Until We Meet Again: Grief, Caregiving, Faith, and Honoring My Mom

Grief is not the end of love. It is love learning how to live in a different form.

In this deeply personal episode of Chat with Nat, Natalie Kime returns to share the episode she always knew would come, but never knew how she would find the words for. Four weeks after her mom went home, Natalie opens her heart and shares the talk she gave at her mom’s service. 

This episode is not about saying goodbye. For Natalie, goodbye is not the right word. This episode is about saying, “until we meet again.”

Through stories of Sunday morning curlers, learning to French braid her mom’s long Polynesian hair, wooden spoon memories, teenage snowbank adventures, lipstick tucked into her mom’s hand, treasured family recipes, and her parents’ 58-year marriage, Natalie paints a loving picture of who her mom was and the legacy she leaves behind. 

Natalie also reflects on the last four years of caregiving after her mom’s vascular dementia diagnosis. She shares how the red folder, hard family conversations, estate planning, trust documents, and honoring her parents’ wishes became part of the caregiving journey. She talks about moving her parents to Texas, caring for them in her home, and recognizing caregiving not as an obligation, but as a calling. 

This episode is tender, faith-filled, honest, and full of love. It is for anyone who has walked a loved one through dementia, caregiving, hospice, grief, or the final sacred moments of life.

What You Will Hear

•  Natalie’s first episode after her mom’s passing 
•  Why grief is love learning how to live differently 
•  The difference between goodbye and “until we meet again” 
•  The talk Natalie gave at her mom’s service 
•  Childhood memories of curlers, braids, wooden spoons, and family laughter 
•  How Natalie’s mom used food and cooking to show love 
•  The legacy of her mom’s recipes and “Yvonne versions” 
•  The love story of Natalie’s parents’ 58-year marriage 
•  Why Natalie tucked lipstick into her mom’s hand before the casket closed 
•  The importance of having hard conversations before crisis hits 
•  The red folder, estate planning, trust documents, and honoring a parent’s wishes 
•  What it means to be called into caregiving 
•  How Natalie’s brother cared for her while she cared for their parents 
•  The sacred beauty and exhaustion of dementia caregiving 
•  Why the last 10 days of her mom’s life became one of God’s greatest gifts 
•  How Natalie got to be a daughter again, not just a caregiver 
•  Faith, grief, and the hope that goodbye is not forever 

Episode Summary

This episode is a love letter.

It is a daughter honoring her mother.

It is a caregiver reflecting on the hardest and most beautiful calling of her life.

It is a testimony of faith, family, dementia caregiving, grief, and the sacred privilege of walking someone you love all the way home.

Natalie reminds listeners that caregiving is not for everyone, and that is okay. But for her, caring for her mom and dad became a calling long before she fully understood why. These last four years changed her forever, bringing tears, exhaustion, hospital rooms, holy moments, and a deeper understanding of love.

Through it all, Natalie says there was never a day she regretted stepping into that calling.

This episode is for anyone grieving a parent, caring for a loved one with dementia, navigating hospice, preparing for end-of-life conversations, or trying to understand how love continues after loss.

Thank you for listening to Chat With Nat: Caregiving, Money & Real Life Solutions. This podcast is your trusted guide for caregiving strategies, caregiver support, long-distance caregiving tips, financial planning for families, and managing caregiver burnout. Each week, we provide actionable advice, expert interviews, real caregiver stories, and practical tools to help you navigate caregiving challenges, protect your finances, and care with confidence.

Whether you’re caring for aging parents, managing adult children with special needs, or balancing caregiving with work, Chat With Nat is here to help you care smarter, avoid burnout, and feel supported every step of the way.

