

3:18

leave a comment, and

3:20

share this episode with your family and

3:22

friends. Now, let's go talk

3:24

with Liza. Dr.

3:26

Liza, thank you for taking the time

3:28

to come join us today. Thank

3:31

you for having me. I'm so excited.

3:33

Oh, me as well. Please

3:36

tell us how you became interested

3:38

in studying young widows. So

3:41

I was a I got

3:43

my PhD in social work.

3:45

I finished in 2018 at

3:48

the University of Houston and

3:50

I was studying trauma related

3:52

issues and the lived experiences

3:54

of vulnerable and marginalized populations. And

3:57

so I already had this research

3:59

background when in 2020 when I

4:01

just started as a

4:03

professor at the University of

4:06

Houston downtown. July

4:08

of 2020, my husband,

4:10

who was a psychologist, Brent Lane, he

4:13

was feeling a little antsy because

4:15

of quarantine and COVID and everything.

4:17

So he decided to buy a

4:19

boat that was new to him,

4:22

an older boat, but new to us,

4:24

to just be in nature, get out. And

4:27

so he bought it on a Monday and he went

4:29

to try it out on Friday. And

4:31

within like an hour of

4:33

him being at the lake or two

4:35

hours, the police was at my house letting me know

4:37

that someone had found his boat and that he

4:39

was missing. So they had found his boat in the

4:41

middle of the lake. And so two

4:43

days later, his body was found. And

4:46

that is what started this whole, you

4:49

know, it took me some time to catch

4:51

my breath, right? To actually even figure

4:53

out what I could do, what I wanted

4:55

to do as a result. But I began

4:57

to realize there is so much. that

4:59

is not understood or known or talked about

5:01

in the literature in the way that

5:03

is meaningful to me as a widow. There

5:06

is research on young widowhood, not

5:08

much, but there's some, but

5:10

it's really describing what's happening to

5:12

the widows versus like, this is

5:14

what it's like to be me,

5:17

you know? And so I decided I need

5:19

to, I'd like to start looking into widowhood

5:21

research and that's the start of this

5:23

whole thing. Tell us about

5:25

your husband. Brent

5:27

Lane, like I said, was a psychologist.

5:29

I just found a video that he had

5:31

made for his psychology practice, which he

5:33

called Yellow Rose Counseling, because it had

5:36

that strong Texas connection of Yellow

5:38

Rose. And he

5:40

was just a kind, sweet,

5:43

good, intelligent person,

5:46

supportive, always very encouraging.

5:49

And he worked a lot

5:51

with grief and loss,

5:53

actually. And so he was

5:55

also very wise and grounded. And

5:58

I know that people idealize

6:00

people after they die because we try

6:02

to hold on to the better parts of

6:04

them. But I think that in hearing so much

6:06

of what people said about Brent after he

6:08

died, things that I didn't know he was even

6:10

doing. He would write notes

6:12

to every single one of the

6:14

clinicians he worked with that worked in

6:16

his practice and would leave them a note

6:18

saying, hey, you're doing great. you know, thank you

6:20

for the work that you're doing. I, you know,

6:22

I made you some tea. I left the light

6:24

on for you. Like just little things that he,

6:26

and every time he would pay, then he would

6:28

send them a thank you note for what they

6:30

were doing. So he was just,

6:32

he had, he was like bigger than life,

6:34

just a really you know,

6:36

always seeking to do good, to

6:39

have fun. He was pretty irreverent,

6:41

which, you know, you wouldn't realize

6:43

that because he also worked with such

6:45

heavy topics of trauma and death and

6:47

especially deaths by suicide and survivors of

6:49

suicide. He worked a lot and he

6:51

could handle it. He could handle it.

6:53

He was like, I was like, do you ever, does

6:55

that ever stay in your mind whenever you're on your

6:57

own? And he's like, no, no, I'm there

6:59

with them in the moment and then I leave

7:01

and then I go do other stuff. So just

7:04

a wonderful human being. And

7:06

when that police officer was at

7:09

your door, tell us about that.

7:11

Give us the cliff notes without

7:13

re -traumatizing yourself. Yeah, so do

7:15

you want to like the leading up to it? Because

7:17

there is a story that leads up to it. Okay,

7:20

so I

7:22

spoke to him last at

7:24

7 p .m. that night. And

7:27

had told me he was going to send me pictures

7:29

of the lake. Because I told him, you haven't sent me

7:31

pictures. I haven't been out there. I would never be

7:33

out there without sending you pictures. I was like, OK, cool.

7:36

So at 8 o 'clock, I

7:39

had not received pictures. And I'm not

7:41

someone that is really good at keeping track of

7:43

time. I have time blindness. But

7:45

for some reason, I was like, what is

7:47

going on? So I texted him, and I

7:49

said, pics, are you OK? That

7:52

is the first that came to mind and I got

7:54

no response. And then 15 minutes later,

7:56

I called him and it was straight to

7:58

voicemail. And then I called him five more times

8:00

to see like, is he picking up?

8:02

And then I felt something's happened. I just

8:04

felt it. I knew something had happened

8:07

to him. And so I

8:09

called his best friend and I

8:11

asked him, do you know exactly which lake he went

8:13

to go try the boat at? Because I was very

8:15

preoccupied that day because I had been tested for COVID

8:17

and it was my first time ever getting tested for

8:19

COVID. I was kind of scared. And

8:22

his best friend was like, I think he might be in

8:24

like Houston. Do want me to go check? It's 30 minutes away

8:26

from my house. And one thing

8:28

about me is I don't like to bother

8:30

people. I don't like to ask for favors. But for

8:32

some reason I was like, please, like, I'm so

8:34

sorry to ask you to drive 30 minutes. And the

8:36

reason I couldn't is because I had our three -year

8:38

-old son that I had to put him to bed,

8:40

you know? And so I was at my parents'

8:43

house and we lived across the street from my parents

8:45

at that time. And I said,

8:47

well, while he's going to go check on

8:49

Brent, I will take my son and put

8:51

him to bed. And the whole

8:53

time, as I was holding my son,

8:55

carrying him across the street, I had a

8:57

voice in my head that said, you're

8:59

now a widow and the kids have lost

9:01

their father. You're now a widow and

9:03

the kids have lost their father. And

9:05

I was just shaking inside, you know?

9:07

And so I... I was like,

9:09

what if I'm just making this up? What

9:11

if it's just my anxiety, right? So

9:14

I took my son to bed, I

9:16

sang to him, did all the things that Brent normally did

9:18

with him when he went to bed, and

9:20

then I called my sisters. And

9:23

I told my sisters, I don't dare call Brent's family

9:25

because I don't want to scare them, but I think

9:27

something, I have a bad feeling something's happened to Brent. And

9:29

they were like, oh no, do you want to do a police

9:31

report? And I was like, yes, but I'm

9:33

so scared. I can't even remember his license

9:36

plate or anything like that. And so

9:38

they said, why don't you look, where can

9:40

you find on your computer? So I logged

9:42

into our easy tag, which is the toll

9:44

tag system thing that we have in

9:46

Houston. And I'd realized that he had

9:48

exited the Lake Houston location while I

9:50

was on the phone with him and

9:52

had not come back. So my heart

9:55

just dropped. I was like, oh my

9:57

God, like he's there. That is where

9:59

he is. And so as I'm talking

10:01

to my sisters and I'm, you know, they're like, do

10:03

you want to say a prayer? Like, what do we,

10:05

you know, I see police lights

10:07

outside my house. So

10:09

when the police came, I already

10:11

knew. And when he said, does

10:14

Brent Lane live here? I just

10:16

lost it. And my sisters were

10:18

on FaceTime. My parents were across

10:20

the street. And I remember this

10:22

being this almost like a slow

10:24

motion movie. And I'm

10:26

out of my body. And just screaming,

10:28

I don't recognize my own. behavior

10:31

at the times. I was just in so

10:33

much pain and panic and the police was like,

10:35

I didn't tell you he was dead yet.

10:37

And I'm like, but I know, but

10:39

I know, you know, and so that's

10:41

how I found out that he was missing. How

10:45

did you know he was already gone? Had you ever

10:47

had a voice in your head like that before? Okay,

10:50

no. This, okay,

10:52

is it okay if I say some of the

10:54

stuff that happened leading up to it? Absolutely. Yeah.

10:56

This is the first, you

10:59

know, I'm very much like, I

11:01

used to be very much

11:03

what I receive in my senses.

11:06

You know what I mean? Like I haven't really

11:08

trusted intuition as much. I didn't know what

11:10

it was. And you know, you're always like, you

11:12

start to question yourself. And I think that

11:14

being a scientist doesn't take away your belief in

11:16

intuition, but I'm used to reading things that

11:18

I can observe, you know what I'm saying? And

11:20

taking that information in. And so

11:22

a couple of things happened

11:24

leading up to a probably

11:27

in the six weeks leading up to his death, there's

11:29

just too much evidence that I

11:31

cannot refute. So one

11:33

thing was, the first thing was that

11:35

one night I was asleep in bed

11:37

and I woke up, like I think

11:40

I got three in the morning with

11:42

this trepidation that I needed to learn how to parent my son

11:44

on my own. Because out of both

11:46

of us, my husband was the better parent. You know,

11:48

you knew how to play with him, he already had

11:50

a child that was 11 years old, this was my

11:52

first kid, and I was like, Sometimes I'm like, I

11:54

don't know how to be fun. I want to be

11:56

fun, too, just like he is. And I

11:58

was on Amazon just buying toys for

12:00

my son and I to play together. And

12:02

my husband woke up at five and I was crying. And

12:05

he said, what's wrong? And I said, I just have

12:07

this heavy feeling that I need to learn how to

12:09

parent Roswell on my own. And he was

12:11

like, you've got me, babe. Just watch me. I can

12:13

make a game with a box. Just watch what I

12:15

do. And so that was the

12:17

first thing that happened, that looking back, I

12:19

was like, oh my God, I was starting to

12:21

get a feeling. So then maybe

12:24

two weeks after that, my husband,

12:26

we went to bed and he got up

12:28

to watch a movie on his own, a

12:30

zombie movie. I didn't like to watch zombie

12:32

movies, they scare me. And so I was

12:34

asleep and I rolled over and I was a hard

12:36

sleeper at that time. When my husband was alive, I

12:38

was a really good sleeper. And I

12:40

rolled over. and my hand

12:42

hit the cold bed and it

12:44

was like this reverberation in

12:46

my system like oh like and

12:48

in that moment I knew he

12:50

was dead like I it was without a

12:52

doubt my husband was dead that's what

12:54

I felt like at the time one month

12:56

before he actually died and and I

12:58

was like I woke up in a panic

13:00

and then I thought Oh my god, that's

13:03

thank god is not true if he's really not

13:05

dead So I started sobbing and sobbing and I

13:07

got up and I went and told him and

13:09

he turned off the TV And it was really

13:11

funny because he was the more romantic Gentle one

13:13

of both of us but at that time he

13:15

was like I'm watching a zombie movie and you

13:17

hear balling your head off telling me how much

13:19

you love me And so I was like I

13:21

just want you to know that if anything ever

13:23

happened um I wouldn't be able to really go

13:25

on without you. I love you so much and

13:28

I had this experience and I'm hugging him and

13:30

he's doing the little awkward paths on my back,

13:32

which made me laugh because I was like, this is so

13:34

not like him. But he was like, nothing's going to

13:36

happen to me. So that was one month before he

13:38

died. And then two weeks before he

13:40

died, we had this conversation. We normally had

13:42

these check -ins in our marriage. How are you

13:44

doing? Are you happy? What do you need? And

13:47

he was like, you know, I really wouldn't love

13:49

it if you made me brownies. Like that makes me

13:51

happy. It makes me feel loved. And I love

13:53

back rubs. And I'm like, okay, okay. So that same

13:55

day, I ran to the store to grab, you

13:57

know, brownie mix. And I kept

13:59

it there when the spirit moved me. I said, when the spirit

14:01

moves me, I'll make it for him. But I had

14:03

two packs of brownie mix. And

14:05

the night before he died, I was

14:07

analyzing data for a paper that actually

14:09

was published shortly after he died. And

14:12

when I'm doing analysis, I

14:14

don't like to be bothered. I have

14:16

a hard time concentrating already, so

14:18

I focus on what I'm doing. And

14:21

I had this voice inside of me that said, make

14:23

him the brownies. And I was like,

14:25

OK, and this is weird because I'm

14:27

analyzing data right now. But I made the

14:29

brownie mix. I stuck it in the

14:31

oven. And I remember while

14:33

I was sticking in the oven, I

14:35

was thinking, what am I doing? This is

14:37

so strange. And I

14:40

stood by the stove the whole

14:42

time the brownies were in the oven,

14:44

analyzing data. I'm just looking at

14:46

it, because I was so stressed out

14:48

with the timeline that we had to submit this paper.

