One Mother's Grief Becomes Hope for Thousands

We sit down with Michelle Valiukenas to talk about losing her daughter after a premature birth and how that grief reshapes identity, relationships, and the way the world responds to parents in pain. She shares how noticing the hidden financial burden of high-risk pregnancy and NICU life led her to build the Colette Louise Tisdahl Foundation and speak openly so other families do not have to suffer in silence. 

We talk about the parts people whisper about but rarely name out loud: the identity shock of being a mom without a baby at home, the strange social time limit placed on grief, and the way friends disappear because they don’t know what to say. Michelle shares what helped, what hurt, and why speaking her daughter Colette’s name became both healing and disruptive in the best way because it permitted other parents to tell the truth about their own losses.

A major thread is the financial burden that stacks on top of heartbreak. Michelle noticed how money shapes everything in a crisis: whether a parent can stay bedside in the neonatal intensive care unit, recover postpartum, or keep life afloat when medical complications derail work. That insight led her to found the Collette Louise Tisdal Foundation, a national nonprofit providing financial assistance to families facing high-risk or complicated pregnancies, NICU stays, or loss. Over 4,000 families have been helped, and more than $2 million has been distributed. Visit to learn more: https://colettelouise.com/. 

If you’ve experienced pregnancy loss or infant loss, you’ll hear language that makes room for your grief without rushing it. If you love someone who has, you’ll leave with a simple challenge: show up, keep showing up, and don’t wait for perfect words. 

If this episode meant something to you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. 

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Transcript

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A Loss That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We had spent years getting to this place of having a child, right? And nothing had prepared us for what if we had gotten as far as we got and then we didn't have a child to take home.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Imagine preparing to welcome your newborn into the world, only to say goodbye just nine days later. My next guest shares how the unimaginable loss of her daughter changed everything and how over time that same grief became purpose. She shares how finding the courage to speak her story gave others permission to share theirs and what became possible on the other side of silence. Please welcome Michelle to Real Women Live. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you for being here. And thank you so much for having me. So it takes a lot of courage to share your story publicly. I appreciate you being here and being a voice for other women who don't feel like they can. So let's just start from the beginning.

IVF Journey And Early Miscarriage

SPEAKER_00 0:45

A little bit of your background. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So I am 44. Uh, I have three kids, uh, two angel babies, known as Sweet P and Clut, and a very active, about to be six years old boy who I think has the uh energy of all three. That's my determination. His energy. And, you know, I really kind of had a normal story. My husband and I decided we were gonna start having kids and did everything we were supposed to and could not get pregnant and went through fertility treatments and ultimately um was only able to get pregnant via IVF and got pregnant our first round of IBF and then um miscarried about eight weeks into the pregnancy and then went back and did it again and got pregnant with our daughter Jessica. Excuse me, I'm looking at Jessica and I said this our daughter Colette. My apologies, when on our third round of IBF and was a pretty normal pregnancy until it wasn't. And so I was 21 weeks pregnant. Some instinct in me told me to go to the OB and went to the OB. Actually, the day I went felt the best I had felt the entire pregnancy. And my blood pressure was 188 over 110. So just as for reference, normal normal blood pressure is 120 over 180, or 120 over 80, excuse me. And so my OBE said, I need you to go to labor and delivery. They're gonna monitor you. They may decide to put you on some meds and just really kept me calm. And so I thought, okay. And on the way over, my husband and I joked, saying, It'll turn out that, you know, we'll show up there and we'll be left and you know, away because the blood pressure was before we saw we heard the heartbeats. And so now it's gonna be normal and they're gonna say, Why are you here? And it's gonna be a you know, a joke that we tell years from now. And that was not the case. And so my blood pressure had had actually risen on the way over. And so I was admitted and told I would be there until I delivered. So I was 21 weeks pregnant. I usually like to give dates. So that was the evening of May 8th. I was due September 7th. So, you know, really sitting there sort of saying, like, what do you mean I don't be here until I deliver? Like, I'm not supposed to deliver for a long time. And, you know, everything just stops in that moment. And it's, you know, how are we doing this? And what are we doing? And one thing I realized once I was in the hospital about a day or two was the extreme privilege that I knew I had where financially we were going to be okay. And so with all the other worries that we had, one big, huge worry was off my my mind was that we weren't gonna be okay financially. And I knew that that was an extreme privilege and something that I did not take lightly. And so that, you know, I was in the hospital and I turned to my husband and I said, We need to do something about this. And he looked at me and he sighed and he said, For once, once, could you just worry about yourself? And I jokingly said to him, You know who you married. And and that was kind of thing, but it just stayed with me of like, I have this

