Don't Forget To Breathe: Where grieving parents find voice, hope, and connection.
Don’t Forget To Breathe is a podcast for parents who have lost a child.
Hosted by bereaved parents Bruce Barker and Kristin Glenn, this show offers honest, compassionate conversations about life after child loss, long-term grief, healing, and learning how to keep living while carrying profound loss. Together, Bruce and Kristin create a space where grief does not need to be explained, and where parents can feel understood, supported, and less alone.
Originally launched in 2020, the podcast began as a form of soul-cleansing and healing, as Bruce shared his journey as a father who suddenly lost his 20-year-old daughter in 2006, a tragedy no parent should ever have to endure. After a three-year hiatus marked by deep personal transformation, including divorce, closing a business, intensive therapy, and continued healing, the podcast returns with a renewed heart and a deeper, more expansive perspective.
With Kristin joining as co-host in Season 4, the conversation widens. Drawing from decades of lived experience, Bruce and Kristin are joined by other parents who bravely share their stories of grief, resilience, and life after loss. Together, they explore how grief evolves over time, and how sorrow, hope, love, and even laughter can coexist.
You’ll hear the shift in voice, perspective, and presence—from surviving to living. Wherever you are on your grief journey, this podcast offers connection, understanding, and the quiet reassurance that you are not alone.
Don't Forget To Breathe: Where grieving parents find voice, hope, and connection.
S4/E33- You Get It: Grief, Healing & Connection
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As we launch this Season 4 conversation of Don’t Forget To Breathe, host Bruce Barker is joined by Kristin Glenn as they officially begin their journey together as co-hosts. This episode centers on a powerful truth shared by bereaved parents everywhere: “You get it.”
In part 1 of our conversation, Bruce and Kristin reflect on decades of life after child loss, exploring why shared understanding matters more than advice, and how grief can feel isolating even in a room full of people. They talk openly about the comfort of being in spaces where no explanations are required, the wisdom passed between parents through lived experience, and the quiet relief of being truly seen.
This episode also introduces the heart of Season 4—continuing parent stories, creating safe and compassionate spaces for grief, and expanding the conversation to include friends, family, and coworkers who want to support but don’t always know how. Bruce and Kristin discuss why grief makes people uncomfortable, how avoidance can unintentionally deepen loneliness, and how sorrow and joy can coexist over time.
This episode is for bereaved parents, those walking alongside grief, and anyone seeking to better understand loss, connection, and healing. A reminder that while every story is different, you are not alone.
Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:
Welcome to Don't Forget to Breathe. I'm Bruce Barker, and I'm joined this season by my new co-host, Kristen Glenn. As I shared in our last episode, Kristen is officially joining the podcast, and I couldn't be more honored to have her here. If you haven't yet heard Kristen's story, I invite you to listen to season three, episodes 30 and 31, where she shares her journey of more than 30 years as a bereaved parent. Today, we begin season four, our first of many conversations together, not only as bereaved parents, but now as co-host, creating space for honesty, connection, and shared understanding. Let's listen to our conversation. Hey Kristen.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, Bruce.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome aboard.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. What a um journey we both have taken to get to this point of being um on a podcast together, your podcast, and thank you for welcoming me.