14:51

And so I brought him the brownies around 10 o 'clock

14:53

at night. And he was like, oh, thank you, babe.

14:55

What is this for? And I said, I don't know.

14:57

I just want you to know that I love you.

14:59

Remember you told me? And he was like, oh

15:02

thank you so much you know there's a

15:04

suite of you and so then

15:06

the next morning I woke

15:08

up an hour early and

15:10

and I thought yay my

15:12

son is not going to wake up for

15:14

another hour I have an hour to code and

15:16

a strong voice inside of

15:18

me said be

15:21

intentional and I

15:23

was like what like I was

15:25

sitting up in the bed like like what

15:27

and it said stop be

15:29

intentional right now It

15:31

was very punctuated. And

15:34

I said, be intentional with who?

15:37

And then there was no answer. So

15:40

then I looked over to my husband and I

15:42

said, oh, I guess I need to

15:44

be intentional with him. So I tapped

15:46

him and I said, hey, are you awake? And he was

15:48

like, yeah. I said, can I give you a back

15:50

rub? And he was like, why? And I

15:52

said, I don't know. I felt like I

15:54

need to be intentional with you right now. That's

15:56

what I felt right now. And he said,

15:58

oh, thank you. OK. So I started giving you a back

16:01

rub. And while I'm giving him the back rub, he

16:03

told me that he had a

16:06

dream the night before. And he said,

16:08

I had a dream that I wouldn't somewhere

16:10

in the dark. And when

16:12

I woke up, when I got to it and it

16:14

light came on, I was in the most beautiful place I'd

16:16

ever seen in my life. And we were

16:18

all together. And

16:20

to me, all those

16:23

these things that I've shared

16:25

with you are like, I've never

16:27

experienced anything so strong and

16:29

I've never experienced obeying them

16:31

and being so grateful that I

16:33

listened, you know, because

16:35

I have zero regrets about

16:37

the last day, you know, because

16:39

I listened to everything that came to me

16:41

at the time. And then, but then

16:43

things continued and he told me this dream

16:45

he had that looking back was a

16:47

gift because for me that has made some

16:50

meaning of like that there was a

16:52

pre -existing plan that this was going to

16:54

happen, and it wasn't just random. That

16:56

is very hard for me to deal

16:58

with just from a trauma perspective. And

17:02

so that day,

17:04

also at 11 o 'clock as

17:06

I was coding, I

17:08

had this urgency to go check on my son

17:10

across the street, which, again, is not something

17:12

that I would normally do, because I'm, like, head

17:15

down coding. So I took my computer

17:17

across the street, and then my mom said, hey, can

17:19

you get some vegetables for your sister -in -law? I'm making

17:21

her some soup because she has COVID. And

17:23

I said, well, I'm about to have a meeting. And she

17:25

goes, OK, well, can you stay with your son while I

17:27

go to the store? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I'll stay. And

17:29

my son came running. He said, I want to see daddy.

17:32

So I FaceTimed my husband. And it was the

17:34

last time that we all were four of us

17:36

together. You know, and

17:38

so at around, you know, my son,

17:40

my husband was going to take the boat out

17:42

to try it out at two o 'clock. Yeah,

17:44

before two o 'clock because he had to drop

17:46

off his son, my stepson at his mom's house

17:48

because they were going to go on a trip by two o 'clock.

17:51

Well, the guy who was working on

17:53

the boat that day did not finish in time

17:55

for him to take his son. And

17:57

so he dropped his son off and he called me and

17:59

he was really irritated. Like at four o 'clock he

18:01

called me and he said, this is so annoying. You

18:04

know, this guy took so long, all this stuff,

18:06

and I was just commiserating with him, right?

18:08

And then at five, he texted me, and he

18:10

said, I want to revise our previous conversation

18:12

with some insight. He said, I'm grateful

18:14

for the means, the opportunity, and

18:16

the people I love. So something struck

18:18

me about what he said. I'm like, this is really

18:20

deep, you know? So I called him, and I'm

18:22

like, what is this message, you know? What are you

18:25

trying to say here? He said, I don't know.

18:27

I have a really strong feeling I should be complaining

18:29

about my life, because my life is beautiful. You

18:31

know like I just have a strong feeling

18:34

I shouldn't complain and I was like

18:36

well Okay, you don't have to but if

18:38

you want to I'm he I'm all ears like

18:40

whatever you want that will make you happy

18:42

I'm here and so then I spoke to him

18:44

again at seven and so then like like

18:46

I you know I'm kind of going

18:48

back to the getting this feeling this had

18:50

never happened to me or if it

18:52

had I had not listened You know

18:55

and so this is the first

18:57

time and this to me has

18:59

been a turning point of listening

19:01

to these, recognizing that intuition and

19:03

that these messages that have no

19:05

physical evidence, but they

19:08

have evidence because it happened over and over

19:10

and over, and you can't refute that. That

19:13

was a turning point for me

19:15

in this kind of belief about

19:17

receiving messages.

19:20

Who do you think sent the

19:22

messages? I think

19:24

God. That's my opinion,

19:26

God or angels

19:29

or guides. The

19:33

one message that I felt

19:35

really that was from God was,

19:37

stop and be intentional right

19:39

now. That one felt very like,

19:41

you have no idea how important this moment

19:43

is and I'm trying to spare you. That

19:45

one feels to me. The other one's, I

19:47

don't know because some of them, especially

19:50

the one that you're a widow, he's dead. Now that

19:52

was scary. It was a scary, but

19:54

I think it's a scary reality. You know

19:57

what I mean? So there's no kind

19:59

way to tell me, you know, that I'm

20:01

going to be a widow or that

20:03

I am a widow already. So

20:05

you had multiple premonitions and he

20:07

was having premonitions too, although

20:09

he probably wasn't aware of

20:11

it, but he followed his

20:13

intuition as well. Yes. And

20:15

what a gift. Yes. For

20:17

you and your son. Such

20:20

a gift. Yeah. Have

20:23

you in your research run

20:25

across other women? who

20:27

have had a similar situation

20:29

before their husbands passed, they've

20:32

run into anything like that? I've seen, not

20:34

in my research, that is something I

20:36

want to ask. I do want

20:38

to ask, but I have seen that in other

20:40

people's research, where they say that,

20:43

like, and I resonate with

20:45

that personally, where they said

20:47

that people in hindsight realize that

20:49

they had premonitions, you know,

20:51

and so that they're grateful because

20:53

that allows them to make meaning of

20:55

the death. I think

20:57

what they find is like the hardest thing

20:59

to deal with is to feel like

21:01

something is so random and so meaningless.

21:04

Like there was no reason for you

21:06

to die like this or to die

21:08

at this age. But when you have

21:10

premonitions and you listen to them or think about

21:12

them in hindsight, you you start to feel like Maybe

21:15

there was a larger purpose. I

21:17

don't know it and it doesn't

21:19

make this existence better or easier

21:21

But it helps and have some

21:23

peace that it wasn't just completely

21:25

meaningless and random and you know,

21:27

like this world is a very

21:29

terrifying place so what do you

21:31

think the bigger

21:33

picture is with all

21:36

of this happening certainly

21:38

you founded the you know your

21:40

young widowhood project and that's serving

21:42

people around the world and we'll get

21:44

into that more in detail here in

21:46

a couple of minutes. But what do

21:48

you think the bigger picture is

21:50

here for Brent and for

21:52

you? Was he the catalyst for

21:54

you to start this project to

21:56

help all these women around the world?

21:59

Do you believe that that's part of the

22:01

equation? I think so.

22:03

I do too. I think that Brent

22:05

and I, we were co -labourers in life,

22:07

you know, in mental health. in

22:09

supporting people and trying to, I mean, I

22:11

was a therapist in his practice when

22:14

he died. I stopped seeing clients when he

22:16

died. But we had

22:18

a lot of compassion and

22:20

have a lot of compassion for

22:22

people suffering and wanting to be

22:24

a part of relief for people.

22:26

And I remember in the weeks

22:28

after COVID started, talking and

22:30

saying, when all this

22:32

is said and done, almost every family we know

22:35

will be touched by death. And

22:37

we need to do something to help

22:39

people. And thinking like maybe

22:41

we could do some pro bono grief

22:43

work maybe. And I have never been,

22:45

I've never loved grief work because I've

22:47

had a lot of unresolved deaths growing

22:49

up. So that always felt very tragic

22:51

to me, very painful. And I had not

22:53

done my own work, but I was like,

22:55

well, I guess we need to be doing

22:57

grief work because people are gonna need support

22:59

just to survive their lives without their loved

23:01

ones. But Brent

23:04

really loved that work. He

23:06

felt, you know, he helped people

23:08

prepare to go to the other

23:10

side. Like he worked in

23:12

nursing home with older people and

23:14

people saying like things I've never told anyone.

23:16

So that was five years old, but I was

23:18

abused when I was younger. You know, so they were

23:20

saying things like that to him and he was

23:22

helping them cross over. That was part of his work

23:24

here. And so when he

23:26

died, felt like his

23:29

mantle was passed on to me in some

23:31

ways you know in a different way like

23:33

in my own flavor of things I would not

23:35

have approached grief I would not have

23:37

done this had he not died

23:39

you know and so I feel that like Brent

23:42

understood a

23:44

lot of I mean he knew what young

23:46

widowhood was you know I remember him

23:48

having a client that had been young widowhood

23:50

and so I learned a lot about

23:52

young widowhood from him Wow And then after

23:54

he died, some of the things that he

23:56

told me, I could reference back specifically like

23:58

the being afraid to die because then your kid

24:00

has no parents. And also the

24:02

very vivid, terrifying memories of body

24:04

stuff and that kind of thing.

24:06

That was something that I learned

24:09

from him that when they happened

24:11

to me, I felt they

24:13

were horrifying, but I also felt like at

24:15

least he knew. He understands me. He

24:17

would have understood me. If he were here and been

24:19

in my council, he would have understood me. I

24:23

do feel that like that mantle was

24:25

passed on to me and his

24:27

wisdom continues to resonate within me and his compassion,

24:29

you know, like I feel like some of that

24:31

was left behind with me and like he took

24:33

some of me with him. Yeah, you

24:36

were being led. Yeah. Lots of

24:38

steps along the way, like on

24:40

a, you know, on a stone path,

24:42

you were stepping from stone to stone to

24:45

stone to stone is what it seems like

24:47

to me. So how did they finally find

24:49

his body and what did you ever figure

24:51

out what happened? He went out at

24:53

night? He went out in the evening so was

24:55

still summer so it was still light outside. So

24:58

he said it was going to be a

25:00

30 -minute run just to try the boat out.

