S3/E27- Marnie's Story: Child Loss, Love, and Life After Loss (Part 3)

In part three of my conversation with Marnie, she shares life after Joey’s death in 2022; the weight of grief, the struggles, and the ways she continues forward while holding onto her daughter’s memory. Unlike the first two episodes, we recorded this in Marnie’s home, where she invited me into Joey’s room, unchanged since the last time she slept there. Surrounded by Joey’s art and presence, it was a sacred, moving experience. I now invite you to lean in and hear Marnie’s honest and heartfelt story.

Transcript

Bruce 0:36

Welcome to Don't Forget to Breathe. I'm your host, Bruce Barker. This is part three of my conversation with Marnie as she shares what life has been like since Joey's death in 2022: the weight of grief, the struggles, and the ways she's learned to keep going while holding on to her daughter's memory. Unlike the first two episodes, we recorded this conversation in a much quieter place. In fact, we recorded in Marnie's home. Before we started, she gave me a tour of their home, and it's the home where Joey lived and where Joey died. She also invited me into Joey's bedroom, a room that looks the same as it did the last time Joey slept there. I was so honored to be there and get a glimpse inside this sacred space with Joey's art and life all over the walls. It was a very moving experience. So now I invite you to lean in and hear Marnie's honest and heartfelt story. Okay, Marnie. So the first two episodes, um, you described Joey. You introduced us to her, and especially then getting into the the last episode when she died. And so now the story turns to you to share whatever you're comfortable sharing about life since and what that's been like for you, even starting, you know, starting after the funeral, the first few days, the first few months, whatever it is, how how it was for you. So I'll let you take it from here.

Marnie 2:18

Yeah, so I probably didn't go back to work until three months later. And it was super part-time. Um, I just thought I needed to kind of get out there and and I was afraid that maybe um what those conversations were gonna be like. But if you've lived through grief, friends aren't gonna come up to you and ask necessarily how you're doing, because they know they don't they're not gonna say that. Nice to see you again, you know, it might be something like that. But so that didn't happen. I think one person that knew Joey was sick actually said, Hey, how is your daughter feeling better? And I had to just shake my head and close my eyes, and then he knew that she was gone. And of course he said sorry, but I was like, whoa, that was I I had no words. I didn't if I I thought if I said words that I would cry, and I wasn't gonna do that in front of people. It was kind of a fog, right? If if I had to say it out loud to anybody, then it was real. Right. If if I said that out loud, so I didn't go to grief share. I didn't well, we we've started talking to people for a little while, but I just was really shut off to what I wanted to say to people and how I wanted to interact. It was going to be my terms and and the rest of the family. I wanted somebody to do it with me. I I was so afraid of being alone. But then I wanted to be alone.

Bruce 3:51

So on your you said you did therapy. When did you do that? How soon after?

Marnie 3:57

Maybe, maybe five months. And it was somebody that I had known before, and she was only doing Zoom because of 2020 and everything. Right. So I would just, you know, go in the closet with my phone. And I mean, I barely remember that. That seems like years ago.

Bruce 4:16

Did you do it because you wanted, I mean, that was something you wanted to do, or was it people encouraging you?

Marnie 4:21

It was people encouraging me. Yeah. Right. I think everyone was worried. You know, what was what was I gonna do? And I was not feeling good. It was almost instant as soon as she was gone. I mean, I had had back problems and I had been seeing somebody since probably 2015, you know, just like x-rays, you know, it takes a long time to have a diagnosis or a long time to get anything going and figured out. And so um it was off and on since 2015. And um, then after she passed, I was instantly in like the worst spot. And I don't know if it was it just kind of caught up with me or grief just took over and my and my body was just giving out. And I think my family was worried about that, right? And they were um, they didn't want me to just sit around. And um, with my back, all of a sudden I couldn't. And the the busier I kept, the better I felt. I had to keep going until I was just physically exhausted, and then that's the only way I could sit still.

