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Finding Purpose in Grief: A Conversation with Amy Shaw | Teen Anxiety Maze Podcast

In this powerful episode of Teen Anxiety Maze, I speak with Amy Shaw, a mother of ten who transformed her grief into purpose after her husband's terminal diagnosis. Amy shares her remarkable journey of raising four biological and six adopted children, navigating profound loss, and ultimately creating the "Walk the Red" program to help others face terminal illness with dignity and meaning.
Amy opens up about the stillbirth of her child at 39 weeks, facing her husband's terminal brain cancer diagnosis while raising children ages 3-18, and how these experiences shaped her approach to grief. Rather than becoming bitter, she chose growth and created practical resources for others going through similar situations.
Key moments in this episode:

00:45 Amy's journey to mothering ten children, including international adoptions
05:20 The profound impact of early losses and her decision to not let grief define her
10:35 How her family approached her husband's terminal diagnosis
14:50 Creating the "Navigating Goodbye" guide for those blindsided by terminal illness
19:30 How teenagers vs. young children process grief differently
23:15 The powerful mindset shift that helped her family "cheer on" her husband

Whether you're a parent, educator, or someone facing loss, Amy's perspective on how we can all "walk the red carpet" of life offers profound wisdom on making the most of every moment we have.

📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Amy's New Book: "Navigating Goodbye: A Guide for Those Blindsided by Terminal Illness"

Walk the Red Program:

Grief Support Resources:

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me: 785-380-2064
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Transcript

 Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me today for the teen anxiety maze. Now I've said this before so many times, but I just wanted to remind everybody that listens to this podcast, whether you're a young person, a parent, an educator, or just a friendly neighbor that cares about kids, I want this podcast to let you know So I want to introduce you to all of the adults, all the people, I guess, I have, I've had some teenagers on the program to all the people in the world that can help you with all sorts of things, because we get into these situations in our lives and we wonder what are, what are we, what am I supposed to do with this?

And I promise that you can almost always find somebody who knows about it and that can help you with it. So today we have Amy Shaw with us as a guest and she did not. Expect to become a life concierge, but after years of living [00:01:00] abroad, having 10 children, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more later, four biological and six adopted, Amy and her husband got the news.

He had a terminal illness. Rather than bemoan a diagnosis, Amy and Brian chose to celebrate his life. This is what inspired her Walk the Red program, which equips the diagnosed and their caregivers with a powerful protocol to help them end Well, help their life and well, Amy says, we're all on the red carpet.

And that really spoke to me. When you think about this, we all get to decide how we live and how we die. In addition to being a John Maxwell certified speaker, Amy is a modern impressionist artist who often combines her artistic abilities with her keynotes and workshops, which sounds really awesome too.

So Amy, thank you for being with us. 

Amy Shaw: Yeah, you bet. I'm so excited to be [00:02:00] here. Thanks for having me. 

Cynthia: Well, this topic, we've talked about grief in some other ways, but I think the way that you are approaching it and how you're helping people is different than what we have talked about before. But first I want to, I want to know how did you and your husband come to have 10 children?

Amy Shaw: Well, it was, it was not overnight. We started the traditional way. We had biological Children and we had a dream of having a lot of a lot of kids. And in in the course of having Children, we lost babies as well. In fact, we lost three and it took us nine years. to get to four Children. And so our dream of a large family, and that is large and many people's scopes.

We wanted more than that. We wanted six. That was our target. And by the time I had our fourth child, we had been through so much loss that I [00:03:00] knew that I couldn't do it again. I knew I couldn't, carry another baby. We had our most significant loss was a loss in the final week of pregnancy and everything was going along great and 39 weeks there was no movement and I went into the emergency room and they came into the ultrasound, shut them, shut the machine off and the nurse walked out and I was like, what?

And yeah, they came back in and said, we're so sorry. I was like no, turn that back on. Yes. Oh my gosh. So yeah, I delivered a beautiful, perfect baby who was just not living. And so that loss really, really impacted our family. And you know, as a mom, just devastating. So I knew that. So then I had one more baby after that.

And that was so full of anxiety. I was so afraid it was going to happen again. It did not. But in that process, we, you know, [00:04:00] we, we made some decisions that we believed that. You know, we had to go through the pain of that. So we didn't want to waste that pain. So we really tried to, you know, learn all we could through that process.

I didn't want to become bitter. I know that hardships can, you know, kind of either harden people and they become really bitter and grumpy and stagnant or they They kind of soften and and become pliable and they grow. And that was the way that we wanted to be. And so actually it was after our, our final child was born that my husband, he was listening to a podcast and he heard about the need of Of families for orphans internationally, specifically in, in Sub Saharan Africa because of the AIDS crisis.