25:02

Seven o 'clock at night and he was going

25:04

to try it out and nobody

25:06

saw what happened. We still do not

25:08

know. You know all we know

25:10

is that Somebody found the

25:12

boat and because of that, you know, there was

25:15

this confusion at least in my mind was

25:17

so you know Part of me knew he was

25:19

dead another part of me was like was

25:21

he kidnapped? Like, you know what like where is

25:23

he? I mean his boat is here And so

25:25

there was just all the search parties on

25:27

land and on and on water, you know

25:29

and just going back and forth back and

25:31

forth and I think that they located

25:33

his body in the So

25:36

he went missing on a Friday night. I think

25:38

Saturday evening, they located his body but did not

25:40

tell me. Like there was a bunch of us

25:42

there at the lake. And

25:44

one of the people who was in the,

25:46

in the, in my group said, I think

25:48

they, she didn't tell me, but she told

25:50

me later that she said, I thought they found his

25:52

body because they started circling this area. And then they

25:54

stopped and came to talk to me. And

25:57

they said, we want to be the ones that will

25:59

find his, to find him. We'll be the ones to find

26:01

him. We don't want anyone else to find him. And even

26:03

in that moment, although a part of me knew he was

26:05

dead. I was like, do you think he's alive? And

26:07

they looked at each other and they're like,

26:09

we don't know. But we'll be the ones

26:11

to find him. And I was like, OK, so

26:14

that next morning at 6 .30 in the morning,

26:16

they had sent drones out from Hobby Airport, which

26:18

is close to, I mean, I

26:21

guess that's where they have the drones for the search and rescue

26:23

or search and recovery. Equa

26:27

search the people from Equa search went

26:29

out with one of our friends from from

26:31

our church who is the fire chief

26:33

from Galena Park and He went out with

26:35

them and they're the ones that found

26:37

the body so that they called them medical

26:39

examiner the medical examiners that just hold

26:41

it like don't let it Drift off anywhere

26:43

else because there was a lot of

26:45

like trees. It was not a good Obviously

26:47

not a good scene. It was it's hot

26:50

in Texas, you know, so it

26:52

was so I never did get to

26:54

see the body I think we talked about that before

26:57

I didn't realize that I even had a choice. You

26:59

know, there was a lot of like, no, no,

27:01

like do not come to like, so the police called

27:03

me, the chief detective and he said, you know,

27:05

we don't want you to come out till everyone not

27:08

to come, you know, and then talking to the

27:10

medical examiner, they're like, no, don't, and

27:12

the funeral director was like, no, don't, don't

27:14

see the body. So nobody

27:16

knows what happened. Just, you know, the autopsy report

27:18

is, I was, I was, I don't know

27:20

what I was hoping for. I was hoping for

27:22

answers, and I think I was hoping to

27:24

connect back to him, too, through the autopsy report.

27:26

Maybe that would bring him back. I don't

27:28

know. But when I read it,

27:30

it was just this sterile description of

27:32

the body and that the conclusion is that

27:34

he drowned, which I'm like, okay. And

27:37

by that time, they can't tell why he

27:39

would have drowned. Like, was there an

27:41

embolism? Was there a heart attack? They don't

27:43

know. Heart attack.

27:46

Yeah, you think heart attack? Yeah, that just

27:48

came in. How old was

27:50

he? 43. Yeah,

27:52

heart attack. He threw a clot. I

27:56

can't even

27:58

imagine. Tell us about your

28:00

son. How

28:02

do you break that

28:04

to a child, let alone

28:06

a little child, who

28:08

doesn't have a good

28:10

understanding of even what that means?

28:13

I mean, certainly you've You had

28:15

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28:17

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it's your life and your child, where do you

29:11

go from there? You know, I

29:13

really didn't have experience. Even clinically,

29:15

I stayed away from death. I

29:17

really did stay away from death.

29:19

And what's interesting that you're asking

29:21

this question because my colleagues and I,

29:23

I'm second author on this paper that

29:26

we're about to submit within a month of

29:28

what are the challenges of parenting as

29:30

a widowed parent. And the first challenge is

29:32

breaking the news to your kids. Yeah,

29:34

I can't even imagine. You

29:37

know my son is bilingual Spanish and

29:39

English and so bilingual children tend

29:41

to speak later because they're taking all

29:43

this information and then and then

29:46

they all of a sudden like erupt

29:48

in language, you know So he was

29:50

a lot more nonverbal at the

29:52

time. So I first of all

29:54

didn't want to tell him I

29:56

was terrified. I didn't even know

29:59

how to say to explain missing you

30:02

know, he did hear me screaming and crying when the

30:04

police came. And so my dad went into his

30:06

room and he was like, what happened? What happened? Like

30:08

he was asking, you know, and then I went

30:10

to the room and I hugged him and he said,

30:12

what happened? I said, nothing, everything's

30:14

fine, which in hindsight, I wish

30:16

I hadn't done that because it

30:18

wasn't helpful. But I, the

30:21

first instinct of a parent. is

30:23

to protect your kid. Like, I do not want to mess.

30:25

I know that I will be the one to have to

30:27

break the news and destroy your life, and I don't want

30:29

to do this yet, because I don't even know what's happening. So

30:32

I went to the lake, and I

30:34

stayed until midnight, and then I came back, and I

30:36

left very early in the morning. I was there all

30:38

day until the evening, and I had my son

30:40

spent the night at my parents' house. And

30:43

so they found my husband's body on

30:45

Sunday, and so everybody had been asking

30:47

me, how's Roswell doing? And I felt

30:49

so much shame that I had not

30:51

told him. And looking back

30:53

now, I knew that I

30:55

wanted to protect his existence until I

30:57

possibly could. Like I knew the

30:59

moment I told him who shatter his

31:02

world. And I, you know,

31:04

as a parent, you don't want to be the

31:06

one to put the dagger through your kid's heart.

31:08

You know, it's, it's, it's traumatic. It's

31:10

traumatic to be the one to give

31:12

those news. And it's traumatic to watch

31:14

your kids grieve. and to have the

31:16

shock that you've also received. And

31:18

so someone gave me some advice while I

31:20

was at the lake, and they were like,

31:22

well, we don't know if this is going

31:24

to happen or not. But you need to

31:26

tell them, give no hope. They

31:29

have to understand they're not coming back.

31:31

The body doesn't work. Give

31:33

no hope. And I know

31:35

that's true, because if you

31:37

think that they might come back,

31:39

it will really confuse and

31:42

jeopardize the grieving process. And

31:44

so, when I came home,

31:48

I, you know, that, so

31:50

that was on Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning

31:52

is when I decided to tell him. And

31:55

when he woke up, I was just dreading

31:57

the moment he would wake up. And

31:59

my twin sister was there with me. And

32:02

we both felt like, who's gonna rescue

32:04

us? And we're like, no, we're the adults, we're

32:06

the ones that have to do this. So

32:08

I picked him up. You know, and I just

32:10

said, you know, something really terrible has happened to

32:12

daddy. His, his, he was

32:14

in an accident. His long, his body no

32:16

longer works. Daddy's never coming back home.

32:18

You're never, you're never going to see daddy

32:20

again. You know, and my son just

32:22

got this really angry, shocked look. And he

32:25

looked at me like, what? You

32:27

know, and I didn't even know if

32:29

he understood me, but he

32:31

just like. He cried a little bit. We held

32:33

each other. I was hoping that I'd die of

32:35

a heart attack before I had to tell him.

32:37

Like, I did not want to do this. And

32:40

then he got up, went

32:42

in front of my stepson's bedroom, and just fell

32:45

asleep on the floor. It's like he just

32:47

collapsed, you know? And then when he woke up, I'm

32:49

like, I guess I got to tell him again, because I don't

32:51

know if he understood. So I picked

32:53

him up again. I'm like, you know what I

32:55

said earlier? These are really sad

32:57

news. We're never going to see daddy again. And

32:59

he looked at me angrily again. That's when

33:01

I realized, okay, I think he did

33:03

understand. And so an hour later, my

33:05

friend was there and she was changing him,

33:07

getting him dressed. And he said, my daddy's dead.

33:10

He told her that. And,

33:12

you know, and so it's,

33:14

it's the most brutal thing. It's

33:16

the most brutal thing because you're, you're,

33:19

you're, you're reeling yourself. But

33:21

then to watch your kid

33:24

also like that, I, I

33:26

feel like parents really have a lot of

33:28

secondary trauma. And the children have secondary

33:30

trauma watching us suffer, too. So it becomes

33:32

this family thing that is just very

33:34

difficult. And you do a lot of work

33:37

around children's grief. I

33:39

know with books that you've written and stuff. Yeah,

33:41

all grief. And that's

33:44

why the children's books were

33:46

written because I had

33:48

so many clients who either

33:50

had small children

33:52

or were grandparents. of

33:55

small children saying, you

33:57

know, how do we explain this? And

33:59

they say, grandma's in heaven

34:01

now, grandma's, grandma's tied, grandma's in

34:04

heaven. And they're at the visitation

34:06

and the child who's three

34:08

is saying, no, she's not.

34:10

She's asleep in that box up there in the front of

34:12

the room. Or how

34:14

do children know that

34:16

it's their deceased loved ones? that are coming

34:18

to visit them and they know information about

34:20

them that there's no way they could know

34:22

because these kids are too little. They don't

34:24

even read yet. And then

34:26

how do kids know stuff about

34:29

past lives? So you're right, I

34:31

have four children's books and then

34:33

my big angelic attendance book that

34:35

helps everybody that grieves. Has

34:37

he talked about that his daddy,

34:40

that he talks to his daddy

34:42

or he Is there anything like

34:44

that that's going on? Yeah, at the

34:46

beginning, especially. There were several

34:48

things. I remember, I think, a week after

34:50

the funeral, my sister

34:53

was driving us

34:55

to her side of town, which is

34:57

45 minutes away. And all of

34:59

a sudden, my son was like, Daddy!

35:01

Daddy! Daddy! And he starts pointing

35:03

up at the cloud and he said, Daddy's

35:05

right there! Daddy's right there! And of course,

35:07

I just burst into tears, you know, because

35:09

it was just so emotional. But I would

35:11

hear him. Sometimes at

35:14

night laughing and he's like

35:16

go daddy. You're so funny. I

35:18

heard him say that one

35:20

time He also would say that daddy

35:22

was sitting on the roof and

35:24

I was like daddy standing He's like

35:26

no sitting like he wanted to make

35:28

sure it's sitting, you know, so there

35:30

were things like that that happened There was

35:32

one particular moment that was

35:35

I don't even know how to explain it but We

35:37

were all in bed because after my husband died, I

35:39

started sleeping with my son because we were both left

35:41

so terrified. And my son, I had

35:43

originally thought I need to do the same

35:45

routine, put him to bed like my husband would,

35:48

but he could not sleep. He would just roll

35:50

around calling for me and my heart would

35:52

just break. I was like, I can't. Like

35:54

he needs me. I need him. Like we

35:56

just need to just, we're so scared together,

35:58

you know, and we can maybe have some

36:00

comfort, especially him, as

36:03

I still couldn't sleep with him, but he could sleep if I

36:05

was with him. And so

36:07

one night we were

36:09

laying down and I was sleeping

36:11

but in my sleep I felt

36:13

like I was almost

36:15

hovering over my body and I

36:18

was watching my son and

36:20

I on the bed

36:22

and Brent our

36:24

son and I were together spiritually outside

36:26

of the body and we were just

36:28

hanging out and then Brent told me

36:30

he needs you get him. So in

36:32

my sleep I grabbed my son I

36:34

grabbed his arm and he started screaming

36:36

from a nightmare that he had had.

36:38

So it was like this very interesting, you

36:41

know, co -parenting, you know, and I

36:43

knew that Brent was watching over Roswell

36:45

and warning me like, he's gonna need

36:47

you right now. So, and I

36:49

just held on to him. So, you know,

36:51

that was not something that my son Roswell

36:53

experienced, but it was about Roswell.

