As I Live and Grieve®
It’s time for grief to come out of the basement, or wherever we have stuffed it to avoid talking about it. When you suffer a loss you need support, comfort, and a safe place to heal. What you are experiencing is painful but normal, unique but similar, surreal but very, very real. As grief advocates we understand and want to provide support, knowledge and comfort as you continue to live and grieve. Host, Kathy Gleason; Producer, Kelly Keck. www.asiliveandgrieve.com
As I Live and Grieve®
When Little Hearts Break
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Sarah Mayfield brings a uniquely powerful perspective to the conversation about children's grief – she's both a former elementary school counselor and a bereaved mother who watched her four-year-old son navigate the sudden loss of his younger brother.
When Sarah's 18-month-old son Elliot died unexpectedly in his sleep, she faced not only her own devastating grief but also the challenge of helping her living son Bradley understand and process what had happened. Despite her professional background, nothing had prepared her for guiding a child through sibling loss while managing her own raw emotions.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is Sarah's candid sharing about the realities of childhood grief. She challenges the well-meaning but dismissive comments like "he's too young to remember" or "kids are resilient" that often minimize children's grief experiences. Instead, she offers practical insights about using direct language, answering repeated questions with patience, and creating meaningful rituals that honor the person who died.
Sarah's experience led her to write "The Sure Thing," a beautiful children's book that illustrates how a child can continue to "live that love" for a sibling who has died. Beyond the touching story itself, the book provides valuable resources for grieving families, including 30 suggested activities for honoring lost loved ones and templates for children to express their feelings.
Perhaps the most comforting message Sarah shares is that while the trauma of loss may diminish with time, the love never does.
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https://www.livethatlove.com/
Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod
Copyright 2020, by As I Live and Grieve
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.
Introduction to Children's Grief
Speaker 1Welcome to as I Live and Grieve, 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 2Hi everyone, welcome back again for another episode of as I Live in Grief. I'm really excited about today's episode because I don't think we talked nearly enough about our children and how grief affects them. So not only do I have a wonderful guest, but it's a wonderful guest who has written a wonderful, wonderful book. So listen in and welcome with me Sarah Mayfield. Sarah, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 3Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being here and I appreciate taking the time to welcome. You know what's, in my opinion, a very important conversation.
Speaker 2Oh, it is, and we've had numerous guests that have talked about grief and children, but for one thing, it's very difficult to find how can I say? To find the right person with the right perspective and then to kind of encapsulate that in a 30 minute episode. So I think this situation is going to be especially great, amazing, whatever because of you and your book. This is a book written from experience, but let's just get started. Would you please introduce yourself to our listeners and let them know a little bit of your background, your experience, so that they have a better idea who is Sarah.
Speaker 3Awesome, yeah, absolutely so. I'm Sarah and my background was a school counselor elementary school counselor for eight well, technically nine years, loved it. It was affirming and very fulfilling work. Loved working with kids. I think that's kind of where I'm my most natural, because I can be real, I can be down to earth and there's just a connection I think I have working with kids.
Speaker 3So I did that for nine years and then I was pregnant with my first child so I decided to stay at home with him. His name is Bradley and mainly because I was commuting 45 minutes to work to the school and child care is expensive, so it was kind of a no brainer. So stayed at home with Bradley for a while, which was great. He's been described as a wide, open kid, a lot of energy. He's now 11, which ages me a bit, I know. And then we went on. When Bradley was about two we said let's, you know, let's keep them close in age. And so we went on to have our son, elliot, and Elliot is kind of the reason I'm in this field and the reason I've written the book. Elliot lived about a year and a half. He died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep. Yeah, so obviously that informs pretty much everything in my life these days and has changed my whole trajectory.
