When Hearts Shatter, with Carol Brown, Jackie’s Mom

In this transparent and hope-filled conversation, Carol Brown shares her journey of grief after the tragic loss of her precious 29 year old daughter Jackie, who was a dedicated teacher and a bright light in the lives of many. Carol reflects on the impact of grief on her life, the importance of community support, and the lessons she learned about faith and God through her experience. She emphasizes the need for open conversations about grief and the significance of keeping loved ones' legacies alive. Carol also discusses her involvement in grief support ministries, highlighting the importance of connection and understanding among bereaved parents. Today Carol is involved in the Our Hearts are Home Ministry letting GOD use her suffering and pain to help encourage and offer hope to other grieving parents.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Hi, and welcome back for another episode. I'm Greg Bufkin, your host, and I'm glad you're joining us today. Carol Brown from Arlington, Texas, is my guest today, and we'll be sharing her story that began in September of 1996 when her sweet daughter Jackie died in a tragic car accident at the age of only 22. During our conversation, Carol talks about the personal impact of grief and how it changes so many aspects of who we are, how it affects our relationships with others, and how God shows up in our darkest moments and our deepest pain to give us hope as he begins healing our broken lives. And now here's my conversation with Carol. Well, Carol, welcome to our podcast today. It is so good to have you with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Oh, thank you. It's an honor to be here, Greg. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Well, I have been looking forward to our conversation. And, you know, before we get started, I usually give my guests a couple of minutes just to share anything that they would like on a personal note. So whatever you would like to share with our listeners, you have the platform for a couple of minutes.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Okay. Well, I'm Texan by birth. Lived here all of my most of my life. My husband and I have been married 54 years, and most of those years have been here in Arlington. We have a son, Matthew, who lives in the south part of our same town, and he's married to Courtney, and they had two beautiful girls. Our granddaughters are the lights of our lives. Of course. And I've been a bereaved parent for 29 plus years now.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

That's a long journey.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, it is. It's a life-changing one for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, we're going to talk about that. Congratulations on 54 years of marriage.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah. I started seeing my crown for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

I'll tell you. I'll tell you that that is amazing in the culture we live in today that you guys have have been there for each other for 54 years. That's wonderful. Well, listen, why don't we just kind of dive into your story, Carol, and have you tell us a little bit about your sweet daughter, Jackie, that you referred to a moment ago. And just tell us a little bit about the things that that you loved about her. I know you're a little bit prejudiced since she's your daughter. And you're supposed to be, of course. But just tell our listeners a little bit about what you want them to know about Jackie and you know the impact that that she made on your life.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Well, I I love talking about her, of course. Uh saying her name, and I I love hearing her name, uh, even after all of these years. Jackie was a bright, beautiful, 22-year-old girl. She was a teacher. She loved teaching, she loved children, she loved anything to do with children. She took every opportunity to work with them, whether it was at church, camp counselor, vacation bible school, all of all of the things. She was also involved in a mentoring program in her high school.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

But did she teach high school?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

She did not teach high school. She was teaching elementary school, her degree. She went to Oklahoma Baptist University and graduated with a degree in elementary education. And that was had been a goal of hers since she was five years old. She came to us at five and said she was going to be a teacher. And of course, we thought she would change her mind a dozen times, but she never she never did. You know, I I've always said you learn more from your children than they learn from you. And we learned her personality was she was going to do something, and you could either help her do it or you could get out of the way so she so she could do it. And and we found that to be true in in many aspects of her life. She was very goal-oriented, she was very determined. She loved Jesus. She was a fiercely loyal person, and she was loyal to her faith and to her savior. And and everybody knew it. You know, she didn't have to carry her Bible to school or preach on the street corner, but people people knew about her faith and that she was not going to do anything to discredit the name of Jesus. So I loved that about her. I loved her determination to reach her goals. I I loved her sense of humor. She had a real quirky sense of humor. And, you know, I I miss uh quoting lines from Steel Magnolia's with her that we did often. Still one of my favorite movies. It was kind of hard to watch. I didn't know I'd be living that movie someday, but yeah. Um just a lot of a lot of things I I admired about her. I I guess I chased a lot of rabbits when I was her age. Didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be when I grew up, and she just always knew. She just and I thought, well, you know, the Lord knew she didn't have a lot of time to waste going down those same rabbit trails that I sounded.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah. That's interesting. Uh so admire people that that know that from an early age. Yeah. My wife was the same way. She taught elementary school as well, and never wanted to be anything else but a teacher. And I was more like you. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with that college degree. I eventually found it, but it uh it took me a while longer. But I love that quality in people. And it she sounds like somebody that everybody would love to have as a friend.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