High Blood Pressure And Hospitalization

SPEAKER_01 3:40

experience, I have this privilege, and like I do have to do something with this. And it's so it's just sort of stayed there, and I would hear, I would think about it from time to time, but it stayed with me. And so ultimately I was in the hospital a little over three weeks before doctors recommended delivery. And so Clette was born at 24 weeks and five days, with straight off to NICU and spent nine days in NICU with all of the ups and downs of NICU until we lost her at nine days old. And, you know, again through the NICU process, I would see the other families in the NICU. I would see that I was being told by doctors and nurses, you know, because I was there every day, you may want to save your time for when she comes home. And I was seeing other moms go back to work, you know, two, three days postpartum and thinking, this is terrible, that this is what we are doing to parents. And really thinking, you know, again, I would sort of almost see these other families and I would look at them and almost see like what dollar signs would do to them, you know, like just if a little bit of money that would keep them able to, you know, be by their their baby's bedside or recovering postpartum or, you know, whatever that might be. Or to have both parents there because they didn't have to worry about, you know, other kids at home or other responsibilities. All of those things I kept seeing. And then uh when she died, you know, one of the first things that, or one of the things that I remember was them talking to me about, you know, do you have a funeral home in mind? What parent has a funeral home in mind for their child, right? I was in a position I had my parents are both still alive. I haven't really had to plan a funeral or anything. And just thinking, you know, in all of this, trying to figure out these decisions and the power of being able to hand over a credit card, what did that mean? And so again, it was on my mind. And I just really felt like after Clett died, I was very lost. Um found that for the first time, my sort of eldest daughter, uh, type A personality that could plan everything. I didn't know how to do anything. You know, it was really thanks to my sister sort of coming over the next day and saying, okay, I need you to put on clothes now and I need you to come with me, and we need to go to the funeral home and we need to go to the to um to the cemetery and all that and sort of leading me and guiding me. That's the only reason why she had a memorial. Like, quite honestly, I don't think I would have been able to put it together, which is very, you know, a very odd situation to me in to sort of be like, I don't even know where to start. I don't need, you know. And so, you know, doing that, I kept thinking, you know, again with all of this, what did this mean? You know, I had before I had ended up in the hospital, I had given my notice at work, I was gonna be a stay-at-home mom for a little while. And so, and that had been a process of getting to that point of like that identity of I wasn't gonna be working, I was gonna be a stay-at-home mom. And then now all of a sudden I had this identity of I was gonna be a stay-at-home mom, but I don't have a baby with me. And what did that mean? And what did that look like? And so I felt very, very lost. And I, you know, had this financial piece still in the back of my head. I didn't really want to start anything. I didn't feel like I was the person to do it. And I just I didn't know who I was. I mean, all of a sudden it was this whole idea of we had spent years getting to this place of having a child, right? And no, nothing had prepared us for what if we had gotten as far as we got, and then we didn't have a child to take home. And so it was a very big, you know, grief and loss of losing our child and all of that. But for me, it was very much like, and now who the hell am I? Uh what is my, you know, I finally got this title of mom that, you know, I desperately had been focused on, but I didn't have a baby. And so there was this idea identity idea of like, am I really a mom if my baby's not here? And yes, I know I am a mom, but is the rest of the world treating me as a mom? And so there was a lot of questioning, a lot of things. And then what I really started to notice, and this is really something that I go back to and I think about all the time, is how many people came out of the woodwork to tell us about their own losses. And so we were getting cards and text messages and emails, you know, from everybody we had known and people, you know, we had met only once. I mean, everyone was sort of trying to do what they could to say something. And it amazed me how many cards there would be a hidden little line in there of, you know, I had a loss of 28 weeks, I had a loss of 30 weeks, you know, my child only lived a couple days, you know, things like that. And from people that I had known, you know, some of whom I had known my entire life or or close to it, who I never knew about their losses.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Oh, wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