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Transcript

1:00:00

Grief isn't the end of love. It's love learning how to live in a different form. Hey friends, welcome back to Chat With Nat, conversations that count. Today's episode is one I knew would come eventually, but I never really knew how I would find the words when the day arrived. If you've been here for any amount of time, you've gotten to know my mom through my stories through our podcast episodes. You've heard about how we've smiled and laughed through her dementia journey. You've likely laughed along with us at some of the stories I've shared. You've heard about how my dad kissed her forehead every night before bed. You've watched myself and my family navigate doctors appointments, hospital stays, home health, hospice, and ultimately the sacred privilege of walking someone we love dearly all the way to the gates of heaven. Four weeks ago today, my mom went home. Today's episode isn't about saying goodbye because I don't believe goodbye is the right word. Today is simply about until we meet again. As I thought about what I wanted to share today, I decided to share with you the talk that I gave at my mom's services because I think it gives a window into some of my memories, who she was, and the experience I got to share with her this last four years. So let's jump in. In my early years, there are a few memories that pop out to me. One is Sunday mornings, getting my curlers in my hair and sitting under the old school hair dryer. Miserable. My mom used those wire pokey cool curlers and she would roll my hair so tight and I would wince and I would cry and she would tell me to stop. But the truth is I was born with extremely straight hair. I remember once in the 80s getting a perm and one whole side didn't even take. That was what it took to get a little curl in my hair for Sunday mornings. And now it's something that I think, gosh, I got those little, that hour every Sunday morning with my mom. Listen, it was agony for me at the time, but it was time that my mom took to make sure that I always looked my best. I also remember sitting on the front porch, learning how to French braid. My mom is Polynesian and she had thick hair all the way down to her butt and my little 10 or 11 year old hands would be full of her hair as she walked me through how to French braid and we would practice and practice and practice. And it was a challenge I wanted to learn how to do because I thought it looked so fancy. And after days or weeks of practicing, I became an expert at braiding my mom's hair and I would do it all the time. When my brother and I would get in trouble as kids, there was the wooden spoon. Now, I've learned over the years that more people are familiar with the wooden spoon, the way my brother and I were than just having one in a drawer in the kitchen. As a matter of fact, when my brother shared his thoughts at my mom's funeral, he pulled out a T-shirt he has that says wooden spoon survivor. And the entire room chuckled. So again, I think something more people were familiar with than we realized at the time. But I do remember on New Year's Eve's, we would go outside to bang pots and pans and typically we would use the metal spoons because they made more noise. But one year my brother and I got this bright idea. If we use the wooden spoons and break them, mom can't spank us with them anymore. And so that year we broke every wooden spoon banging the pots on New Year's Eve. And ironically, the next day she went and got a bunch of new wooden spoons. So overcoming the wooden spoon was not something we ever necessarily did as far as getting rid of them from the house. But even that is something that we chuckle about now. I also remember I was probably around 18 or 19 years old. So probably my freshman year in college and one of the places where I grew up that we would hang out with our friends was Stonecutter. And if you've never experienced a Stonecutter, I'm sorry, I don't know that they're around anymore anymore, but they were amazing. And the Stonecutter in the town I grew up in had this huge paved lot next to it, this huge paved parking lot. Today it's full of shops and stores and things like that. But at the time it was just a huge empty parking lot. And we had gotten a bunch of snow that day and I got a wild hair that this was going to be the time that I did donuts in the car for the first time. A couple of my friends hop in the car with me. I'm out in the parking lot doing perfect donuts, spinning around, spinning to the left, spinning to the right. We're laughing. We're cackling. And suddenly I hit a snowbank. The engine promptly dies and I'm sitting there in a panic thinking my dad is going to kill me. My mom is never going to let me drive again. And I'm trying to start the car and trying to start the car and it just won't turn over. And I thought my dad is going to have to come get me. He's going to see I ran into a snowbank. Oh my gosh. And suddenly one of my friends looks over and says, Hey, put the car in park. And so I shifted the car back into park and promptly it started right up. We pulled away from the snowbank, got out to inspect, and there wasn't a scratch on the car. So until sharing this story, I'm not sure my mom ever knew about it, but it is something that still makes me chuckle. I can say I never did donuts in a car after that. It was a one and done experience, but we did have a good time while it lasted. And then lastly, I remember one of the things that my mom loved was her lipstick. My mom was always put together, always tried to look her best. And she would constantly, even in the last