She was a very good, good friend. She had so many good and close relationships. She was very much herself. You know, she never tried to be anything that she wasn't. And I think people were I think they were drawn to that, you know, to to her honesty and her ability to just just be herself and not try to be somebody that she wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, I peep I think people love that that genuineness uh in people that they meet like you know, like Jackie, and and are drawn to people like that. Because there's they it's it's a little bit more unique in our culture today than it maybe it was at one time. So I mean I'm drawn to people like that. So I would suspect I know the answer to this, but you know, as you have, I'm sure, talked with her friends and and and people who who knew her, who met her along the way, maybe even students, you know, years later. What kind of impact did have you heard from others that she made in their lives?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

I think just as we were talking about, the loyal friend that she was, uh somebody that would stick by her and or or by her friends in any any stage of of what was going on, any circumstance, they could always trust her to be there for them.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

She was very compassionate, and I think people picked up on that. And again, just her determination to do her life's work, I think was an inspiration to to other people. And her faith, you know, the way she stuck by her faith. She was able to not conform to the world and yet be friends to people in the world. You know, she just had that, she had that balance of faith and being honest with other people about it and yet not looking down on them because maybe they didn't have the same faith. You know, she didn't judge them, but she also was not going to compromise her own faith. Yeah. So uh that I think that that did make an impact. I still hear from people who talk about that and talk about how she was so loyal to the people that she loved, including including Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah. Those are treasures when you hear those things from other people.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah, they really are. You know, you just love to hear your child make and remembered. And I will post on Facebook twice a year about her with the her heaven day and her birthday. And I hear for so many, because I, you know, I am the keeper of her legacy now. Yeah, she was supposed to have that role in my life, but it didn't work out that way. And so I make sure that she's remembered a lot of different times, but those two days especially, and it's so gratifying to hear from people who still remember and are still impacted by by her life, her dad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

I know that you are a proud mom, but I also know that uh that Jackie is a very proud daughter.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I'd like to think so.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, I'm sure she is.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

And I tried very hard for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate what you're doing to keep her legacy alive, and you're doing a marvelous job. So keep up the good work. Because every time you do that, it it honors her and it helps somebody else who is in a a different season of grief.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah. Yeah. I would like I would like to think that that that her death has some meaning for my life and and for the things that I do now to try to reach out and help other people.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

