Have you ever faced a trial so profound that it reshaped your entire existence? Faith Sage joins us with a heart-wrenching yet inspiring story of love, loss, and the blended family dynamic. Her candid sharing on the complexities of step-parenting and the grief-stricken path after losing her stepdaughter in a tragic car accident strikes a chord that resonates with the deepest parts of our humanity. As we navigate the emotional labyrinth of planning a funeral alongside an ex-spouse, Faith uncovers the unexpected silver lining of community support, illustrating the unifying power of shared heartache and the importance of financial preparedness during life's most trying times.
Transformative and enlightening, this episode goes beyond the surface of sorrow to reveal the potential for personal growth amidst despair. We hear how a grieving mother found solace in near-death experience stories, knitting a connection to her child beyond the veil of mortality. As Faith recounts the solidarity she received from an unlikely source—her husband's ex-wife—the conversation sheds light on the incredible resilience required to endure not one, but two family tragedies. With practical advice on how to tackle the inertia of grief, the importance of small daily changes, and the necessity of reaching out for support, we're reminded of the continuous journey towards healing and the power of a mindset geared towards recovery. Join us for a profound exploration of the human spirit's capacity to triumph over the darkest hours.
Have you ever faced a trial so profound that it reshaped your entire existence? Faith Sage joins us with a heart-wrenching yet inspiring story of love, loss, and the blended family dynamic. Her candid sharing on the complexities of step-parenting and the grief-stricken path after losing her stepdaughter in a tragic car accident strikes a chord that resonates with the deepest parts of our humanity. As we navigate the emotional labyrinth of planning a funeral alongside an ex-spouse, Faith uncovers the unexpected silver lining of community support, illustrating the unifying power of shared heartache and the importance of financial preparedness during life's most trying times.
Transformative and enlightening, this episode goes beyond the surface of sorrow to reveal the potential for personal growth amidst despair. We hear how a grieving mother found solace in near-death experience stories, knitting a connection to her child beyond the veil of mortality. As Faith recounts the solidarity she received from an unlikely source—her husband's ex-wife—the conversation sheds light on the incredible resilience required to endure not one, but two family tragedies. With practical advice on how to tackle the inertia of grief, the importance of small daily changes, and the necessity of reaching out for support, we're reminded of the continuous journey towards healing and the power of a mindset geared towards recovery. Join us for a profound exploration of the human spirit's capacity to triumph over the darkest hours.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to, as I Live in Grief, a podcast that tells the truth about how hard this is. We're glad you joined us today. We know how hard it is to lose someone you love and how well-intentioned friends and family try so hard to comfort us. We created this podcast to provide you with comfort, knowledge and support. We are grief advocates, not professionals, not licensed therapists. We are you.
Speaker 2:
Welcome back again to another episode of as I Live in Grief. Missed you guys, but I know the episodes have been going up every week and I'm tickled with my guest today, faith Sage. Faith and I connected on a Facebook page oh, months ago, maybe almost a year ago, I don't know. We kind of our paths keep crossing, we keep missing each other, but I am delighted today to have her with us. She's going to tell us her story. She's going to tell us about some venture she's working on. So I can't wait. Faith, welcome and thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3:
Hi, kathy, thank you so much for having me and it it has been a little bit since we've been trying to connect. Yeah, your episode on my podcast came out months ago, weeks ago, yeah, yeah. So yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:
Good as a way to get started. Would you just kind of give our listeners a little bit of your background, maybe your story, so we can get started?
Speaker 3:
Sure, Um, so let's see where do I be? I always never know where to begin these things. They're so cause it seems like every moment leads into the next moment, which leads into the next moment, which, you know, is a backstory for what you need to know later on. So, for me, mine started in 2005, when I met my husband. He had two children, I had three children, and we decided that we were going to make it go a bit. We were going to blend our family. So, after eight months of knowing each other, we got married and we began the journey of blending our family. We didn't know what the hell we were doing at the time, like we had no idea, like the implications that were going to arise, you know decades later, sure, but we began that journey.