SPEAKER_02:And now it's yours too. So it's a gift. I am I am so excited. Um, you know, we've you and I have talked about, um, obviously talked about this before, but one of the things that I thought was really cool is um the first time I met you when I was I was coming up um to Fort Collins to this is, you know, when you're um an executive director of this the nonprofit that that um I've talked about. And it was, you know, like an hour. That was kind of like what was on the agenda, and then several hours later, and so that's kind of what it was. And then when this um we did your episodes um at the end of season three, um, it was the same thing. So as we're as we're talking back and forth, I'm having that same feeling of like, okay, like we need to do more of this. And and there's so many subjects you and I, you and I have talked about before that I think we can really explore as we go forward with the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. I think there's unfortunately endless all the things that can be talked about when you're looking at the enormous trauma and journey and um, you know, of child loss. It's kind of unending the parts of our lives that have changed and that we hope to help others through and listen to their wisdom. And I've learned from every single brief parent I've ever had the honor of being with.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and we um, you know, what I did in in season three was that was uh the introduction of the parent stories and getting those perspectives. Everyone's as we know, everyone's loss is is unique. And you have had many, many, many conversations, deep conversations with with parents who had um who are in this same boat with us, um, but every story very unique, and and I think this is great that we can just have a continuation of parents sharing their stories of loss and life after loss. And like you said, there have been so many little pearls of wisdom that have come out of like from their experience. So the same as when I do a uh when I'm facilitating a group, it's never coming from a standpoint of, well, you should do this and you should do that. Uh it's well, what worked for me was or what didn't work for me wasn't. And you're talking about personal experience. And so when when they're doing the same thing, I've had these conversations and and even still, so again, 19 years out, and um, just even the last, you know, last month with um a dad's group, that I'm hearing something and going, wow, that is really good. That would have been helpful for me many years ago. But I mean, you know, it's that same thing, like it's we're learning something new all the time. And in this format, we get to share that um just to be able to help help other people.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah. And I think from one of those groups, I remember a very um tender moment where someone said, I can be in a stadium full of people and feel completely alone. But I walk into this group or hopefully listen to this podcast and feel like people get it. I don't have to start from ground zero of who am I, you know, what's my family comprised of as far as children, etc. It's people are at a beginning point of getting it. And I think it creates such a safe space. And um those those pearls, as you put it, I think are always you just want to tuck them in your heart and make sure you remember them when you're having your own moments of feeling very alone and very isolated. My loss happened, you know, 32 years ago, and there's still times that I feel like can anyone possibly understand a glimmer of what this is like this many years later? And because of what I've been involved with and who I've chosen to associate with, the answer is yeah, I have I have someone on the other end of a phone at two o'clock in the morning if I need them this many years later, and and I think that's important, and I'm hoping that we can create that, that this will be kind of a a place that people can go at any time day or night, that they could listen to something and feel less alone and like they they um have their their group call them, like grief warriors, is uh what one mom said, you know, that that do get it to a level. No, none of our stories are the same, but we have had to journey through this unthinkable reversal of life.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I think we've I know we've said this before, and and you just said it, is that you get it. So when you talk about other other parents who have lost a child, the term you know, that they get me or you get it, I think is that's what I use when I'm talking to someone. And I think that's that's a powerful way to put it rather than which we've all heard, um, is those who again in different situations, right? Is well, I know how you feel. No, you don't. Even though we have both lost children, I don't know how you feel, you don't know how I feel, but we get it. We get what we get the pain, we get the brokenness, we get the hurt, we get all of those things. And I think it's just the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_00:It is such a difference. I have no idea how you feel. I have no idea how anyone feels. And I have found that bereaved parents are very unlikely to give advice to each other because they've learned that's not it's not helpful. Because we don't, we have not lived each other's true realities. I'm I don't have advice. I can certainly hold space and sit and companion, but I don't know how you're feeling. I don't know your relationship with your daughter, I don't know your pain, but I get that that we've had to both journey through this kind of unthinkable reversal of what we're supposed to go through. I think, you know, when you're younger, you think, what are the possible losses I'm gonna have to endure in my life? I remember thinking that, you know, even as a young adult, and it felt unimaginable to lose my grandparents at the time, or even my parents, or a best friend, or a spouse, or, you know, a beloved mentor. But you don't you can't really fathom that you could be in a situation that you have had this this upheaval, that you've lost a child that's supposed to outlive you. And that's that's that's where the get it comes from, I believe.