Bruce 5:22

So that and I know we've and I may have covered this in in previous episodes, but I know in some of the support groups that I facilitate, we've talked about the physical toll that grief can have on you. And and yours was instantaneous to this high, high level. How's the physical toll been on you since?

Marnie 5:45

I had three back surgeries. You know, I had fusion from L4 to S1, and then I had, you know, I've had three of them, so there was multiple, it was awful. Let me and with that, I'm now living in her room still, and and I'm laying in her bed, sick, taking meds, and having somebody help me and help me get up and take care of myself and bathe and all these things that it's like the weirdest when I'm thinking about it right now, it's weird. But I was almost, I almost like became her in the weirdest way, right? Because now I'm I'm dependent on other people to not necessarily keep me alive, right? But they were they were taking care of me where I couldn't take care of myself. Right. I mean, I couldn't move with my after my back surgery, and I would have to have my husband come in and give me meds in the middle of the night or every four hours, or it was a lot of that. And the kids would have to come over to the house and help me any number of things, right? Um so once I had that alone time and now I was like not working, I really just wanted to be alone. And I was depressed, I was depressed right as soon as she was gone. But now I was, I don't want to say done with life, but I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to live this life anymore. And if that meant that I didn't want to live without her, or I didn't want to feel the pain, or I didn't want to be physically sick, I don't know, but I was just tired. And I still feel like that. I'm I'm tired, tired of trying to be okay because I'm not okay. And I think the only person in the world to me that feels like they understand how I feel is my mom because she lost me the day that I lost Joey. I'm never gonna be that person again. You know, I'm not so when I talk to her about things, she's instantly saddened and and can relate and can not make me feel better, but I just know that she knows. She knows she lost her daughter too. Like it's just uh it's the same kind of feeling. And um I know there's people out there for me, but they don't just they don't understand. They don't.

Bruce 8:27

Did you feel that the therapy, and and I'll speak for myself, it seemed early on, it's a fog, I don't really remember it. And I think I was doing it because I thought that's what you're supposed to do. It was superficial for me. It was, I think that early, it was ineffective. Do you feel like it was just kind of going through the motions, like doing but not that effective early on? Because you you went into, you know, as you said, you went into this the physical toll and the and depression and you know everything that's falls into that. Yeah, did you feel like it was the therapy didn't really like it really didn't do anything?

Marnie 9:14

No, no, it it didn't. Um it I didn't feel like I was releasing it because I I don't think that my therapist, at least she didn't share, and she's not a grief therapist. Right. Um, so there was not there wasn't that connection. So now when I when I finally decided to go to Grief Share, it was rough the first, probably the first month. It was it was hard. And I I don't know, I thought about not going back because I didn't want anyone to see me like that. But there was this connection that I have never in my life felt ever, as far as like connecting with somebody and being a part of something, and nobody wants to be a part of this group, right? Oh, no, we don't, we don't, especially parents that lost children, not even just grief group.

Speaker 1 10:07

Yeah.

Marnie 10:09

But we have something in common, and it it feels like I I finally met my my people, my group of friends and people that just get it.

Bruce 10:21

Yeah.

Marnie 10:22

And that's I think that for me is what kind of made me start I guess feeling better, right? So physically I was turning around. I mean, I had just had my last surgery in January. So in the healing process, May June, I was feeling a little bit better. And and I think releasing my, you know, my my feelings to other people, right, in this group, going to church more often, all of the above. And I started feeling better. I mean, I I I've kind of had a little bit of a a backpedal, but I think that's just because I've I have more things that need to be fixed on my back. And you get to a point where I'm like, I don't know if I don't know. What do I really want? I want to be there for my kids. Um, I have a grandbaby that's coming any day. And I I guess I just want to make everybody proud and I want to feel physically good. And I don't know if that's gonna happen.

Bruce 11:23

Are you feeling physically better? I was. Yeah.