36:55

But I, you know, but Roswell

36:58

has, it's become a lot

37:00

less now. that he has

37:02

these experiences, even though I've always validated

37:04

them, because I know that if you

37:06

don't, as they get older, they start

37:08

to lose that connection, you know, but

37:10

it was a lot more frequent. He

37:12

was younger. And he's how old now?

37:14

He's seven. He's about to be eight.

37:17

He's seven. God love him. Oh, how

37:19

wonderful. Oh my

37:21

goodness. Well, thank you for

37:23

sharing that story and what

37:25

a tearjerker. I just commend

37:27

you for all of your

37:29

courage that just on a

37:31

personal level to get through all

37:34

of this. And then

37:36

parlaying that grief

37:38

into something so productive to

37:40

help all these other young

37:42

widows and their families. And I'd like

37:44

to pivot and get into that some

37:47

more. Why do

37:49

you think people are so

37:51

uncomfortable with death and

37:53

grief and that whole

37:55

thing? It's like, okay,

37:58

there's a time to grieve. it's

38:00

been long enough. Okay, get on with your

38:02

life kind of a thing. Have you run into

38:04

that? Yourself and

38:06

also in your research in my

38:08

research more so than more

38:11

so than even in myself I

38:13

think I Think that people

38:15

have this perception of wounds as

38:17

healing and closing You know

38:19

of this being something that just

38:21

heals and then one day

38:23

you're all better, but there's no

38:25

real resolution Because you continue

38:27

to miss this person and so

38:29

it's not the same as in the

38:31

early days or if you have

38:33

prolonged grief in that like just that

38:35

the Misery of wanting them in

38:38

the present moment. That's like why it's

38:40

so anguishing initially is that yearning

38:42

But then it becomes missing and

38:44

it's less jagged. It's less

38:46

Heart -rending it's still painful

38:48

though and people I

38:50

think because they see this

38:52

like very market change

38:54

between You're

38:56

despondent and then you come back to life

38:58

you you come back and re -engage with life

39:00

that thing you're all okay. It's just black

39:02

and white thinking and

39:04

You might be okay That does not

39:07

mean you still that you don't miss this person

39:09

that there's still something you have to learn to

39:11

live with as you get older as you Realize

39:13

oh, we would have been doing this he would

39:15

have been a part of this milestone that kind

39:17

of thing But the

39:19

but definitely the widows that I've

39:21

I wrote a paper on disenfranchised grief

39:23

and young widows and some of

39:25

the things that they've experienced is First

39:27

of all that because you can repartner

39:29

then it's all good. You're good, you

39:31

know, you're fine And so because able

39:33

thank God you're young enough and some

39:36

widows said that like they're at the

39:38

funeral itself people are like, well, thank

39:40

God you can remarry, you know as

39:42

if that will erase the years together,

39:44

the love you have. You know,

39:46

it's a very painful process to

39:48

even start re -engaging in the romantic part

39:50

of your life again, because it's a

39:52

human need. So you do it only because

39:54

you're kind of forced to, like you're

39:56

forced by your own need to have connection

39:58

to do it, but it's hard. It's so

40:00

hard. People said that to you at

40:02

his funeral? Not to me, to widows

40:05

that I have interviewed. oh okay yeah

40:07

not to me no people have been

40:09

very good to me i've i've been

40:11

very lucky i've been very lucky for the most

40:13

i mean i've had a couple comments here and there but

40:15

nothing like what you hear from widows

40:17

so that that's one of the reasons why people

40:19

with young widowhood disenfranchised their grief is like

40:21

well you can repartner so it's kind of like

40:23

just kind of you know

40:26

like one's out, the other one's in

40:28

kind of thing, and it doesn't work

40:30

like that. People can really, really love

40:32

a new partner and have all the

40:34

space for a new partner and still

40:36

very much feel the empty, gnawing pain

40:38

of the old partner's absence. You

40:40

have to learn to exist with

40:43

both realities. The other

40:45

thing that they tell, so

40:47

it's about like timelines. Timelines is a big

40:49

one, you know, being able to replace the

40:51

person and trying to think there was another

40:53

one, but it's kind of Yes,

41:00

it's about they're told because they see

41:02

you as being very strong because you're having

41:04

to move forward You know people they

41:06

get a lot of praise for like look at

41:08

you. You're so strong. Thank God And I

41:10

think people do that because it's it's I think

41:12

it's very painful as human beings to see other

41:14

people broken So you want to see them as

41:16

strong you want to see them like oh the

41:18

good good. You're doing well, but they're not doing

41:20

well, you know, and so people are like I

41:22

I'm strong because I have to be. I didn't ask

41:24

for this. This is not my choice. You

41:27

know, I'm heartbroken inside, but I have

41:29

to kind of like, you know, just endure

41:31

through for my children. And

41:33

so they feel very unseen in that aspect

41:35

of their, of like how hard this

41:37

really is. And it continues to be, you

41:40

know, and why are we deathphobic? I

41:42

don't know. It's so weird because I still

41:44

continue to be deathphobic even now. I

41:46

think it's because it hurts so much. I

41:48

just can't imagine anything worse

41:51

than losing people we love.

41:53

That's permanent. There's

41:55

many other losses and there's traumas and all that stuff,

41:57

but I don't know. I

41:59

kind of feel like losing people you

42:01

love, I don't think there's anything worse

42:03

and there's no fixing that. And

42:06

that's terrifying for people. Have

42:09

you talked to his spirit

42:11

through a medium or through somebody

42:13

else? I know that research

42:15

shows that that's very healing. when

42:18

we lose a loved one and I

42:20

do it all the time with my clients

42:22

and we'll talk with deceased loved

42:24

ones. And usually they're,

42:27

usually every time, all the

42:29

time, 100 % of the time,

42:31

they're funny, they're joyful,

42:34

they say things that let

42:36

their loved one know that

42:38

it's really them with whom

42:40

they're conversing. And

42:42

it really not only brings

42:45

closure and peace to

42:47

this situation. But it brings

42:49

a levity that I think

42:51

is much needed as well. Have

42:53

you done that yourself? I did.

42:55

And so this is a hard part

42:58

for me because it doesn't... There

43:00

are things that you do when you're

43:02

grieving or ways that you become

43:04

that you're like, is this me? Is

43:06

this... Your identity begins to shift

43:08

very rapidly. And so I grew up

43:10

in a religious tradition that was

43:13

very much against the mediumship.

43:15

you know experience and

43:17

but when Brent died

43:19

I was so desperate

43:21

I was so incredibly desperate you know

43:23

that I did talk to someone

43:25

and it was as you said you

43:28

know there was a lot of

43:30

you know validation and grief and and

43:32

and but and it was very

43:34

and she was evidentiary like so she

43:36

she just told me all these

43:38

like it started off with

43:40

you know you know I sent

43:42

some young male. I see this heart above

43:44

y 'all. That means that you were romantically connected.

43:46

And I said, yes. And she was like, I

43:49

don't understand this. He was out in nature

43:51

in the evening by himself. But then

43:53

he falls down into this wide expanse

43:55

and he cannot breathe. I don't understand what

43:57

happened. And I was like, he drowns.

43:59

She's like, oh, that because she was like, I

44:01

don't understand the whole falling down and not being able

44:03

to breathe thing. And so

44:05

but there were things that

44:07

that came in that were both heartbreaking,

44:09

but also there was levity.

44:11

You know, she was seeing signs of him

44:13

like pulling on his hair like this. And

44:16

she was like, he's really into his hair.

44:18

He gets pulling his hair. And I'm like,

44:20

no, he is not actually into his

44:22

hair. For some reason, he loved when I had

44:24

like little curly queues on my sideburns. I don't

44:26

know why he liked those whispies. And I'm like,

44:28

I knew that's what he was trying to tell

44:30

me. He was like, you know, that

44:32

kind of thing. She said

44:34

something like, he's laughing because he said

44:36

your son used the restroom where he wasn't

44:38

supposed to. And it's true, my son

44:40

had just pooped on the carpet. And I

44:42

was so embarrassed. I was like, oh

44:44

my God, how could you be like, what

44:46

were you thinking? And it was at

44:48

my sister's house. And so there were some

44:50

things like that that were helpful. I

44:52

think the main thing that were funny, I

44:55

think the main thing that helped me

44:57

from that interaction was

44:59

to know that he was OK. You

45:02

know to know because like

45:04

he died in the way like

45:06

his biggest fear was dark water

45:08

and he died in a dark

45:10

lake and So that really

45:12

do you think that was a

45:14

premonition to on his part?

45:16

I wondered yeah, I've wondered

45:19

yeah, because it's too

45:21

horrific. It's too

45:23

like It's too ironic

45:25

To not feel like but that was

45:27

his biggest fear every trauma drove over there's this

45:30

big bridge in Houston over

45:32

the ship channel and I would be like can

45:34

you drive over the other way because I'm always

45:36

been afraid of just just like what if the

45:38

car falls over you know I always had those

45:40

kind of weird thoughts but he was like can

45:42

you imagine the dark water it's so terrifying so

45:44

I'm like stop adding more things into my intrusive

45:46

thoughts so I would I would I would he

45:48

would be driving I'd have my hand like this

45:50

so I wouldn't even look at the water like

45:52

I was that like nervous about it but it

45:54

wasn't because it was dark it was just like

45:56

the fear of like the car just you know

45:58

going over the bridge but he was always

46:00

afraid of dark water. And so to

46:02

me, I was so traumatized

46:04

that he died in the

46:06

very way that he was

46:08

terrified that when she said, she

46:11

was like, he didn't like dark water. He didn't like that.

46:13

Did he? I'm like, no. And she said, he said to

46:15

tell you, it wasn't that bad. You know? What

46:19

I get from that, Liza,

46:21

is that he had other

46:23

experiences in past lives that involved

46:25

that. And then As

46:27

we go through subsequent lifetimes,

46:29

there's always a semblance

46:31

of a script that plays

46:33

out. And so he

46:35

was exploring it in this way,

46:38

in this time, in this version,

46:40

all of that. Different set of

46:42

variables, same basic script. Oh,

46:44

so like you might have had like

46:46

experiences with dark water in the past that

46:48

brought fear for him. And he said,

46:51

I'm going to, I'm to face

46:53

that again here. Multiple lifetimes. And

46:55

so. He experienced it in

46:57

a different way with a different

46:59

set of variables because it

47:01

was a different time. It was

47:03

a different set of circumstances,

47:05

but it was still the same

47:07

outcome. And what I've

47:09

seen in my non -scientific research,

47:11

just in working with tens of

47:13

thousands of clients and doing

47:15

a lot of past life work,

47:17

I do scans. I don't

47:19

hypnotize anybody. I just...

