S4/E36- Why Time Doesn’t Heal the Loss, But What Might Help (Part 2)

In Part 2, we explore one of the quieter things time actually does: it distances us from support.

As the calls become fewer and the check-ins fade, it may begin to look from the outside like we’re coping… or even moving on. But grief is patient. And when it’s avoided, it waits.

Bruce and Kristin talk about the shift that happens after the early shock, from focusing on how our child died to the fear of forgetting how they lived. The sound of their voice. Their smell. Their quirks. The memories that begin to blur with time.

They also explore what truly helps:

• Sitting with grief instead of avoiding it
• Allowing grief to become a companion rather than an enemy
• The intentional work it takes to move from survival toward living
• And why we can’t go around grief, we have to go through it

Because healing didn’t come from time.
It came from doing the work.
From brave people willing to sit beside us in the swamp.

Grief isn’t linear. It’s layered.
And it becomes a teacher...if we’re willing to listen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome back to Don't Forget to Breathe. I'm Bruce Barker here with my co-host, Kristen Glenn. In part one, we talked about the myth that time heals all wounds, and how for parents who've lost a child, time doesn't take the grief away. It simply asks us to learn how to carry it. But one of the quieter things time can do is distance us from the support that surrounded us in those early days. The calls become fewer, the check-ins become less frequent, and from the outside, it may even begin to look like we're coping or like we're moving on. But grief is patient. And as Kristen shared, it waits for us. Let's pick up our conversation there.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I had kind of a moment of realization when you were talking that what I do think has an expiration date, sadly, is support. And because in the beginning, we are trying all these strategies to decrease the intensity, we might not from the outside world appear that we need the level of support. And we might say no to support. And as we do that, and we don't, you know, reach a handout to grab support in those early days, months, years, it's not available later.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Or it's few and far between, you know. I think probably, gosh, so Zach would be 36, meaning he died about 32 years ago. I bet those first couple years I could have called 30 people for support, you know, but I often didn't want to. I was exhausted by them. They didn't get it. I didn't know what to say to them. And now that many years later, we can probably move that decibel over to about three. And I think that's I'm not, I'm not bitter about that. I just think it's real. But I I think especially as people in the early years are going through so much shock and numbing and trying to distract ourselves that from the outside world it can look like, well, look, look how well that Bruce is coping. He's such a strong guy.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I think you're moving on.

Shock Lessens, Grief Stays

SPEAKER_01 3:03

So he must, he hasn't said yes to support, so he must not not have needed or wanted that. So I think um grief grief doesn't expire, but feels like often the support, the support does.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

So we were talking about what time doesn't do, but what some of what time does do is what you just mentioned there, is it distances us from that support for whatever reason. It might also distance us from the shock early on, and the shock of and in my instance getting that phone call and the shock of how that felt. So time may distance me from that, but it's not distancing me from the grief.

Remembering The Child’s Life

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Right. That's exactly it. It's interesting to watch people in a support group, people within the first year are usually very focused on the death and the shock and the trauma and how did it happen and the details and need to have space for that. And then I have witnessed so many times after that first year, not that there's a magic bell that goes off in the first year, but let's say year or two years, then it really is a shifting towards needing to remember the life, remember the moments, and it's terrifying when you start having the their smell, their sound, their little quirks slip away. And and watching others have that too, not remembering all the nuances of your child. It's really scary. It's it's like they're being lost again because I certainly don't remember those. I can look at pictures, I can look at videos, but I couldn't I couldn't say that I remember the exact tone or smirk or you know, it's that's a very um I think a scary thing to many grieving parents is will I remember the life and the moments and the will my senses still be able to feel their presence?

Finding Meaning Without Closure

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Interesting. One of the things I think another thing that time does do is it allows us that space for the meaning, and not the meaning of oh why did they die, not the meaning like that, but the meaning of that relationship of those of all those things is not closure for sure. There's not closure, but just in my case, I can say that distance and time then got me to a uh a place where grief was walking there the whole time, like you said, subtly knocking on the door, and then it took a battering ram.

unknown 6:16

Right.