Speaker 3So I had the background in counseling and so it was kind of a no-brainer for me what I wanted to do after that. I found attending grief support groups and working with grievers to be where my passion was and is. So I went back to school, finished up some classes and then now I meet with both adults and a youth one-on-one and also kind of in group settings who are grieving. So I support yeah. But I would say, as far as the book goes, my main passion has been children's grief, because I do feel society struggles with grief in general. One right, because it's hard to witness pain, and I think the Western culture is a little bit suck it up, push on right. That was always the way I was brought up, exactly. So how are you doing? Fine, is kind of the only acceptable answer. Right, we know these things, yep. And so there's actually current models that say grief has kind of been pushed behind closed doors, with grief therapists, which is me. In reality, I shouldn't even exist. It should be society doing its job, right at the bottom of the pyramid. But here I am and I'm happy to do it and it's very fulfilling for me.
Speaker 3But the point is I witnessed my living son, bradley. He was around four years of age at the time Elliot died and I heard so many and well intentioned Once again, people are lovely, they're well intentioned. I heard so many people say you know, oh, he's so young he won't remember, so they're trying to comfort me. Or kids are resilient, he'll be good, he'll be fine, and so I understand the sentiment behind that. But to me I think it just missed the mark, because I was the one seeing the night terrors and the refusal to get into the bath, which is a shared activity he had with his brother. I was the one seeing the night terrors and the refusal to get into the bath, which is a shared activity he had with his brother.
Speaker 3I was the one that witnessed what it looks like for my son to grieve, and so that was very hard and I realized maybe children's grief is sometimes overlooked. I got a lot of the attention. My husband got a lot of the attention right, but my son kind of, because it looks different One minute he's playing and the next minute he's crying or hitting the wall. It's very disjointed and more soundbite kind of style, and so it's always kind of been a passion for me to amplify, advocate, essentially normalize childhood grief, because it does look different, but that doesn't mean it's not there Absolutely.
Speaker 2First, I want to say thank you for your very candid memories, the memories of, like the shared bath and how suddenly refusal to take a bath, those things. Too often we just talk about children's grief and that's kind of where we leave it. We may talk about misbehaviors because of that, but I have to say that, as you mentioned those specific instances that you experienced with Bradley, my heart was in my throat. It's just so hard to even imagine that Now, just so you know the listeners have heard before I lost an infant, but I lost an infant who was less than 22 years old, 24 hours old. I never got to know that baby. I never even saw that baby or saw a picture or anything, because that was the suck it up and move on generation.
Sarah's Personal Grief Journey
Speaker 2So each day that you have a child that grows and each day older that they are when you lose them is probably to me, the worst imaginable loss ever. So you have my deepest and sincerest compassion for that. Thank you so much. I don't think, truly I don't think anyone should have to experience that. No, that being said, I also think and you can correct me if I'm wrong that not only were you grieving your loss of a child, but you were also grieving the loss that your husband was having for losing a child, a son. You were also grieving Bradley's loss. You had so many layers of grief you were dealing with. How did you get through it? Was it your counseling background that helped you? That's a good question. So I don't want to imply by any means that you're no longer grieving. I know better than that.
Speaker 3You'll bring me back. I think you're absolutely right. I think 100% support that opinion and I do think it just morphs and changes, but it doesn't go away. Yeah Right, and first can I just honor the fact thank you for sharing you know about your baby and sure, I think I often meet with grievers who have had you know, young babies die. And I sit there and think of it's hard not to compare, right, I know we're not supposed to, but it's hard not to. Okay, it's human nature. And so I sit there and think, wow, I had a year and a half with Elliot. I kind of take the opposite approach and think I got to see what he laughed like and stuff like that, and I my heart goes out to moms and dads who didn't have rhyme yeah, yeah, everything is relative, it's all relative, but just, I want to honor that.
Speaker 3Yeah, okay, sure. So the first thing I'll say is it's so fascinating how people in the same family, grieving technically the same loss, can grieve so differently. Right, I would say, you know, there's a traditional stereotypical kind of thought process for how women grieve versus men in general. Right, I said stereotypical. Ken Doka, you know, and Terry have kind of talked about this in their research instrumental versus intuitive Most people are kind of in the middle blended, but I tended to lean I still do more to the instrumental, which is the doer, you know, the active, the person who maybe cries behind closed doors.
