Tammy's Story: A Mother's Day Without Him -E432

In this deeply moving episode of Don’t Forget To Breathe, Tammy shares the story of her son, Easton, a bright, joyful little boy who was deeply loved and long awaited.

What began as a normal season of life turned into unimaginable loss in a matter of hours. Tammy walks us through the shock of losing Easton, the trauma of those final moments, and the long road of learning to live with grief that doesn’t go away.

She speaks candidly about:

• The physical and emotional weight of grief 
• The loneliness that many bereaved parents feel 
• How loss reshapes identity, relationships, and even future joy 
• The fear and complexity of loving again 
• And the ways she continues to honor Easton’s life and legacy 

This conversation is especially meaningful as we approach Mother’s Day, a time that can be incredibly painful for grieving mothers.

Tammy’s story is raw, honest, and full of love, a reminder that even in the deepest grief, connection and meaning can still be found.

If you are a grieving parent, or someone who loves one, this episode will stay with you.

Transcript

Welcome And Mother’s Day Context

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Welcome to Don't Forget to Breathe. I'm Bruce Barker, here with my co-host, Kristen Glenn. And this is a space where greeting parents find voice, connection, and a reminder that they are not alone. This episode is being released the day before Mother's Day, and for many, that day carries a weight that the world doesn't always see. It can be a day filled with love, but also with absence, with longing, with the quiet ache of what should have been. Today, you're going to hear from Tammy. Tammy shares the story of her son Easton, a little boy who was deeply loved long before he ever arrived, and whose life, though far too short, left a mark that continues to shape everything around her. Her story is one of joy, shock, trauma, and the kind of grief that changes everything overnight. It's also a story of resilience, of carrying love forward, and of finding ways to keep a child's name alive in the world. If you're listening as a grieving mom, especially this weekend, we see you. If you're someone who loves a grieving mom, this conversation may help you understand what this day can feel like beneath the surface. Take this at your own pace. And as always, don't forget to breathe. Tammy, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

I would love it if you care a little bit about Easton and Easton's story. Can you do that?

The Laughter And Little Rituals

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Yeah, definitely. Easton was a uh bright little boy that was uh well loved uh before his uh journey here. He was thought about for quite some time. He had an older brother that had been uh wishing for him for the longest time and asking for his uh best friend. His father and I had tried for about two years um to get pregnant for him. So the love for Easton was there well before we even met him. And uh man, once he came, he came in like a wrecking ball. He had just the most beautiful smile ever and kind of lit up a room the minute he arrived. The most gentle and sweet little boy, easygoing. I've never had a baby that was so easygoing and slept. Um, I can't say that about his sister now, but uh Ison was definitely that uh little boy. He wasn't my first, he was my third, actually. Um, but he was his dad's first, and he was his brother's first, and he was the uh first, yeah, first, first little boy for his dad. So he was uh well-loved, um well-wanted. Yeah. Yeah, talking about Easton, uh, it it comes so easy um at times, and there's times where it's very hard because of the fact that he is no longer here with us, which makes it um sometimes a little bit, you know, really hard for that because there's a lot that he's missed out on, especially for the fact that he was so wanted. The future that he had for him was very bright, very, very bright. He was um very smart, outgoing, loved to uh be outside, follow brother, follow in his footsteps with every little thing that he did, with quite the few nicknames for him. Fat Man was one of them. He was uh a fat little boy uh with roles. As dad used to say, he had more roles than a Chinese restaurant. Uh and he did. He was uh small but mighty, and that lived up until you know the day that we lost him. But during that process, he was just very outgoing, very bright, uh full of light and stuff. And we kind of took it all in. The year he was born was the year of COVID, which most didn't like that year. But for the year for us, it was uh a year of bringing us all together as a family. He was the missing piece to our puzzle. Easton was my fiance's first. He's my fiance now at the time. Um Easton's dad and I were uh just a few years into dating. Uh, he had been a stepdad to uh my oldest for quite some time. So having Easton felt like that uh missing piece that we all needed, that we all wanted for quite some time. Definitely feels hard not having him here with us. Man, it's just hard really to talk, I guess, about Easton and what he was, because I could just think about all that uh we've lost without him now. So kind of remembering back on that is a little bit hard and heavy, I would say, right now.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