47:22

have a whole technique that I use that's

47:24

instant. And then a scene will come up and we'll

47:26

know where it was, when it was, what the

47:28

year was, all that kind of thing. And

47:31

it's been my experience

47:33

that it's all related. And

47:35

so they're looking at it from

47:37

a different perspective. Okay, maybe

47:39

he died in dark water in

47:41

the ocean on a ship, but

47:44

see, you know, voyage kind

47:46

of a cargo ship or something

47:48

in the... maybe it

47:50

was a Viking, who knows what

47:52

the scenario was. But he

47:54

wanted to explore it this time to

47:56

see the different nuances of it. And

47:59

we look at that from our human perspective,

48:01

we're like, why in the heck would

48:03

anybody choose that? And

48:06

yet the analogy I like to

48:08

use is, if you think of

48:10

Hamlet, how many times has

48:12

Hamlet been performed since Shakespeare wrote

48:14

it in 1602? Who

48:16

knows? Certainly same script,

48:18

different perspective. Where was it

48:21

performed? In what language, in

48:23

what year, what was happening in the world? Was

48:25

this person an actor, a director,

48:28

a set designer? Was the

48:30

performance inside, outside? All those different

48:32

variables come up with a

48:34

different experience. And

48:36

so, since time doesn't exist

48:38

in the spirit world times

48:40

a human creation, these

48:43

lifetimes can be a nanosecond. based

48:45

on our understanding of time. And there

48:47

are lots of schools of thought,

48:50

and I've heard yes from spirits, thousands

48:53

of them over the years that say,

48:55

we do exist

48:57

in multiple lifetimes

49:00

concurrently. And that

49:02

makes my head want to

49:04

explode because I don't understand

49:06

that from a human perspective. So

49:09

I go to the place of, well, it makes

49:11

sense to me eventually when I'm in heaven, you

49:13

know, is it? Is it feasible? Yeah. Do I

49:15

understand it? No. Well, I understand it when I

49:17

get back to heaven. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

49:20

That's really, you know, thank, thank you for saying

49:22

that. I've had the same idea because I've heard

49:24

that, like you make decisions that you want to

49:26

explore this or, and I'm like, if I made

49:29

the decision to have this much loss and trauma

49:31

in my life, when I get out of my

49:33

body and I go to my, so I'm going

49:35

to slap her around a little bit to my

49:37

over. So I'll be like, what were you thinking? Like,

49:39

why have you put me through so much in this

49:41

lifetime? You know. I

49:44

did have somebody tell me uh

49:46

she's like you know this could be your last

49:48

one if you want it to be but you're

49:50

gonna have to really jump off the suffering path

49:52

and go on to like a less like I

49:54

like I don't remember what it was as she

49:56

said but it was just interesting to me because

49:58

I was like there's been just so much an

50:00

overwhelming amount of trauma in my

50:02

life you know which is why I first

50:04

became a social worker and why I study people

50:06

going through traumatic I'm very And

50:09

even the widowhood stuff, I

50:11

really observe and try to,

50:13

you know, parlay to others.

50:15

This is what it's like

50:17

to suffer in this way for these

50:20

people, you know, like just kind of like

50:22

be a voice of empathy for people

50:24

going through certain experiences. And

50:26

I wonder if that's, you know, part

50:28

of the plan, right, is, you know,

50:30

you go through suffering and you understand

50:32

there's a lot of nuance to it.

50:35

So then you want other people to

50:37

understand just. Why people

50:39

tend to struggle so much after they

50:41

go through experiences like this? Nobody

50:43

wants to struggle like this. Nobody wants

50:45

to feel this way. But you're

50:47

shining a light on it in a different

50:49

way now. And you've been

50:51

through this horrific pain yet again.

50:53

God only knows how many lifetimes we

50:55

can find out when we're done

50:57

recording if you want. But

51:00

you're creating

51:02

out of that pain

51:04

something that is a

51:06

bright light for people

51:09

on a global basis

51:11

for women and their children on a

51:13

global basis in this day and

51:15

age, before we didn't have the internet,

51:17

before there were a lot of

51:19

women that didn't go to college because

51:21

it wasn't the accepted practice let

51:23

alone get a PhD for God's sake.

51:26

And so you, my guess

51:28

is, and I'm hearing a

51:30

yes from Spirit is, you've

51:32

been through all of these

51:34

experiences. in many lifetimes. And

51:37

they've all been heart -wrenching. You've

51:39

learned from all of them. This one,

51:41

you're like, okay, guys, I got

51:43

it. I don't need to experience

51:45

this anymore. What can I do

51:47

to help others on a global scale?

51:49

And you got that alphabet soup at

51:51

the end of your name and all

51:53

those degrees. So that gives you credibility. And

51:56

you have the experience of being

51:58

a young widow yourself. with a

52:00

small child, which gives you

52:03

even more credibility for people

52:05

to really pay attention to

52:07

what you're talking about. It's

52:09

an amazing opportunity for you

52:11

to change the zeitgeist,

52:14

I think. I mean, I think

52:16

you don't think I know you're

52:18

being led to do this work

52:20

and you're helping so many people

52:22

and when you're then gone and

52:24

you're Back in heaven and your little

52:26

family is all put together. You're gonna

52:29

go, you know, that was awful going

52:31

through it. But look at what we've

52:33

created through all of us playing these

52:35

roles in this bigger part of this

52:37

movie that we've survived.

52:41

So kudos to you, girl. I'm

52:43

so impressed with everything you're doing. From

52:47

your research, what

52:49

obviously other than

52:51

small children but what are

52:54

the other nuances of being

52:56

a young widow or are

52:58

there other nuances of being

53:00

a young widow versus being

53:02

what an old widow or a

53:04

widow in middle -aged or you

53:06

know what you do young widow versus an

53:08

old widow and and how old do you have

53:10

to be to qualify as a young widow? All

53:13

of this comes with qualifications so

53:16

I you know I didn't create

53:18

this this number, but the way

53:20

the research has defined it is 50

53:22

and below is classified as young widow. However,

53:25

as a young widow, but however

53:27

in this parenting study that I was telling

53:29

you about, there are widows who are

53:31

in their 60s that have young children because

53:33

now people are having children at an

53:35

older age. And so what that

53:37

means is that you're having a young widowhood

53:39

experience, even though you're not technically a young

53:41

widow. Does that make sense? Because that your

53:43

family's young. But one of the

53:45

nuances that I'm exploring, and I'm not

53:47

saying that this is just among young widows,

53:50

this could be among older, but I

53:52

have not seen it there because I

53:54

hadn't studied that population, is

53:57

the sexuality piece. You

53:59

know, when you lose a sexual

54:01

partner, you know, I think that like, Let's

54:04

just let me back away from sexual when

54:06

you lose a sexual partner when you

54:08

when you go through a death experience a

54:10

lot of people and this is why

54:12

like y 'all I'm an existential kind of

54:14

theorist say that death and sex are very

54:16

related because sex is the Antithesis

54:18

of death. It's like the life

54:20

force versus death is like

54:23

the end and so people when

54:25

they go through a bereavement

54:27

a lot of times your sexuality

54:29

is affected, you know and

54:31

so I I've

54:34

heard people talk about this. I even like

54:36

I even have seen some blogs writing

54:38

about it. But when I was widowed and

54:40

I entered into these Facebook groups, you

54:43

know, there's a whole range of groups and

54:45

some of the groups are like for

54:47

the very sad, depressed, like, you know, I'm

54:49

going through it widows with young children

54:51

or widows and widowers with young children. And

54:53

then you have this like range of

54:55

from very serious to very funny widow groups,

54:57

right? So the widow humor groups. They're

55:00

the ones that really talk about sex. So

55:02

I remember going into it and it was

55:04

the first time I ever really like laughed

55:06

at that and I stayed up laughing till

55:08

like two in the morning because everyone's talking

55:10

about sex in this particular group during this

55:12

season when I when I walked into this

55:14

I stepped into this like online group and

55:16

basically this idea of like I'm

55:19

never gonna have sex again. You know what I

55:21

mean? This person who I had sex with

55:23

is dead and you would think that that doesn't

55:25

matter because you're too sad for it to

55:27

matter. It is one of the

55:29

first things that people think about,

55:31

not because they want to have sex. I

55:33

mean, you have no sexual desire, obviously, at the beginning, but

55:36

it's this idea of like, oh

55:38

my God, I lost the

55:40

one person that I could have intimacy

55:42

with, and that's gone. It's over.

55:44

I'm never like you in that moment feel like

55:46

this is never gonna happen for me And

55:48

so then there are memes that they the eyes

55:50

wide that I saw that it's You have

55:52

to make fun of yourself because like or otherwise

55:54

you're gonna cry, you know What's the term

55:56

to describe that you told me this and I

55:59

said what I never heard of this

56:01

you know fire widow's fire I'd

56:03

never heard of that until you

56:05

told me about it. I said what

56:07

is that? Yeah, so so so

56:09

that's the first so I can tell

56:11

you about that like widow's fire is this

56:13

obsessive and unbidden, like

56:15

nobody is asking for this because

56:17

it's very difficult to go through

56:20

it. It's this unbidden surge of

56:22

sexual desire and obsessive thoughts about

56:24

sex that come up after you

56:26

lose your spouse. And I heard

56:28

a lot of young widows talking about it. It's

56:30

like, you know, putting memes of like day 345

56:32

without sex, you know, my barber. accidentally

56:34

pulled my hair and I called him

56:36

daddy. You know, it's just like people

56:38

are making fun of themselves, you know,

56:41

because everyone's missing and it was and

56:43

so then people are really talking about

56:45

having this longing and they're like, is it wrong?

56:47

Am I crazy for wanting sex? You know,

56:49

am I crazy that this is all I can

56:51

think about? So as I read that

56:53

and I went to the literature and I was

56:55

like, this is actually not in there. You know,

56:57

this is not being written about. So I decided

56:59

to do this study to describe what widow's fire

57:01

is. And so the first

57:04

paper on Widow's Fire was

57:06

to describe, you know, what

57:08

is it like to lose a sexual

57:10

partner and how do your feelings change?

57:12

And not everyone goes through this, but

57:14

the people who do go through Widow's

57:16

Fire, the first thing they talk about

57:18

is like immediate loss of desire, you

57:20

know, but a real acknowledgement and a

57:22

visceral acknowledgement that what they lost sexually

57:24

was catastrophic. They know that

57:26

immediately, you know. or

57:29

very quickly they begin to realize oh my god like

57:31

the one person who I wasn't embarrassed to be

57:33

naked in front of the one person that loved me

57:35

for who I was who saw me before children

57:37

and after children because when you're widowed in your 30s

57:39

or in your 40s, you're like already not feeling

57:41

as beautiful as you felt when you were younger. So

57:43

I immediately begins like, oh my God, when is

57:45

this ever going to happen for you again? And then

57:47

am I ever going to be comfortable enough to

57:49

do this again? But I want to, you know what

57:51

I mean? So it's just like you're stuck between

57:53

this rock and hard place. And so

57:55

people feel very ashamed of themselves when

57:57

they feel the surge of sexual

58:00

desire because it really goes

58:02

against grief. norms. Like

58:04

you're not supposed to

58:06

be desirous of sex when you're that

58:08

sad. Yeah, you're not supposed to be desirous of

58:10

sex when you lose the person who you were

58:12

having sex with. You know, so all those things,

58:14

people begin to feel like they're monsters. Like what

58:16

is wrong with me? You know, like, please stop.