And so he called me from work one day and said, would you ever consider international adoption? I was like, And I, you know, I had been thinking I really wanted to grow our family more, but I knew, I knew that I knew that I [00:05:00] couldn't do it again. So this was a really just a really neat way. So we proceeded then to, bring home our first adopted child from Uganda. And then we started almost serial adopting from China where we brought home five more orphans in four years. So we ballooned from four to 10 children from yeah, 2009, our final daughter was born, and then we brought home our final two children in 2016, so.

Cynthia: Oh, wow. How we got to 10. Well, you mentioned in the, in the bio, it said that you had lived abroad too. So were part of these at any time when you were living abroad too, and that was just part of what you were doing there or this was after, after that? 

Amy Shaw: Yeah, it really was after that we had never even considered adoption before that actually, but you know, we have always just loved kids.

My husband and I were just very silly people just loving to have fun. [00:06:00] And so we always enjoyed kids. And so. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me looking back. But yeah, we, we had a date early on and we went to an art festival and all the things that I was drawn to, he was also drawn to and, and the commonality was interesting because they were all photography, which we ended up having a portrait photography business for a while.

And they were. Portraits of children internationally, and that was what repeatedly from booth to booth that we were both lingering over. So it's kind of a little foreshadowing. 

Cynthia: Yes. Oh, that's so cool. I love that. Now, he was diagnosed with this terminal cancer. How old were these 10 kids at that time? 

Amy Shaw: Yeah, yeah, well I had to write them out because I had to think about it.

So my oldest was 18, then 16, 15, 12, 9, 8, 7, 5, [00:07:00] 5, and 3. 

Cynthia: Oh my gosh. 

Amy Shaw: It was, I mean there's no, there's never an easy time to receive a diagnosis like that. 

Cynthia: No, 

Amy Shaw: no. My husband was 43. And, you know, we were just, we were just getting going, you know, we had just got family. We had brought our last girls home and at the end of 2016, and this was March of 2018.

So not much time had really passed that we were kind of doing this large family thing. It was, it was very chaotic and very colorful and very full of animals and, oh 

Cynthia: my gosh, I can't. Well, and so you're dealing with. You know, how you're feeling about this diagnosis, your husband's dealing with how he's going to deal and feel about the diagnosis.

And then you have to deal with how all the kids feel about the diagnosis, which was probably different for every one of them. 

Amy Shaw: And uniquely so because Not only, you know, they all have their own [00:08:00] personalities, but these Children have come from different backgrounds, especially the six that we we brought in.

And, you know, this was this was a pending loss again for them. They had already lost their first families and family members. So And they had already lost their first cultures, their first languages. And so it was, it was a lot, you know, it's really interesting. We had a family dog that we loved so much.

And in 2017 she was killed on the road actually. And the devastation, it was so, it was just so telling to me. So my husband was at work and I called him, it was early in the morning, it was before the kids went to school. And so the horror of this dog, you know, we really, I guess we had lost my father in law.

So the kids had lost a grandfather and that was really the only loss that they had experienced. And that was, that was very, very hard. But having this dog that [00:09:00] they saw every day and loved on every day just suddenly cut off like that. My four biological children went into, like, Dramatic, dramatic, emotional meltdowns.

My one son was very angry where the other kids were just crying and screaming and no, no, no. And it was so interesting to me because I was emotional about it too. And I was calling my husband on the phone. All of my adopted children just kind of stood there. They were disengaged and they showed no emotion.

And they were more like observers on the scene and that was so interesting to watch because, you know, we are, we're collecting all these experiences, you know, from we've gone through and it was so telling and, and heart rending to watch, you know, how their emotions had really. They, they've been battered around already.

Cynthia: They already knew how to shut their feelings down. Yes. 

Amy Shaw: Coping [00:10:00] skills were already in place, even with these little ones, because, you know, my littlest one would have been two then. And so, yeah, it was really. Interesting. 

Cynthia: You've experienced a lot of different types of death too when you're talking about, you know, a beloved family pet and the baby that was lost and the other babies that were lost as well.

And sometimes it just seems like that's just too much for somebody. To handle. Do you ever think about that? Or do you have ways? Cause I'm sure a lot of people get kind of caught up in that. Like, why is this happening to me? And you know, what am I supposed to do with all this? And 

Amy Shaw: that's a really good question.

I think, you know, the very first loss that we had was I was pregnant with twins, which was a dream of mine since I was a little girl and only one of the twins died actually. So I continued to be [00:11:00] pregnant. And I delivered my daughter on her, on their due date. And so it looked as if everything was fine, but I was grieving heavily on the inside.