What made him laugh?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

His parents, his family.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

So he's laughing at you, or you were making it.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Oh yeah, the expressions we were making, all the things that we did. He was very, we're very sports family. We coached his brother's baseball team, so we spent a lot of time at the baseball field. So it was those. It was his brothers, and by brothers I mean the whole baseball team. Um, that's where we spent our days and nights uh was the baseball field. So those were the things the giggly moments with mom and dad, the rotisserie chicken, the running up and down in the hallway. He was uh grandpa from up his first year for Halloween. Um so we practice a lot with a walker that my sister had made him out of PVC pipes. Um so he was walking at eight months, but he was running around the entire house with that. So that brought us a lot of memories. And even when he was able to walk, he still chose to use that walker. We had to hide it in a closet. So he wanted um get it and he would walk on his own because it was just his like core moment. He loved it. And a lot of people thought maybe something was wrong with him and he needed it, but no, it was just his handy little thing. I felt like he was just the little comedian that wanted us all to really laugh, uh, more or less keep us going.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

So graduating from a pacifier where parents will hide the pacifier, you hid the walker. We hid the walker. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Yeah, we definitely hid the walker from him. Yes. Uh he loved his sports, basketball, baseball. That's kind of what we were playing each night and each morning and stuff like that. So we spent our afternoons and mornings doing that.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Any favorite memories on the baseball field?

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Him being right there with me, um, watching dad and brother do what they enjoyed and loved, uh, hoping one day that he was gonna be right out there with them and knowing that he would be out there playing with them as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

I think Tammy, to hear you say how difficult it is to r to try to capture him in words and also just miss all that he missed. Yeah. Is something that, you know, my my son died as a toddler, and as people, you know, talk about all the things their child did, I I don't know who my son I I can imagine him, but I don't I don't know all the things he would have liked or loved or disliked, or you know, is all we can do as moms of toddlers that die at such shocking young ages is imagine and wish. Yeah. And that void is forever. Yeah. And only they can fill it.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yeah. Yeah. And that is one of the harder parts is there's a lot of those memories that we're still we didn't get to have. And it was so bittersweet. It was the first crawls, the first walks, and the first giggles, and a very few mamas and daddies, a lot of bubas and stuff like that, but the very few mamas and daddies. So that's what's hard. And I think that's what holds holds dear, um, is those moments.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Sometimes they outweigh the the other ones. But yeah, that's kind of what holds dear the most.

From First Birthday To Sudden Illness

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, I understand that. What are you comfortable sharing with us about the time of Easton's passing and those early days and months of your grief?