I know that it does. I know that it does. The I think the Lord honors those that desire in us to to do that. And so I know that her life, her life is touching a whole lot of people today as we talk.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yes. That's that's so gratifying to know, and I'm so grateful for you for providing that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Well, I am, I mean, it truly is a privilege to be able to do this because it's the reason that that I do this as well, to honor our son Ryan, and to help other people who who are on their own grief journey and at a different place. So, yeah, so that's that's our prayers that you know that we that God can use our grief and our suffering to help other people to to realize that there is hope on their grief journey and that joy and grief can can coexist side by side.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Well, for our listeners' benefit, you know, we've talked a lot about Jackie, but our listeners may not know what happened with Jackie. And and I don't want to dwell on the on the death part. I want us to dwell on on her life, and that's what we've been doing. But just just for perspective for our listeners, could you just take us back in time to to what happened that day back in back in 1996?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yes, 96. Yeah, she had finished her degree, and she didn't get a teaching job until that next year because she graduated in December. Again, she was so anxious to to get on with her life that she graduated in three and a half years, but it was difficult to find a teaching job in December. So it was that next school term, and she was able to acquire a position at an elementary school in Fort Worth. And at that time, the school was on a year-round schedule. So they would uh go to school nine weeks and be off for three weeks throughout the year. And she went in to got that job three weeks after school started. So she had taught about six weeks before her first long vacation. And in the meantime, she had been introduced to a young man, godly young man, loved the Lord. They had, they just sort of had an instant attraction, which didn't happen to Jackie very often. You know, she had this checklist of any guys in her life, and you know, but this guy ticked all the boxes and as she did for him. And so she had planned, it was a long-distance relationship. He lived in another state. So she planned to spend three weeks uh in his hometown with his parents. She'd not met his parents. We had met him, he had been here to Texas a couple of times, but but she had not had the opportunity to meet them. So she's a little nervous about that. But um, so she got there on a Saturday. I put her on a plane, and in those days, uh pre-9-11, you could walk the traveler up to the gate. So I'd walked her right up to the gate and watched her go down the little tunnel, never knowing that that would be the last time I'd actually see her. Oh she they were just very, very busy that whole weekend. He was so excited to have her there, and he wanted to meet all of his friends, all of his family. They had mutual friends that lived there, and that's actually how they met, through these mutual friends. And so they, you know, when you're 22 years old, you don't think you need sleep, and they got no sleep. You know, Sunday was busy with church activities, and they had visitors over that evening and stayed up late. And Monday morning they got up early, they were staying at his uh parents' house. He he had not actually finished his degree, and so he was traveling back and forth from Mississippi to Alabama to finish up his degree, had like one class. So he thought a few days, come home, be with his youth group in his church on Sunday. So that Monday morning, they got up and and had breakfast at the church for the kids who who wanted to come before school. And she came back home and his mother said, Well, you know, you you look really tired, Jakey. Why don't you just go take a nap? Which she did. Well, he never did. He stayed for staff meeting and came home that afternoon, and then they were to head out to Alabama, to Stanford University, where he was uh finishing up his degree. And somewhere along the way from what was told to me, she took her seatbelt off because, you know, she wanted to be close to him. And he at some point after that dozed off and he caught himself driving off the side of the road and he overcorrected the little car they were in, and and then the car flipped, and she was unrestrained. And so she succumbed to her injuries. I always described that as a whiplash because we were going in one direction, and we were on this path that was bright and sunny, and everything was was happening for her just as we'd always prayed. And we prayed that she'd find a godly young man and that she would be able to have a great teaching career, and all that seemed to be happening. And then it was a heartbeat. Heartbeat, it was over. And so we found ourselves on this dark path with no light and no guidepost, and uh it was it was disorienting.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

That's a good word for it. Especially when it happens in a moment and and everything changes, your whole life changes just in a split second. And and just did out of curiosity, did her did her boyfriend survive?

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yes, he did. He did, okay, and he's gone on to have a life. He's a pastor of a church there in Mississippi, family, and you know, and I'm I'm glad for him. It was hard at first, you know, it that but you know, God just worked on my heart in in that respect.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, that that's a process, and it it it can take it can take a while. And you know, we j as we touched just a second ago on the just that the shock that comes from from that phone call or from just learning that however you you learned that you you know that your child is no longer here, grief affects us in so many different ways. And it, you know, it's blind you know blindsides us, and I think you kind of ref referenced this a second ago. You know, we don't come equipped or prepared to know how to deal with this. You know, there's no guidebook, there's no instruction book that we get as parents that prepare us for anything like this. We think that we're the ones that our children are going to eventually lose. That they're gonna bury us. And and so nobody you know, we we don't even know what grief is until we lose a child. We think we do, because most of us have experienced it in some shape or form, grandparents, a parent, a friend, you know, however it might be, but not a child. And so you know, for you, Carol, what what was the what were the ways that that the grief affected you the most? You know, was it was it physical primarily for you? Was it the the mental impact? Was it the the the emotional, the mental, it probably my guess is it's probably all of the above.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

I was gonna say yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

All of it. Yeah, yeah. I uh lost weight. I had this feeling that I was losing my mind, which I found out later was common. People feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Grief brain.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah, grief brain, grief fog, uh all of it. I I finally I I got some help, some some meds because I couldn't, I just could not handle life. And I don't, you know, recommend it or not recommend it, but I know that they helped me just to be able to cope with going to work and doing my job and and all of that. Otherwise, I don't think I could have done any of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