And it just sort of broke my heart as I kept reading this, thinking, this might be the first time that you've shared this with anybody. And how heartbreaking that had to be for them, and and also how infuriating it was for me to think, you know, when this happened, I remember feeling like I was the only person in the world that this had happened to, and thinking, I had people in my network who this had happened to. And why didn't I know about that?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

And, you know, during my hospitalization and everything, and you know, after when Cloud was born, all the people who kept saying, Oh, I know this person who, you know, 40 years ago was born at 22 weeks and not 24 weeks, and and then they, you know, they lived and they're, you know, they're now 80. And, you know, it was like all of this just stuff that I kept hearing about all of these good stories. And it was like, where were the stories of, hey, it didn't work out? And like, you know, that let's make that as normal as we can. And so that kind of kept just coming to me. And I really started to realize that I was gonna keep talking about Clut and I was gonna keep being her mom and I was gonna do all those things, and it was gonna make a lot of people really uncomfortable. And I could see it already in, and I was gonna have to be okay with that, and they were gonna have to be okay with that, or they weren't really gonna be part of my life anymore. And so kind of all of those were happening, and this financial peace kept coming back to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

And so yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, what delay just like what an emotionally intelligent decision and to be aware of that, you know, that this was gonna be uncomfortable, but I was you had made a decision to continue talking about it, and you could see it kind of happening in the peripheral of people you knew, and yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

And sort of this like time limit we put on it, right? So I could sort of see as as time was progressing, it was a little bit more like, oh, okay, now now you're done. You've had your time, now, now move on. We don't want to hear about it anymore. And I could see that happening. And so, you know, I had this energy. I was home. I, you know, was on leave and I was

Turning Privilege Into Financial Help

SPEAKER_01 10:10

at home and and really just didn't know what to do with myself. And and so started to do some investigation and really felt like this financial piece was a missing gap for a lot of these sit, you know, scenarios. It was just we were doing all these other programs, we had all these other things, but we hadn't touched the financial piece. And I felt like that was really an important one. And so I started to talk to social workers and frontline workers and case managers to say, is this even a thing? Maybe maybe I think this is and it's not needed. And just felt like people were bending over backwards to say, yes, please come, you know, do something, help us with this. And so, you know, throughout all of that, I finally was like, I think the universe is sending me in this direction. And I think the universe has telling me this and telling me that the best way I can honor my daughter's memory in her life is to start something. And so that was where I went and where I started. And so, really, just in that financial assistance piece is to say, let's help families who have been in similar situations. So the pregnancy that is either high risk or, you know, or develops complications, the Nick you stay and then end loss. And so that is what we did. And I, you know, kind of threw all of my energy and all of my grief and everything into starting this because I think, you know, having had all this kind of maternal energy that, you know, happens when you have a child and all over the years of struggle of getting there and everything sort of just came into this thing of like, I needed to do something with it. And that was the energy that I expended to do it. And then along the way, I just kept finding more and more how many people would come out of the woodwork to tell me about their own losses. And while I think it was, and it still is very healing to be able to talk to to talk about Clint, to talk about my journey, somewhere along the way it transformed into I was, it wasn't, it was beyond that. It was speaking up for the generations of women who were told, okay, this happened to you and now we box it up and we don't talk about it again. And women now who felt like they weren't prepared to have the, you know, people who ran away from them. They weren't prepared for all of that. They were in situations where they didn't have supportive people around them. And so for me, it's also like I'm telling Clette's story, yes, but I'm also telling the story of so many other women who just feel like they can't tell their their story or they couldn't once upon a time. And that's really has become a whole new sort of, you know, mission and goal is to do this. And I think, and also, you know, we're not gonna make any changes on this until we start making it a problem. Talking about it. And, you know, really saying this is what's happening. And so, you know, kind of like all of that. And so that's really what I do in talking about it and normalizing that this is okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Normalizing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