Speaker 3:
He was full-time military, not full-time, he was Army Reserve, so he was gone quite a bit, and so it was up to me to kind of watch the children, parent the children. You know he had them every other weekend. I had mine on a full-time basis. So it was rough going from three children to five children, and then a family of three, or a family of four to a family of now seven, and at the same time that year we had lost my father, and in 2005. And so at that point, my mom moved in with us because she, you know, didn't have anywhere else to go. And so we live in Minnesota and we packed everyone up into our house and, like, this is what we're doing. There's three boys and two girls, and that was in 2005. Just forward now to 2016, we've been continually building. It was a big. It was a big thing for me being a stepmother and not being the traditional Disney stepmother. I didn't want that, and so I would put extra attention on the kids, not forsaking mine, but just letting them know that I love them and that they were mine. You know, all of them were mine.
Speaker 3:
And it was in 16 that we got the phone call that our daughter, my husband's biological child, had had died. She was in a car wreck, and it was just a freak vehicle accident. She was 19 years old, just starting her life. She had just moved down south of us about an hour and a half and a flat tire, her vehicle rolled and that was it. It was done, all of it was done, and so then we went through the process of planning the funeral, and, of course, we had to plan with his ex-wife, which was never a big deal because, like I had mentioned before, I made a point to get along with her and her family because these weren't just his children, they were her children as well and I needed to honor that as well.
Speaker 3:
So we went through the planning process. We were in and out, boom done. We went through the funeral services, we went through the all the things that you go through after you bury a child. You, you have the cards and stuff. So you have to meet up for that. You have all the expenses. Well, we had decided, my husband and I we had after my father had passed in 05, we decided to have life insurance policies on all of us, just small things enough to cover a burial expense if it happened. We weren't about to make millions or become mega rich or anything like that, it was just to so that that unexpected you know expense, didn't you know?
Speaker 2:
it's great.
Speaker 3:
Correct. And so we had that and we decided that, whatever the expense was, money was not going to be an issue for the burial, for for the funeral services, for any of that. And so we went in, we planned it without money being an object, and I think that that was. It was truly a blessing for us, for the simple factors that we weren't worried about cutting costs, we weren't worried about like how we can do this, because you know we don't have the funds for that.
Speaker 3:
And so and she and his ex-wife didn't know this she didn't know this until the very end that we were going to. You know, it's our life insurance, we're going to pay for everything, whatever, thank you. Well, the day of the funeral, because we had been here, my husband's lived here his entire life and then his ex-wife had lived in the neighboring town, in towns, like her entire life, and so they had this connection of friends and family and this network of people that they had built relationships with. That during the wake, you know the time before, you know coming give your respects to family, all that stuff, because she was cremated. So we had it at the funeral home. They come and they give their respects and stuff, and it was four hours we stood up there. They had to shut the doors on people because there were so many people still lining up, because it was such, it was such big in the community and stuff, and plus she was 19. Yeah, and so that played a big factor. But during the service that at that time, her employer, who was Taco Bell for Minnesota, they came in and they put a blank check down and paid for the whole funeral, for everything, every expense that we could have thought, and so that was a true blessing for us as well. So it was heartbreaking and beautiful both at the same time, knowing that she had had this massive impact on this many people as well, and then our families had had this massive impact.
Speaker 3:
And then just going through the grief afterward, the grief of knowing that now you're never going to see her, you know, get married, have children, become the aunt that she always wanted to be, you know with her, her brothers and sisters, and stuff like that and so diving through that one was, I think, one of the most trying times of my life. Right and just, I just remember, because I'm a problem solver by nature, I like to solve the problems, like those are the things, and this was a problem I couldn't solve. And so it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, oh, holy shit, what do I do now? Like I can't fix this, I can't solve this, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and I just felt lost, just lost. And so I would just literally sit on the back patio and sit and sit and sit. I wasn't eating, I wasn't drinking, I wasn't, I was doing absolutely nothing. You came out there to sit with me and that's all we were doing. I was not talking to you.
Speaker 3:
It was pretty bad for a little bit, but, bless my husband, he must have seen what was happening. And he reached out and he's like, hey, maybe you should listen to this. And so he started listening to these NDEs near death experiences on YouTube and he's like, just take a listen, that's all you got to do, just listen to one. And I started listening and I listened to some more and then I started consuming more and more and more, and I realized that for me and of course, this wasn't like an overnight process, this was like over several weeks, months, and I realized that I was still connected with her Because that when she, when I lost her, I felt like we were severed, like that was it.