I can appreciate that. And that that's what those medications are for. I feel sure you're referring to either an antidepressant or an anti-anxiety medication. And and those are there not to fix things, they're there to kind of give you a leg up because that kind of trauma has a very significant impact on our brains and very significant impact on our hearts. And so sometimes the the wisest thing to do is recognize that you can't do it by yourself. Sometimes we need to go and see a counselor or a pastor, and sometimes we need to get a medication like you did. Sometimes we need both. And there is there is nothing wrong whatsoever in doing that. And if you're listening today and you're wondering, is it okay for me to get to talk with my doctor about getting some kind of medication to help me over this initial really dark period? The answer is yes, it is perfectly okay. Don't tell don't let anybody tell you, and don't let the enemy tell you that you know, that it's not going to do any good or it's a sign of weakness, you know, that your faith isn't strong enough because it's none of the above. So I appreciate you sharing that because I think sometimes people, particularly in that early season, just don't know what to do. And sometimes I think they just need to know it's okay to, you know, to step out and and let somebody else help you.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely and and I I will tell you that the the Lord's provision for me in that, in that in the early days, like I mean the first weeks, the doctor prescribed sleeping pills for me because I was not sleeping and kept telling me, now, these are not a long-term solution. I want you to go to this doctor for a more long-term solution. And I sort of resisted that because that for all the reasons as you said, you know, you know, I've never thought about taking anything like an antidepressant before, never needed one. And but about that third refill I called for, he he stopped it. He said, No. And I could tell, even for the short time that I took those sleeping pills, that it was taking more to produce the same effect.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

My doctor was wise enough to know that. And so, no, you need a more long-term solution. So that's the that's the story of why I went on them. And of course, I haven't taken them in years, but they did the trick when I needed them to. And again, it just it didn't take the pain away. It just helped me to focus on what I needed to focus on because my life didn't stop because my child died. You know, there were still responsibilities and things I had to do.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, I mean, it feels like your whole world stops initially. But as you said, we still have responsibilities. And sometimes those responsibilities seem so unbelievably overwhelming that to even think about trying to attend to some of those responsibilities just feels like I just absolutely can't do it. I don't want to do it, I can't do it, I don't feel like doing it. All of The above. And those medications can sometimes, as we mentioned earlier, they can just give you a leg up, a starting place to pull yourself up out of that hole that you feel like you're in that is it is so deep and it's so dark and you fear you're never going to get out of it. And so I'm I'm really glad that your doctor was wise enough and cared enough about you to realize that you know he just couldn't continue to prescribe the sleeping medications as much as you needed that initially, because it grief really does have a detrimental impact on our sleep. Sometimes too much, sometimes too little. So you know, for you, Carol, what were some things that you found as you look back now? You may not have thought about it that way initially, but as you look back particularly in that in that first year or two, what were some things that you th that you can see now that really were beneficial to you on that that grief and healing journey that that maybe other people are are looking for?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Right, right. I think that the care of other people for me, they they hadn't lost children, but they seem to just instinctively know I I think God used their hearts to reach out to me and to and to my husband. And just just little things like my my brother-in-law, we didn't have a pet at the time, we didn't have a dog, and my brother-in-law insisted on buying this little dog for us, and he says, Look, I'm not trying to replace your child with a dog, but there's something about that uncondit uh unconditional love of a parent. So I think it really could really help you. So we we kind of reluctantly agreed. And my husband named her Angel, and she was. She just seemed to instinctively know that we were grieving, and she just wanted to be with us and around us and surround us. And I thought God must have put that on his heart. You know, he just wanted to do something. And then another time this friend of mine called me. And in the earlier days of our friendship, we had done a lot of walking and we kind of stopped doing that for several different reasons. And she called me and she said, Well, let's go walking again. And I said, Well, you know, Val, I can I can barely get across the parking lot to my car after work. I don't know if I'm gonna walk that three-mile uh break that we used to do. And she said, Well, we can try it. And if it doesn't work, we'll do something else. She was very gently insistent, and so I I did. Uh, we set a time and we started walking. And then after the first week, I remember driving home and thinking, this is the best I felt all day. Because we not only walked, she would let sometimes we would stop in the middle of the street and I would just sob in my heart out. And then we would continue our walk, and it might happen two or three times on the circuit, and then uh we would come back to her house and she would pray over me. And that was just a time where I could just let all of the tension that I'd have to keep inside at work all day. I could let all of that out. She was a safe haven for me. Yeah. And I knew that, and it struck me that God provides you know, Jackie's death was not a surprise to him. And he provided people years before I knew I would need them. He he put them in my life, he put them in place. That really helped with my trust factor. Because, you know, trust sometimes can be very damaged when something unexpected like that happens. You didn't expect that God would allow your child to die at the peak, what seemed to us like the peak of her life. And and so all of these things that were provided, I think really helped build my trust in God again. When that that part that had been somewhat damaged at at Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, that's uh I understand that from personal experience. And so what what you have to sort of uh encapsulate what you were saying is that we need community. We were never meant to do life alone. God meant for us and means for us to do life in community. And I like you, Carol, I love how God puts people in our lives before we need them. He doesn't always do it after the fact. Sometimes, yes, he does. He does both. And we had those people in our lives before we lost Ryan. And then a couple of months later, God brought another couple into our lives, had never lost a child. And and they were, they along with some others, were just a lifeline for us. And like you, I would totally agree with what you said about a dog. We had a two-year-old Labrador Retriever, female Labrador Retriever, and you're you're absolutely right. They I think God uh instilled within them a different sense that you know they pick up with people. I mean, they are so intuitive with our emotions.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

