Now That She's Gone: Mother Loss, Health Anxiety, and Legacy with Chelsea Ohlemiller

What does it mean to carry a mother’s love forward after she’s gone? How do you parent a child with life-threatening food allergies?

In this heartfelt conversation, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Chelsea Ohlemiller, author of Now That She’s Gone: A Daughter’s Reflections on Loss, Love & a Mother’s Legacy, to explore the enduring impact of mother loss.

Chelsea shares how the sudden death of her mother in 2017 reshaped her identity, her marriage, and her parenting, and how writing became both a lifeline and a way to honor her mom’s encouragement. Together, they reflect on how grief evolves over time, what it means to feel “motherless" or "homeless," and how legacy is something we live, not just something we inherit.

The conversation also moves into the realities many don’t name: health anxiety after loss, the emotional complexity of hospice, modeling grief for children, and the grief of final goodbyes. 

Chelsea opens up about how honoring her mother’s encouragement to write became a way to stay connected to her, and how storytelling can transform pain into meaning through writing as both a therapeutic outlet and a living legacy.

They also speak candidly about:

• Parenting children while actively grieving
• Modeling healthy emotional expression
• The strain grief can place on marriage
• Health anxiety after sudden loss
• The emotional and practical realities of hospice care
• The sacred, complicated nature of final goodbyes

The episode closes with an important and often overlooked conversation about severe food allergies and anaphylaxis; an area Chelsea advocates awareness around as a mother navigating the daily vigilance that comes with protecting a child’s life.

This is a conversation about resilience, vulnerability, and the courage to feel deeply, while still choosing to live, love, and create.

Takeaways:

• Loss reshapes identity, relationships, and how we see ourselves.
• Legacy is something we live, not something frozen in the past.
• Modeling honest grief gives children permission to feel.
• Children often show intuitive wisdom in loss.
• Grief can strain marriage and calls for compassion.
• Health anxiety after loss is common and valid.
• Hospice can be a compassionate, supportive transition.
• Final goodbyes are rarely tidy.
• Severe food allergies and anaphylaxis need greater awareness.
• We can carry grief and still live fully in their honor.

Connect with Chelsea:

• Website
• Get the Book
• @hopeandharshrealities

Resources:

Transcript

living again for my mom. My mom lived a wonderful life. I'm living inspired by her, but I'm not living for her because she wouldn't want that. That's ultimately what legacy is. Defining it however you'd like and then putting action behind that. You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started.

How do you carry your mother's legacy now that she is gone? Welcome to Grief and Light. My name is Nina Rodriguez. And today I am joined by Chelsea Ollmiller, educator and author of Now That She's Gone, a daughter's reflection on loss, love, and a mother's legacy. And if you're watching, I'm holding her beautiful book. And after losing her mother in 2017, Chelsea began writing honoring the encouragement of her mom to share her words with the world.

She is best known for her brand, Happiness, Hope and Harsh Realities, for she turns real lived experience, both the beautiful and the brutal, and turns them into something that others can relate to. Chelsea, welcome to the Grief and Light podcast. Thank you so much. You know I am a huge fan of yours and you inspire me daily. So it is such an honor to have this conversation with you.

Likewise, and I'm a huge fan of you as well, and I'm so thankful that we get to have this conversation we have been in touch since last year. And there's things that we've learned about each other over time that we can relate to that we'll touch on. But I want to preface the conversation with what does grief mean to you and what is your relationship to it? I know it's very much related to your mom, but begin wherever you'd like because it's also just more than the loss of a person.

Absolutely. It seems like such a simple question and also one that for me has just changed drastically through the years. So I'm at year eight from losing my mother. And I think now grief is constant healing. It's love. It's a transformation of a death that took place that is allowing purpose in my life that I didn't and probably wouldn't have had if my mom was still here.

But more than anything, I think it's just a constant pursuit to understand life better and relationships better and love and loss and all of those things. And I really think it's honestly a teacher and it's the harshest teacher I've ever had. And as an educator, I feel like that kind of sums it up the best is that it's one I didn't wanna have, but it has taught me more about life than any other experience I've ever had.

Thank you. And I see it that way, but I remember if I would have heard those words like year one, it would have been so different to year six. I'm in year six now, six and a half. It sounds completely relatable now. Is that the case for you? Was that something that you had to learn over time? 100%. I think if you would have asked me, one, I wouldn't have been prepared or equipped for a conversation in year one.