58:18

I don't want anyone to know that I'm going

58:20

through this. I'm so embarrassed. There's a lot of

58:22

shame around it. And so what

58:24

happens is that, you know, when somebody dies, you have

58:26

to kind reconstruct your sense of self,

58:29

especially if it's a spouse, because through their eyes,

58:31

you know yourself. You know, if they thought you

58:33

were sexy and beautiful, then you feel that you're

58:35

sexy and beautiful. And for some

58:37

reason, being sexy and beautiful is not important

58:39

until you lose a person who told

58:41

you you were sexy and beautiful. And all

58:43

of a sudden, that becomes the most

58:45

important thing in your life. And that's what

58:47

Whittlesfire does. This urgency forces you to contend

58:49

with, what in the heck am I going to

58:51

do? that I'm feeling, all these feelings, I

58:54

want to have sex. And most of the time,

58:56

people want to have sex with their deceased

58:58

spouse. So that already brings so much grief up,

59:00

you know, because it's like, I want, like

59:02

I want to drink coffee with you. I want

59:04

to eat breakfast with you. I just want

59:06

to hug from you. I just want to have

59:08

sex with you. Anytime those urges and those

59:10

yearnings come in any arena, it's very painful. But

59:12

then people begin to realize at some point,

59:14

they're not coming back. You go

59:16

through these waves of unbidden,

59:19

like horrible, horrifying memories as your

59:21

brain is trying to understand

59:23

what happened and then to to

59:25

balance that out you have

59:27

numbness so then like that's what we all

59:29

kind of go through is like this

59:31

like a lot of replaying of terrible things

59:33

and numbness and so then you're just

59:35

experiencing bad or nothing bad or nothing

59:37

and so in that

59:39

nothingness widows fire makes you feel alive

59:41

again like oh my god I actually work

59:43

I still have feelings you know like I

59:45

still have something that's because you feel like A

59:48

chip was removed from me that

59:50

made me human. I

59:52

remember the first time I even experienced

59:54

that. I was like, oh

59:57

my God, I feel something, even though

59:59

I always felt something terrible, but

1:00:02

it felt like this numbness of pain. I don't

1:00:04

even know how to explain it. And

1:00:07

so people are like, maybe it's our body's

1:00:09

way of reminding us we're living. And

1:00:11

then the second reason they say it's our

1:00:13

body's way of yearning for the connection

1:00:15

we lost. and you're shedding

1:00:17

light on it. Changing topics,

1:00:19

I want to switch

1:00:22

to traumatic bereavement for a minute. My

1:00:24

grandfather was a detective in

1:00:27

the Columbus, Ohio police department and

1:00:29

was killed in the line

1:00:31

of duty in 1938. My

1:00:34

Mima was 36,

1:00:37

my beloved Mima, and

1:00:39

my mom was 12 and

1:00:42

my uncle was 10. They

1:00:46

wanted my grandmother to

1:00:48

testify during this bank robbers

1:00:50

trial and she was so

1:00:52

distraught she couldn't talk on

1:00:54

the witness stand. So the

1:00:56

judge let her go. Fast

1:01:00

forward 50 years, I met her house

1:01:02

and I asked her, I was with a

1:01:04

girlfriend and I asked her a question

1:01:06

about it. And she handed me this

1:01:08

scrapbook. They had this heroes parade for

1:01:10

him, for his funeral. She

1:01:15

stayed in the kitchen while I looked

1:01:17

through his stuff, and she did

1:01:19

not want to talk about it 50

1:01:21

years later. And I

1:01:24

thought, traumatic bereavement. I

1:01:26

mean, you talk about that. And

1:01:28

I thought, my memo went through that.

1:01:31

And at her funeral, she

1:01:33

died six weeks shy

1:01:35

of 100. The police

1:01:37

chief was there. Now Columbus is big.

1:01:39

Columbus is a million and a half,

1:01:41

two million people. The police chief was

1:01:43

there. They had a special

1:01:45

escort for her. They said the

1:01:47

bagpiper, it was amazing. So

1:01:50

traumatic bereavement. You know,

1:01:53

there was nothing for her back

1:01:55

then. And she,

1:01:57

they, one of his

1:01:59

buddies was a boxing

1:02:01

manager and he had a

1:02:03

boxing match for her to raise money

1:02:05

to pay off her mortgage because

1:02:07

they didn't have any insurance. There

1:02:09

wasn't police insurance back then. Now

1:02:12

there's the PBF, the police benevolence fund

1:02:14

or something, but back then they

1:02:16

didn't have anything. So they had a

1:02:19

boxing match and they raised enough

1:02:21

money to pay off her mortgage, which

1:02:23

was $29 a month

1:02:26

back then in 1938. And

1:02:28

her brothers -in -law tried to take her kids

1:02:30

away from her because they said

1:02:33

she was gonna be, she couldn't support

1:02:35

him. She was single. I mean, what was

1:02:37

she gonna do? I can't even imagine. what

1:02:40

she went through. So talk

1:02:42

to us about traumatic

1:02:44

bereavement. The bank robber died

1:02:46

in the electric chair. They executed him.

1:02:49

Wow. Yeah. So it was

1:02:51

a big deal. And there's all

1:02:53

these articles and stuff about it

1:02:55

that's in the family

1:02:57

history. And I could even research

1:02:59

it online if I wanted to know

1:03:01

more about it. I think about her. I

1:03:03

think, how did she survive that? Oh

1:03:06

my goodness. First of all, I

1:03:08

just feel so much pain and I feel

1:03:10

the empathy that you feel for her. And I feel

1:03:12

that too. It's so painful to

1:03:14

know people who you love so dearly

1:03:17

have gone through such tragedies. Yeah. And

1:03:19

all these years later... I'm named after

1:03:21

her. Oh, are you named after her?

1:03:23

Yeah, she was Joya Ann and I'm

1:03:25

Julianne. You know, I was her favorite. All

1:03:27

my siblings will tell you that, all my cousins.

1:03:31

Yeah, I think as I was her namesake. Yeah.

1:03:33

And I'm very, very, very close. Yeah.

1:03:36

So, you know, back then there

1:03:39

wasn't anything. And then she told

1:03:41

her brothers -in -law over her dead

1:03:43

body they were going to take her

1:03:45

kids away from her. And I remember

1:03:47

my mother saying that every Sunday they

1:03:49

would go to the cemetery

1:03:51

to visit his grave after church. And

1:03:53

she would just cry for two

1:03:55

hours. Oh, honey. Oh

1:03:57

my goodness. That breaks my

1:03:59

heart. I know. Yeah. You

1:04:02

know, that's traumatic bereavement in my

1:04:04

book. Yeah, traumatic bereavement. And

1:04:06

possibly, I don't know, but

1:04:08

so there's, there's several things to

1:04:10

traumatic bereavement. Definitely what she went

1:04:12

through is the type of death

1:04:14

that is a premature death or

1:04:16

it's violent, you know, or caused

1:04:19

by self or others out of order. you

1:04:21

know and and so she had several

1:04:23

elements like there's the elements of violence here

1:04:25

the elements of it being she was

1:04:27

so young 30s I was also 36 when

1:04:29

Brent died you know and so just

1:04:31

all these and having to tell her children

1:04:33

like she went through all the trauma

1:04:35

of all of these things um And it

1:04:37

was during the depression too, keep that

1:04:40

in mind. Let's just, let's

1:04:42

just complicate things. Yeah, let's complicate

1:04:44

things. Oh goodness. And the

1:04:46

financial, so the financial, that's one of the things

1:04:48

that they, that the research has

1:04:50

shown is that when you have

1:04:52

financial stress, like very significant financial

1:04:54

stress, it can complicate your bereavement

1:04:56

process. And so

1:04:58

some, one of the things, I don't know if

1:05:00

you've heard of prolonged grief, you know,

1:05:03

and there's like, there's

1:05:05

or complicated grief, but there's a lot

1:05:07

of in the grief world, people are

1:05:10

like, well, you know, don't pathologize grief.

1:05:12

But what I feel like is important

1:05:14

to understand is that, you

1:05:17

know, when you lose someone, you're going

1:05:19

to hurt for the rest of your

1:05:21

life. And then when you hurt them and lose them

1:05:23

in a traumatic way, not only do you have to deal

1:05:25

with the learning to live without them,

1:05:27

the learning to love them in physical separation, and

1:05:29

the learning to manage the pain. Those are the

1:05:31

three big things that you have to do when

1:05:33

somebody dies. You also have to deal with the

1:05:35

trauma. And sometimes because

1:05:37

the trauma is so overwhelming

1:05:39

to you, you cannot even deal with the

1:05:41

grief, you know? And so then

1:05:43

it's hard to process. And

1:05:45

processing does not mean, oh, I'm

1:05:47

gonna get over it, but processes

1:05:49

means I'm trying to accommodate my

1:05:51

life so that I can accept that

1:05:53

this happened, so that I can learn to

1:05:56

live and manage the pain and regulate emotionally

1:05:58

and things like that. And so

1:06:00

I really struggled

1:06:02

tremendously with pain and

1:06:04

pain dysregulation. And for years, for three

1:06:06

years, I was just disabled by

1:06:08

my grief. You know, but at first

1:06:10

it was the trauma like I

1:06:12

was having flashbacks and I had PTSD

1:06:14

after my husband died and it

1:06:16

became hard to even shower You know

1:06:18

because the water on my face

1:06:20

would remind me that he had drowned

1:06:23

and you know, so it like

1:06:25

really disabled me, you know, and so

1:06:27

Dealing with the trauma did not

1:06:29

allow me to do the things

1:06:31

that are helpful and being able

1:06:33

to process the grief So this

1:06:35

is why traumatic bereavement can be

1:06:37

so difficult because you've got two

1:06:39

different things happening trauma and then

1:06:41

loss. And one sometimes

1:06:43

is subsumed under the other. You

1:06:45

know, and so for people with

1:06:47

traumatic grief, sometimes even remembering the

1:06:50

loved one brings up so

1:06:52

much trauma for them that they can't

1:06:54

even approach it. You know what I'm saying? Like

1:06:56

what you're saying, like they can't talk about

1:06:58

it. They can't think about it. Fifteen years later,

1:07:00

she couldn't talk about it. It's raw. It's

1:07:02

just as raw as the day it happened, as

1:07:04

the moment that it happened. And

1:07:06

so, you know, with

1:07:09

prolonged traumatic bereavement, sometimes

1:07:11

can make people predispose to prolonged

1:07:13

grief, which what that is, I think

1:07:15

one of the, because I experienced that

1:07:17

one of the central things is that

1:07:19

the raw pain you feel in those

1:07:21

early days does not dissipate that much.

1:07:23

And so you feel that Forever.