And and our dog Bella was oh my goodness, she was she was such a comfort for Kathy. So all of those things, you know, we're not telling anybody they need to go out and get a dog, but I would say if you don't have people in your life, let some trusted people in. Let them in to the level where you, you know, you can talk with them and they'll listen, even if they've never lost a child. Uh and those people are rare. They're, you know, they're not the common, they're not the common friend. They're the rare ones who will just listen sometimes and not try to fix us, you know. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

That's that's that was foul. And I've I've had a couple of other people like that. But you're right. It it's you know, you you have your share of people that if they see you in the grocery store, they kind of dart down another aisle aisle because they really want to face you. And you know, we all have that experience. But it's I can't tell you how many times I've heard this. Anyway, God did provide those people.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Those I call them my design people. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, sometimes you have to borrow from the faith of other people when ours takes a hit, you know, and that and that's that's kind of what you were referring to, because sometimes we, you know, no matter how strong our faith is, no matter how much how long we've been in a relationship with Jesus, that kind of trauma just kind of peels and strips away everything that you know. And sometimes we find ourselves just questioning God and being angry with him, and and he understands that. And he can he can handle that. And he has a lot of different ways that he shows us that that love and and that compassion. And a lot of it's very often through other people, and even sometimes through dogs.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yes, I I I agree with with that. And if I could just share one thing that the Lord taught me, and this hasn't been all that long ago, because you know, uh, and I'm sure you had questions. I have questions. Every bereaved parent has questions about of course, you know, why this happened. And and I remember just crying out to him, why didn't you save her? You know, you saved Timmy, why didn't you save Jackie? I just don't understand. I I don't understand the the sense that it makes to take a young person and allow who had so much promise and allow her to die. I just don't, I don't get it. And and there were many, many times, many nights I cried out to him. And I think God answers you when you're ready to hear. And I remember him very clearly speaking to my spirit and said, I did save her. You know, I did. Don't you remember? He said, I secured your daughter's salvation with the blood of my own son. So what more could I have done for you? And so that has just changed my whole perspective on questioning God. You know, I I say, okay, you know, you've thank you for answering my question. And I won't ask that question again. And and I don't think it's bad to have questions. I think we all do, but just allowing the answers that God gives. He might not give you the answers that you're seeking, but he will speak to you in in different ways. And he will like Job, he never gave Job the answers, uh, you know, the reasons why he had to go uh through what he went through. Right. But but he found more of God. He got more of God through all of that. God gave him more of himself, more of a vision of who he actually was. And I think that's what he's done done for me over the years.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah, I think he I think he liked our questions because it means that we're that we're wrestling with we're wrestling in our relationship with him, which means that it's a real relationship. And uh like with uh like with an earthly parent, you know, we we often have conflicts with them. It doesn't change the love that we have for each other. But sometimes we have questions about why each makes a particular decision or a particular choice, and it's okay to talk about those things because sometimes in that quest for an answer, we do end up learning more about God, and we end up learning more about what he wants to teach us through that. And, you know, God never intended for there to be death in the world. That came as a result of the fall of man with Adam and Eve and sin. But God does redeem things that no matter how bad they are, he can redeem it for good, which is what he's doing today, is you're you're sharing your story, and I know that you work with with other grieving parents as well, which we'll talk about in a moment. I do want to go back to something you I heard you refer to this when you were we were talking a few minutes ago, that you had to to go to work every day, and when you came home, you were absolutely exhausted. I think that's one of the hardest things that that parents, grieving parents face and thinking about facing before it actually happens, and that's going back to work. Not all companies are generous with the bereavement time that they offer. And sometimes we are in a critical job where we have to go back. But that's not easy. It's it's a very difficult thing to face to walk back into that workplace knowing that everybody knows.