Marnie 11:28

Uh the last couple weeks, I've kind of um it's almost okay. Here's here's the thing. It's almost like Joey was feeling good, right? And she was when we got her back home and she was, you know, we had doctors' appointments and stuff, but then once she got that, you're not gonna get a heart transplant. And then it switched. I feel like I had that switch this last week. I got some MRIs just done, and there's there's problems again. So I just got this switch where they're like, oh, well, you have some options. You can redo the whole back surgery where they can take out everything and then put all new stuff in, and we have to go up and fuse higher. Or we can go and we can add on, but it's gonna be heavy and it's gonna because we have to fuse another level and it's gonna be heavier on your muscles in the long run, or you can just keep living your life the way you do and have numb legs and have pain and see where that gets you. And I in the last two days have just I've just been in a dark place. Just like, what do I do? What does what would Joey want me to do? You know, does she want me to go through that all over again? Because it was awful. Or I I mean, I don't know. I don't know what the or is, but I think doing my connection with other other people and talking, it makes me feel better, right?

Bruce 12:55

And all of this is from the physical toll that grief has taken on your body. Yep.

Marnie 13:01

I mean, because I've had some fantastic things that have happened in the last three and a half years. I had two daughters get married. I have had, I mean, countless amounts of just people surrounding me with love and and and we all get together for Joey's birthdays at the the gravesite. And it's just it's so important to me to know that she, you know, still knowing people still coming up and saying what a what a difference she made, right? In uh in other kids' lives or in in my family's lives, or you don't I don't, it's hard, it's so hard to explain because I am lucky to have had what I had. And and at the end, talking to other people, I got closure. I got so, you know, I think we were just talking about um your your daughter when you woke up that next day thinking that, you know, being in a fog and hey, I I didn't, I I thought it was not real. Oh no, I knew. I knew because I knew it before it happened. Um, so I'm I'm lucky that way. I'm lucky that she's had had a story that that made sense and that we talked about, and and when I see when I see her sisters and when they have jokes or you know, I relive those. So I don't know why I'm sad. I guess it's because it's gone, right? I mean because her story's gone. It's over. Her story's over. And there's something that I don't want that to be I don't want that to be real. And so interacting with everybody, I I feel like I just always am wearing a mask and I don't yeah, you know, oh yeah. That like I'm oh I'm okay, and hey, I love you guys, and hey, everything's great, and yeah, talking about great times. Is it? I mean it was.

Bruce 15:01

What I can share is Joey's story is, you know, as I can see through the podcast being heard in different parts of the world. They're getting to know Joey, and you know, through your eyes, and you were able to, you took the courage and able to share all of that. So her story keeps going, but I understand that there are no new chapters. And the same as with my daughter, no new chapters. And so now we grieve the future of what's not there, what's not going to happen. And that's for me, again, I I just say, and for me, it took a very long time and a lot of work to let the healing continue to where where I am now, I am healed, but the scars are still there. The scars are visible. I am not the same as I was, nor will I ever be. But there's healing that's taken place in my life, and I can see from our conversations over a um a fairly lengthy amount of time, your healing that you don't see, but that I can see because I can see how you were when I first met you, and even where you are now. Now, granted, that's not a linear path, just like you said, these last couple of days. So there are going to certainly be those times. And there are times that I, you know, have some days. I used to let those days take me over, whether it's like Kristen's birthday or the uh the anniversary of the day she died, until um, with my healing and with the things that that I have learned was to be very intentional about those days, and that I didn't let the day rule me. I I had a plan. I took over the day. But honestly, that didn't happen until four years ago, five years ago, and Kristen died 19 years ago. So I'm not saying like, hey, just wait till next year. I'm not saying that at all. It took a long time, and it was very slow, but our bodies heal, physically heal faster than our grief, than our hearts, basically, in my opinion. So it took it took a long time and a lot of work to be able to get to the point. And again, as I talked about with uh at the beginning of this season with taking three years off, I was doing a lot of work during that time and putting a lot of these things into into practice so that I could be in a better place. So it was there was just uh there was a lot of work and healing, I believe healing can take place, just from my own experience. But it is not a healing without scars. It is not a healing that, oh, there you are, you're back. You know, that your friends would say, like, there's the old Bruce, oh, there's the old Marnie. No, those people are gone. Those those lives, those hearts, that was shattered. But they can come back together and um, but there's still gonna be scars. And we we heal and learn from the scars. But physical tolls, yeah, physical toll on me as well. Things instantly changed. And listening to you, I think that it for me what was relating is that it's it was kind of superficial. Like I'm doing it, like, okay, everybody, I'm doing therapy, but I can't even remember what it was now. And I don't, and it's almost like going through the motions. Now that's not to say that that's not gonna that that's gonna be the same for everyone. I hope that you know, listeners find a therapist that works for them and can actually start healing sooner because everybody's we know everyone's story is different and unique. Yeah. So is that healing journey as well as the grief journey?