Trauma In The Hospital And After

SPEAKER_02 8:30

It it kind of all came so quickly and so fast. We ought to celebrate his uh one-year birthday, just the three of us, four of us as a family. It was intimate, it was sweet. It was just him eating some cake there, smothering that frosting all over his face, really digging into it and enjoying it. And and then it was days later going to his one-year checkup appointment, and and then the following of that, of him getting sick shortly after that, and all that was to come within the three weeks of of that was nothing that we expected, and all of the worst that could happen. You know, he just got uh very sick very quickly and fought off very minor and little common cold viruses back to back. And then one day his body just took a turn for the worse, and we lost him very quickly. Uh, it was in a matter of 12 hours. He had been sick, like I'd mentioned, on and off for a few weeks and on different antibiotics for an air infection. And we were just down at children's a few days before that. Actually, one of my best friends had just flew in from Las Vegas uh two days before he had passed. She wanted to meet him in person. It wasn't something she got to do. All of our phone calls were FaceTime. Him running with the phone, giggling and laughing and talking to her over the phone and um building that relationship with her via FaceTime. That's how a lot of his um moments were his first year because of COVID. Um, we couldn't really leave. So a lot of our moments during that time were via FaceTime and Zoom. So she had flew in to meet him in person and he was a little sick, and she had been staying with us. And I remember that morning, um, my sister had worked an evening shift and I had missed so much work because of him being sick back and forth. So she had taken off the the next night so that way she can spend the day with him. And I had spent the morning with him. It was a very good morning. He was happy. He was, you know, his self, even though he was a little uh under the weather. I remember he had um been facetiming with a one of my older brothers who he was gonna meet in person actually the next day as well. When we took my friend back down to the airport, we were gonna stop and visit with him. And we were FaceTiming and running around on the phone with him and, you know, just enjoying those moments at home of being sick and just trying to make him happy, whatever I could do to make him happy, because that's um he was having moments of going back, of being happy and then feeling so unwell and not happy. So I was just taking it all in. And then I was gonna have to spend the afternoon with um go to work and whatnot. And things kind of just took a turn for the worst. He had gone with my sister and he started having a seizure um on the way back from her bringing him back home to us, and she had kind of let me know on the drive home, you know, he's not doing very well. He kind of had this little seizure on the way back. I think you need to take him back into the hospital um and get him checked out. And by the time he got to the house with us, um, she brought him into the house. I remember her walking in the doorway and he was kind of not necessarily lifeless, but he was just a little lifeless in her arms. And she said she couldn't really get him to react to her, and he wasn't doing well, and we needed to call 911. So she called him for me, and I was holding him, and they arrived, which seemed like forever. The fire department was blocks away, like two blocks from my house, and it seemed like it took him forever to get to the house, and it just went from there to things went very quickly, and we were rushed to the hospital when the fire department came. He he had a fever of 107.9, and he was going into shock, and we couldn't figure out why, so we just jumped right into the ambulance and we went to the hospital. Had a couple more seizures on the way. We get to the hospital and they're running all the tests, and everything is coming back negative. They don't know what's going on with him. They're taking him flight for life next step to children's down in Denver. And at this time, my fiance hadn't been home from work, everything had left so quickly. I had rushed with him, he had stayed with my son. My best friend had got there and he had got to the hospital with me, and we're in the trauma room, and they're telling us that, you know, Easton's gotta go. Flight for life, and no one can go with him. It's just the flight for life helicopter and the aid, and they took him down there and we rushed to children's hospital, and we get back there, and they say that they everything was okay. They get him into the room and they take us back there, and it went from everything was okay to it's not okay. And we watched them use the defibrillator on him and try to get him to come to, and from there I just remember it was the worst experience of my life. You know, he went straight up to the um NICU or the pediatric unit upstairs, and they still were running all the tests, and it came back negative. Nobody knew what it was, and were in the process of trying to figure that out with all the tests, and they're thinking that it possibly could be meningitis, so that's what they were kind of treating for. They hooked him up to an ECMO machine in hopes that that was really going to help treat him for what they thought that it was, and it wasn't. It did its good and it did its bad. And with Easton, um, everything just happened too quickly, and his body started filling up, and his brain started hemorrhaging, and literally within a matter of 12 hours, we lost him. Everything happened so quickly on a Friday night at 6 p.m. to a Saturday morning at 7 a.m. when they called us into the room to tell us that we were gonna lose him. Sorry, I know it's so all over the place. It is very hard to kind of relive it all, but it all happened so very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yeah. And I don't want to bring you back to those moments. I just want you to know that those traumas of having our life change in the matter of a day. Yeah, it's so shocking, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