unknown 34:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

What was that like, Carol? How how did you handle going back to work? Uh I'm not sure what you were doing for a living. And how long did you wait before you went back to work?

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I had two weeks. I worked in a small, I worked in dental offices for years and years, and I was co-managing this particular practice with another lady. And so, yeah, they all knew. And and they didn't know how to handle me. They they did the best that they could. There were times when I had to go in the break room and just I would wrap my arms around myself because I had this this feeling that I was coming apart. I was going to to, you know, go burst into uh flames or something. I I can't explain it, but I would just hold myself to to keep myself from just going crazy. And then I go back and I do my work and I would interact with patients. Some patients knew, some didn't, you know, some I shared with some I didn't. But it was just, I I think the Lord just safeguarded me somehow for yeah, because he kept the tears at bay. He kept I I I guess on the outside I looked okay, but the inside I was apart. And I realized after about nine months, I think, into that, I said, I can't do this anymore. I I can't pretend. I really don't care about my job anymore. I don't, I I'm not putting the effort into this job that I need to to do it well. And so I had a talk with my boss, and I said, you know, and he was very understanding and and just so sweet about it. And so I stayed the home the whole summer just to get my head together, basically. And uh and then another opportunity came along after that period of time to work at a large church here in the Metroplex, just uh part-time, just doing some computer work. Uh I know you think that's funny that I should do computer work, but it was database stuff. It wasn't real technical stuff. But I I did uh their database kind of stuff for them. Put information in, get information out, basically, is what I did. And it was very kind of mind-numbing work, but it was something that distracted me without putting a lot of pressure on me. And that was exactly what I needed for that time. And I ended up staying there about 14 years, actually.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Who did you? Wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Doing that job. Um and, you know, helping a little bit in ministry. You feel like you're just contributing a little bit. But yeah, so it but I I was not in shape to make those decisions in the beginning. I just had to do what I had been doing until I could kind of get to the place where I could really confront what was going on inside me.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Yeah, you know, people don't we know that people don't understand us. They don't understand what we're going through and what we're dealing with. And the truth of the matter is we don't either. You know, it's like you said, you sometimes you feel like you're going crazy because you feel like you're, you know, you are a different person in some well, in a lot of respects, you are a different person. You can't come through that and and remain the same person that you were before. But I there are I'm I appreciate what you shared because I think this happens to people a lot. I I know that it happened to our daughter losing her little brother, and the people that she worked with and the owner of the company just, you know, they even made the comment to her that, you know, I I don't know what to do with you.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

And they didn't understand the impact that that it that it was having on her, and it made it very difficult for her to be able to, as you said, you look okay on the outside, but on the inside, you feel like you're you're absolutely shattered into a million pieces and you can barely hold it together. So I think what you what you shared is so important for somebody that's listening today that maybe is getting ready to go back to work and you dread that. I think Carol and I both would would encourage you in retrospect to talk with your manager or talk with your supervisor about what you're experiencing. Let them know that, you know, you may not be a hundred percent for a while and you you can't be. And you can't just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make and be who you were before. But I think if they know that when you come back to work, it will help, it will help them to be able to give you some grace and to be compassionate and kind, because if they think that you're okay, then they have no reason to act otherwise. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Being honest, you know, open and honest as you as you can be, you know, there's always that fear of how somebody is going to take that though, your your supervisor. Are they going to be willing to give you the grace to to do what you need to do through this? And hopefully, you know, I'm I I was in a good position in in that respect, that they all understood and didn't expect me to be the person that I was before, although that I could feel I could feel that they wanted me to be. Right, right, right. That I that I couldn't. But I know that not everybody else has that situation, and you're expected to go in and and do the work and and do all of your grief outside of work, and they don't understand that this is a part of you, you can't you can't compartmentalize it.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