Marnie 19:07

Yeah. It's the relatability. So I think finding a therapist that and they they don't have to have experienced the same kind of grief, but if there was a therapist that has lost a child, that's where that's where I feel like I could really let let it all, you know, just let it out and have an understanding. Yeah, when you're talking to somebody and they don't they don't understand what you're saying, as the same as you don't understand how I feel, right? There's the problem. You don't understand how I feel. And so no matter how much talking I'm gonna do, you're still not gonna understand how I feel, right? Unless you've felt it before. And that's what I'm saying. Like, even though all of these people are willing to listen to me, it's different when I'm with my grief group. And it is a little bit different when I talk to my mom.

Bruce 20:02

And do you find healing there, even though, even though like a grief group and your mom are not licensed therapists, you know, we talk about licensed therapists. Do you find healing in that? Do you find help in that?

Marnie 20:15

Absolutely. I mean, like I said, I think I think the past eight months being at the grief group seven months has done a lot for me, has changed me a lot. Doing things where people that know me are like, are are you doing that? Like, are you sure? You're help, you're helping out, you're doing that, or you're doing a podcast. I'm like, yeah, isn't that weird? I would never have done that. I'm I'm such a shy person. Um, I'm I'm super reserved. I'm if you knew me, you would go, nope, you're not doing that. I don't think so. But I am, and I'm pushing myself because I want something. I I want, I don't want what I'm doing. I don't want the life that I'm living. And I don't want anybody to take that the wrong way, as far as like my family. But life's moved on for everybody. Marriages and houses and kids, and it's moved on. And and it should. And that's beautiful, but it's not doing that for me. Mine's, you know, like we talked about, it's I'm I'm just stuck. I'm stuck in a well, I should have, or what if I did this? Or, you know, I I I still do that, even though it was the way it was at the end. I still do that. I do that since day one. I do that. Could I have made a difference? Probably not. Probably not. Of course not. I couldn't have. But you think that. As a parent, you think that. You know, if anything, if your kids are sad or you know, or you you can help them, right? I mean, that's what you do. I'm gonna be hard on myself like that, probably forever. But it's how I react to that feeling and what that does. This is this is a hard episode for me because this is my story. And and mine doesn't feel as easy to tell as Joey's did, because I don't know how to to communicate what it feels like to be me, other than just the basic, you know, like I don't feel good. I I it's not a good place, you know? And saying that sometimes means I'm not in a good place. It doesn't mean I don't have good things. Right. So I I'm gonna be forever different. I I don't know.

Bruce 22:43

Yeah. I I yeah, you you are. I am we all are. You know, the same as how you said you feel when you're in that group, the grief group, the support group. If you can put yourself in that space, that's that's kind of where you are right now. You just can't see who you're talking to. But they all get it. The ones that listen to this podcast, and I've had people ask me, you know, when they find out how a podcast, and I go, Oh, really? What is it? Let me and I'm like, this is not a feel-good, funny tell stories, whatever kind of podcast. This is kind of this is for a special group. And now, granted, I want to normalize the conversation around grief. I've said it a hundred times, but the people that you're talking to get it. So that there's things you don't necessarily have to explain because they get it. So, whatever those feelings that you're feeling, those days that you're feeling better physically, or as I've seen changes in you, and other people are going, Really, you're doing that? And again, it's not uh it's not linear, so there's gonna be times of sliding back, and everyone listening gets it because it's happened and happens to everyone, all of us, the parents who have had that loss. Everybody's gonna get it.