It really is. There's no preparation for it. There's no preparation for the next step. Is this the right move to make? Are these the right treatments that we need to be doing? Are there these the right tests we need to be doing? It's a fight or flight mode, and you're jumping into it hands-in, hoping you're doing the best that you can for your child.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Um that's what we did, you know. We tried to do the best that we can for him during the time that we could and the short amount of time that we could with all the tests that we ran and could. Yeah. Um but it all happened so quickly, and it continued to. I think everything since then has happened very slowly and has kind of been in a stand still since then. I feel like it's been on almost like an autopilot, more or less.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Time is so strange after we go through these tragic losses of it feels like he was maybe just here and that it's been a lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah, literally here one moment and the next, and how it can happen so quickly. He seemed so happy and somewhat healthy morning of, and then by evening that night, it is dramatically changed and not the same. There's no more of the good morning kisses running down the hallway, the chasing each other, the the none of that. It all got changed overnight for all of us. Got ripped away. A father's first child, a brother's first sibling, all of it.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

How have you felt it for you, Tammy, to feel how have you felt it in your your body and your sense of safety and your sense of your own identity?

SPEAKER_02 16:59

I still feel it, obviously, to this day. It's made me, I won't say I wasn't emotional before. I've been way more emotional now. I feel it, like I feel it in my soul. There's a country song, You can die of a broken heart, and I truly felt that. Like I felt the heaviness of my heart being broken, and I can still feel that the heaviness that I still feel in my chest today, on the days of happiness and on the days of sadness, on the memories of the good and the bad. The physically ill moments still happen um today. Five years later.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

And I know that they will still continue to happen years to come, probably as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

It won't be something that gets to go away that doesn't gonna go away.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well, we've said this so many times today, and I think you know, the love for Easton doesn't go away and the grief won't go away. Yeah. You know, one kind of a symbol of the other, you know, the intense grief and the intense love.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

That's so true. So true. And that is it. It's really hard. And people will say, Man, you're still grieving. Wow. You're still grieving. Like, can't you just like move on? Move on.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Say the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah. It isn't so easy. No. Yeah. It isn't so easy to move on. Uh, the tears are shed for happy and sad tears. For happy for the moments that we got to have with Easton. Those short 13 months and 21 days were all that we got with him. But they were the greatest 13 months and 21 days. And I hold those days very dear. And I didn't take them for granted then, and I sure don't take them for granted now. Just wish there was more of them that we got to have, uh, for sure.

unknown 18:54

Yeah.

Identity Changes For The Whole Family

SPEAKER_02 18:55

I'm very grateful for the time of COVID for because it got us much more of those moments. Um that together for the together, right? Yeah. Much more of the togetherness that we may not have gotten to have during any other year because of that, the year of COVID. We were all stuck in our homes. We couldn't go out. There, you couldn't go anywhere. You know, and in in that short 13 months, though, Easton lived a life. It was a life of COVID, but he still got to take his first trip on an airplane. He flew to Florida. Uh, he got to go to the beach, he got to go to our favorite family spot, which is now so bittersweet and memorable because of that. Um, because of that year that no one could really travel or do those things, but he was able to experience that, even though he didn't get to experience much of life. The the the softball moments, the baseball moments, um, all that we loved. I think he really got to see one of the best years of our family. He got to take it all with him, more or less. Absolutely. Yeah. He got the best of all of us that year.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