Speaker 3:
Boom, we're done, I'll never get to see her, I'll never get to talk to her again, I'll never get to hug her, all these things. And so when I started listening to those NDEs, it made me realize that everything is still connected. Her spirit is still here, everything is connected. I can reach out and talk to her anytime I want, and so that helped me process magnitudes of grief for me.
Speaker 2:
And yeah.
Speaker 3:
And so it was. I would have never thought that it was possible, but it just changed my thought process on death, on the experience of losing a loved one, on all of the things. But it was. It was definitely interesting. And then you know, you get to a point you think that you've, you've processed, like all the grief, all the grief you've done, You're never going to have another ounce of it, it's never going to happen again, Like I've went through all the seven stages or 10 or 40 or however many stages there are and I'm done.
Speaker 2:
However, the plot thickens, plot twist Right, right. So then, it was.
Speaker 3:
It was a couple years later, in 2021, we got the phone call that we had lost our granddaughter, our little four year old daughter and so and you know those, I don't know why it's always a damn phone call.
Speaker 3:
It's always a phone call and it just breaks your heart, and especially when your, your child, is calling and and they need you and you can't be there. And that was the biggest thing for us. My husband and I were remodeling in our house and we were that day. We were going to go and pick up siding. It was a couple hours away and of course, this is the middle of COVID, it's the middle of lockdowns. Nobody's got anything, it's every store is out of crap, and so we had to drive, you know like five hours one way and five hours back, and so we decided to take off right early that morning. My son and his wife and their family were moving into a house and all of a sudden we get a call there's been a freak accident and now she's no longer with us and my heart breaks and of course, your child's crying and they want you there and you can't, you can't be there. So remember back when I mentioned the ex wife.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 3:
So our, my son, my stepson, my husband's son, because we, unbeknownst us, we had blended our family very, very well. They're very tight, very close knit, all the things. And so he had seen the accident and he called his mom and his mom went with the family and sat with them because I couldn't be there. And so she went and sat with, with our children until we could get home that night and she kept brought them, drove them back home, all the things, and so it was like. So, in a way, we blended our families excessively well and it's a community effort.
Speaker 3:
When we're raising these children, we think it's just us and I need to be the best parent that I can be, I need to do this, I need to do that, and you know all these things, and we have all of these cookie cutter methods that we are grown up with or raised with at least for me anyway that we're raised with, and we think that this is how it has to be. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought one, that I would ever bury my child exactly, that I'd ever bear my grandchild, and three, that I would ever have to lean on a community of people to help me survive. But here I was, you know, because I grew up as a nomad and we traveled everywhere, and so we didn't have, we didn't have the root system that my husband and his ex-wife did. We never had that and so and so that was. It was a beautiful thing, but then to watch your child go through everything that you went through was almost like an out of body experience.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and at the same time, you're going through the loss of your grandchild, so it's another layer of grief, both at the same time, both at the very same time.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. And so I remember, as they were planning the funeral because it was just the my son and his wife and then me at planning the funeral, and I remember sitting there and I remember looking at them and you know the anguish on their faces. I'll never forget, you know, and thinking, how did we ever make it through this? Like this is one of those things like how did we do this? Yeah, how did we plan this funeral without? And so it's just, I don't know, you make it through, you figure out a way, and then you look back and you're like, damn, how in the hell did I do that? And then you continue, you keep going Right, you keep just putting one foot in front of the other, taking one minute at a time, one moment at a time, and just keep moving.
Speaker 2:
Right, that's what we did. So many questions come to mind. It's such a well, I guess the only word I can think of and it's a shame, because I'm an author, the only word I can think of is bittersweet. I mean, there are such beautiful moments in your story, but at the same time it is so sad and it's losses that no one should have to suffer, especially the loss of a child. I think that's one of the cruelest losses, whether it be in miscarriage or after the child is born. It is. There's just no reason for it, and I really don't think. I don't think God ever intended us to have to go through that. But you know, he gives everybody the capacity to make decisions and some people, you know, don't make the right ones, and then there's just unfortunate accidents at times as well, and we have to deal with it. But so much. And now did you? I know you have two books published.