Marnie 24:11

Yeah. You know, I said this early on to you, uh probably the first grief group, I had maybe the second, and I had told you that I was lucky that that Joey had wanted to be called something different, right? She she was born with another name, and for 20 years we called her that other name. And then at the end, maybe the last eight months, she just she woke up from one of her last surgeries and just felt like a different person, right? She she just was like, you know, I I don't feel like that person anymore. And I'm like, oh, okay, but you know, she's like, I I want you to call me Joey. And the sisters bought in way sooner than I did. And I was like, I'll just call you Joey, okay. Um, and they once they started doing it, it just caught on because they had mentioned, you know, hey, this makes her happy. We see her smiling when we call her that. She's so happy. And I'm like, all right, I mean, sure. So when she was planning our funeral, she said, Mom, I want that to be on my headstone. I want Joey to be on my headstone. Big, loud. That's that's who I am. I'm like, all right, um, yeah, I mean, it's yours. And I told you early on that I thought that that was she did me a favor because when I go visit her and I walk up, I see Joey. And I'm like, oh, yeah. So I never, I never am looking at the name that I gave birth to her with on her headstone. And so I'm not connecting it in my brain anymore. So I thought that was doing me a favor, but I've told I shared with you that it's not doing me a favor. That's not it, she was somebody else. You know, I there's so many dissociated dissociation with what I remember and what what she gave to me to choose to remember, and how that just plays this weird, like two different people. Like we've said, you know, she looked like a different person at the end. I mean, I gave you a tour of my house. Like there, there's some she definitely had a change. And so there's sometimes I don't believe that it's real. Maybe she's out living her best life in Nebraska, going to college. Maybe she just doesn't want to call me anymore. I don't know. I mean, so I can play that game with myself all the time and go to the cemetery and see Joey. What does that really mean? See, so I told you that it was a good thing. Yeah. I mean she had the most giving heart. I mean, I literally we could go on for days and I could tell you stories about who she touched. I I wanted to mention this earlier. She called her cardiologist on her last day, her last maybe five hours before she passed, so that she could tell him thank you.

Speaker 1 27:21

Wow.

Marnie 27:22

Thank you. You you changed my life, you you helped me, you were my friend, you were so nice. And I could only imagine what that did to him that day. You know, she knew him since she was three. Yeah. That one. And she had a group with the hospital that she was involved in for eight years. And then once she passed, the group was done, over, gone. And it it's just wild that the group wasn't gone because they weren't doing the group. It was because they couldn't handle the fact that that they lost somebody. And that that those are big, big. So those are the things I want to remember. Those are the things I'm gonna choose to remember, and that's why I like talking about her to people that don't know her.

Bruce 28:06

And not talking about you and how you're feeling.

Marnie 28:09

Yep. Because I don't know if I can answer that without it feeling raw and and not not uncomfortable, but just I I think I would fall apart. And then I don't know what would happen. You know that feeling when you start crying, um, and then maybe what happens if you can never stop? And I know parents have felt this way. I know anybody that's gone through grief has felt, oh man, I'm gonna start crying, and I I'll never stop. Days and days and days, I I don't know what's that gonna look like. And I haven't I haven't really had that yet. In three and a half years, I haven't had that. Because that that is so scary. And then maybe it's real. I'm not ready for that.

Bruce 29:00

You mentioned earlier, I don't know what because I kinda want to circle back, that you stayed in her room almost like the roles had changed, and you were in her room being cared for, and you know, as you mentioned, you gave me a tour of your house and her room, and that it's basically just how she left it. Yeah. Right. So are you still there?