But if you would have asked me, back then I probably would have said grief is death. It's the death of my mom. It's the death of me in ways that I now can't have. It's the death of dreams and a future that I planned. I think at the beginning, all you can see is this whole an absence. And so I'm glad that it has transformed the way that it has. And I think the shift is because I was able to step into

my mom's legacy and honor her and keep her alive. But again, at the beginning that looked completely different. And if I probably would have heard what I'm saying now then, I would have been mad about it. I would have been like, well, you just don't get it or, you know, time doesn't heal all wounds. And that's still true, but it's just something that constantly is shifting. And luckily for me, that's been a shift towards light and hope and love. Yeah. And same, because that's

that transformation doesn't happen immediately. really does take time. And you did a beautiful job of talking about that process throughout the book for the listeners. If you take this book and it's divided in different, actually, I'll let you explain it. Like the thought process behind it and the way that it has been structured, I thought was very smart. So if you could share a little bit about that. Yeah, right when my mom passed away, several people gave me books and I couldn't get out of bed, let alone read an entire chapter that was 20 or 30 pages. And so

I thought, well, these are great, but I'm just not ready for it. And so when I started writing, I realized that what I wanted was just little pieces that you can take what you need when you need it. It doesn't have to be read in order. And so instead of chapters, it's sections by theme and by, you know, kind of categories of how loss is defined in life. And yeah, each one is an essay reflection that's one or two pages, sometimes a little more than that. That's just...

free flowing thoughts and vulnerabilities. And I did that on purpose because in fresh grief, and even now when I'm hurting, I can't pick up an entire book. I can't read an entire chapter. And so I wanted just little snippets of, you know, loss and love and everything in between. Definitely. And that's so true. Initially, grief brain is real. Like sometimes we have to read the same sentence over and over and over again. And you were very smart in the way that you

wrote it with the reader in mind. I felt like that was really important. And I'm curious because you wrote it some years after the loss of your mom. But when you read it, especially in the beginning, it's almost like, wow, you take the person back there. This is speaking to the person who just lost their mom. Like, they just got the call. It's been maybe less than a month. How were you able to channel that? Because sometimes I try to remember.

the early days and there's part of me that remembers bits and pieces, but this book like delved into that. So how were you able to bring that about? For me, it kind of got started through just therapy and through journaling. And what I learned is I had to sit in that moment to process it because I was not processing it as it was happening. My mom went into the hospital on a Monday and by that next week she was gone.

And so it was at the end, it was very, very quick. And so I wasn't processing that as it was happening. And so by sitting down and sitting in that moment again, it honestly just flowed out of me because I felt like at that time I was writing for me. I was writing to process, heal, to recover, to respond to the things that I couldn't respond to because I...

wasn't sitting in front of my children shouting at God. You know, I wasn't talking to my husband and telling him how mad I was at my mom for leaving or, you know, any of those things. And so I just sat down with a pen and paper and really just put myself back in that moment to hopefully help myself release the things I couldn't change. And I just hoped eventually that if anybody else felt like that, because, know, like, know, grief is uncomfortable. Nobody wants to sit with people in their pain. Usually they want to...

celebrate joys and successes and happiness. And so because there was a little part of me that felt like I couldn't tell my friends how it felt to sit and hold my mom's hand as she was dying, I had to write about it and just put myself back in those moments again, just kind of, I did it to set myself free because for me, my mom's death was a nightmare, constantly going again and again, and I couldn't get out of it. I mean, for probably six months to almost a year, it would replay nightly.

And I was terrified of it. And so I thought maybe the only way to shift that is to take ownership of it and to decide how it gets written, how it gets told. Absolutely. And that comes through when you touch on not just the aspect of mother loss, but how the loss ripples out to the rest of your life, including work, family, those times that you're sitting alone with yourselves, like a holistic view of the experience, which I really appreciated.

And before we continue with the book and everything in the after, I would love to give you the opportunity to share with us who was your mom and bring her into the room in the way that you feel would honor her. I love that. So my mom's name was Rita Estelle. And I was blessed. And I say this because I know not everybody has a great relationship with their mother. obviously in the teenage years, I thought I knew everything. it wasn't always perfect.

was so beautiful is that I had a mom that was my biggest cheerleader, my fiercest supporter, an advocate for me when I needed one, and the kind of mom that everybody hopes and prays for and not everybody gets. So I think that's why I just miss her so fiercely because even as an adult, I want her guidance and her love. And so she's here just in different ways, more like a shadow than an actual.

person beside me, but I love that you asked that. So thank you. Well, thank you for sharing her and her light with us. And I like that analogy of the shadow because that's exactly what they feel like. It's a presence. You can't see it, but it's there. You just know it's there. And you talk about her even, you know, when you celebrated your birthday at the cemetery with her. And so the ways that you maintain that connection, there's one phrasing that I love about the way you reframe absent but present. When I learned

about mother loss, right? The loss of a mother. I heard the phrase, I'm a motherless daughter. That's usually the phrase, or if you've lost both parents, I'm an orphan. So you have a different way of describing the way that you show up in the world without her. And I would love for our listeners to hear that. Yeah, first, I love Hope Adelman and her work with motherless daughters. But for me, the first time somebody called me motherless.

I had a visceral reaction to it. I felt like they were taking almost the title of mother and daughter and shoving it down in the grave and the cemetery with her. And I just, I had to work through that because I thought technically if somebody were to describe me motherless is probably a term that is accurate. It's truthful.

but it just never fit me. And so there were other words that felt, I felt homeless. Yes, I have a home, but my mom was that first home. so motherless for me just signified, I'm not motherless. My mother is here, is not here with me, but she's still very much present in my life through her love, through her legacy, through her influence. And so...