And I actually, my hairdresser had put me in contact with someone who had that identical situation. And I had a phone call with her. And when I got off the phone, I said, I think I probably said it out loud. I'm not going to do that because it had been two years. Then Singleton, I should say was two years old and she was the most bitter, angry person and that, that devastating loss defined her.

And I 

remember thinking, I don't want, I don't want this to define me. And so I think every loss that we had and then, so then we lost a baby while we were living in East Asia an early pregnancy. And, and then we lost our full term with, with live babies in [00:12:00] between there, but I think that those, those losses kind of ramped up and I, I learned things that I was like, Okay, I'm not going to become bitter.

I'm not going to waste the pain. I'm not going to, you know, so. It's almost like I'm collecting the cards for, like, different types of losses. My father died as well after, after my husband died. And that, you know, so my husband had a terminal diagnosis and we knew it. My dad was, like, suddenly sick. He was fine.

And then he was suddenly sick and he lived just a couple of days in the hospital. And then all of a sudden he was It was, it was, he was, his life was over. And so I've had, and then my father in law, he, he had early onset dementia. And so it was this long slide and, you know, just this loss of, of function and, and understanding and, you know, for over five, six years, and that was also horribly painful.

So I 

Cynthia: know 

Amy Shaw: a lot of those, but I think I also have learned that I don't. I don't ask the question why [00:13:00] because I know that I can't comprehend the answer. 

Cynthia: Yes, 

Amy Shaw: that has been really helpful for me to understand. Like my human brain is too finite that I believe in a creator God. I believe that he is orchestrating things and Yes, a lot of pain has come, but I believe that I can't demand an answer.

And then, I mean, I, I, I'm free to demand the answer, but I don't think that I could comprehend the answer. 

So I have, I've actually taken a, a different approach so that when I do want to ask why, because it's not that I don't want to ask why I ask, I ask God, what do you want me to know right now?

Because that is an answer that my brain can like, that's like giving me, give it to me in a little piece, God, download for what I can handle right now and, and what I need to know right now. And that I have found that to be just really helpful. And, and that helps me move forward [00:14:00] and I, I get an answer and I, I can do something with that little tiny bit.

Cynthia: Sure. I think it 

Amy Shaw: survives. 

Cynthia: Well, one of the things you'd said to me before we got started recording is that when all this happened, you were like, Okay, well, what am I supposed to do and then you look for the answers and there are no answers Like there is no playbook. Like you said about what to do when someone has a terminal illness or when something like this Happens in your family.

And so part of what you have done now is tried to create a Playbook or a program or ways for people to navigate this so tell us about what that's called and and what is it all about? 

Amy Shaw: Yeah, sure so I just yesterday my book came out so I'm really excited that that's now out there in the world and I'm just really praying that this can be a help to people that are in that situation like I was like what what I we spent so much time just like being so shocked [00:15:00] because my husband was super healthy.

And believe it or not, like getting brain cancer was the thing he worried about the most. Like, Oh my gosh. He was kind of a closet hypochondriac. I mean, nobody would ever know that about him, but you know, if, if he had a little twin, she'd be like, Oh no, I'm probably dying of cancer. He wouldn't tell anyone.

But that was like his internal struggle and dialogue. And so one of the things that he did was, and I didn't even know this until later, but he would buy, he found out that if you eat anchovies, that it fights brain cancer, it'll prevent you from having brain cancer. So he would buy anchovies and take them to work and eat them there so that I didn't have to smell them.

Oh, interesting that the Lord allowed him to have the very big the number one thing he was afraid of. God allowed that to happen in his life. And so he had even articulated to himself. My biggest fear is that I'm going to have a headache and it's going to be brain cancer. Pretty much. That's [00:16:00] what happened.

And so we spent so much of our time trying to be like, how is this possible? My husband was an avid exerciser. He, okay. He liked his cookies, but he ate healthy and no, we were just an active family. And so how could this happen? And I think, you know, that. That desire for somebody to show me the way was, you know, just like you had said on another episode, you know, when I, when I want to go somewhere, I use my GPS and I put the, here, I want to go here and then it maps it out for you and you, you've never maybe traveled that road, but that's okay because you have a path and you have, you have this little, you know, Siri voice or whatever telling you, okay, turn left here, turn right here and so that's really what I sought to do with With this book.