Marnie 29:27

Yep. Still living in there. It almost feels like I'm torturing myself. Yeah. Um that I deserve it, that I deserve to feel shitty. I deserve to lay in there every night, and it's so I I tell everyone it's comforting. I tell everyone I want to go in there and I want to sleep in there because it's comforting, but I think it's not comforting. I it's traumatic. It's um I I lay there and I I look around her room and I see all of her stuff. She has a mirror on a little vanity. And if you sit up in bed, you look right at yourself. That's hard. I I I lay in there and I think of all the ways I let myself down, let her down. I don't know. I just but for some Reason I keep going back for more. I do it every night. And then I wake up. And as soon as I get out, I'm I feel okay. But then the night dreads on, or the afternoon, and then maybe knowing that I'm gonna go back in there. I don't know. And then I do it again. And I can just imagine her feeling scared, laying in there. I don't why do I I mean I don't have to do that. So there's healing to be done, but I'm afraid to do it. I'm afraid that if I'm not feeling those things anymore, then I'm just not gonna feel anything at all. So I'd rather feel really crappy than maybe feel anything else. Feeling crappy is easy. Feeling mad is easy. Feeling numb, easy. Anything else? I don't know. I don't know. Because I put so much into just being a mom. I've literally been a mom for 40 years, and I have put my everything into that. So feeling that I let any of my kids down, that's an awful feeling. And I thought that I was gonna have to care for her for the rest of her life. So now I have to care for myself. That sounds that sounds stupid. I don't want to do that. I don't want to care about myself. That feels way too hard. I'd rather take care of five kids than feel take care of myself, you know what I mean? Like it's so I'm gonna just lay in the yuck until I can't do that anymore and then have to do something else, I guess.

Bruce 32:05

So you mentioned you're going to you've got a grandbaby on the way any day now. Yep, probably this weekend. You're involved in the baby's care like every day, right?

Marnie 32:20

Yep. Uh as soon as she goes back to work, which will probably be the end of December, first of January, full time, you know, seven to five, seven to four, whatever. It's it's gonna be me. And of course my mom, you know, oh that's gonna be the best thing. And I'm nervous. I'm nervous. And and I could because I wanna I want to be the best I can be. What I don't yeah, there's a lot. I've I've had a lot of maybe that's why I haven't felt so good this last week, but I've had a lot of emotions of you know, not wanting to not wanting to stay on my path of of taking care of myself and taking care of this grandbaby, which I've wanted to do since the kids were teenagers. I was like, oh, I can't wait. You know, someday you guys are gonna want me to, you're gonna want to have kids and you're gonna want me to take care of them and and and you're gonna want to go back to work, and then it'll just be me, you know, how exciting that felt for me. And now I'm at the point in my life that I that's something I can do, but I want to do it 100%.

Bruce 33:26

Right. Well, on this tour, you did show me that you have there is a baby's room for this baby to be here fully decorated, very cool, by the way. So I'm gonna ask you a question. What happens then? The baby's here, and you're taking care of the baby. Is that something that you're like you've been feeling these last the anxious that you've been feeling these last few days is because your role's about to change again. You're not taking care of yourself, you're not in that in the muck, as you mentioned, that you're being pulled out because now you've got a new role.

Marnie 34:07

Yeah.

Bruce 34:08

And when I asked you that question, when I mentioned, listeners obviously couldn't see, but when I asked you that question about the new baby, then there's this you went from a teary face to a giant smile instantaneously.