1:07:26

I mean you feel that until you and there is

1:07:28

a treatment for it to help people and I

1:07:30

did go through the treatment I felt like it saved

1:07:32

my life, you know, but Prolonged

1:07:34

grief is just this intense horrific pain

1:07:36

that you know like now I

1:07:38

don't feel it in the same way

1:07:40

that I used to for those

1:07:42

three years, you know And it can

1:07:44

shorten your life because your body

1:07:46

is not meant to have that much

1:07:48

stress And I remember three years

1:07:50

after Brent died over the summer, I

1:07:52

started losing my hair. I started

1:07:54

having infection after infection that they could

1:07:56

not explain what was happening. And

1:07:59

it was because of all those years, those

1:08:01

three years, I hardly slept. I

1:08:03

hardly took care of myself. I was just

1:08:05

surviving my life and just waiting to

1:08:07

die. That's really what I was waiting for,

1:08:09

just to die, because I couldn't see

1:08:11

a future without my husband in it. And

1:08:14

I avoided a lot of reminders

1:08:16

that he had ever been alive. I

1:08:18

couldn't hear his voice. I

1:08:21

didn't sleep on our bed for three years. I

1:08:24

never went back to our room. And

1:08:26

so when your son probably saved

1:08:29

your life. My son kept me

1:08:31

going. Yeah, I bet. My son

1:08:33

kept me going. And at the same time, seeing

1:08:35

his pain, there's this year in

1:08:37

this double bind. If you have children,

1:08:39

they keep you going, and they

1:08:41

also hurt you. Not that they hurt you, but

1:08:43

they're suffering hurt to you. But if you don't

1:08:45

have children, you don't have that purpose. damned

1:08:48

if you do damned if you

1:08:50

don't I feel like with with

1:08:52

uh with this but I think

1:08:54

traumatic bereavement can lead to this

1:08:56

this situation where even years later I

1:08:58

can't talk about it I can't approach

1:09:00

it and and I heard there was a

1:09:02

case study of a woman who for

1:09:05

10 years could not sleep if she was

1:09:07

not in her husband's grave you know

1:09:09

and so people can live with

1:09:11

this horrific pain for years

1:09:13

because something happened in the

1:09:15

grieving process and it's not just trauma, sometimes

1:09:18

it's other things. Like if you had

1:09:20

any fault or if you thought you were

1:09:22

at fault for the death, it just

1:09:24

makes it hard to accept the reality. And

1:09:26

by accepting does not mean I like it. It

1:09:29

just means to accommodate to a

1:09:31

reality you didn't want. So

1:09:33

there is therapy now to help

1:09:35

people who are grieving go through that like

1:09:37

what you did because it sounds to

1:09:39

me like what you're saying is it is

1:09:41

a form of PTSD. No,

1:09:43

it's it is it is it

1:09:45

could very well. So PTSD is

1:09:47

the PTSD is the like most

1:09:50

dramatic presentation

1:09:53

of trauma, you

1:09:55

know, and so but I think a lot

1:09:57

of widows have trauma or young widows

1:09:59

have you know, like how your

1:10:01

grandmother and myself are like, we lose our

1:10:03

spouses and he's sudden, unexpected, terrifying, or

1:10:05

very quickly dying to cancer, you know, those

1:10:07

kinds of weak. So those are all

1:10:10

traumatic agreements. And so when, so

1:10:12

PTSD is the full blown diagnosis,

1:10:14

but that doesn't mean you're not

1:10:16

experiencing trauma. Like research shows that even

1:10:18

two to four years after the

1:10:20

death of a young partner, people

1:10:22

are experiencing significant trauma symptoms. So

1:10:24

that doesn't just go away. So you need

1:10:26

treatment for trauma, but then if the

1:10:28

trauma complicates the grief. So

1:10:31

that's like an organ system failing, and then another

1:10:33

organ system starting, and another organ starting to

1:10:35

fail. You know what I mean? They start having

1:10:37

system failure. To me, that is how I

1:10:39

experienced it. I experienced that I was slowly falling

1:10:41

apart. So what are the

1:10:43

options for grieving people

1:10:46

now a days, like verses

1:10:48

1938 for my MIMAW?

1:10:50

But in nowadays, if

1:10:52

somebody finds themselves in the position that

1:10:54

you were in or that my MIMAW

1:10:56

was in, what are they looking for? in

1:10:59

a therapist or a

1:11:01

counselor, are there free

1:11:03

or pro bono kind of centers

1:11:05

that they can go to? Is

1:11:07

there something online that they can

1:11:10

do? How can they help?

1:11:12

Not only in traumatic grief and

1:11:14

bereavement, but also just in

1:11:16

regular, you know, run

1:11:18

-of -the -mill horrific grief when a loved

1:11:21

one is lost. Yeah. So,

1:11:23

you know, okay, so several things.

1:11:25

One is that, What

1:11:28

what people say is

1:11:30

that most people will not

1:11:32

need support beyond social

1:11:34

support Because people tend to

1:11:36

be able to somehow accommodate to

1:11:38

the loss You know and so and

1:11:40

then there's several layers of support

1:11:43

that are needed depending on how much

1:11:45

you're suffering and struggling and some

1:11:47

people don't like you know as horrific

1:11:49

as loss is people are

1:11:51

able to demonstrate this amazing resilience

1:11:53

and within time accommodate and

1:11:55

they're okay. Now when people go

1:11:57

on to be disabled by it for a long

1:11:59

period of time, like I was and probably like how

1:12:01

your mima may have been, there

1:12:04

is information. So the

1:12:06

Center for Prolonged Grief at

1:12:08

Columbia University, they have

1:12:11

trainings for

1:12:13

practitioners to just teach

1:12:15

them about prolonged grief because grief

1:12:17

is not really well understood in society,

1:12:19

even in counseling programs or in

1:12:21

social work programs. People still kind

1:12:23

of still talk about the Kugler

1:12:25

Ross, you know stages of grief model

1:12:27

which has been debunked in research like

1:12:29

that's not like you don't Yes, there's

1:12:32

never been any I hadn't heard that.

1:12:34

Mm -hmm. There's never been any real

1:12:36

Support for people actually going through these

1:12:38

stages, you know because they talk about

1:12:40

the first one is the state is

1:12:42

like shock and denial But really what

1:12:44

research has shown that people that yearning

1:12:47

is with people experience the most

1:12:49

that's a predominant feeling and yearning

1:12:51

is not missing Missing

1:12:53

is a nostalgia of the back. Like, oh,

1:12:55

I remember when we used to, yearning

1:12:57

is like, I want this now. Like, I

1:12:59

want this valued thing right now. And

1:13:01

that's what makes you feel so

1:13:03

much pain because, you know, every time

1:13:06

you get a reminder that we used

1:13:08

to do this together, oh, I wish

1:13:10

they were here right now. Oh my

1:13:12

God, it comes with so much anguish.

1:13:14

And when you're widowed, you get those

1:13:16

reminders constantly. It's different than if

1:13:18

you like saw them once a year or you saw

1:13:20

them every couple months. It's like, I brush my

1:13:22

teeth. Oh God, they used to do this. I take

1:13:24

care of my kid. Oh God, they used to

1:13:26

do this. So you're in this constant pain and that

1:13:28

level of pain can really destabilize a person. It

1:13:30

can make them like, I'm too overwhelmed. I don't want

1:13:32

to, I got to take care of my kids.

1:13:35

I can't be in pain all the time. So they

1:13:37

begin to avoid, you know, so that avoidance can

1:13:39

sometimes lead to this other stuff. So the central prolonged

1:13:41

grief. at Columbia University, they

1:13:43

train practitioners and that's where I found

1:13:45

my therapist. She has

1:13:47

been amazing. So right now there's

1:13:49

a protocol, there's only one that I

1:13:51

know of for prolonged

1:13:53

treatment, but there might be

1:13:55

more by written by Kathy Shear and

1:13:57

her team. And

1:13:59

basically this protocol is

1:14:02

what it does is that it

1:14:04

helps you with the support of

1:14:06

the therapist to face the grief and

1:14:08

trauma of the grief, you know I

1:14:10

mean? So to face it and to

1:14:12

start, start

1:14:14

like coming towards your grief instead of fighting

1:14:16

it. So one of the first things

1:14:18

that I had to start doing was journaling.

1:14:21

You know, every day I had to journal what was my

1:14:23

high of pain, what was my low of pain, what was

1:14:25

happening when I had the high, what was happening when I

1:14:27

had the low, and what was the average throughout the day,

1:14:29

how did I feel? And I was like, I didn't understand

1:14:32

why we were doing it initially. And

1:14:34

then I just began to realize That's

1:14:36

just you reconnecting with your grief because

1:14:38

I was so used to just holding

1:14:40

my breath and just powering through and working.

1:14:42

And even though I was always in pain, I

1:14:44

didn't want to feel it. So I was just

1:14:46

like, I'm not gonna think about it. I'm not

1:14:49

gonna think about it. You know, that was so

1:14:51

bad for me, you know? And so that started

1:14:53

that. And then we did, we did other exercises

1:14:55

and, you know, like writing down from like, like

1:14:57

most scared to least scared of activities

1:14:59

that you've been avoiding that you need to do

1:15:01

in order to rearrange your life and accommodate

1:15:03

for this law. So there were so many things

1:15:05

that I had not taken care of. I

1:15:07

was too afraid to approach it. You know, like

1:15:09

even including clothes that I used to wear

1:15:11

when he was alive, I couldn't look at them

1:15:13

anymore. I was just avoiding, even though I

1:15:16

thought about him all day long, I was avoiding

1:15:18

because I was so afraid of the pain. There

1:15:20

were things that we did and that was, it

1:15:22

was a hard protocol to go through. It was

1:15:24

brutal. And it should have been like, like, you

1:15:26

know, what the research shows is, it's a 16

1:15:28

-week protocol. I had to do it over nine

1:15:30

months. It was so destabilizing at times. And

1:15:33

so my therapist realized that she's like, okay, let's

1:15:35

pause this. Let's help you get through this.

1:15:37

And then, and several people died while I was

1:15:39

going through it, you know? And so then

1:15:41

we had to pause it, you know, take, so

1:15:43

my therapist was amazing. Her name is Sonia

1:15:45

Lott and she's on that, she's on that website.

1:15:48

So unfortunately there's, I don't, I don't think

1:15:50

that there's pro bono, but I really wish

1:15:52

there were, there was

1:15:54

because So many widows and

1:15:56

but there's other people who go through

1:15:58

it, but young widows There's a lot

1:16:01

of young voters that I'm reading the

1:16:03

the Facebook forums. I'm like they're

1:16:05

Years out and Incredible

1:16:07

amount of pain and this is

1:16:09

not to judge to say oh,

1:16:12

you're not allowed to hurt, but

1:16:14

it's destabilizing and it's disabling You

1:16:16

know or not only the widow, but

1:16:18

for their children as well. They lose

1:16:20

the other parent they lose the

1:16:22

other parent. Yeah, like I feel like it's

1:16:24

very traumatic for children to lose one

1:16:26

parent and watch the other parents suffer like

1:16:28

this. And even, you know, I had

1:16:30

a friend who told me that her mother

1:16:32

would take them to the grave site

1:16:34

every weekend also. And it being a hard

1:16:36

memory, like I don't want to

1:16:38

do this, you know, but it's almost like

1:16:40

you're stuck here because your parent needs this

1:16:42

and the parents begin to struggle to

1:16:44

attune to their children. when they're stuck

1:16:46

in mental health issues, you know?

1:16:48

So it's like research shows that mothers

1:16:51

with postpartum depression or PTSD, they

1:16:53

can't even hear their kid crying in

1:16:55

the same way that kids with parents

1:16:58

without this have. You know I mean?

1:17:00

Like your ability to hear your child

1:17:02

even is challenged because you're in so

1:17:04

much distress. So that becomes, you

1:17:06

know, I, that's why I feel like that's part

1:17:08

of why I'm doing the Young Widowhood Project

1:17:10

is because I'm really concerned for the widow,

1:17:12

but also really concerned for the children of

1:17:14

a widowed family. Well, my

1:17:16

memaw, God bless her, went

1:17:18

to work and put both of

1:17:21

her kids through 12 years of

1:17:23

private Catholic schools. Both of

1:17:25

them graduated from college. Both

1:17:27

of them had wonderful careers. And

1:17:29

she was orphaned when she

1:17:31

was in eighth grade and

1:17:33

went to work full time. So,

1:17:36

yeah, her parents, she

1:17:38

worked on. when she

1:17:41

was 14 and didn't

1:17:43

even finish the eighth grade and

1:17:45

she was an only child. And so

1:17:47

I think about the trauma that she

1:17:49

went through, but God

1:17:52

blessed her to power through

1:17:54

and she had a lot of

1:17:56

joy when, you know, when we

1:17:58

were born, when the grandkids, it

1:18:00

was like once the grandkids were born, it

1:18:02

was a different situation. And then when

1:18:04

the great grandkids were born, oh man, that

1:18:06

was just like a whole new. ballgame

1:18:09

for her, and that's what

1:18:11

brought her the most joy was

1:18:13

the babies and, you know, in new

1:18:15

life and all of that. Speaking of

1:18:17

that, a couple more questions as we're

1:18:20

winding down. I could talk to you

1:18:22

for hours. Thank you for sharing all

1:18:24

your wisdom with us. I know it's

1:18:26

helping a lot of people. And if

1:18:28

it's not somebody who's a young widow

1:18:30

that's listening, we all know people that know

1:18:32

someone that this information is

1:18:34

going to help. So what can

1:18:36

the family do? to

1:18:39

support their young

1:18:41

widow and whether

1:18:43

they have children or not, what's

1:18:45

the most helpful? If you

1:18:47

named like two or three things

1:18:50

that the family could do

1:18:52

to help that widow feel supported,

1:18:54

what would they be? So

1:18:56

I think the first thing is,

1:18:58

you know, realize that this

1:19:01

is a long haul

1:19:03

for them. It's going to be

1:19:05

years of of hurting of

1:19:07

you know and so that

1:19:09

they're gonna they're they're going to

1:19:11

be going through milestones in

1:19:13

their lives where their partner would

1:19:15

have been there and so

1:19:17

just being mindful like anniversaries their

1:19:19

birthdays anything special in their

1:19:21

lives has now taken on this

1:19:23

you know it used to be joyful

1:19:25

now it's sad as well as joyful or

1:19:27

tragic as well as joyful and so

1:19:30

like realizing that their their loved one their

1:19:32

widow and their family is going to

1:19:34

hurt for a really long time And maybe

1:19:36

for the lifetime, maybe for a

1:19:38

lifetime, but they're going to be in the

1:19:40

intense acute pain for a really long time.