I always tell people I don't consider myself motherless because she's always my mother no matter if I can see her or if I cannot. And it just is a term that I just shifted a perspective on so that I could have, again, that ownership. It's kind of like when people say, your mom would want this or your mom wouldn't want you to do that. And people are constantly telling grievers how to feel, how to think, how to act.

And once I realized that was something that was a little bit too touchy for me, I had to find a way to, you know, just to shift that voice. Absolutely. And I love that perspective because in my case with sibling loss, somebody said, now that you're an only child, he was my only sibling. And that felt what I would imagine the equivalent of hearing motherless felt like for you with a phrase.

somebody rewrites your entire story and your entire bond with this person. And there is a process of reclaiming that in a way that feels true to you. For many people, the word motherless absolutely resonates. For many siblings, you're an only child. It's how they feel. So I love bringing this part of it up because so much of grief and navigating it with agency is finding what feels true to you.

you're feeling homeless because mother was home. And so that sense of belonging, that sense of home and everything home means to you is shifted. But you've recreated that as part of her legacy. talk to us about that legacy and how you have taken that on for yourself and for your children as well. Yeah, at first people would talk to me about legacy and I, it felt like a responsibility. It felt like,

a weight that got added to the grief I was already holding until I really started digging into what is a legacy, you know, and learning that we really are a constant blend of multiple legacies, you know, both my mother's that I get to carry on and then also mine that I get to create. And the only way I want to create my own is with everything that my mom instilled in me while she was here. And so for me,

I realized that legacy work is really just keeping my mom's name in the mouths of people that aren't me. So that her wisdom and influence are trickling beyond my walls of my house. You know, I say her name, my children say her name. I wanted to keep her name alive beyond that. And so what does that look like? And so I think at first when you speak of legacy and grief, you think of this responsibility to continue the traditions.

to do the exact things and walk the exact steps of the person that you've lost. And I realized that's not it at all. You you hear that quote all the time, be the things you love about the people who are gone. And that's really what legacy work is. It's taking all of those things that made them beautiful and worthwhile and just great and using that in your own life to not just mimic their life. And I always tell people that

I'm not living again for my mom. My mom lived a wonderful life. I'm living inspired by her, but I'm not living for her because she wouldn't want that. And so I think that's ultimately what legacy is, is just defining it however you'd like and then putting action behind that. I love that because there is a sense of needing to carry who they were forward with us. And also, where does that line end and your independent

life and legacy, your own legacy start. Did you always have that awareness or did that take a little bit of time to get to? it took a long time. It took a long time. I think that, like I said, year eight is where I'm sitting now. It was years, years before I was able, and I'm still processing it and figuring it all out. What I thought legacy was or just grief was a few years ago is still transforming. But yeah, I think

At first, couldn't hold, like I'm sure you felt the same way, I couldn't hold anything other than the grief. I was sinking in the hole and couldn't process or learn or even consider anything other than my life is now defined by this moment. There is a before and there is an after and I'm never gonna be the same. And now I can say I wouldn't want to, but I couldn't say that back then. It does take time and I...

feel that's important to say because when we get to these moments where we've reclaimed our truth and we understand how we want to stand on our own two feet, it sounds great and also like it takes time. It took me about three and a half years to find my voice, if you will, as to how I wanted to share my brother's story, my brother's life, the way in which his life ended and all the things. So it does take time. And I know that so much of her lives in your three children and how they carry their own

understanding and love and relationship and bond with their grandmother. for maybe the listener who is feeling that deep loss and sense of they'll never know my mom, they'll never know grandma, what would you say to that person? I would say they can because a prime example of this is my third child was born after my mom passed, so my mom never got to meet him.

However, if you sat down and asked him, me about your grandmother, he would tell you everything. He would tell you stories. And you would never know that they never sat beside each other, that she never went to a grandparents' day, that she never held him. You wouldn't know. And it's because luckily, my two older children have so delicately and intentionally braided her memory into him.

that it's just so natural. And I had to learn that through my kids because I would say the same thing. You know, right after my mom passed, I would say, my mom's never gonna get to meet my niece and nephew. My mom's never gonna get to be in my son's life, you know? And I only looked at it through that perspective as most people will at first. But then I thought, look at what my children have done. I didn't do that. I give all the credit to them. I didn't do that. I will say my aunt made...

my, each one of my children, a book with my mom's pictures in it, and it has a little poem and it's beautiful. And they read, they read that to him all growing up. And then they would tell other stories about baking and, you know, things that my mom loved to do with them. And I, I literally learned through my children that she can be a part of his life. It's not going to be a physical part, but she can absolutely be a guidance and influence from what they experienced in their own lives.

And so I think sometimes we have to lean in to kids and their grief because my goodness, they have taught me so much about perspective and hope that I could have never learned from an adult. That's beautiful. And I had a conversation with Michelle from Experience Camp. They deal with children's grief, children and teens. And there's this assumption that kids are resilient and they'll be fine and they don't.

understand to our level so they're not suffering at our level and all these things, right? To my understanding, because I don't have children and I'm not an expert in children's grief, caveat there. But from what I've heard in conversations and listened and read, they do feel it. They do feel it in their own way and they do grieve in their own way. So a lot of times parents feel like they need to hide their grief from their kids to protect them with the best of intentions, obviously. What would you say to somebody

holding back their tears and trying to look really strong and like, mom's got this and dad's got this in front of their children. What would you say to that person? Ooh, I would first say I was there. I lived there. I hid in the bathroom. My two places of solace were my shower and my car. All the credit goes to my therapist back then who told me, Chelsea, nobody taught you how to grief because they hid it from you.