Marnie 34:21

Yeah. I mean, if if you could say one thing and that I've always wanted, and it was to be a stay-at-home mom. I didn't get to do that. I had to always work. I was a single mom for years and years and years. And and when I wasn't two income family, and we had to just work it out and figure it out. And now I get I get the opportunity to do that. And my kids know that that I'm gonna be how safe, right? Uh because I am a safe place, and and how much it means to me. And when you when you want something so bad, you know you're gonna be good at it. When it's something you choose as opposed to a job, it's not a job for me, it's a life for me, right? And I know that nothing ever will replace Joey, but to have one of my daughters let me be a part of that with them is mind blowing. It's it's it changes how my brain thinks about myself and maybe I was a failure. Maybe I I didn't do what I needed to do for Joey. I mean, like in my mind, I failed, but but my kids are like, you didn't. You were what you needed to be, and now we're gonna, you know, let you care for our baby. I and I think it's because you know, I've I've been I've known for eight months, but I have never been so excited about anything in my whole life. I am so excited, and I'm excited to see this daughter as a mom. She's gonna be an amazing mom, and I'm just so excited to see that.

Bruce 36:08

And as I believe in it, and as I see on your face, there can be joy and grief at the same time.

Marnie 36:17

Yeah. I would have said no, but you just you just proved me wrong on that one because I was like I can see it. Yeah.

Bruce 36:24

And that and my, again, non-professional opinion, as part of that healing journey, to find those moments. And like you've said, over the last month of what you've or that's right, the last eight months of what you've seen coming in this desire to to have this role that you're going to have, was joy in the midst of some terrible grief, in the midst of some terrible physical pain and changes that took place in your body. But there was joy hanging out there at the same time. But then seeing it on your face, literally, instantaneously, seconds after a look of sadness and despair, joy in the midst of grief. Yeah. Part of the healing journey, again, in my opinion.

Marnie 37:15

Yeah. It's uh it's wild how there's beginnings and endings, and beginnings are scary, right? Endings are sad, and it's the middle that counts the most. I'm really looking forward to this middle part, you know, of just being present and living life. And I mean, I say that, and it's okay for me to go to the muck at night for right now.

Speaker 1 37:38

Mm-hmm. It's okay.

Marnie 37:40

And then be excited in the morning because I'm not.

Speaker 1 37:43

Yeah.

Marnie 37:43

You know, I'm not in there. I don't have to be in there all day.

Bruce 37:47

It's okay to not be okay. And that is actually a title of a book. Highly recommend. But it's a just a truest, truest statement that it's okay to not be okay. And there's so much of the time as grieving parents that we're just not okay. And that's okay. And it and and we find that bond and that safety in our groups that we know it's okay to not be okay. Because it's the outside where I think we put the pressure, at least for me, you put the pressure on yourself to go, oh, I gotta pretend I'm okay. Because it's not okay to not be okay with all these other people. You know, again, that just may be a particular situation that we're in, or or a, you know, an activity or a group or a function or whatever. But in our group, it's very clear that we all understand it's okay to not be okay because there's gonna be days, like you've just said, of what you've experienced the last couple of days, but tomorrow and the next day with this new baby here, you'll be in a in a different place.

Marnie 38:55

Yeah.

Bruce 38:56

But it doesn't mean you're not gonna step back into the muck or whatever, because again, not linear. And it's okay to not be okay, and it's okay to be okay.

Marnie 39:07

It gives me a purpose, you know? It I want to feel needed, and and I know she needs me. So it just it's an important thing for me, and I'm gonna continue on working, doing my grief groups, going to church, talking about it, talking about it. Maybe I'll cry one day, and maybe I'll stop and maybe I'll cry for a while. Yeah.

Bruce 39:33

But you're talking about it, uh-huh. And you didn't before. You're doing it.

Marnie 39:38

Thank you.

Bruce 39:40

Okay, that was powerful. Um, that concludes this three-part conversation with Marnie, sharing the story of her daughter Joey, the love they shared, the struggles they faced, and the heartbreak of her death. And Marnie's ongoing journey of grief that she's just shared with you. I want to thank Marnie for her courage, her openness, and willingness to let us into such sacred parts of her life. And I want to thank you, the listeners, for walking alongside us through these episodes. If something you heard resonated with you and you'd like to share it with Marnie, please reach out to me by email. She has graciously said she is open to connecting, and I'll provide that email information after the show. And as always, thank you for listening. Be gentle with yourself and take care of it.