Speaker 3:
I do.
Speaker 2:
Is this story in one of the books?
Speaker 3:
It is. It's actually in this one right here, a Walk With Faith. I talk about all of the things I just mentioned and, you know, after the fact too, of like helping people. Just I think the biggest thing is just listening to people and hearing them, letting them know that the thoughts and feelings that they're feeling are they're okay, they're not crazy as much as you think. Like I think the most downplayed emotion after losing a child or a loved one is the anger and the rage. Yes, that's the most downplayed, and I did a podcast a couple weeks ago and we talked about this and I made a comment. I'm like rage responsibly, like go out there, find those smash houses yes, or go to a shooting range, or it's not a shooting range, it's more like a tactical range where you can like throw stuff mortars or whatever and just get that anger and that rage out, because it will consume you from the inside if you don't.
Speaker 2:
It will and that to me and this is my opinion that that anger and that rage is one of the things that really stops people in their tracks, from progressing on their grief journey. So if you don't do something with that, for me I have come to well several things between my podcast, which is now three years old, but in talking with all of the guests that I have met, I believe that grief is a lifelong journey. Oh, okay, it's going to change. You know, the view is going to get different, so to speak. There's going to be peaks and there's going to be valleys, it's going to be mountains and then you're going to trudge through mud. It's lifelong. I'm going to grieve until the day I die, but I also believe that for me and for many people so perhaps you'll agree with this that my grief was actually a catalyst for me to change and do something with my life that I never would have done. I tell the story where, decades ago, I was terrified of the word death.
Speaker 1:
My mother who planned?
Speaker 2:
to the most minute detail her funeral and wanted to tell me about it, because it's just my brother and I and he was in Florida. So she wanted me to know all of the plans she had made. And she would say I want you to come over for dinner because I want to tell you about my funeral. I literally made excuses. You know those rescue phone calls. I had somebody call me in the middle of dinner with an emergency at work that I had to go to because I did not want to talk about death. Yet grief sought me out. It sought me out and said I'm going to show you what you're supposed to do, and grief for me became a catalyst. Do you feel that way at all?
Speaker 3:
Let's see, I think I just kind of fell into it. Okay, I had been talking with my daughter and I'd always been giving her pep talks, like both of my daughters, but even more so like after we had lost the older one, right, my younger daughter. She's six years younger than so we had, we have, five children, so the oldest one, while he's now 29, and then two 27 year olds at 20 and she'd have been 26 this year and then we have a 20 year old, and so the younger one it was. I was always giving her pep talks, always, you know, and figuring and navigating how to communicate with her on, you know life, emotions, you know school, drama, all these things. And, unbeknownst to me, she would go and she would regurgitate everything that I said to her friends to help them with their life, you know school and all of these things. And and then it just kind of snowballed from there.
Speaker 3:
But after I lost my so I always wanted to help people after I lost Cassandra, my daughter, my daughter, I always wanted to help people but I was scared to because I thought how can I help people?
Speaker 3:
I'm just the stepmother this is it's not biologically my child, even though I've got all these, you know, years in of blood, sweat and tears, of bonding and building this family, you know, and blending all of us, I didn't feel like I had the credentials to teach anyone or to help anyone with this stuff, you know, a completely limiting mind, mind set.
Speaker 3:
And then when I and so I, so I parked it, I benched it, and so then when I lost my granddaughter, I'm like OK, ok, I hear, I hear the universe loud and clear, like I need to push forward with this. And so then it was. Then I wrote my book, and then I wrote a second book, and then I started a Facebook group, and then I started a monthly, you know, chat group and then, you know, just kept snowballing from there. And now I offer monthly coaching services to help people with grief and different things like that. So it just kind of snowballed. So I don't know that it was a catalyst, I mean, I guess in a way it was Right, but I feel like I just kind of like was flopped into it, kind of you know.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I was planning for it. Nobody is yeah. And you know, somebody said to me once and I think I saw a quote somewhere about this Somebody said I don't know how you do it and I remember saying I wasn't given a choice. Yeah, you know option.