You know.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah. And I I think you said so many good things. And it's interesting that when when I had talked pre-record about the the nonprofit, you had said it was about the three things. Can you list the three things that you primarily focus on?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Sure. So high risk or complicated pregnancy, Nick, you stay or loss.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

And it's the financial piece. Okay. So when I think of a nonprofit, I think of the support, grief nonprofit, I think of support, emotional support. But you're looking at it and you saw it that day in the hospital. You were looking around and being observant, like saying, wow, what if we did not have the privilege of having the money to handle this? And you talked about privilege and power. I, you know, the power of hand being able to hand over a credit card and so many people not being able to do that. And so it it's it's really, and on the other side of that, so you have the financial piece that you're addressing, which I think is incredible and needed. And on the other side of that, so true, you saying, Hey, I'm gonna make a decision to continue talking about this because so many people won't. And it's giving permission for those silent voices to say, wow, she's speaking out loud about this. Maybe I can too. So spe so that's that's the natural unfolding of all of this. And uh, and I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you. I want to say that. And was that your very first child? Because I know you have three.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, so my first was uh was uh sweet pea who we miscarry and then Okay, so you have two angel babies.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I have two angels, and then I have angels, and and you have one right now who is six years old. Yes, he's just about to turn six when we're recording this. So Okay, very good. So um so yeah, you had a a path and a purpose that unfolded unlike you would have ever thought. Right. Yeah. So um how far into your being home and on leave did you say, hey, I think this is where I'm gonna pour my energy into?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

You know, not that long. I will tell you just the trajectory of starting things is uh Clett died May 31st. We launched the foundation uh October 7th, or excuse me, September 7th. So very quick turnaround. You know, there's probably an argument to be made of like maybe I shouldn't have done it that quickly. But, you know, for me, what it really became is we launched on Clett's due date. And so it also became That's great. I wanted to re-you take some some power back from what that was going to be emotionally, and to say, yeah, it's supposed to be your due date, but it does not all have to be, you know, I don't even want to say sad, but does not all have to be just about that. It can also be this is a date of launching something and creating something. And so I probably became a little bit obsessive about that. But for me, that was really important. And, you know, having met so many other people where they had similar kind of situations of loss and how powerful that due date was and how emotionally taxing that was, I'm really glad that I did it that way because her due date, while terrible and sad and emotionally draining, also had a different meaning behind it. And I think that that was really a great way to do it. So yeah, so I mean, basically, you know, kind of went through this and and really turned it around fairly quickly because I think I just wanted to do something with it. That was, you know, and it and I also will say this is this is my personality, right? Like I want to do something with it. Like let's just yeah, let's go with you.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

We could see that from the very beginning, you know, you observe, you see a problem, you're like, that's that's needs to be addressed, you know, and that's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

So you know, I don't always recommend that that's like the the thing to do. Um everybody is is, you know, has my crazy but um but for me that was really important and and uh it was a really way to take all of the emotion from everything that was going through and really channel it into something that just thankful.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yeah, I'm I'm grateful that you came on and you know had the courage you're to continue sharing your story out loud and publicly because it does when it changes things, it offers opportunities for other people, but it off your platform, you know, your nonprofit offers people to access resources that they would otherwise not know about. And additionally, the uncomfortable piece of or your network, you said people came out of the woodwork saying, you know, this happened to me and and I never spoke about it, you didn't know about it because I didn't talk about it. And yeah, and so I think a lot of people don't know what to do. They hadn't had that experience themselves. How do I comfort them? Do they need comfort? Do they want me to stay away? You know, uh yes. So it's really, you know, I'm sitting here thinking of best friend I had since forever, and uh this happened to her, and I didn't move forward to to to because I didn't know the depth of or what is needed. So you just freeze and don't do anything, and you think, okay, and yeah, so all that becomes conversation that can be had and from from the person who's experiencing it themselves, you know. So such important work. Well, absolutely incredible how that unfolded for you. Thank you. Yeah, so it's a national nonprofit. Yeah. Oh, what is the name of it?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