1:19:42

And so like to just help them. Feel

1:19:45

like they're not alone, you know, just just remember them. Just

1:19:47

see it like, hey, I know that this is your anniversary.

1:19:49

I know that that was hard. It must have been hard

1:19:51

for you. Remembering them on their

1:19:53

anniversaries, remembering them on their birthdays, remembering

1:19:55

them on their partner's birthdays, like

1:19:58

they still continue to celebrate and love and honor

1:20:00

their partner throughout the rest of their

1:20:02

lives, you know? So I know, like for

1:20:04

me in February, I started, you know,

1:20:06

struggling because that was my husband's birthday, you

1:20:08

know? And so I began to struggle. And people who

1:20:10

remember that are like, hey, I know that you were going

1:20:12

through a hard time. That just helps me

1:20:14

to know I'm not alone. And the

1:20:16

other thing is to not expect people want

1:20:18

you to get better and you feel the pressure

1:20:20

from other people that they want you to

1:20:22

get better and you're like, I'm not getting better

1:20:24

and I can't hurry it along, you know?

1:20:27

So just one of the most helpful things that

1:20:29

one of my friends told me at like.

1:20:31

nine or 10 months after Brent died, she

1:20:33

said, you know, Liza, I know you're about to

1:20:35

come on the one year anniversary, and I want

1:20:37

you to know that there's no pressure from us

1:20:39

that you get better. You know, like

1:20:42

if you're a mess, if you're a hot mess, like

1:20:44

you are now at the one year mark and beyond,

1:20:46

we'll be here. And if you're like that at

1:20:48

eight years, we'll be here. You know, like we don't

1:20:50

want you to feel this way, but if

1:20:52

you are, it's okay. So I think letting me

1:20:54

be a hot mess and accepting me, you

1:20:56

know, just like, oh, come along, you know, and

1:20:58

if I'm crying, she's crying, let's give her

1:21:00

a hug, let's carry on. That

1:21:02

just made me feel like I wasn't isolated, you know,

1:21:04

because when people begin to feel like, oh, you're

1:21:06

still struggling like that, like, we know that people get

1:21:09

tired of us, you know, we know this. Well,

1:21:11

when people tell you, I'm not tired of you, you

1:21:13

know, like, if you need to cry, we'll cry

1:21:15

and then let's go do our thing. Just make me

1:21:17

feel normal, you know, tell me

1:21:19

your problems too. You know, so I

1:21:21

would say that, like, remember it's a

1:21:23

long haul and don't True as as

1:21:25

hard as it is for you and

1:21:27

I recognize this that as as a

1:21:29

bystander It's traumatic to watch someone you

1:21:31

love fall apart in this way like

1:21:33

I know this So try to take

1:21:35

care of yourself if you need breaks

1:21:37

from them take them You know like

1:21:39

they don't expect you to be there for

1:21:41

them all the time But also that

1:21:44

don't disappear fully like you just go

1:21:46

take a break and then come back

1:21:48

my family used to Talk

1:21:51

to me around like a volleyball, you know, my mom would call

1:21:53

my sister to be like come pick her up I can't take

1:21:55

it anymore. I can't see her crying like this So my sister

1:21:57

would pick me up and take me to their house, you know,

1:21:59

and then they'd be like, okay I'm done like

1:22:01

go pick her up and I had

1:22:03

no idea this is all happening in

1:22:05

the background They were just coordinating so

1:22:07

they could survive watching me fall

1:22:09

apart, you know, and so that you

1:22:11

know, just kind of like it's a

1:22:13

long haul and Yes, yeah great suggestions.

1:22:15

I know you're in a new

1:22:17

relationship Tell us How did you

1:22:20

know that it was time

1:22:22

for you or did it

1:22:24

just happen, you know, just

1:22:26

kind of out of the blue and you

1:22:28

just took step by step or

1:22:30

just tell us real briefly

1:22:32

about that? About this one,

1:22:34

it just happened. It just, we

1:22:36

met at dance school and, but I

1:22:38

felt like I knew that I

1:22:40

was ready because I'd had one previous relationship

1:22:42

before this one that I had thought I was

1:22:45

ready to start dating. My therapist had told

1:22:47

me, you need to start dating because like I

1:22:49

wore my rings for 14 months. And then

1:22:51

I had all this anger that he had abandoned

1:22:53

me. And she was like, he didn't abandon

1:22:55

you. He's dead. You know, she's like, can you

1:22:57

start acting singles or any way you start

1:22:59

like to behave in a way that lets you

1:23:01

know that you're single. So I thought, okay,

1:23:03

it's been 14 months. I should try. And it

1:23:06

was very painful. But what

1:23:08

was different then when

1:23:10

I had my first

1:23:12

relationship versus now is

1:23:14

that I don't Like, I

1:23:16

feel there's space for both. I

1:23:19

don't have to hide my love

1:23:21

for Brent, and I have a lot

1:23:23

of love for Henry. You know what

1:23:25

I mean? Like, they're both great loves,

1:23:27

and I'm okay. I mean, sometimes I'm

1:23:29

not okay with it. Sometimes I'm so

1:23:31

confused about, like, hold on, how does this

1:23:33

even work? But my heart is okay

1:23:35

with holding space, and I feel that Brent's

1:23:37

okay with it, and Henry's okay with

1:23:39

it, you know? So I think that the

1:23:41

biggest way that I've known so far

1:23:43

as it's evolved is

1:23:46

that there's space, that there's space

1:23:48

for both and that I'm

1:23:50

not sitting there yearning for Brent

1:23:52

while I'm with Henry. You

1:23:54

know, I think that was something that was happening

1:23:56

to me in my previous relationship where I would

1:23:58

be yearning and then I would feel guilty. So

1:24:00

I thought I'm cheating on the new guy, you

1:24:03

know, because I'm sitting here wishing it was

1:24:05

Brent, you know, and not wishing that

1:24:07

it wasn't this person, but just wishing that

1:24:09

Brent was around, you know, and that would

1:24:11

make me feel so anxious because I'm I'm

1:24:13

a monogamous girl, you know, like I'm like

1:24:15

a one person person. And so to feel

1:24:17

like I'm with one person and wanting to

1:24:20

be with another that didn't feel right. And

1:24:22

it didn't happen until after I got into the

1:24:24

relationship. You know I'm saying? So then I'm

1:24:26

like, oh my God, you know what is happening?

1:24:28

Like what's wrong with me? And now I

1:24:30

miss Brent. I hear Brent's voice in my heart.

1:24:32

Brent will always be a part of me.

1:24:35

He's an ancestor. He's a

1:24:37

great love and their space for

1:24:39

the new person. No, wonderful.

1:24:41

Last question. Why do we incarnate?

1:24:44

Why do we incarnate? I

1:24:46

hear and this

1:24:48

kind of makes sense to me is to learn to

1:24:50

love. I hear that, you

1:24:53

know, that I've heard from people that

1:24:55

I think it's so that we learn

1:24:57

to love in a deeper way. So we

1:24:59

have the human experience, the human experience and the

1:25:01

suffering that comes with it. And other joys, they

1:25:04

teach us how to love better. I

1:25:06

think that's why I don't know what do

1:25:08

you think? Well, and I

1:25:10

think for you, it's

1:25:12

obvious that you're expanding your

1:25:14

love for all those

1:25:16

young widows out there in the

1:25:18

world who are benefiting from your

1:25:21

counseling and your

1:25:23

research and your wisdom

1:25:25

and as somebody who's been there

1:25:27

and has survived. So that's

1:25:29

a different kind of love perhaps

1:25:32

than what you ever thought

1:25:34

you'd be involved in, but

1:25:36

certainly just as

1:25:39

beneficial and just

1:25:41

as... So

1:25:44

what I'm looking for not efficient,

1:25:46

but just as much of an

1:25:48

experience as Romantic love or familial

1:25:50

love or something like that You're

1:25:52

just doing it and you're doing

1:25:55

it in a way that's different

1:25:57

because you're you're sharing the love

1:25:59

with people who you will

1:26:01

never meet and You're sending

1:26:03

them love and you're

1:26:05

affecting their Their lives in

1:26:07

profound ways you and your

1:26:09

you and your team that's

1:26:12

doing this research. And for you

1:26:14

to have the courage to share

1:26:16

this, such intimate stuff

1:26:18

about your own life

1:26:20

is just remarkable. So

1:26:22

I just think you're

1:26:24

so extraordinary and I'm

1:26:26

grateful for you and for

1:26:28

the work that you're doing and

1:26:30

how you're benefiting people from all

1:26:33

over the world. So carry on, my

1:26:35

girl, you're doing remarkable things. How can

1:26:37

people learn more about you and your

1:26:39

work? So I am

1:26:41

on a Facebook platform and an

1:26:43

Instagram platform called The Widowed Researcher. And

1:26:46

there you can connect with the

1:26:48

Young Widowhood Project and also a

1:26:50

podcast that I just started. It's

1:26:52

still very much slowly building up,

1:26:54

but it's called WidowPod. The Stories

1:26:56

and Research of Young Widows. And so

1:26:58

I also have academic papers that if people

1:27:00

ask me for, I'm happy to share

1:27:02

them. I have some of them linked also

1:27:05

in my bio. So that's what I

1:27:07

can find now. Wonderful. And anybody listening, who's

1:27:09

been through this. You are welcome to a

1:27:11

free copy of my book, Angelic

1:27:13

Attendance, what happens as we transition

1:27:16

from this life into the

1:27:18

next. Just go to julieriongift .com

1:27:20

and we'll give you our free

1:27:22

digital and audio book download.

1:27:24

And it's about how we're surrounded

1:27:26

by angels in the spirits of

1:27:28

deceased loved ones and pets. And

1:27:30

that's my parting comment to you.

1:27:32

Brent was surrounded by angels and

1:27:34

deceased loved ones and deceased

1:27:36

pets when he passed. I

1:27:39

hope that gives you

1:27:41

some comfort as well. Yeah.

1:27:43

Thank you for coming by

1:27:46

and talking with all of

1:27:48

us today. Lots for

1:27:50

us to all think about,

1:27:52

you know, gosh, if we're in

1:27:54

this position or we know

1:27:56

somebody who is, please share this

1:27:58

video with them. And I envision

1:28:00

people will watch this multiple times

1:28:02

because there's so many golden nuggets

1:28:04

here. In the meantime, sending

1:28:06

you lots of love from

1:28:08

Sweet Home Alabama and from Texas

1:28:11

too, where Dr. Liza is.

1:28:13

We'll see you next time. Thanks

1:28:15

for joining us. Be sure to

1:28:17

follow Julie on Instagram and YouTube

1:28:20

at AskJulieRyan. And like her

1:28:22

on Facebook at AskJulieRyan. To

1:28:24

schedule an appointment or submit

1:28:26

a question, please visit AskJulieRyan

1:28:28

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1:28:30

is for informational purposes only.

1:28:32

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1:28:34

be medical, psychological, financial, or

1:28:36

legal advice. Please contact a

1:28:39

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1:28:43

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1:28:45

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1:28:49

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1:28:51

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1:28:53

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