Speaker 3So in support groups I would often be told let it go, feel free, like gotta let it out, and I'd be like I'm doing what I'm doing I don't know, and so I would sometimes think I'm grieving wrong, right, and so my husband was kind of the opposite.
Speaker 3He would be more of the emotive, the on, you know, wearing it on the sleeve kind of person, and so that can kind of create a little bit of you know, I don't really know what the word is a difference. It's a visible difference, yeah, a noticeable difference, yeah, right, and so sometimes we had to be careful about not assuming, just because it looked different, that it was right or wrong. Right, creating that space for each other. So to your question, initially grieving not only my own loss and my grief but also watching my husband yeah, I think, supporting, but then also giving room for him to have his own space and not putting my expectations on anything. And then, of course, also supporting my son. I think that was. I think our focus collectively was on our living son, and so that helped. Right, we were a team, but still, that, I think, was part of the reason that I wrote the book too, because it was the most painful experience for me, because, you know, as a parent, you see them growing up together.
Speaker 3That's right you hope that they're going to be best friends, right? You know, his playmate, his best friend, just disappeared, essentially. So that was incredibly. One of everything was hard, but that was that kind of still kind of takes my breath away a little bit. Sure, so I'm not sure the counseling background helped, I think. Maybe I think, if anything, it just helped me realize how to support my son. Sure, because that's my background and be direct and not use euphemisms and be honest and open, which I think a lot of people can sometimes shy away from. Yeah, because it is painful to have those conversations with a little kid. We want to protect them, we want to, you know, hold them in this cocoon for as long as possible. But to some degree, when something like this happens, you know you have to kind of step it up and respond accordingly. Yeah, so I'm not sure I answered your question, but you know you did. It was on the periphery.
Speaker 2You did, and because part of me thinks that you know, having a background where you know how to interact with someone who is in the process of grieving, but now it's you, so it's harder to interact with yourself. And many times you may know because of your background and experience, that well, you know I probably should head in this direction. But when you're in the middle of it, it's that motivation is so hard to find, Absolutely Especially when, as women, we have a tendency to kind of push it back in ourselves so that we can help our husbands or our other children. That's more. That's just the way we are. We go outward first. So I was just curious if that made it especially difficult for you. I don't know sometimes how you can make something so difficult even more difficult, but I suppose as humans we always seem to find those ways. Oh, yeah, definitely.
How Children Express Grief Differently
Speaker 2Now, talking to a four-year-old who has lost a sibling close friend sibling especially suddenly, when there was no chance to prepare them, so to speak, as if they were a chronic illness or something like that. You had no time to prepare, so he was completely blindsided by this loss. How do you determine how to explain things? I mean, how do you say, okay, this is a four-year-old I'm talking to. These are the words I can use. I think it's really hard for parents, harder for grandparents maybe, that want to be supportive in this vein. How do you have those conversations with, say, four-year-olds?
Speaker 3Yeah. So I think you know I can picture kind of right now the first conversation we had. We actually, after Elliot died, we actually this may sound morbid to some people, but we actually went to a playground that morning after everything was done and all you know. Since it's sudden and unexpected, there's detectives, there's medical examiner, there's a whole thing. So after all the chaos kind of de-escalated.
Speaker 3I remember distinctly thinking, well, we can sit here in our living room and be shell-shocked, or we can go to the playground and let my living son run around while we see shell-shocked. And so we did that. And there's actually my mom took some pictures from the day and they're just interesting to look back at, right, because we just look like zombies basically right At a playground. I mean it's a little humorous now to think about. But so essentially I remember distinctly thinking, okay, I need to tell him as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the harder it gets right. And I need to be direct. So I actually use the words. You know, died, brother died, he is no longer here.