Speaker 3:
It's like you, you still. You got to get your but up and you're going to do things.
Speaker 2:
And I remember clearly saying to myself one day I don't want to live like this for the rest of my life. You know, and I, that was the stage. I was on the couch every day, from the time I'd wake up until the time I had to get up and let the dog out or wash the dishes or take a shower or something like that. That was all an effort to do and I thought, you know, I can't do this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3:
I know.
Speaker 2:
So somehow we do that, but for a lot of people they really really get stuck and bogged down. Do you have any suggestions for people on and I think first they have to be aware that that's what's happening to them, right, so that they then can somehow find the motivation or the inspiration to do something about it but do you have any thoughts, any suggestions for people who are at that stage in their grief?
Speaker 3:
Absolutely so. One of the biggest things is change one thing in your day. Just change one thing. One thing, whether that's putting lipstick on and going to the store, whether that's going to get a different haircut change one thing and that'll switch you out of the mindset that you're in. It'll also take you to a different place and give you a different perspective on things. The grief is not going to go away, but how you manage it, it will make it more bearable. And then you just continue going like, okay, why did this? I put lipstick on and went to this grocery store and I went.
Speaker 3:
And it doesn't have to be makeup, it could be just curling your hair. For a woman it could be dressing up, it could be whatever Getting out of the place that you're at, because that's where the emotions are the highest. Put yourself into a different mindset and a different perspective and you're going to switch those gears and you're going to be in a different place. Yeah, you're not going to want to do it. One, two, it's going to feel like the most monumental effort ever. Do it anyway, and that'll put on a catalyst to say I can do these. I can do hard things because, as humans, we were wired to do hard things, we're meant to do hard things.
Speaker 3:
And grief. We've been dealing with grief since we were born, right. Whether we didn't get a bottle when we wanted it, whether we stubbed our toe on the coffee table, whether we Lost the baseball game that we had so had our heart set on, whether we didn't get the first chair, the music practice, whatever, whether our best friend moved away, we've been dealing with grief since the moment we entered this world, and we'll be dealing with grief from the moment we leave this world. I and but the key differences is how you process it and how you deal with that grief, because it comes in layers. It's always layered upon, layered upon, layered upon layered, and so my whole theory is this change one thing and it'll start flowing. Make it a conscious effort every day. Do something.
Speaker 2:
I like that Different, I like that, and many people say they just can't Get their mind off it, and they love the word it they can't get their mind off.
Speaker 2:
Someone told me I haven't tried it yet, but I'm dying to to be in that state myself so I can try it to take a blank piece of paper and put a pen in each hand and, with each hand at the same time, try to draw a picture of something, whether it's a flower or the sun or a star. And because Moving both hands to do that at the same time in the same direction Is such a difficult task for your brain that it's impossible to not think about drawing. So right, they said that that was a great way to kind of shake your mind away from Dwelling a single topic and then once you just kind of jarred your mind in that, then it might be easier To get up and go do that one thing you decided to change, so I don't know, I've got to try it sometime. Fortunately I've not really been in that state for a long time, but that doesn't mean, I mean son doesn't mean I'm exempt.
Speaker 2:
I'm well aware of that one. So, unfortunately and I always hate this, but it's you know it's just a condition of these half hour episodes when our time is winding down and I don't want to get to the end without giving you a chance to speak directly to the listeners, without me interrupting with questions or comments or anything like that. So, faith, the microphone is yours.
Speaker 3:
Let's see if I could leave the listeners with one major thought. It's it's to reach out. Just to reach out to someone. Know that you're not crazy. It's not crazy, I don't care if it's been one year, ten years, 20 years, and you're still dealing with this. The fact that you're recognizing that you're dealing with this is major. Reach out to someone, get the help that you need, because this is all mindset work.