SPEAKER_02:It's yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna stay on that subject for a second or that or that phrase on the get it. It's it is a comforting phrase. It's a comforting feeling to know that somebody gets you, right? Or you're you're that's where that connection is. And that's one of the that's one of the things in even the the name of the podcast is like where we're we're creating that space for connection. Um, so whether it doesn't matter where you're listening to this podcast, and and literally, you know, we we can see, we can't see actually who, we just see where, but literally around the entire world, that this is a community where we get each other. And so it's one of those things like and and we've heard it in movies, we've heard it in conversations, when someone talks about someone else and like in a relationship or whatever and goes, he just gets me, or she just gets me. It's the same thing. And what a what a comforting feeling that is. Um, like you said, to go from a stadium feeling alone to a room with twenty people, twenty bereaved parents, and you and you're your community, you're connected because they get you and you get them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:There's just a little bit of a little bit of peace in that, you know, and I know um I looked for as much of that as I could find um throughout the journey. Because you want those little moments of peace and the moments of belonging and and and those moments of of people kind of getting you and not shunning you almost.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's so true. I remember the first time, you know, walking into a bereaved parent support group and just thinking, this cannot possibly be my group. This is the this is the others, this is not where I belong. I can't possibly have become a member of this unthinkable group, you know, and within an hour of sitting next to these incredible people, realizing, yeah, and thank goodness they're here. But you want to deny that you could possibly get it. You don't you don't want to get it because I think our our whole lives we kind of protect ourselves from imagining that we could possibly this happens to other people and it's very tragic, and we feel so bad for them, and we have sympathy for them. And we also try to avoid them, sadly. I think I did, because it was just too as I had young children, I didn't want to think that this could be my my reality. So I think I was guilty also of not leaning into other people's grief because it just felt like I don't know what to say, so I'm gonna really err on the side of saying nothing. So to be in other people's space where you realize they're not afraid um of that vulnerability. But I I do remember, you know, those first couple groups, especially feeling like, how can this be? How can I have become the others? You know, how can how can I get it so well? I don't want to. I want to reject this.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah. And mentioning that, you know, and saying that, um, as we look forward to this season, to season four of the podcast, one of the, or you know, maybe even a couple of episodes that we'll we'll do is not necessarily for bereaved parents, but for friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, whatever, that's going to be directed toward them. So that very thing of what do I say, what do I not say, um, what do I do? What do I not do? Do I invite them? Do I not invite them? All of those things that make it so awkward because we don't, you know, we we've tried, and there are others trying to normalize the the conversation around grief, but it's not there yet. And what do we do with it? And like you said, the easiest thing is I don't say anything, or I don't see them, I don't invite them, all of those things, even though our heart's in a place that I want to be able to do something. So we're gonna be doing some episodes talking specifically about that, that um so our our listeners that follow, you can send that to them and go listen to this episode. This will help you walk with me on my journey. So that they it's so it's kind of like educating them a little bit from our experience and so that it becomes less awkward, so that there can be support when they need support, where right now they they don't know. And how and how should they?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I've I feel like that's gonna just be invaluable. I I think to believe that you're gonna live a life without grief is uh just not realistic. So to to know that you will have grief in your life and you will need support from others, and that we kind of live in a culture that doesn't know quite how to do this. So if we can bridge that gap in any way, offering wisdom from some that have been on this side of it, I think will be such an incredible way to have real life strategies. Again, not giving advice, but but saying, you know, leaning towards someone's grief isn't scary. And you can always ask for forgiveness if you feel like, oops, I think I said something that might have been not helpful. I I do um the wise person had told me early on in my own grief to say, come up with kind of a mantra, and I remember saying, I know what you just said was meant to be helpful. I know it was well intended. It actually wasn't, but it wasn't helpful. Um, but you know, gently guiding towards people towards a space that they can feel more comfortable with feeling comfortable with the uncomfortable, yeah. So that they can, you know, not be so bewildered by how to hold space in these really they're awkward situations. I'm not saying that they're not. Um but I'm I'm just so grateful to begin into this podcast community of you know normalizing grief. This this happens and it one type of grief happens to people every single single second of every single day, right?
SPEAKER_02:So um well, I can tell you right now, that'll that'll be the title of the one of the episodes is feeling comfortable with the uncomfortable. And that's what we that's what we're gonna we're gonna try to do. Um so like I say, those that are listening, it gives you it gives you an episode that they can that you can send and they can listen to. Because I have, and I'll give you a couple examples. So one is coworkers or people that I I meet or whatever, and and something comes up that I've got a podcast, and they're like, Oh, cool. What's the name of your podcast? Because I want to listen. I'm like, okay, so this probably is not, it's not a feel-good podcast. And here's the subject. And then they're like, oh, okay, all right, yeah. So um this, and it's the same as as um for the for the parent story. So those, those, again, those parents that come on and they want others to hear their friends or family or coworkers, like, if you want to know my story, these are the episodes that I was on, and it, and you can do that. So I think you mentioned um that you had sent the episodes you were on, you had sent to someone, and they're like, ooh, okay, all right, I all right, I gotta really prepare for this. Right. So there was that whole anticipation because of the subject. And then and now we can send when we we have some of these episodes specifically for those that walk the journeys with us, that now it's easy to go, hey, listen to this episode. This one is actually for you. And then maybe they feel a little more comfortable with the uncomfortable to now listen to another story and learn from the mouths of the parents that this is what what they've experienced and and have a little bit more um a little more tools in the in the toolbox, so to speak, to just be able to support. Not gonna fix it, you know, but just to walk alongside. So I am I am really looking forward to those episodes.