Speaker 3We advocate, you know, in the grief field to not use euphemisms, not talking about passing, or, you know, just be direct and talk about what that means for the body and that he is no longer breathing and he is no longer living, which is hard, but that way it is right. And but a four year old also struggles with the concept of death and permanency anyway. So not leaving any room for wiggle, you know, just being direct is the best. Yeah, yes, I cannot stress enough and this was hard Listening, listening, listening and patience, because you're going to hear, we heard, you know same questions over and over again and to some degree I mean that makes sense, because in my head I was going over the same things how did this happen?
Speaker 3Why did this happen? What went wrong? You know, like I'm questioning and going over and over and over. So I think the being direct and timely in the information and then also just having the patience to repeatedly listen, even if it is the same questions, variation over and over, those are the two big things. And then we tried to keep routine as much as possible and going back to preschool, which was very difficult because we were usually dropping off two and then we were dropping off one Everything you did every day was different.
Speaker 3Absolutely, the shoes were still at the front door. Yeah, everything you did every day was different. Absolutely, the shoes were still at the front door. You know, with his little socks tucked in and it's just yeah everything changed in a snap moment.
Speaker 2Do you think that taking the time sitting with Bradley talking, probably repeating the same answers to his repeated questions, do you feel that helped you as well, because, as you were verbalizing the reality of the situation, do you think that helped you?
Speaker 3as well. Yeah, that's a great question, absolutely, because you know repetition is a thing as we try to assimilate. You know cognitively and emotionally what the hell just happened, right. And to some, you know, even now, seven years after Elliot's death, I'll still have every once right. And to something you know, even now, seven years after Elliot's death, I'll still have every once in a while. You know it's different, but I'll have that moment where your stomach lurches and you're like, wow, that really happened. You still have that of raw feeling again.
Speaker 3So I would agree a hundred percent, because in the talking it through, in the processing and reprocessing that's I always like to say it's like boxes on a shelf. I'll sort through the contents of a box which is my grief, you know what I mean and I'll feel like, okay, good, I worked on it, I figured it out, I put it up on the shelf and then what happens at a time I can't predict I'm bringing that box right back down and I'm sorting through it again. And so I think, absolutely like talking to my son and going through it with him over and over is kind of like me processing through the contents of the boxes, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And do you have rituals or things you do, whether at holidays or on Elliot's birthday perhaps?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Things you do as a family so that those memories remain intact for all of you.
Speaker 3Yeah, I love that question and I think that's a big inspiration for the book is kids are natural doers, right, and so the book kind of focuses on how you can live the love for your person, how you can actually do with it outwardly, express it Right, I'm about to actually start crying.
Speaker 3That was extremely hard those first couple of years. Oh sure, sure, like it's just you're saying the words happy birthday and then he's not here. But we do it. We do it for ourselves, but we also do it for our loving children, because we think it's important to, you know, give them an outlet but also honor Elliot's life. So we do that. We also have adopted a park, which is in the book essentially, where we steward it, and so that means we pick up trash and just make sure it's in working order and we have his little name there on a sign and I plant flowers there on you know different milestones throughout the year. So that kind of gives me a physical space to kind of tend to, because he was cremated and so you know he's not buried at a certain location, right, and so we do that.
Speaker 3And then on his death day, that tends to be more of a quieter day for my husband and myself. Yeah, I did mention last year because Bradley, you know, is 11 now I did mention, you know, this is actually the day that Elliot passed away and I felt like around that age he could handle a heaviness like that, and it doesn't need to last all day.
Speaker 3It will in my heart, of course, but for him it could just be, you know, a couple minutes, just an acknowledgement, and then moving on. Yeah, yeah. So, and anytime I do something that's a little scary for me, like talking in front of a group of a couple hundred people or whatever about grief, I will write a note to Elliot and I put it in a box saying I did this for you, sweet, yeah, and because it's a challenge for me. I'm an introvert, so that's just a way for me to push myself and say like this is why I'm doing it Right, meaning making yeah, yeah, yeah, very sweet.