Becoming Comfortable With Grief

SPEAKER_00 6:17

And then it's like, okay, what are we gonna do now? And and then taking taking the time to um to sit with it, which is you know what I'd said earlier of what hasn't changed, when I have those moments, it is taking the time to sit with those feelings and those emotions and not be afraid of them. When early on I was I didn't want anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

It was terrifying. That comfort with grief, isn't that something? Just like we're both saying that like, okay, come on over, grief. What are we gonna talk about today? You know, I mean, it's not an avoidance that I feel. It's almost like a, oh, there you are. There you are. I'm very familiar with you. We're gonna, I guess we're gonna have a conversation today, grief. And allowing it, not I almost want to say welcoming it, because it is such a it's so closely tied to my love for Zach that when I have moments and the tears come, it feels like, well, there he is. There we are. I I am having a sense of that little three-year-old boy looks, those curls remind me of him. Or, you know, I too should have been a grandma by now. I should have had little Zach's. Um, and and and just the comfort with grief is is an interesting place to be.

Doing The Work, Not Waiting

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, it's um it did not come to be in that place. It didn't come from time. Right? That came from work. And and I think there was um, I might have I don't know if it was in season one or whatever, but uh talking about doing the work. Like what is doing the work? And that's in all that comes in all kinds of forms, and and we could talk about that, you know, at another time on a on a different episode, but it's it took a lot of work to get to this point to be able to sit with it and know it's a companion. Time had nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah, I think that's I think we want like validated that time didn't do this work, I did it. I was the one that was intentional, time just tick-tocked. That's all time had to do was just tick-tock, like it always has since the beginning of time. And I was the one that had to figure out how to intentionally live and go from surviving to wanting to live. And so I think it's almost um like I think kind of disrespectful to say to a grieving person, well, time's gonna heal this, you don't need to do anything. And that it's just not the truth. It's just not setting them up for the truth.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Can you I don't know if you can remember or if there was even a moment, but when do you think your grief shifted from survival more to what it is now, more layered?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Boy, that's an interesting question. Again, time has such a warp to it. Also, that's what the funny thing about the time heals all wounds comment is time is so crazy and warped when you're living without your child on this earth. It's one second ago and it's another lifetime ago. Um I think it was really, you know, maybe that in that that second year of realizing, oh, this is just who I am now. This is this is part of my identity. Grief isn't the enemy. What happened, this tragedy is my you know, uh what I would want, a rewind button on life, but but grief is uh is an entity that is part of me and it has it's multifaceted and it's super complex and it's teaching me something every single day. I think when my grief could become a teacher to me, as you said, became more layered when I started listening to the messages of my own grief instead of wanting to shush it or distract it or numb it when I was curious about my own grief and was like, okay, what do you got to say? Bring it on, because it appears you're not going away.

Time Is Warped, Grief Isn’t Linear

What Actually Helps: Go Through It

SPEAKER_00 11:02

As you were saying this and and answering that question, what popped into my mind, and this is just the complexity of time and and just how weird it is, and and like you said, kind of being warped. And and I think this this goes into the point that um in one of the subjects that I know that we'll talk about with uh is grief not being linear, and we'll deep dive into that. And I think the theme for that episode, because this is what came up when you said that, is Interstellar. So if the listeners who have not seen Interstellar, you should watch it. It will it messes with your concept of time, and and like you said, the lessons, I mean it it's so it ties, and you're saying that it just tied so much stuff into the complexity of time and lessons learned and where they're coming from, and now it's just me, right? That's I'm just saying that's where it landed with me. It's it's complex, yeah, and time is warped, and and it's not it's again grief isn't going anywhere, no matter whatever that like it was always there. So the same as is in that movie, there was something that was always there, it had been, and it was going to be, and it was, and that's kind of that's almost seems like that was how I was feeling when you were saying that is that it's a good analogy. It was grief is complex, and and to try to simplify it to say time is going to heal this is I mean, it's so incredibly short-sighted and too simple. And would we like it to be simple? Sure, but it's really it's just not that. And so I guess what we could ask is so if time doesn't heal, what actually helps? What have you seen in like with all your time and the parents that you've interacted with and uh support sessions?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