And so if you want your children to know grief and to know that sadness is okay and that pain is okay, you have to show them. That doesn't mean that in your rawest moment, you know, where your grief is so harsh that you're just out there with your children. You know, some of that is just a protection as a parent for what's appropriate for a young child. But for me, I had to say, it's okay.

I had to give myself permission to say, it's okay if I cry in front of them. And so now we just developed this language of like, you know, there are times where I'll be in the baking aisle of Kroger and I cry. And now, because I've done it so many times, I used to say, I just thought of Meh-Meh and this is making me a little bit sad. And so now they'll say, you must be thinking about Meh-Meh. And I'm like, yep, I am. And then it's given them permission.

to do the same. It just allows them to verbalize, hey, I'm really missing Mehmeh today, or I really wish she was here, or just allowing them to speak about it. Because if I hide, what is that teaching them? Then they have to hide too, and I don't want that. We already have to hide from our communities and our friends a little bit. And so this has to be a safe space in this house. That grief is always welcome.

Beautiful. And I just know that they're going to be more informed. And I think what's so jarring to a lot of people with grief and loss is that the first time they face grief or even are curious about what this grief thing is, myself included, is when you experience your own loss. 100%. Because we tend to sanitize loss as a society, even in the way in which we bury our loved ones, even in the way that death is handled.

starting to shift. It wasn't like that before. It was more intimate and then it's shifted and that disconnection, I believe, is part of why we are facing loss for the first time and it is so jarring. It's so scary and it's so shocking. So even having that model through their mother of, it's okay to cry. It's okay to talk about her. It's okay to be at Kroger's in the baking aisle and think of her and shed a tear. And actually,

one of my best girlfriends, when my brother died, I called her and I said, how long does this grief last? She had just lost her mother 10 months prior. And I'm like, she's way ahead of me. She should have all this wisdom, right? So I called her and I said, how long does this last? Tell me how you did. And she's like, honey. I'm at the baking aisle as we speak. It was around the holidays. I'm holding a baking sheet and I'm about to make cookies with my kids and I'm bawling.

by myself because this is grief at 10 months. It is longer than you realize. So that example that you gave definitely resonates even in that sense. And let's talk about grief in marriage. How did grief impact? as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing, of course. grief ripples out into every aspect of our lives, children, legacy, ourselves, et cetera, including marriage. So shed a little bit of light on that if you'd like.

For me, it's bittersweet because my husband lost his mother before we were married. And so he very intimately knew the loss of a mother. And it helped me more than anything could have. I always tell people he not only took my breath away just through dating him and being newly married and all of that, but he reminded me to breathe.

would sit with me and he never once tried to tell me this is gonna be, you know, like, it's gonna go away, you know, or you need to be stronger, you know, he just would sit with me and most of the time said nothing, you know, just was there. And I honestly can't imagine what my grief journey would have looked like without him because he kind of gave me

not a guide, but just a supporting hand to sit with me in whatever I was doing. And it was such a needed thing because for me, most of my, all of my best friends still had their parents and most of them still have their grandparents.

So I was like this foreign person, know, like I was still me, but nobody knew what to say to me. Nobody knew how to act. People certainly were not talking about my mother. That was a taboo topic. And so I felt like my husband was the only person that I could actually just be me. And in those moments, especially at the beginning, it just looked broken and I didn't know. I didn't have the answers, but yeah, I was demanding answers and I was different and I didn't know.

And I also had to ask myself, you know, and eventually ask him, like, can you love this version of me? Because I'm not the same woman that you met. Like, are you gonna be able to love this me, this version of me? And luckily in most marriages, that's what marriage is, is just falling in love again and again with these new versions of ourselves and reminding that we aren't gonna be the same people that said I do.

And so for me, it really was one of my saving graces. My marriage was one of the life preservers if I had one for grief, but I know that that's not the case for everybody. And so I definitely don't take that for granted. Well, it sounds like you had the right support system.

And I saw one post on social media where he is your biggest cheerleader for your work and the book and everything. So if that's any glimpse into how he showed up for you in those early days, then you were in the best of company. like you said, presence over words, sometimes it's, most of the time I would argue, in grief is everything. There really are no words sometimes. There's a lot of words and there are none at the same time. It's just a lot. So I'm glad that you had that.

that it was, like you said, a life raft, not something to add to the pain. Yes. Yes. That's really important. And I know that your mother unfortunately passed from cancer, and that could bring up a lot of anxieties about health. So for somebody who maybe lost their mother in a similar way, how have you navigated that? That is probably the toughest question so far you've asked me, because

I'm still working through that. actually just last month had a colonoscopy, which is not fun to talk about, but you know, for me, because of my mom's cancer diagnosis and the cancers that she had through the years, I have to have tons of extra screening. So I have to have every six months mammograms and MRIs and tests that most people at my age are not even having yet. And every single time those

questionnaires and those tests start with why I'm there, which is the death of my mom. And so I am constantly reliving that, which has given me honestly OCD in those areas of like contamination OCD or health anxiety. And luckily again, back to the therapist, I am a firm believer in therapy and just working through it all because for so long I realized that I'm acting out of fear, not out of love.