Speaker 2I love how you're combining a legacy stewarding the park with a ritual planting flowers and everything. I the park with a ritual planting flowers and everything. I think that's the first time I've really heard of anybody doing that and I just love that concept because you're giving to others, you're giving to your community, supporting your community, and at the same time, you're doing some self-care too, because you're doing something that is more personal for you and taking care of you.
Speaker 3Great point. I never really thought about it that way. With those you know themes, that's interesting yeah yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2Okay, the book. We have to talk about the book for a little bit. The name of the book is this Sure Thing. It's a book for children. Now, what would you say? What age range?
Talking to Children About Death
Speaker 3I think the actual. You know how they figure out the reading level and do all of that. I think it was between like six to nine years, but you know.
Speaker 2I had fun reading it actually and I just imagine while reading it the words you chose are wonderful. They're expressive, they're sound like words and the sound you used representative of this. I just got really excited when I read it because I thought this would be a great book to read aloud. You could have fun reading and there are ways, with the words and everything, you could ask kids to kind of mimic the sound back to you. You could make it interactive. So I want you to tell us about the book now that I kind of've opened the bag.
Speaker 3Huh, I've opened the bag, but tell us about the book. So goodness, january of 2022, something just kind of came over me. Did I want to write? Have I ever thought about being an author? No, no interest whatsoever.
Speaker 3And then I just started writing and it just felt like this huge impulse, like I had to get it out. And this is someone who's avoided journaling and writing ever since day one, by the way. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so you didn't have a reason. There you go.
Speaker 3So I just started writing this thing, and the funny thing is I didn't tell my husband about it, because it's very personal. And now look at it, right, but it's very personal, and now look at it, right, but it was very personal at the time still is. So I kind of like held it close to myself for three days or so, and then I remember reading it aloud to him, the words in the kitchen, and we both were just crying. So it was a very bittersweet moment, as many moments in grief are right, and so I knew that I wanted to write a book that advocates for grieving children but also honors my living son and his experience, right. So both of those.
Speaker 3And so I thought of eight things that I would have liked to have seen him doing that he does in his life, like playing video games, playing football, like the things he's done, right, and those eight things, imagining what it would look like with his brother were he still alive, right, and I think that intro, which is in the black and white, builds up empathy in a reader. Right, you see a connection that could have been. And then, as you move on through the book, you know and it shouldn't be a surprise if you read the back of the book that the brother actually is not living. He passed away. And then it's the eight things the same eight things as the beginning that then the brother does in his life still, but in honor of his brother, so living that love for his brother, even though he's no longer here, and it's such a beautiful book, the.
Speaker 2the illustrations are great as well. They're awesome, aren't they? Yeah?
Speaker 3Dennis, all of that by hand, and he did a wonderful job. I'm so pleased, yeah.
Speaker 2And they're so fitting in everything. And I also want to say that this isn't just a book, this is also a resource. Tell everybody what's at the back of the book.
Speaker 3Yeah. So I really wanted to do some back matter and I, you know I'm sitting there thinking, okay, this is all well. I like the you know poetic style of the book but couldn't help the little bit of the school counselor in me, the grief counselor in me.
Speaker 3And so in the back of the book there's ideas, there's 30 ways to live that love, which is ideas for ritual and for expression of grief that either a youth or a family or even adults can do, just some different ways to take what's inward and express it outward, which has a lot of healing potential, right? Yeah, there's also some today notes, which are notes that youth can write for their loved one, just kind of saying, hey, here's what I did today when I was thinking about you, whether that be you know in the book holding a door for someone who needs help, right, that act of kindness that you would want to share with your loved one, but you can't, so you share it with someone else, right? And then also there's a letter I wrote to adults and then also to youth, just kind of honoring and acknowledging that significant death is significant honoring and acknowledging that significant death is significant, absolutely so.