So it's the Collette Louise Tisdal Foundation, so it's named after our daughter. And and so yeah, and we we're

Building A National Nonprofit And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_01 18:37

doing, you know, really incredible work. Um we've been around, well, we're just shy of our eight-year anniversary and have hit, we've helped families in all 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. And we're now over 4,000 families helped and over 2 million given away.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

In funding.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

I'm sorry, in funding, yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

In in funding, wow, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah. And, you know, and the thing is too, right? I this is always a problem of mine, is I want to do more, right? So we are not helping everybody who is asking for help. We are not meeting the need. And that is because unfortunately, my parents were right, and there is no bottomless money tree as much as I wish there was. But, you know, really, I think as for as powerful as those numbers are, is also like there is a lot more need to that because this is happening so much more often than I think anybody really realizes. And so, you know, that's another thing that I really talk about is we need to be talking about these problems because they're not going to be recognized as real problems and we're not going to be able to get solutions to, you know, from every aspect, right? Why is this happening, you know, on a sort of medical aspect of, you know, where's the research to to fix this? Where are the solutions? Where are the solutions on why the families are being put into these financial situations? Like, where are the solutions on that? Where are the solutions on how we're just addressing this socially? And things like you've said, right? Like I hear this all the time of like, oh, this happened to a friend of mine or to a colleague or somebody, and I didn't know what to do, right? Okay, totally understandable. We don't deal with grief in this country very well. And when we add in it's a baby, we really don't know what to do. And so that's the other aspect of it is like talking about this is really saying, this is something that's happening. It's not had, you know, it's not hidden. It's not only happening to those people or to, you know, in really extreme situations or things like that. It's happening. And so like let's bring that out to the front and let's actually talk about it. And then we can get to solutions.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I think that's the other important, really important piece.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, I think I think you're right. And just to address, you know, you said my well, part of my problem is wanting to do more and and that PS, that's not a problem. That's just your personality. I I understand that. You know, it's it's not a problem. It's just you see there's more to do, so you want to do it. That's your personality, and that and that's why you're placed in this position to be able to help. I mean, that's a significant amount of money that's been distributed so far. Yeah. And um so talk a little bit about um so on a yearly basis. I mean, when you experience grief, I know just from grief and in and what I have experienced is sure, time heals, but with something like this, um, is it what is it like every year? Yeah, you know, I mean for women, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:20