And so sometimes I say, I'm gonna push back this appointment because I'm doing this for my kids and I can't miss a basketball game. And really it's fear. I'm not doing it so I can be more present with my children. I'm doing it because I'm terrified to step into that building. We could have a whole discussion on health anxiety because it's scary. When you step into tests and hospitals and you know that this outcome,

this result could change your life forever, it is terrifying. And I constantly have to work through that and just tell myself that the best thing is to live a long life for my husband and my children. And so to do that, I have to do this. And every time, every six months, I have to work through that fear. And it is a very real anxiety. Thank you for your openness and your honesty there because

I know many people face that reality and it doesn't make it any easier. It's very real. if you are somebody who lost a family member, mother, father, relative, and you resonate with Chelsea's words about this health anxiety, then we see you. It's this like, yeah, go in and it's okay to go in terrified because it is terrifying. It brings up so much. You talk about your, well, before I get to your therapist, because...

Let's stay on the topic of the health situation because you describe your mother's passing as like slow and fast. There was a slow and fast element to it. So share a little bit more about that as well, please. So my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. It had come back and she sat us down right before Valentine's Day. So we're getting ready to be around that time and told us that they gave her two years.

And that felt impossible. And then she didn't get even six months. She was gone by July 3rd, she passed. And so it was supposed to be a lot longer. And so I always say that, yes, we knew it was coming, but what happened, like I said a little bit earlier, you know, on a Monday, she was driving to work and had to pull over because she was feeling weird. She went to the hospital.

And they basically said, this is it. There's nothing else we can do. This is the time where you've got to make some tough decisions. And so we took her home on that Monday or Tuesday to my sister's house and did hospice care at my sister's house so we could all live with her and stay there. And I mean, it was days and it just went quickly. And the weirdest part is right as we're taking her to my sister's, I take her to her favorite store Hallmark and we're shopping around.

And she says to my sister and I, she said, I think we did this prematurely. I feel great now. Like, they gave me the medicine, and I'm feeling wonderful. And within two days, she was no longer able to speak, no longer able to get out of a bed. And so the end was just, in my opinion, so quick, days that a week turned into minutes, and then she was gone. And, you know, we were supposed to, like everybody, have so much more time.

In the moment, it did not seem like it was quick. It seemed like it was the worst thing I could sit in. But at the end all be all, it was a very quick experience. Thank you for being willing to share that. I know it's not easy. And I want to name that because we think we have time. And whether it's a sudden loss or anticipated in the sense of, you know, they told her two years.

That's a tricky thing to navigate in and of itself because that's just an estimate. And two years is nothing, but yet we have some time. So what are we going to do in these next two years? And then you only got six months. So yes, there's that short, long aspect of it that could be so jarring. So my heart goes out to you. And if you are okay sharing about the experience with hospice, a lot of people are scared of that word. But I have found when I ask about hospice, the experience is usually more.

positive than it is negative. Was that the case for you? Yeah, I think just like you said, the second the hospital said, you know, I think it's time to make some decisions and hospice is the choice. That word has such a stigma around it. I had to learn that one, hospice can mean anywhere from two years and under. So technically, hospice doesn't mean right now is the end. And so I learned a lot through that process. Obviously for my mom, it was less than a week.

But yeah, our experience was a good one because I feel like we were at a family house. We did it together. And so the nurses for me were really a support system. They were a tool for knowledge that we had never had before. They taught us things. They told us why they were doing what they were doing. And more than anything,

And I think if your situation, if you find yourself with a family member in hospice, if this isn't your case, I would advocate so that it can be, is that we were terrified at first to touch the medicine, to touch my mother, to not necessarily to touch her butt. We were afraid of hurting her. We were afraid of the drugs she was getting and if we were making sure that she was getting enough or not too much. And so the nurses for us really gave us

the opportunity to not only ask questions, but to be witness to what was happening. So we knew and understood that nothing we were doing could harm her. Nothing we were gonna do was going to prevent them from doing their job or, you know, have it processed any other way. And so we really did have what I would consider a good experience. You know, you don't want it, but the nurses that we had were...

so compassionate and helpful. I think we maybe had one that we were like, please don't send her again. And you have to do that. Our mom was always our advocate. And so we made those decisions, but you do it nicely. And then you don't have to deal with those people anymore. Yeah. And it's layers, but I'm thankful you mentioned that because it is scary and nobody wants to face any of this. And what I've heard is that hospice allows you to be with, to focus on being with.

while they take care of a lot of the technical stuff. And then they kind of hold your hand of here's what's coming next, here's what to expect next. And they soften the rawest of edges as much as they possibly can in that moment. That's my understanding. And it sounds like it was your experience. Absolutely. They explained, I mean, things that, you know, like noises, movements, what the body is doing. They were so knowledgeable about death and dying. And

I don't think the world is as knowledgeable as we should be because we are all going to die. Everybody we love is going to go through this experience. so being as knowledgeable and as, I can't even think of the word, but just as a witness to it has made me realize how much more we need to pay attention because there will be a time when we all need it. Yeah. Do you feel like you got to say goodbye?