No, you can't. No, you you really cannot. Uh yeah, I think that's really important. And it it's unfortunate that statistics show that uh very often people don't remain in the job that they were in before losing their child. It's not to say that it's going to happen to you if you're listening today and you're worried about that. It's not a given, but it's not uncommon either. Um so just, you know, pray about it and talk with other people and and be willing to take a risk in in talking with somebody who's in a supervisory role, and as well as your your colleagues that you're working with, uh just to let them know that you know you're you're not gonna be yourself for a while. There's you know, there is no uh there's no timeline on that that uh that's a standard policy. I wanted to ask you this. I I I heard you talk about this all through our conversation, Carol, and that is about your relationship with the Lord. Is there anything in particular that you have learned about him on your grief journey that that you did you either didn't know before losing, before losing Jackie, or that you thought that you knew and discovered afterwards that you know you had it all wrong?

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Well, yes, the latter. You know, we always went to church. You know, my husband grew up in church, I grew up in church. We belonged to a small church for most of our kids' growing up years. So we were there all the time. We I, you know, I was teaching Sunday school, I was singing in the choir, I was doing anything that was that I could do. And my husband was too. He's more in kind of the technical area, but but I think I think I thought, of course, I would never, you know, I don't subscribe to the prosperity gospel at all, but I think maybe I did a little bit because I thought, I'm doing all this. If God's gonna protect anybody, if he's gonna protect my family, he's gonna protect mine. I mean, he wouldn't allow anything to happen. I'm just too valuable, you know. I mean, and I wouldn't have said that, I mean, out loud, but I think in my heart, that pride in my heart was there. And so, I mean, I think I thought I was building this hedge of protection around myself and my family. And so when Jackie died so suddenly and so unexpectedly, it shattered my my idea of who God was and what it meant to serve God, that I was not able to obligate the God of the universe to march to my tomb by my actions. And and so I had to, you know, I was taking down a few pegs, I guess you would say. But then I had to rebuild from there. I couldn't just turn away from that and realize that that was false and not put something else in its place. And I think what I found in its place was that God who doesn't let go, he never lets go. I gave myself every opportunity to walk away from faith, from scripture, from church, from it all. I couldn't do it. I could not do it. He held me fast and has ever since. And I think my security in him, in in the real God, not the God I had in my head, has grown. And I think, you know, there's there's no telling what is in my future. But I would hope that what I've learned about my security in him, and and that no one can take that away, I would hope that that would help me on if I have another grief journey, you know. And there's I mean, I certainly could. There's no guarantee we we all know people who have gone through child loss more than once or lost grandchildren or you know, something horrific like that. And I would like to think that I could read on the fact that God is not gonna let me go.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yeah, and he's not. You're absolutely right about that. I I think that like you, very often we Have a tendency to put God in our preconceived boxes of who we think He is. And sometimes I know I can identify with what with what you said, Carol, on a personal level. I think before we lost Ryan, I lived a little bit of a formulaic approach to my relationship with the Lord. If, you know, if I'm doing all of these things and not doing these things, then it's going to equate to this, that you know, that that God will take care of these things and those kind of things touch other people, but don't, you know, losing a child is not what's going to happen to us. But uh that's sort of an illusion of it's almost deifying ourselves in some respects, where we think if you know, if we do certain things that this is going to be the outcome, and that's just that's not how life works. But the one thing that is constant is what you just said, that God is sovereign and he does not abandon us and he does not forget about us. Um, he's he's never surprised. So I I appreciate you sharing that. I do want to let you take a couple minutes to tell us about what you're doing now. This it's been 29 years, and sometimes we worry that we're never gonna find meaning and purpose in life again after we lose a child. It's like it just feels so meaningless, you know, for for some time afterwards. You have found purpose in that I know that you are a part of a ministry called Our Hearts Are Home. Are you participating in and what they do? It's a a ministry, it's a really it's an incredible ministry founded by Dr. Gary and Laura House. And so I know that you shared with me that you're involved in that. So just tell us what you're doing and what that's meant to you.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Well, I it, you know, I I tell people all the time that in in 1996 we barely had internet, you know, we had the old dial-up stuff, and and and there was no social media had not been invented yet. There were no groups like Our Hearts Are Home or While We're Waiting or Heartache and Hope, Melanie's group. Nothing. I mean, I had books, as and and my friends became my books. And so when I became aware of first while we're waiting and then our hearts are home, I was so anxious to become involved, even though it was years after Jackie died. I thought, I need a community like this. This for the first time I felt like I had a community of parents who had lost children. I had been a part of Grease Share and leading Grease Share groups for years, but this was different, you know, because this was for parents who had lost children specifically.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