SPEAKER_00:Um Me too. I think they're invaluable. I could have used them. Well, I can still use them, you know, but even I can absolutely I'll I'll gain so much from that. And yeah, the person that I I was like, I'm gonna send this to you. And he was like, I'm gonna brace myself, I've got to be in the right headspace. Oh my gosh, this is gonna be so heavy. And of course he said it was, and he learned a lot about, you know, my specific story, but he said, I can't believe, but there's parts that there was laughter and there was, you know, some hope and some joy. And I hope that's also what we can provide to people is that there is a choice towards allowing sorrow and joy to coexist. You know, it is not it is not an either-or that we have chosen to not only survive this loss, but to to want to live. And that's part of what when you and I had the podcast together about my specific story, that I think hopefully this podcast becomes more far-reaching because as people journey through really hard things in their life and they're the people that find ways to choose life and choose joys, choose joy without um downgrading that the sorrow is always part of our reality, but that both both can be part of a reality. So I hope that you know people will listen just to have some inspiration, as I do, from all the people I meet that have, you know, gone through this unthinkable type of trauma.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that um I know that it people they disappeared in my life, and I think it was again, because they're they don't know how how am I going to be. Like, are they gonna invite me to a you know, to the Christmas parties that I used to go to? And do, you know, are they gonna I mean we're gonna be laughing, are they gonna want to hear that? Like all those things that and and we'll we'll talk about that in future episodes. Um, so that we're we we have absolutely experienced the unimaginable, but that doesn't mean we're untouchable. Like you you can still touch us and talk to us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we don't need to be in that's please do. Don't bubble wrap us. I always felt like I was in like bubble wrap, and I'm like, I'm I'm still me. I I'm still me, and I need you to um not tiptoe around me when I'm in your presence because it makes me feel very um invisible and very um protected and like I'm not being let into real life experiences.
SPEAKER_02:Do you um because I know this this still has happened to be I can still um I just have a lot of interactions with people with with my real job and I still can see people recoil when it comes up. Do you still do you see that when there's tiny it's it's not like this, oh my god, I have to start even it's just this tiny little recoil of they don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it's driven by fear. I think it's driven by fear that this could become someone's reality. So it's one step closer to their and their worst fear. I think it's fear of what would I say? It's so interesting. Sometimes I'll, as you said, speak just a you know, a sentence of the reality of losing a child. And I, you know, I I feel like tapping the phone and being like, Did you hear me? Can you hear me now? You know, like that commercial of like I must have lost service all of a sudden because we went to total silence for one second. You could not hear me because they don't there's no response often. It is this positive. Pause and then just kind of a distracting comment to move on to another topic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I don't think it's motivated by ill will at all. I think it is which I love that you're gonna make a pod or a, you know, an episode by feeling comfortable with the uncomfortable because they all of a sudden we've made them feel very uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, Kristen, we're making that episode because remember, you're a co-host.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Yay. I'm so so excited to embark on that. I'll probably think of it as your podcast for a while, so I'll need to have nudges that we get to do this together.
SPEAKER_02:Your name's on the logo now.
SPEAKER_00:So it's official.
SPEAKER_02:It's official. Um one of the one of the things that um I noticed when along a lot along with people recoiling, right? And and you probably experienced this far more than I have because of what you did as um and the role that you had with as an executive director, but meeting all of these different parents, that depending where they are on their journey, uh what I have found that's happened a few times is if I if someone I knew lost a child, so a few years after after Kristen died, after my daughter died, and then they had a loss that they couldn't they they basically kind of put our conversation, our um relationship on pause. And I had one in particular, and I've noticed this even recently, um, where I've been there to be helpful and had great conversations, but then if they don't want to feel it, I then they avoid me, right? And so then I had one um early on who had had a loss and was reaching out to help, and eventually she had said, I can't talk to you. Not now, because you make it real. Because she hadn't she was very close to what um what had happened with Kristen. She experienced those first few days, first few weeks with my grief, seeing my grief, and so now with hers, it becomes seeing me makes hers real. Because I know for me, I didn't want to think about it. I didn't, I don't want reality. And yeah, we we become reality. Is that that have you has that happened to you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, absolutely. And I think being this far out for people to witness that, you know, there's still tears and there's still really hard days and there's still milestones that I long for my Zachary to share with us as a family. And I think you know the moment that your child dies that this has changed you forever. But to see someone that's 32 years out or further even, it I've become that reality for people of like, wow. I knew it was forever, but you're like proof that this is just integrated into who you are. Yeah. You know, my I feel like for years, if I was listing my roles in life, bereaved parent would be top one because it was all-encompassing. You know, it just overshadowed almost everything else that I was. And now it's part of my identity, but if I was listing who I am, it would be not in the top several things I list about myself. It's still integrated into my deepest part of my soul, and I think people see that and think, wow, this impacts her this many decades later. So I think that's the reality um that I, you know, show people and they know it, but they don't want to know it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I mean, I think in my episode I said I, you know, called my husband right as the EMTs came and said, today our lives change forever. And boy, in a moment of trauma and complete shock, how right I was.