My book is super. It's very short. It's very succinct because I didn't want to go on and on and on, but I wanted to help people know number one, you can do this. I can do this, you can do [00:17:00] this, and I wanted to help them shortcut some of those learning curves that I had, like, I didn't know squat about hospice, 

I didn't, 

I honestly thought that hospice, we know people say, we're going to call a hospice in, I thought that that was like a phone number that you just like, like 911.

Or 411, you know, that there was maybe a little three number, you know, thing that you would call and in comes hospice and I had no idea that there are like hospice companies and you have to choose one and it's the word hospice is more like bank and, you know, if you. You know, bank, there's millions of banks, and then there's types of accounts and choices.

And that was so overwhelming to me in the moment. So just a bunch of things like that, you know, understanding clinical trials. I mean, when your headspace isn't there, and all of a sudden doctors are telling you this stuff, and they are well versed in this. So that's really why I, I wrote this [00:18:00] guide for people to just say, you know, hey, This is, this is what this means.

This is what this means. And then also to kind of inspire people for like, how to, how do you deal with the emotion of it all, the overwhelm, and then make that decision to not become hard and bitter, but become soft and pliable and allow this to grow you, you know, in spite of what you may. fear, this just might be the doorway to something amazing in your life.

Maybe your purpose may come, may emerge through it. And, and also, you know, how do, how do I live the life, the time that I have with my beloved person, you know, this might be a mom, this might be, you know, a dear friend, you know, who knows. But that would be a child, might be a child. 

Cynthia: I 

Amy Shaw: have, I have several adoptive friends who have gone through the loss of their children.

How do we live that time well? How do I help my person really leave a meaningful legacy? And so that's kind of what [00:19:00] my work is. And so I've also, so that's the book Navigating Goodbye. And it's a guide for those blindsided by terminal illness. 

And 

then the program that I've created is one on one coaching with clients to help them kind of like customize all of that information and in, in a, you know, in time, you know, as they're, as they're moving through it, have me there to help them.

And then I've also created a, an actual 12 module program that they also can use. 

Cynthia: Oh, wow. Amazing. Yes. Well, I'm picturing like I'm, when you're talking about the book, even if someone isn't experiencing in their own immediate family, somebody with a terminal diagnosis, I, I feel like I would always know someone who had just gotten that diagnosis or, you know, like someone at my church or somebody, you know, my neighbor or whatever.

And I feel like this could be a gift that you can give [00:20:00] people that, you know, cause So many times when, you know, someone has gotten this diagnosis, it's like. You know, all the rest of us are thinking the same thing, like, well, what do I, what do I talk about, or how do I comfort them, or how do I help them, or, you know, what do I do?

And so this might be a way to feel like you're doing something, and it would be very helpful to them, and yet You know, it's it's easy to do it's something you could just hand them or or send them if you needed to and so I Think that would be so great and it would be I mean they I can imagine how you would just want to have some guide Some some what do I do next and when your brain is just so overwhelmed by things You do need like steps, like just do this and just do this.

And this is what this means. So I love that. And so I'm going to put the links to all these things in the show notes so people can click on them and go to them, buy them, whatever. But your program, they, there's like two pieces to it. It sounds like, so there's something that they [00:21:00] could sort of self.

Guide through the you know, and then if they want the added one to one Coaching support through that process then they could do that as well. 

Amy Shaw: Absolutely. I wanted to go back to something you were saying I Had a very important chapter in that book For an acquaintance of somebody, just like you said, like maybe, you know, a neighbor and, and you think, I want to do something, but I don't know what.

So I actually have a chapter in there. So maybe you buy the book, you read this chapter and then you hand it off. But but I, I wrote it both from, because I've been that person before this happened to me. I mean, there was a woman in my church who, who her husband was sick for a while, and then he actually died.

And I was like, it was just like, what? It's, it's so appalled me. And I really was frozen. Like I wanted to do something. I felt terrible. [00:22:00] Just didn't. No, exactly. And, and so I wrote a little bit from that perspective. And then I'm like, here's, here's some, you know, I'm going to give you some really practical things to do.

And I'm also going to tell you, here's what you don't do right. And that I think can just be super helpful for people. 

Cynthia: Yes. So many times I want people to just say, tell me what to do or not to do. Like I'll do any of it. I just need someone to tell me what, what that is. So I love, I love that. Now, was there anything different that the teenagers in your family needed during that time that was different through the grieving process that was different than like the littles that were in your family?

Amy Shaw: I would say that, that's a great question. What did they need? I don't know that what they needed is really what they chose to receive. You know, kids, [00:23:00] especially teenagers, you know, a lot of them are like, leave me alone. You know, I don't want to do this. I just want to hang out with my friends or we.