You were talking about the journey that you've all been on as a mother, a father, a brother, and how you all grieve differently. Yeah. How this has impacted your identities, your sense of self. What do you witness and then experience in your own grief and then see both Easton's dad and Easton's brother?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Yeah, I I'd say even for myself, the biggest thing has been I've lost who I was. I was a very active person that played sports a lot. I can't pick up a softball bet to save my life since losing him. It's something that we did together. I played till I was seven and a half months pregnant with him. And then with dad coaching brothers uh baseball team and us being so involved with that. It went from one baseball field to the next. And it's just been a journey for me to find who I am as a mother, a bereaved mother of a child that I've lost while still trying to navigate a child that's here with us. And it's been difficult. Easton's brother was 10 years old when we had him, and he was just shy of turning, he just turned 11 right before we had lost Easton. So it was everything you dreamed of, and he lost in a matter of a year. Uh, it affected him, still has affected him. I see it in his school, his friends, how he wants to get close to those around him, including myself and his stepdad, his now sister that he has. It's been hard for him to want to build a relationship with her because of the fear of losing her. So it's been difficult for all of us, even for dad uh now to navigate the what was and what isn't of having that son to be able to teach all the things and hopefully grow up in the the same footsteps of him of being able to go off and play baseball and be that athlete that we knew Easton was destined to be. Because he was showing that even at such a young age, his will and love for the game of baseball and the game of basketball. Uh, it's something he really loved a lot of. So Easton's dad and I don't get to um we don't get to grieve together. And that's something I had to learn along the way that that it's okay that we don't get to grieve together, that there's moments where we can, but we get to share all the happy moments still together. It's just really hard to see each other so hurt and vulnerable. It's been very hard for all of us to navigate with the relationships we have going. Forward how I am with babies, my sisters' siblings or children, my nieces and nephews, and child loss after Easton, um, making that decision to have another child has been a tough road. We knew that it was gonna be. We just didn't know how hard it was gonna be. And I think it was been a lot harder than what we definitely expected. I thought I'd be giving Tyrone, Easton's brother, the sibling that not necessarily covering up or making up for Easton being gone, but you know, he wanted that sibling, and giving him another sibling would be something that would be what he wanted again. And at times he says it's not. It's so hard for him to want to be close uh to her because he's in fear of losing her. So he struggles with that. And I know it's gonna struggle with his relationships going forward in life as well, too. It's been difficult.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

You and I have talked about it feeling like a risk for you all to love again and to be vulnerable again.

Choosing Another Pregnancy After Loss

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Oh, a hundred percent to make that risk for all of us, even as parents for Jerry and I. Um, it was a struggle to get pregnant with Easton and to have him, so to have him and to lose him so quickly, and then to make that decision to do we bring another child into this world um in fear of losing it again, and knowing that we don't know what what's to hold and what the future might hold for us, but uh we took that risk and we're grateful for it. We actually found out we were pregnant with Aliyah on um the two-year anniversary of losing Easton. We actually changed the spelling of how we spell her name in honor of him because I felt like it was something that it was almost like something he he knew we needed, um, and he kind of like sent her to us. So beautiful. Yeah, it is, it is. Um, and she's been a blessing. She's she's been a blessing to have as well. But it's been difficult to navigate so even with another another child. The loss of the first is I didn't get to enjoy that pregnancy with Aaliyah that I did get to enjoy with Easton, that I did get to enjoy with Tyron. This one was a lot fearful, more or less, because of that. So I felt like because of the loss of Easton, I also lost out on enjoying a pregnancy as well as I should have, I guess. And it made me in fear of wondering whether that Aaliyah would feel that in the relationship that her and I would have when she came would be any different. But it's the opposite, she doesn't let me out of her eyesight. So yes, she's very attached. Very, very attached, yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

It does take our way, um, our ability to be carefree, to be naive, yeah, to think that tragedy only happens to other people. Yeah. Because you're gonna call BS on all of that. Yeah. Um definitely because it's like I've lived it. I yeah, I am now the other person that I used to feel sorry for. Yeah. Now I'm I'm living proof, I'm here that a tragedy can happen in like you said, 12 hours of my life. Yep, you know. Gone so quickly. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Do you feel lonely in your grief?