SPEAKER_02:And almost almost an understatement.
SPEAKER_00:Now I'm with it. Now I'm living it, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I um and I don't know if I I may have talked about this in previous episodes, but um one of the things and being this this far out for me, and it also depends on where people are in their journeys, and some may not want to hear it, because I believe healing is possible. Now, I did I wouldn't have wanted to hear that for a very long time. I'm like, no, what does that mean, healing? And and again, I don't know if I mentioned this in a in a podcast and all, but one of the things that the example that I have of that is the it's the Japanese art of Kinzuki. And it's where you take it's a piece of pottery that um has broken, and then what they did is then they put it back together with this adhesive and this gold, um, gold flake or or or whatever it's made of that's gold, and it strengthens it, and the the pieces heal, they mold back together, but they don't try to hide the scar. And so what I did physically as a and this was I think I started this four years ago, I painted a piece of pottery that um depicted my life, Kristen's life, as a cycle. So it was this leaf. And maybe there's a way I can put this up on on our YouTube site or something where where you can see it. But um, and then I intentionally broke it. And the when I painted, it was on Kristen's birthday. A year later, on her birthday, I broke it. And then a little bit more than a year later, I was ready to put it back together. And because you have to do it one piece at a time, it's super slow. And as I'm doing it, it's just occurring to me this illustration of this slow process of healing. And the scrokenness, the pieces that are molded are those scars. So while this piece will never be in its original shape, in its original form, which is our lives, we will never be as we were before. For me, I believe in that healing, but the scars are going to still be there. And there's going to be pieces, as there was in this piece that I did, where the it was such a small piece that it was gone, and then it had to be filled in. So, like, and there was one actually in this heart that was in the middle. There was a chunk of it gone. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. There is a piece of me that is gone, but this put it back together and healed it and made it stronger. So that piece is stronger than it was before. But I'm not hiding the scars. And so I'll always be always be different. The scars are there, and for me, it just shows the illustration is that yes, healing is possible. It's not pretty. Like the scars are scars. So the same as if any of us have had, you know, cuts or surgeries or whatever, and we've got a scar, it's, you know, this it's never the same. The skin, the whatever it is, and it's kind of the same with this. And that's what I I did in that little illustration of it.
SPEAKER_00:It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's I think it's I think healing's possible. And where we are this far out, it doesn't, but it doesn't mean we've forgotten, and it doesn't mean that we still like run your finger across those scars and you feel them.
SPEAKER_00:So Yeah, I love that analogy. I think it's beautiful, and I think the scars can be also beautiful because they're part of our story. I have to say that I believe in the active verb of healing as well. I don't believe in the past tense verb of healed. So, you know, I don't feel like in the moment I leave this earth that I've healed, but I think I've made a lot of good progress in my mind and heart and body towards healing. And that that was a choice too, because you know, uh part of that choice towards healing for a while felt like dishonoring him. Just do I do I deserve, is it okay to seek healing? Or should I just sit in this pain because he died and I didn't? So there was guilt in seeking healing. So I really agree with you that healing as an active verb is part of my rest of my life's goal and journey, but to to believe that I am healed. You know, past tense, done, closure, all those words that kind of are platitudes in my opinion. Um, I haven't put closure to this. I haven't done the the fifth phase of you know Kubla Ross acceptance. I have integrated it into who I am, but I'll never accept that I am here and he is not. But I I have chose the active, ongoing process of healing, and that's helped me and so many that I've had, like I said, the honor to be with.
SPEAKER_02:We're going to pause our conversation right there and we'll pick up where we left off in the next episode as we talk about what's ahead in season four. You know, if if you feel compelled, even just a little to share your own story, we invite you to reach out to us. This podcast is one way to introduce the world to your child, to speak their name and to share your grief, your struggles, and if it feels true to you, the healing you've found along the way. You don't need any special equipment. We can record right where you are through a simple online platform. In fact, it's the same way Kristen and I recorded this episode. If you're considering sharing, please reach out. We can talk through the process together. This community would be honored to hold space for your story. Find our contact information at the end of this episode after the music. So until next time, I'm Bruce Barker, along with Kristen Glenn. And please don't forget to breathe.