Ooh, nobody's ever asked me that. That's gonna make me cry a little bit.

Wow, sorry, I'm a little emotional. I would say no for this reason. feel like, I would say yes and no. I did get to say goodbye. I held her hand. I was with her when she passed. But the transfer from her being able to sit there and talk to us to her being not able to do that creates the space of can she still listen? Can she still hear?

I said all the things that I wanted to say to her. We read her, I'll Love You Forever, which is the book that she read to us as children. And so I did get to say goodbye, but I don't think that it was reciprocated because I don't feel like she was able to say a final goodbye to us. Maybe that's it. Maybe I feel like we were able to say goodbye, but...

I wanted more from her. Which is understandable. And thank you again for being willing to go there. I know that's not easy. On that note, there's this beautiful part of your book called Not Gone. Would you be open to reading that? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a piece, like I shared with you in our conversation. So this is a piece that I wrote one day when I needed her and she wasn't there. This is called Not Gone. sweet child.

I watch as you tell people I am gone. I know it's your veiled way of saying I died, but your statement couldn't be further from the truth. While it seems this way, I promise you I am not gone. I never was. In all honesty, I never truly left completely. While pieces of me drifted to eternity, portions of me stayed right here with you, never leaving. The most meaningful pieces of myself are right there inside of you, and they are not going anywhere.

I listen as you say I'm gone with tears in your eyes and a completely broken heart, and I wish you could feel me right here beside you. I love you with an intensity that would never allow me to leave you alone. I can't show up for you anymore in the way you wish, in the way I did before, but beautiful girl, I am by your side forever, I promise. While I left my body and all of the pain behind, I got to keep the pride, the love, and all of the beauty from the life I lived.

It's the most glorious thing, more brilliant than anything anyone ever taught me about eternity and heaven. While I can't see or hear everything you do, it's like a spark, lights and fireworks prance across eternity every time you think of me or say my name. I wish I could take your pain and your longing the way mine was taken from me, but that's not how life works. That's how eternity works. And while it's captivating and perfect,

I don't want you to join me here for a very long time. I want you to enjoy the pricelessness of what remains. I want you to live out your dreams and pursue some of your wildest adventures. I want you to make a legacy for yourself, not just work to extend mine. I want you to live life, live a life you love, not just one that makes me proud because I'm already proud. I always have been. I want you to live, beautiful girl, truly live.

not just get by with each passing day. Sure, you will grieve and you will hurt, but don't let those things pause your living or your purpose. You have so much to keep stepping forward into. I know it's different since I'm not stepping with you, but what you can't see is that I'm the one paving this new road you find yourself on. I'm trying to pave it as delicately as I can, filling it with everything you deserve and as few bumps as possible, but I'm not the only one building it.

All you have to do is keep stepping even on your hardest days. Keep looking around even when you've crumbled to your knees. I'm sending you so much love from afar. And if you pay attention, you'll know that I'm constantly sending signs of my presence just for you. Keep looking. So my sweet girl, the next time you find yourself telling people I'm gone, change your words and your perspective. Tell them I'm anything but gone.

You don't have to use words that feel too harsh or too difficult. All I ask is that you don't say gone. My fear is that you'll say it so much that you'll eventually start to believe it's true. And it cannot, nor will it ever be true. I love you too much for that. I'm not gone. I love you beyond the moon and the stars because I love you from eternity. And only the love of God is a greater love than that. Trust me.

Just want to give that a second to breathe. How beautiful was that? I'm just getting chills. And as you're reading, I immediately notice the X-O-X right behind you. It's almost like she's right there. Yeah. You could share with our listeners, what does that mean to you and what's the connection with your mom? So my mother would write notes all the time. So for camps, for lunch boxes, for anything, even when I went to college.

My mom was just the queen of notes and cards. And so she always signed, not XOXO, like most people know, she always signed XOX and then mom. And so it just became something now I do and incorporated into my brand. I sign every piece that I write XOX just in memory of her. And the beautiful thing about the one behind me is that a reader,

knew that, knew that story and sent me a beautiful hand-painted card where the front of it is the XOX. And so it's just a beautiful reminder, both that my mother's legacy lives on and also just that you never know who your story will touch. How beautiful is that? I felt like such a point of connection. for everybody listening and watching, that was an excerpt from her book, Now That She's Gone. What I really loved is that

while you write most of it in your perspective, there are these parts where you write from the perspective of your mother. And so maybe share a little bit about what inspired that part of the book. Yes, that's a great question because it was really a pivotal moment in my grief. I was, and this was at the beginning, probably a couple of years into losing my mother. And at that point I was only seeing the death and the loss and my view of everything.

the world, her loss. And a pastor just said to me very poignantly one day and just said, have you ever considered it from her perspective? Have you ever considered your mother's death from her perspective? Everything that I was feeling, have you ever stopped to think about your mom's perspective? And I was like, no, why would I do that? You know, I can barely handle my own perspective.