Speaker 3:
I come from a business background and I think a lot of it that helped me was the mindset work that I had done previously with building out my own business and stuff, and and Just focus on your mindset, learn how you are, how you deal with grief, the triggers that you have, like, we have a lot of these bad habits that we like to do as humans. We like to self-indulge and and just shy away from the things that are painful to us Because we think that it's protecting us, but all we're doing is we're shrinking our sphere of what we can handle and what we can manage with and all of those things. So every time we self-indulge, we get down to here and we want our sphere to be nice and big and open, because that way we know that whatever comes at us, whatever. Whatever we're facing whether it's the death of another child, heaven forbid the death of another, loss of another loved one, or the loss of a job, or your vehicle breaks down or whatever you're not at the end of your rope, you're actually. It's somewhere in the middle and your way out here, somewhere in the middle, and you can handle it.
Speaker 3:
It won't break you, it won't leave you feeling just like, oh my gosh, something new happened to me and it'll be like, okay, this happened, but I have x, y and z that I can now do, and so it's all a mindset issue. How you think about things is how you're going to manage and handle and process on those things. Anyway, that's my Ted talk. Thanks for coming. Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:
Tell us a little bit more about your podcast.
Speaker 3:
Okay, so my podcast is called Release because I felt that the people around me were not releasing the grief that they had, the anger that they had, and I had originally started it for people that had lost a child, originally started that lost a loved one, lost someone that was super close to them, but it kind of just morphed into this people that were having grief. So there's been people on there that have one lady. She went into the eye doctor and the eye doctor told her that her brain was swimming in spinal fluid and it completely changed her life. She was, I want to say, 22, maybe very young. She was in college and she was working jobs and different things like that. Her whole life changed, like her whole life changed, and so she didn't realize she was in grief because now she's in, she has a walker and stuff and she's a young woman, young woman, and so she was grieving the life that she had thought that she was going to have and so she started up.
Speaker 3:
I think I don't know if she has a podcast or not, but she's written books and she's got a nonprofit and all these things and doing very, very well. There's other people on there that have come down with major medical issues, and so they're grieving the life that they thought that they had. Plus there's, you know, suicide people that have experienced suicide, their friends or family, people that have unsolved murders or mysteries. They've been on there, and so it's just about processing and talking about our story, because a lot of these times, the people don't get to express the emotions that are coming along with what's happening in their life, and I just wanted to give voice to that because I felt that there was a need for it and clearly there was because we've got 21 episodes out and more coming.
Speaker 2:
It's amazing to me, the people out there that have accomplished tremendous things because of something like grief, and I'm just in awe of so many people for how they've done it and what they've accomplished and continue to accomplish and get amazing. So, listeners, if you yourself are mired on that grief journey and you know we're right there with you because we're still traveling ours, just take a deep breath and know that, number one, you're not crazy. Number two, this is perfectly normal. It's not really a phase, but it's part of life that everyone's going to experience and, in truth, now that COVID is somewhat of a memory for people, although some are still acquiring it, I can't think of a single person who went through that pandemic that didn't or isn't grieving Because we lost so many things, so many things we lost a whole way of life.
Speaker 2:
We did Even today. Somebody was commenting about a topic as simple as Black Friday, and so they didn't go shopping on Black Friday. They waited until the week after, thinking all right, it's over with, nobody's going to be in the stores now. But the store was just as busy as it was on Black Friday, because, with people working from home, they can take a few minutes out of their day and go shop during the day. They don't have to shop at night anymore. Just something as simple as that has changed everything. So take heart, hang in there, try to distract yourself. Change one thing there were so many little tidbits in Faith's story today, so I hope you listen to it closely, re-listen to it and just pull some of those little nuggets of wisdom, because there are many there. The whole stepmom issue. You are their mom, but I understand how you questioned your credentials, so to speak, but I'm willing to bet if you asked any one of those kids, you're their mom. Oh, they all called me mom.
Speaker 3:
Oh, sure they do. I remember the issue. It was my own issue that I had.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. For today, I'm going to have to say farewell. I want to remind everybody to take care of themselves. Keep moving forward, don't look backward, you know. Keep your memories, of course, and cherish them, but keep moving yourself forward and you'll get there. You'll have better days, I promise. I promise Until then and until next week again, thank you so much, faith. We'll talk to everyone soon. Catch you next week, as we all continue to live in grief.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for listening with us today. Do you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or do you have a question from one of our episodes? Please email us at info at asilevangrievecom and let us know. We hope you will find a moment to leave a review, send an email and share with others. Join us next time as we continue to live in grief together.