I think what's interesting is we've sort of been conditioned of this like grief is like sort of a linear timeline, right? So you hit this stage and then you hit this stage, and then you get to some sort of amorphous healing, I'm okay, whatever. And I think what this has really taught me, and I think I kind of knew this before, but I think this, you know, this experience has really taught me is it's not like that. You know, it's ups and downs, it's peaks and valleys, right? And so, yes, are there things that now eight years out that I feel are very different and that I'm in a very different mindset? Absolutely. 100%. Are there still moments that it feels like I'm back at, you know, square one? Yes. And so I think that's the thing that's so difficult is we never really know when those triggers are gonna happen. And so, you know, yes, we're prepared for sort of the you know, the anniversary of the death or a birthday or you know, whatever other meaningful day. We're prepared in a way for those days, or as much as we can be. We're not prepared for the random something sets it off, right? And so, you know, for me, you know, people say, Oh, well, it's her birthday better every year. Yeah. And also no. And so there's things like, for example, You know, other than maybe the first birthday, her fifth birthday was really hard for me. And, you know, and I remember feeling this and sort of thinking, why is this so much harder? And as I sort of started through it, you know, five is really a developmental milestone for kids. So, you know, at five, you know that kids are going to preschool or going to kindergarten. And so you start anticipating, and you're like, oh, every back to school photo that I see now feels more weighted, right? Because now I should have a child who's in kindergarten or in first and all of that stuff. And so that felt so much more real, right? Five is kind of where we start to see kids really developing a personality and and really say, like, this kid is going to be this type of kid. And we have, you know, link, you know, inklings of it before that. But it's really at five that we really start to see that personality truly coming out. And so it was like, I have all these unknowns, right? I have no idea what kind of kid she would have been. And so for me, five was really hard. You know, there are those kinds of things. You know, it's really hard. My sister went out to have two kids and she had a boy and then she had a girl. And so her having a girl is really, really hard for me. Her having two kids that, you know, she's holding are is really, really hard for me. And those kinds of things that, you know, we don't know. And so I think that that's something that, you know, not only do we have all the griefs and just the missing moments, we have these like developmental milestones and these, you know, what you've you've imagined your family would look like, right? I had always imagined my family looking like two kids, right? And to sort of be in this situation of like, yeah, technically I have that, but I don't. And to, you know, the outside world, they see me with one child. And that's, you know, that's a hard, you know, road to follow. How do you sort of balance that? And how do you do that? And I think that that's the other thing that's very unique to, you know, pregnancy loss, baby loss, stillbirth, is that you have these growth things where you don't know about it, right? When we, when we lose an adult, we have what, you know, we know who they were and we can sort of have these these things of like, hey, remember when, right? And we can have those stories. And you don't when you have baby, when you have baby loss, when you have child loss. Then, you know, obviously as as as older, right, you you have some more things, right? I can tell you some things about the few days I had with Clit and the things she did, but I don't have the same stories that I have about, you know, my grandparents or things like that. You know, I don't have those same stories. And that makes it even more unique is that it's this person that you've lost that you don't really know who they would have been. And so you don't have that kind of story. And I think that that's another thing that's very hard. And that means there's so many other triggers, right? Because you can see a a child and think, would my child have been doing doing that? I don't know. Right. And those kinds of things that I think are really difficult too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah. Yeah. These are all things I'm I'm so glad you're talking about because I know that listeners who have gone through or know somebody who have gone through it will enlighten them to the feelings and emotions that that get carried with such a um particular loss. So, where do you see yourself going with this organization for now? Did you go back to work? Is this something you do on the side

Why Grief Is Not Linear

SPEAKER_00 25:30

or have you poured everything into it?