And after I sat with that, it really changed both, wait, this was my goodbye, but it was also her goodbye too. this is me feeling like a whole, how could my mom look at this? And so these pieces kind of came about because I needed her perspective. And since she wasn't able to give it to me,

I thought maybe if I just meditate on this or pray on this, however you are in your faith, maybe her words will come to me in a different way. And when it poured out of me, I thought, I don't know this to be true, but I hope it to be true. And nothing bad can come from hope. And so it really was just that perspective shift of somebody asking me, have you ever thought of this from your mom's perspective? That is so powerful.

Maybe this is an invitation to practice that, to see what your mother would have said and write your version of that. just so- I love that. I love that. It should be a practice of like, you know, if you're ever thinking, mom, what do you think? Write it down. See what your mom would say. You know, maybe your mom's more spunky than mine and might've said, you know, something a little more sassy. I love that. I think that's a great practice. Shout out to all the sassy moms. That's wonderful.

where can people get a copy of your book and connect with your work? And last time we connected, late last year, you were writing a manuscript. So I'll leave it at that and you say what you can about it. Yeah.

So now that she's gone, the book that's out now, released a little over a year ago, it can be found anywhere books are sold. So you can, if you don't have the ability to purchase a book, ask your local library, they can get it for you. I'm a big supporter of small town local book shops. So if you have a hometown book shop you love, go in there and ask, but it's also available at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, all of the big people. But if you can support local, do that.

I love your next question. So this was my first book and the second book I just got word yesterday will be released on September 8th. That book is, well, I'm not gonna tell you the title yet, but it's basically the next, the after book. It's a little bit more hopeful. It still has fresh loss, but it's kind of the after book.

So it will be out September 8th, but very soon I'll be sharing title and cover with everyone once it's finalized. I'm very excited. I remember when you were just handing over the manuscript. It'll be a year between when it's published and when you hand it over the manuscript. That's wonderful. But in the meantime, read this one first. You will love.

how nourishing it feels to your heart, to your spirit, especially if you've lost a mother or you know somebody who has. This is a beautiful gift in every sense of the word. And then stay tuned for the announcement coming soon on Chelsea's social media. You do a beautiful job with your social media. So check that out. Those will be linked in the show notes. And I want to pivot to a slightly different thing because around that same time that we connected last year.

I had a random health scare with anaphylaxis. I ended up in the ER and I'll spare the details of that because I wrote about it. I can also link that in the show notes if anybody's interested. More importantly, I became aware of the world of food allergies and how incredibly life altering this is for the people that have to navigate it and how with all of the progress in the world that we have made, there is still so much work to do.

in the space of food allergies. And why am I bringing this up? Because I had to postpone this interview with Chelsea because I was recovering and she happened to share that, I believe it's your son, also experiences food allergy sensitivities. So I wanted to give you the space to create awareness in this conversation and to share with our audience what you wish people would know and understand about navigating life with food allergies. Yeah, I think the first thing is just

grief is also dealing with food allergies or any kind of allergy, especially life-threatening allergies. Our son has an anaphylactic allergy to dairy and it completely changed our life. There's so many technological advances in the world and we're really falling behind in the food safety space.

Mostly just if you are sitting as a mom, as a friend, as a sister, as a person that is in this allergy world, think just kudos to you because these have been the strongest, most resilient, most grit-filled individuals that I've ever met, yourself included. And it's so scary. You know, our son was born with his and we found out a few probably around month four maybe.

We've been battling it since then. He still has a chance to outgrow it, but the numbers get smaller and smaller, the older he gets. It's another place that everything we do is kind of altered around, can he eat here safely? Can he sit here safely? Can he go to school safely? It's just that constant worry and fear that I wouldn't wish on anybody, but now that we have it, I will be a fierce.

fierce advocate to make sure that he has the safest and most successful life that he has. But it's definitely a big challenge. He's seven now. He's our youngest. And so again, that's where am I acting out of fear, acting out of love? I have to ask myself that every time we go to a restaurant or let him try something new.

It happens every time that we have to go to the hospital to do a food challenge, knowing that there's a very big chance they're going to have to stick him with epinephrine. And yeah, we could do a whole podcast on food allergies because it was just, it was something I was ill-equipped and unprepared for. And when it hits you, hits. And so our life has drastically been changed by that. And at first it was debilitating. I was obsessive.

and had to get help from just the PTSD, like, diagnosed PTSD from watching him go limp in my arms a few times. Now we're at, like I said, year seven, and he's more vocal about how his body feels, how things are, but this whole experience has been grief. And you adapt and you learn and you do the best that you can. Thank you for sharing your experience. And I want to highlight that this dawned on me.

when I started learning about this, we trivialize what a food allergy is, as if it's like an itchy nose, you get a little stuffy, you take some Claritin and you go about your merry way. This is not that. We're talking life-threatening potentially, right? So what is anaphylaxis and what is the potential risk of having to be so vigilant to avoid anaphylaxis? Yeah. that's a really good question. I'll give you an actual definition of it.