What are some of the things that actually do help that we know we don't attribute to time you know I think the essence truly is having those brave souls that don't shy away from whatever you are at each moment of this grief journey because it's it's messy and it's ugly and it's scary and it's beautiful and it's all those things, and we're not really good at just sitting in that. And there's this old rhyme that I used to do with Zach that was that was called Going on a Bear Hunt. Did you ever do that with Kristen? No. Where you do this clapping and you say, Going on a bear hunt, and then the bear comes up to a swamp or something, and you say, Oh, the swamp, the bear can't go, he can't go over it, he can't go around it. He's gotta go through it. And then you make swamp noises, and I think about that so much with grief is that people wanted me to go around it. They wanted me to go over it, they wanted me to skip it. And the few people in my life that were like, all right, let's go in the swamp. I'm not afraid of the swamp. I'll go in the the swamp with you, I'll go over climb this mountain with you. So it just feel like that bear hunt, nursery rhyme or whatever it was that we used to do, it just made so much sense to me when I was going through grief. It's like that's what helped, is that the people that were brave to just let me go through it. I needed to go through every inch of this grief. And to say time was gonna heal it was not only minimizing my love for my son, but it was disrespectful to grief, you know. If if grief was a person, I think grief should stand up and be like, oh what are you thinking? You're gonna you're gonna think time's gonna take care of me, you know? I'm bigger than that. And um, so really having those those uh people that held my hand in the swamp instead of wanting me to skip it. I don't know if that makes any sense, but no, it makes perfect sense. That's what I think about.

The Pressure To Look “Better”

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, we have to go, it's going through it. Like that that makes perfect sense. You're not gonna go around it.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Can't skip it, can't go over it. No, you know, and the bear came up to all these different things, and and you just each time it was like he can't do this, can't go around it, can't go over it. He's gotta go through it again. And that's what great grief felt like. It's like I did that, I did that already. I remember, you know, everyone thought I needed to go to therapy and needed this and needed that. So much advice, mainly from people that had never journeyed through this. I don't think I ever went through to a brief support group and got advice, but I sure got it from, you know, other people that hadn't, and it was just so much of, and I I remember going through one therapist to one therapist. I know she was well-meaning, but I said to her, I'm just so angry, so angry. I want to scream from the mountaintop, why? And she said to me, No, no, no, you already, you already went through your anger. We're you're moving on, you're not in that stage anymore. And I just was like, oh, I'm sorry that the uncomfortable part of my grief is not what you where you want me to be. It's not, as we've said, linear. It's not, but she wanted my anger stage to have expired. So even within grief itself, people want you to, as you said, have your funny back. One woman said she showed up to work one day with makeup on, and someone in the in her workspace was like, You're better. And she said, What do you mean I'm better? Well, you have your makeup on, your hair looks nice, we were all waiting for you to get better. And she said, That was the last time she wore makeup to work. Because, you know, if my outside can't is somehow wrongly telling people that I'm fixed or healed or my makeup's on, I guess I need to not give them those false cues that I'm healed, better, closed, whatever, you know, whatever term we're gonna use.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah. So that they're they want to see us fixed. Absolutely. And and better. And whether then that might just be uh to make them more comfortable. It's awkward. It is awkward.

Fixing Comes From Love And Fear

SPEAKER_01 18:44

And it's it's scary. If you're not better, fixed, healed by this date. Are you are you okay? And I I think it come it can come, doesn't always, but sometimes it comes from ignorance, sometimes it comes from rushing grief, and sometimes it comes from a place of deep love. You know, I I looked into my mother's eyes and think I what I witnessed is please let my daughter come back. I feel like she still misses that Kristen. Because I was forever changed by this, and she wanted to fix me too. And it came from the deepest mother's love, right? Of I don't want you to be changed in this way. I want you back. And her realization over the last, you know, 30 plus years of that Kristen isn't here either. Yeah, so I think the fixers sometimes can people that love us very, very much. I think my husband wanted to fix my grief. I wanted to fix his grief. I didn't want someone I loved to live through this. I didn't want this for him. I didn't, this wasn't in our plan, you know. So it's not, I don't think it's I don't think it's malicious. I think it often is from ignorance or deep, deep longing for what was to rewind time and have us all be naive that this could happen to us.

Closing Reflections And What Helps

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah. So this is a great place to pause our conversation. You know, listening to Kristen share that, I'm reminded that grief doesn't give us a way around it. We can't skip it, we can't outrun it. We have to go through it. And sometimes that means going through the very same place more than once. What makes it even harder is how often the world wants to see us fixed, to believe that because time has passed, we should somehow be finished with our grief. But grief doesn't follow a timeline, and love doesn't expire on someone else's schedule. Join us next time for the final part of this conversation. We'll talk about what it really looks like to be seen in our grief, not as someone to fix, but as someone to sit beside, about the power of simply saying our child's name, sharing their stories, and asking not how they died, but how they lived. We'll explore what helps, like honoring the love we still have, embracing our forever parenthood, and giving ourselves permission to grieve for life. So until next time, I'm Bruce Barker, along with Kristen Glenn. And please don't forget to breathe.