And uh I did a book study with Gary and Laurie. Didn't really know them, but it was a Nancy Guthrie book, I think. So I got to know them through that and becoming, you know, more involved in in their ministry, finding out more about it. And I guess you would say I'm part of the ministry team. I lead a mom's group every quarter, so four times a year, and we just meet online and just talk about our children. We get to tell pictures of our children and talk about some of the issues and and things that we're going through and just to know that we're not alone, not by ourselves in this. That's an important part. Yes, yes. And and I felt, I remember the loneliness. That was one of the hardest parts of losing Jackie, was just the loneliness of it, even though I had people all around me. So to find these communities was just eye-opening to me. And I thought, this is a place I can serve. This is these are things I can do to reach out to others. And so I uh there are conferences to two times a year in the fall and in the spring. And I've been to several of those and presented workshops on different subjects, different aspects of grief. And then I got to write Jackie's story, my story and her story, in a book called Until Then, which is just a compilation of different uh parents who've lost children, they're telling their stories in hopes of encouraging other people. So Gary and Laura published that. They've published another one strictly for parents of suicide victims. And then there's another one coming out that has to do with miscarriage and stillbirth, which my niece got to write a chapter for that book. So I'm really excited for that one to come out to to read her story. I mean, I know her story. I I've never seen her written down. So it's just there's just so many things. And there's there's book studies available. There's a grief share that's intended just for bereaved parents online. There's just so many opportunities online to meet and to gather and to encourage one another. This technology, this Zoom and and all of these things where you can just meet from people, you know, I've met people from other countries even that sometimes will zoom in.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

So uh Canada, particularly in Australia. And and so it's just such a great opportunity to to have that community and and to uh I receive as much encouragement as I as I try to give out. So of course it's just been a great thing from it's been a great thing for me coming from no support to realizing that this other support exists. It's and it's growing, you know, it's growing by leaps and bounds, which is a sad thing, but a good thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Right. Yeah. It's uh yeah, absolutely. I couldn't say that better. Yeah, and I think it's important too for people to understand that, you know, maybe you don't feel like you're a group person, you know, maybe you just feel like it's a little bit awkward to to hang around people who have all lost children. You're thinking maybe, oh my gosh, that's got to be very depressing. However, I think what you'll discover, as Carol could attest to, is that when you're in a group of people like that who have all experienced the same trauma that you have, it's amazing the almost instantaneous connections that happen there because you don't have to explain to anybody what you're feeling or what you've experienced because they've already been there too. And so it's just a community where you can feel the love and support and the understanding that we all need. So check check that out online. Again, it's called Our Hearts Are Home. There are several really incredible ministries out there like that one. And I'm so glad that you got involved in that because now as you help other people, you get helped at the same time. And I think that's the the beauty of of why God created us for community.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Right. I I I agree, and I'm grateful for for all of these opportunities that uh that we had.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

Yeah, yeah. We're very blessed because years ago there wasn't very much out there. So it has definitely improved.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

Yes, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Well, Carol, I'm so glad that you were willing to put yourself out there and uh had the courage to come on our podcast today and share your story and tell us all about your sweet daughter, Jackie, and and just share with our our listeners what that grief journey's been like and how God has met you in that darkest place in your life and has preserved, not only preserved your life, but he's given you, he's given you joy and hope and purpose again in your life. So thank you for coming and sharing that with us.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

Oh, thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate it so much. I'm I'm always ready to talk about encouragement and hope.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you are very welcome, and it is a privilege to be able to do this. For those of you who have heard this conversation today, and you would like to leave a comment or you have a question, there is a link, or you will see a link in Carol's episode description that you can click and it'll direct you to doing just that. We love to hear from our listeners. And thank you as always for listening, and I look forward to seeing you guys back again in two weeks.