Anaphylaxis in a mom term, the inability to breathe, airways closing. For our son, it very much starts like a runny nose and extremely bad belly issues, which then leads to all of the awfulness of anaphylaxic, which is a body that's in chaos.

I'm so glad that you bring up the point of an anaphylactic allergy, which is a life-threatening allergy, because so many times, even our family, even now, will say, can't he just have a bite? Can't he just have one little piece? And I know they're out of love because they don't wanna other him. They don't want him to not be able to have the cupcake or the cake or all of these things. And every time...

It crushes me because I think you don't understand the severity of this situation. He can't have a bite. He can't even have a minuscule piece at all because it could change his going from living to not living. And people don't always understand that because there are so many levels of allergies. know, some people think of allergies, like you said, you take a Claritin and you're done. This is beyond a runny nose. This is breathing. This is your body in total chaos.

And so, yeah, there is a very big difference and I wish that we were so much more knowledgeable about it because just that one slip from somebody that doesn't want him to have something different could be the end. And even just talking about this makes me sick to my stomach because that's a fear that we live with all the time. And so, yeah, I wish people would know that, it's not just a bite. It's not just a...

his belly hurts, you know, it's a much different thing. Yes, thank you. And there's immense grief in living with this. There's immense anxiety in living with this. And I became aware that even stepping outside of your home can feel threatening. The day that I went to a restaurant for the first time after this event happened, I almost had a panic attack because I realized

It's so trivialized. There are some safeguards in place, some restaurants who get it, and there are apps to guide you to those restaurants, for example. But the vast overwhelming majority doesn't get it. They trivialize it and something as simple as cooking with the same oil, let's say, for, in my case, was shellfish. So cooking chicken with the same oil or the same spoon that touched a shrimp.

And you're sitting there at a restaurant, you don't have any visibility as to whether that happened or not. And then you that in your mouth and that could literally be, in the worst case scenario, life ending. So it is not small. One thing I got is, but you were never allergic to anything in your life before. So newsflash, this is something I learned. You could develop allergies at any point in your life, mild ones, severe ones, known ones, unknown ones. Like it could be out of seemingly nowhere.

It could be with hormone changes. It could just be shifts within our body. could be scents. What triggered mine was the smell of shellfish. I didn't even consume it. So, you know, I even thought like, do people fly on a plane when exposed to these things? this is not to fear monger. This is to create awareness because I was not aware. And the moment I became aware, said,

my gosh, like we need to talk about these things. We need to bring it to the forefront. And I'm thankful that you share that with us today. it- Don't you also feel like we have a complete lack of food label knowledge? And I mean that you can say shellfish and some people have no idea how many things that combines. They might have an idea, but they might not know all of it. When I say dairy,

A lot of times people will say, eggs. Actually, no, eggs are not included. But when they say, well, he can have butter. Absolutely not. Butter is dairy. And so I learned very quickly that we don't actually know the food pyramid the way we think we know the food pyramid and chunks of things. We have not been educated enough to know the holistic view of

what each thing means and I wish we did because I've never had to, as an allergy person, you probably know, now you're not only an advocate for my son, I'm also an educator. I have to go around and educate staff members who are waitresses, who are waiters, who haven't had this before so they don't understand all of what dairy is and can be, all of shellfish allergies and what that includes. And so there is just this lack of knowledge that then allows

error to happen at an astronomical level. Absolutely. And it's important to learn, like you said, dairy is not just like cheese. of people don't think octopus can trigger a shellfish allergies, and they can because the protein is the same as a shrimp. So things we're not aware of is just wild. So thank you for shedding a light on that. And this is

tip of the iceberg, will link some resources in the show notes to this episode simply to create awareness. And if you are somebody who experiences this, your children, your family members, we see you. We want to validate all of your experience and we will share some resources to support you. So thank you so much. We are at the end here. I just really felt that was important to include in this conversation. So I want to give you

the floor to share anything that maybe is on your heart to include in this episode today that we didn't touch on. And if not, we'll go ahead and close it with the final question. Yeah. Thank you. I, you know, again, what I said in the beginning, I think your work is so important. Your voice is so full of truth and vulnerability and hope. And I'm just glad to have shared the space with you today. So is yours. And I'm so grateful that our work connected us and that our love and the way we carry their love light connected us. So thank you.

And final question is what would Chelsea today say to Chelsea after your mom's passing?

Be patient with yourself and realize that some of the weight and the responsibility that is on your shoulders is because you're putting it there. And those expectations are in your head. They're not actual reality from anybody that knows or loves you. And so sort those out. And then...

more than anything, just surround yourself with people that are willing to sit with your pain as much as your joy and your successes, because those will be the people that will never leave. And you'll be so thankful that you prioritized people that could sit with your brokenness just as much as your white.

Beautifully said, Chelsea. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being you and all you do. Thank you. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you.

and always remember, you are not alone.