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Absolutely. I think that is the biggest thing I still struggle with is the loneliness that I I feel. Loneliness of connecting to others, the loneliness of feeling like, you know, you can feel like you're in Vegas and there's a million people. It's like in in New York City. You're you go to New York City and there's a million people. I definitely feel so alone now that I uh it it's heartbreaking at times because I don't really feel like I have those that I can connect to and understand it. Everyone just wants me to kind of get over it and move on. And there is no getting over a child loss. I think it's a loss that I I don't wish on uh my worst enemy. Um, and it's a loss you can never get over. So it's been very difficult, needless to say.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Yeah. And people want you somehow to be your former self, and that that former Tammy is it's no longer there.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah. A bit of me is I wouldn't say more bitter now, but a part of me is there's the bitterness of it because I'm not as naive. I don't think take things for granted, but I do love a lot deeper. Not saying I didn't before, but the the love and the care and the appreciation of the little moments is um what keeps us going, definitely. And I say as of those bereaved parents, that's what kind of keeps us still here.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Because I feel like it's a fight or flight mode every day that I wake up in that I'm still here. Fight or flight mode, keeping one foot in front of the other, fighting back all the dark demons of the child loss and the weight that comes with it and the daily tasks that you have.

Carrying Love Forward In Daily Life

SPEAKER_01 27:20

So much resiliency and grit and strength still get through each day sometimes. That it does.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

So, Tammy, in what ways does your love for Easton still show up in your life today?

SPEAKER_02 27:34

I think it does in all that I do. He is the reason that I'm still standing today. It's him and the children that I have. I love harder for Easton because it's something he didn't get to do. I'm here speaking his name and showing parents that, you know, even after such dark child loss, there's still light in beauty and grief. There's a lot of beauty in the pain of grief. And I don't think that's something that is brought to light with grief. I think grief is very frowned upon. Oh, let's medicate that. Let's let's not see them be so sad. But if you really look into the deepness and the sadness of it, it is because of the love that there was. Um, so I I I live every moment still for Easton. And I still feel like that light that I have is because of him. I carry him with me with all that I do, and I think about him in kind of every single moment that I do. Because I'm like, man, we're doing this together as a family. Easton would be right here doing this and enjoying it with us, and I'm sure he would be the only one helping me keep his dad and sister and brother in check while they're out causing a ruckus because he was that. He was just the sweetest little boy. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

So we know grief travels with us.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

So how has your relationship with grief changed over time?

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Sometimes I feel like it's gotten harder as the time has gone on because I learn of what we have and what we've lost. I have highs and lows with grief. It's my best friend at times, and then I absolutely hate it. I really let myself sometimes sit in those moments because it's needed, but I also give myself the grace to still live going forward because that seems to be hard as well. You always wonder about the what-ifs, and is it okay for me to still be happy right now, even though Easton isn't here with us? Is it wrong for me to still be having those moments, even though he's not here with us? Because that is, I got a lot of kickback on you're just covering up by having another child. And that's not what we're doing with the loss of Easton. We're not covering up. We have so much love to give, we want to give it to more, and that's what we're doing with that. So Easton definitely still lives on, I think, in a lot of us.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

And what ways do you honor his memory?

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Quite a few. We actually um shortly after Easton to help out with the grief process and the love that he was and what he was going to be, we started our ourselves a nonprofit organization in honor of him as well. We did take the last year off because our youngest daughters had a lot of health issues. But with that, the foundation that we have honoring Easton, we raise, we do a softball tournament each year. The money we raise for that, we give back to the community. We kind of help out. We go to children's hospital each year and we donate to them. Easton spent his time there. That's where his last few moments were. So we give back to the kids that are there, all ages of them. Have we done it for the last few years? We've donated to other nonprofit organizations in northern Colorado to kind of help out families of those that have lost that are going through the process as well and help pay for their funeral expenses as well. So give back in honor of him in different ways like that. Every year for his birthday, I go purchase a cake for him. I actually go to a random grocery store and I just pick a random film that be might that might be having a birthday cake being made for their child and I pay for it. And I go get a sibling or a a cousin or a niece of that age of the child that I'm purchasing the cake for, and we buy a gift for them. And then when mom and dad come to pick up that birthday cake for their child, it's already paid for, and there's already a little gift there for the child. And it's just, you know, my way of still buying a birthday cake for Easton every year and buying a gift for Easton every year, and giving back in honor of him and knowing that his legacy kind of still lives on, even though he's not here physically with us. Saying his name and keeping his memory alive kind of helps me keep myself going, more or less.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

So I love that. What have you learned about yourself on this journey?