Creating Rituals and Memory Keeping
Speaker 2It's more than just a book. The story is outstanding. It truly is. The resources, even the two letters from you one is a letter from you to youth readers and the other is a letter from you to adult readers. I also like and appreciate very much that you didn't just put dear parents, it's dear adult reader. It could be a grandparent, it could be a teacher, it could be a counselor, it could be the next door neighbor, it could be anyone who happens to pick this book up and read it, and then you can go beyond the reading, read the letters.
Speaker 2But the list ways to live, that love, these are precious, they really are. Carry an item of your special person with you and it could be just a little trinket, but what a wonderful way to have a memory and have something in your pocket that doing something like that, would that help an older sibling? I'm approaching the counselor side of you now, but if a child lost a sibling well, younger or older sibling, it wouldn't matter. And there was something special. Maybe it was a special stone that they picked up while they were on the wall or something like that. Keeping that in a pocket and just having that there for them to reach in the pocket and just feel it during the day. Could that help them with their grief?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. We call it actually a linking object, something that you know, physically, you have as a griever, that is, a tie or representation or a shared something to your loved one who has died. Absolutely, because kids, as we know, are so active and physical and right All those things that it's extremely comforting to most. You know, I have kids come in my office here and a lot of times they bring me something of their persons, right, yeah, and they want to share it. So we know there's power behind Right, the things that are still here even though the person isn't. That's very powerful.
Speaker 2OK, all right, and then I just want to go future grief, in fact, with a question. Sure Now, and you could probably do, imagining Bradley. Now, imagine Bradley is an adult, now he has a family of his own, he has children. That's hard to imagine, but it's very sweet to imagine, trust me, my older grandson is 21. So, trust me me talk about dating yourself. Oh wow. But can you see, can you picture bradley sharing with his children who their uncle, elliot, was oh no, I haven't ever thought of that, and that's really.
Speaker 3I just got goosebumps.
Speaker 2That's really you know, that's powerful that might look, just putting that out there. For can I get a co-author on that? I don't. You can, but you don't need one. You just take the idea and run with it.
Speaker 3That's such a comforting image to me, yeah.
Speaker 2And maybe as Bradley ages a bit and becomes an adult and because I know you're still going to continue with these memories and everything like that it you know that something like that could actually become a reality and that allows Elliot to live forever and that allows Elliot to expand his family as well. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1So just that was just kind of a thought.
Speaker 2I love that. It's awesome, and I think it's because you know I was thinking of my own. I have two grandsons. I live with my older daughter and her husband and the two boys, and I've been with these boys since they were toddlers Well, since their birth actually, I was their after-school care person. Oh how amazing. Well, stephanie worked. So I've seen them at all ages and it's truly amazing as a grandma, let me just say, to see them now as young men. See the young men they've become. Yeah, parenting they've had, and I know bradley will, will, uh, achieve something similar as well. I have one in a rock band playing guitars that's awesome. Just bought his first muscle car all the way. Let's do it beautiful, beautiful. And then the younger one is into golf and sports, played soccer for years and everything like that. Oh, you're a proud grandma I am, and I started as a proud mom. You know exactly who you are into it to not only make sure that Bradley remains stable while grieving, but also preserving Elliot's memory. And Elliot remains a part of your family and I just adore that and respect it so much, thank you.
The Sure Thing: A Book of Healing
Speaker 2Sadly, time in the bathroom Probably by. I know my listeners have said to me you know you grieve every episode because you really don't want them to end, and that's kind of true. I like that Tears in my eyes, but this is the time where I actually will turn the microphone over to my guest. So this is your turn, sarah, to speak directly to our listeners. There are international listeners around the world. We have listeners in over a hundred countries, so there are many out there maybe have tears in their eyes, maybe have experienced something that you have experienced, maybe parallel situations, and they are at least feeling right now like I'm not alone. You know, somebody else has gone through this. So the floor is yours.
Speaker 3Well, thank you.