SPEAKER_01 25:31

So, this is my what I do full-time. So I did not go back to my job. I actually had a very uh difficult boss during my whole pregnancy and ultimately decided this was not where I wanted to go. And luckily had some privilege that I was able to take this on as my full-time gig. And so that is what I do. I also have been doing a lot more speaking than writing. Wrote a chapter just recently in a book that really goes through my story and the leadership lessons from it, and you know, really see that growing as talking about it more and really, how do we, how do we fix these problems? And I think the first step is we just need to be aware of them. And it needs to be that we're not talking about it, you know, I I cannot tell you how many times I get these like in the side whispers of like, you know, this happened to my cousin. And it's like, okay, but why are we not, you know, if we're talking about any other grief, right? If a parent, somebody's parent dies, we don't talk about it in whispers, you know, we say, you know, my friend lost, you know, I mean, I just recently, just yesterday, I had a friend who sent into a textbook group. Her father who was in hospice died, right? I'm not saying this in whispers. I'm saying like, my friend's dad died, right? So why are we taking this when we, you know, we just substitute out who it is, and then all of a sudden it's talked about in whispers. And it's like, let's just normalize it, right? The same way that we would talk about any other death, any other loss. Let's normalize it. Let's talk about these things. Let's talk about how that grief doesn't go away and how it may be unique in some ways, but in some ways it's grief. It's the same grief we're all gonna experience at some point because death is part of life. And, you know, how do we do that? And I think one of the things that brings me a lot of comfort and a lot of bittersweet joy is that my son regularly talks about Clette. For him, Clette is his sister and he has a relationship with her. And he, for him, it is normal, right? And yes, he has questions about it, and yes, he asked me why this happened and all of that. But for him, he has a sister who is in heaven, and that is normal for him. And that is something that we have really worked at. It's just she's part of our family, and it's she's part of our family 100%. And also there's this little asterisk that's like, and she's not here, and that's okay. And it's okay to talk about. And it's it's so interesting how easily, you know, right, when we haven't put on all of these societal, like, you can't talk about this, you can't do this, you can't do this. How easily he talks about it, right? How easily he will say to adults, my sister's here. And when you can sort of see the adult being like, Where, where's the sister? And you know, looking around, or he's like, My sister's in heaven, but she's here, you know, and that kind of ease that he has with it. I think that's something that I want us to get to, right? And is it, you know, is it the next generation is just gonna sort of take it and be like, Yeah, that's normal. Okay, cool. And I think that's where we start making progress on any of these things is really when we just normalize it.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, what a powerful message. You know, the whole premise of Real Women Live is to exactly do what, you know, to sh to share your experience, one of your harder moments and how a women have just turned them in turned it into something absolutely, you know, incredible and altruistic and a movement that is going to change how conversations are had, important ones. So I really appreciate you being on here today. Could you say the name of the foundation one more time so that listeners can hear it and where they can find you to learn more?

SPEAKER_01 28:51

It's the Clett Louise Tisdal Foundation. We can be found, our website is Clett1L2Ts, Louise.com, and then likewise on all socials and all of that kind of thing. And yeah, and we would, you know, love to hear from anybody who wants to share their story, who wants to sort of be part of our mission, support a mission, to talk about it, whatever it might be. Um, we would love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Okay, and finally, you know, what hope do you do you hope that listeners take away that resonate with your story? What do you hope they experience as as part of hearing this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 29:23

You know, I think to anybody who has experienced

How To Show Up For Parents

SPEAKER_01 29:26

this, uh, you know, I'm sorry you're a member of this like really crappy club, but you know, it's okay to talk about it and please do and and know that you are not alone, even when it feels like it. To anybody who knows somebody or may know somebody, you know, really I think it's showing up, you know. I it's interesting. People ask me what do I do? Like show up and continue to show up and just, you know, be there. And you're not gonna do it perfectly, and that's okay. But showing up and being vulnerable is a, I don't know necessarily what I'm doing, but I'm here is really powerful. And so I really think if everyone can do that, and then it's not too late. We have a good friend who did not reach out right away and months later, you know, reached out and really fell on his sword and said, I screwed up and I didn't know how to be a friend in the moment. And I'm really sorry. And if I never get you, like if you never speak to me again, I get it. But like I wanted to say this that like I'm sorry, I did not show up the way I should have as a friend. And that vulnerability, like he we became closer to him because of that, because he just, you know, said that and he showed up and he showed up when, you know, he could then. And so I think that's powerful. So the other thing is too, it's not too late to just reach out and to say, I'm really sorry I didn't show up. And it doesn't mean that it's gonna be warms and fuzzies, but that it does mean something too, whoever is lost.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Sure. What a powerful message. Thank you so much for having the courage to come on here and continue speaking nationally. I'm so taken by it. The amount and the angle that you took on this for your organization. I think it's so needed just to see that different perspective when you saw those parents that had to go back to work and when they had Nikki's days and one parent showing up instead of anybody being there and taking your privilege and your power and and giving it to other people who didn't have it. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I'll put your organization in the show notes so that anyone listening can reach out to you and share their story. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Real Women Live. If this episode meant something to you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Until next time, remember, share your story, change your life.