SPEAKER_02 31:51

That it's not easy to break me at all. I've kind of been I think I can see that.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Uh some may think that, but I think when you've been through child loss, uh you kind of it says a lot about you. And to still be standing here, I could have easily thrown in the towel and just said, you know what, I can't take it because there's days where I want to do that. And I want to just be like, it's enough. It's just weighing on me too much and it's just too heavy. But I want to keep going. It's learned that even through resilience and dark days that you can push through. And I want to show my kids that I can do that and that even though they've seen their mom at their darkest time uh the last five years, um, that hopefully gives them hope to want to never give up even in the darkest times and to keep moving forward even when times are extremely tough and you don't know what to do. I've also learned that I can be a help to others that are going through this as well. And that's kind of where I've been the last few years. It's helped me get through it is talking to other bereaved parents that are going through it as well. It's kind of the only thing I think that has kind of helped me get through it is knowing that I'm not alone by having somebody else like this podcast and others that kind of can hear me out and feel somewhat heard. Because in the last five years, I've kind of felt like I've been unheard and empty and very lonely in a dark spot where you don't get to be heard and you're just now seen as oh, there's Tammy and Jerry, they lost their child. Pity them. You know, it's not a thing I want, nor that I like at all. So I just try to keep going forward and knowing that you know that even in the darkest times there can be light. Like I said before, there is a lot of beauty in grief, and I've realized that unfortunately the hard way.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Yeah.

What Newly Bereaved Parents Need

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

What would you want a newly bereaved parent to know?

SPEAKER_02 33:53

That's hard. I just want to hug them. I just want to be there for them.

unknown 33:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Because I know what they're going through right now, and I just want them to know that you will get through this. There's gonna be some very dark days ahead, and um, there's gonna be some very good days, but you can get through this. You're gonna find those that you can lean on, and you're gonna find other ways to uh get through this. My first few man years. I couldn't talk to anyone. I didn't really feel like I could connect, but I found other routes. I read books, um, I did other different things to kind of get me out there. I spent time in nature talking to Eastin, giving myself those moments of uh grieving and feeling it. But be easy on yourself is the biggest thing. Give yourself grace. It's easier said than done, but that is one thing that I've learned along the way is easier said than done is to give yourself grace and to not give up, really to not give up, because you will get through this. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. It may be very faint, but keep looking for it and just keep walking towards it because you will get through. And I I'm here, you can get my contact information and reach out. I'll listen, I'll cry, I'll laugh with you, I'll I'll I'll remember your child and say their name. Cause I think that's one thing we want everyone to remember is we may have lost a child, but he's still, they're still here with us. And uh we can still move on and and love and grieve, even though they are no longer here. And that's okay. And that really is okay. And I mean, you say it best, the podcast says it best itself. Don't forget to breathe because at times it's really the the simplest, littlest things of not forgetting to to breathe. Take that moment to just breathe. You'll need it.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Tammy, thank you so much for trusting us, coming on the podcast to share your story, to be vulnerable. Yeah. And again, our goal with this is just to help other parents and let them realize there is community, to feel less alone, yeah, and that they've got a voice. Thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Mother’s Day Closing And Gentle Reminder

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Thanks. Tammy, thank you. Thank you for trusting us with Easton's story and for speaking his name with so much love, honesty, and courage. As we head into Mother's Day, I want to speak directly to the moms who are carrying loss into this weekend. There is no right way to move through this day. You may celebrate, you may grieve, you may do both in the same breath. You may feel surrounded or completely alone. Whatever shows up for you, it's valid. Tammy reminded us that the grief doesn't go away because love doesn't go away, and that even in the darkest places, there can still be moments of light. If this episode connected with you, share it with someone who might need it. You never know who is quietly carrying a story like this. And if you're walking this road, we're here with you. Be gentle with yourself this weekend. And please, don't forget to breathe.