Speaker 3I think the thing that has stuck with me, right because I'm seven years out from Elliot's death, has been you know, a death of a child is considered traumatic loss. It's a traumatic bereavement and I think sometimes the trauma can be so loud and noisy and big right, it can be all-encompassing. And I think what I keep coming back to and it's very affirming to me seven years out, as I've worked on the trauma and the trauma has decreased, right, the grief has not decreased. That's not the goal. We want to leave grief and honor it, right.
Speaker 3I think the thing that's sticking out to me and I'm getting chills again is that the love, right, when the trauma starts to come down, you're able to just sit there with the quiet or, you know, peaceful, more calm feeling of the love that you have for your special person and that's going nowhere. That's going nowhere and I think that's become more confident in me and I feel more affirmed in that, because that's a huge worry, right, for people is, as time goes on, you know losing your person and it's just affirming to know it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3If people are interested in checking out more info about me or learning more about kind of my mission with youth, I have a website that is livethatlovecom. So live that love, which is kind of my mission, of living your love for your person who's no longer here. And then, of course, the book is the Sure Thing and it's available on all the things right, all the places, and it's just been an honor to see it come to fruition.
Speaker 2So definitely a family passion project for sure, yeah, and you also donate a portion of the proceeds from your book.
Speaker 3Where does that go? So I work at Full Circle Grief Center here in Richmond Virginia, I'm a grief counselor here, and then I also am a member of the National Alliance for Children's Grief, and so 25% of author proceeds go to those two. Part of the mission right. Living that love means also giving back.
Speaker 2Absolutely Legacy again, and I saw something on your website that I want to mention or ask you about, Something called a grief nook yeah, the grief nooks.
Speaker 3So I teamed up with a couple of colleagues on LinkedIn who also have a strong passion for grief related content, and so we each and this is open to anyone who's interested in leading one, by the way, it's kind of a community thing. We lead a 15 minute silent gathering where we hold space for gravers, and essentially there's a short reading that I would read, and then the community would type into the chat their grieving, who they're grieving, and it's just a time for us to kind of bear witness to what other people are carrying in their lives, and then also a time for us to support each other. And so it's a great soundbite, because sometimes we go through our day and we just need something right. We need someone to see our loved one's name or hear it right, and we need to just feel validated, and so that's kind of where the idea came from to build respect, yeah, and this is virtual and it's open to anyone and they can get information by going to your website.
Speaker 2That's right, the link is there, all right. And I want to remind listeners that these links, this contact information, will be in the podcast notes. So don't worry, if you didn't have a pencil, didn't write it down, just go to the podcast notes and you'll find the ways to reach out and get in touch with Sarah. Now I have to say goodbye, gosh. This really is Especially today. Sarah, you are grieving. I have so much enjoyed this conversation. I just really don't want it to end, so I may have to head back again. There's a solution for that. Yeah, there's my solution to that.
Speaker 2I do want to remind listeners, you know, grief is ugly, it's painful.
Speaker 2It's painful, it's devastating, and it took me a little bit until my recent loss was the loss of my husband, tom, and that was seven years ago. So, finally, one day, I love quotes and I will read, you know, any Facebook post that's a quote. I'll read it because and I read one one day, and I can never remember the author of this quote, but I have it written down and the last line is in. It was my light bulb moment for why grief was so hard and so painful for me, and it was that grief is simply love, with no place to go. And that did it for me. That was my link, the understanding in it, and it was at that point, after losing Tom, that I began to take better care of myself. I began to turn things around and I decided I didn't want to live that way, the way I was living in that moment. I didn't want to live that way for the rest of my life, and I started to move forward in my grief.
Speaker 2So I just offer that to the listeners, and part of that path has to be self-care. You have to take care of yourself. So with those words and that is mine I've got the whole quote. I think Jamie Anderson all of a sudden sticks in my mind Wow, good pull. I know, I know Dimension has not set in yet, so for now I'll say goodbye and certainly welcome you all back again with open arms. Take care of yourselves as we all continue to live and breathe. Thanks so much, sarah.
Resources and Final Thoughts
Speaker 1Thank you for having me. 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 asiliveandgrievecom 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 and grieve together.