I did some family counseling after my husband was diagnosed, our church was very, very kind and extending this and then I did, I had some of the boys go together. We did one on one for some of my teen girls. The littles, they, they really didn't know how to, how to do that kind of a session. So, you know, we, we had that available to them.

Not all of my teens wanted to do that. And I didn't force them to do that. But as a, as a family culture, we talked about death often. We talked about death and life. And, you know, we have this perspective that You know, that we were spiritual beings having a physical experience, though, you know, we're wearing a body and that body.

I love to say that our bodies are our currency. It's our, it's our currency to buy up the spiritual opportunities in the world. And once your [00:24:00] currency runs out, your opportunities to impact the world are here. out as well. And so, you know, in that sense, like caring for your body is really, really important.

Good health, good exercise, all that's really important. But when, when someone is seriously ill or terminally ill, you know that they, you know, it's not just the end of the life and, you know, everything's shut down. But we had a lot of conversations around the fact that death is really just a doorway. And it's, it's a, It's a changing doorway where we go through it, and we've been living this life on planet earth in our bodies, and then we go through this door, and now we're continuing on in an existence still as who we are, but our bodies are not there.

And as a, as a believer in Jesus, you know, I believe that my body is going to be resurrected in the final days, and so that, you know, understanding that my life is going to extend that really, really helped when we thought about, like, helping my husband [00:25:00] approach death. And so we as a family did not cling to him and whine and like, how are we going to do it without you?

You know, we, I really rallied my kids and said, okay, here's, and this was a conversation without my husband there. And I said, listen, we have got to, we've got to cheer him on. Daddy has loved Jesus since he was, I think, five. And so this is what he has been hoping for his whole life is this eternity in heaven.

So he is actually about to lay hold of that. And so we want to help him get excited. We don't watch his be like, well, are we going to do it without you? Now, it's not that we didn't feel that way. We have. Good. Sure. But, you know, let's rally around him. And, and, you know, I, I had, because I had been through all of those other losses and hardships, I knew that God was going to hold me together.

Cynthia: I do 

Amy Shaw: not know how, but I was willing to bank on it that he was. 

Cynthia: So 

Amy Shaw: with that [00:26:00] authority, maybe, or faith, I was able to tell my husband, Hey, me. We're going to make it. We're going to be okay. I, I never long, long ago. I never wanted to be the person who died of a broken heart. 

Now we had a marriage that I would have died of a broken heart if it was, if I had not intended that because we loved one another so desperately much.

We loved being together. But I, I communicated that to the kids and the kids really rallied around that as well. And like, okay, we're going to cheer him on. We spent a lot of time talking about who are you going to see in heaven? Dreaming about, wow, you're going to be able to fly, you know, those kinds of and that really did kind of shift the mood.

It's not that we 

didn't 

cry and I have said this. Or I bet we cried every day. My husband lived 37 months after that. The prediction was like six to 12. And so we really got kind of bonus time. There's no way to escape that feeling of like it's, it's hanging over me, you know, [00:27:00] this diagnosis, there's just, there is no way around that.

And it's so uncomfortable, but you, you can choose to not let that dictate your joy. 

Cynthia: So, yes, I love that so much because my whole podcast has been about, you know, we get to choose every day how we feel or what, you know, what we do. About anything that happens. I, my tagline at the end used to always be choose wisely And it's so true Like you can choose to be the victim in the story or you can choose To be the hero and you were helping him feel like the hero in the story, too And I love that so much and I could see how that would feel so much better Then thinking about what am I going to do?

How am I going to make this work? And not that you didn't also wonder that, but you didn't dwell on that. And I really think that that's where most people's suffering comes from is that dwelling on, you know, the tragedy, the terribleness, the, [00:28:00] you know, unfairness, like when you just think about that all the time.

You can't help but just feel terrible and I'm, I love that you, that that's like the idea of your whole movement is that you just, we're all waiting for that time when we die, whether it's a terminal illness or an accident, or we just Die of old age or you know, whatever it is. We're all going to get to that end And so why don't we just love and live this life and have a legacy no matter how long that we have?

Right. I I love that message It is it is exactly how I'm living my life right now, and I hope to continue life like that And I'm just so glad that you reached out to be a guest because this is such a good It's, it's another twist on just what we can do in any challenges, but grief in particular. And I just, I'm just so glad that there are people that are, that [00:29:00] you decided your mission is to help people in this process because we need it.

Amy Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yes. 

Cynthia: Well, thank you so much. And I will be sending people your way. 

Amy Shaw: Thank you, Cynthia. It's been an honor. It's been a real joy to meet you and to spend some time together. 

Cynthia: Perfect. Thank you.