four years, ask, where's my lipstick? Where's my lipstick? And the last thing I tucked into my mom's hand before they closed the casket was her lipstick so that she had it on the other side. I've shared before that my mom was a chef by trade cooking. Oh my gosh. Food was the way my mom showed love to people. When people would ask her for a recipe, she would say, I'll just make it for you. She guarded her recipes, but it was so that she could be of service and add her own dash of love to everything she made. A few people told me the week prior to my mom's services that she had shared a recipe with them, but it didn't just, it just didn't turn out quite right. And the truth is there are standard recipes for everything my mom made. And then there are the Yvonne versions. She would tweak little things to make it just a little bit extra special, taste just a little bit different. And those aren't the recipes she shared. She shared the standard recipes, which were still good, but they were not. Yvonne recipes the week prior to mom's funeral, my nieces and I made many of the dishes we grew up loving and partook of everything. And of course we do have the right recipes. So everything tasted just like she made it. And we got to share some of that food with the people we love most, the people mom loved most who came to visit, who came to share their condolences and their support for our family. What a blessing it was to continue loving like mom did. Many people asked me for my mom's recipes, uh, this, this week, prior to the service, as I would sit with them, as they would come to visit. First of all, if you ever asked my mom for one of my mom's recipes, it means experienced her cooking and you were deeply loved by her. Secondly, I am my mother's daughter. And so we'll see the real truth though, is that some of those recipes might be shared along the way, but many will remain in our family. And if you stay close, maybe we'll be able to make them for you. And again, continue loving you like mom did. My mom and dad were married for 58 years together for 60 and always holding hands. Sean and I always told them to travel after they retired. And while they did a little bit of that, the truth is their happiest place was together in their little home on Edgware lane. And if they weren't there, they were likely going on a drive wherever the roads took them around the salt lake valley or the surrounding mountains. Oftentimes they might be hitting every TJ max from Ogden to Provo to find the full set of dishes that caught my mom's eye when they stopped in to window shop. We found these dishes all still in the bags with the tags on them in every nook and cranny of their house as we cleaned things out and prepared them for their move to Texas with me. And every single one of us has a partial or total collection of the treasures they would chase from TJ max to TJ max all across the valley in our own homes today, holding onto the things that mattered to mom. Dad, mom loves you deeply. And when the time comes, you'll join her on the other side and continue holding her hand for eternity. Until then we'll be holding yours and keeping it warm for her. As I shift into talking about caregiving, I think of the scripture Exodus 2012 honor your father and mother, the red folder. I've done a whole episode on the red folder before. Um, after mom was diagnosed with vascular dementia, I started coming to Utah, going to Utah every, every quarter for her appointments. And that first visit we went, my brother and I sat with our parents and finally went through everything in the red folder. We set up their trust, asked what they wanted to each of you. Please have these conversations. They are some of the most difficult ones, but they are important. And the sooner you have them, the better because we aren't promised tomorrow. The promise we made to our parents is that we would honor their wishes as much as we could for as long as we were able to less than a year later. We were told that mom and dad couldn't safely live in their home any longer. And that was the point that I said, I'm taking them to Texas. People have told me, they don't know how I did it. And the truth is I didn't God did. Caregiving isn't for everyone and that's okay. But for me, it felt like a calling long before I understood why. As a senior in high school, I helped care for my grandfather who lived with us for a year. I learned so much from watching my parents care for him. What I didn't know is that God was preparing my heart for a calling someday in the future. These last four years have changed me forever. My brother told me many times I did the hard things every day and he was just there. The truth is I was called to care for my mom and dad. My brother Sean was called to care for me and he answered every call. He reminded me who I was, what my mom wanted, and even gave me permission to quit if it was all too much. And that permission he gave me was always the strength I needed to keep going. I couldn't have done this. Without you brother. When the time came, choosing to care for mom and dad wasn't an obligation. It was an answer to that calling, but callings aren't always easy. This was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. There were tears, exhaustion, hospital rooms, learning to let go of what dementia had already taken, learning to meet mom where she was instead of where I wanted her to be. And yet there was incredible beauty holding her hand, washing her hair in the blowup sink I found on Amazon of all of the equipment we purchased through this journey to make life easier for both of us. That $20 sink was the bee's knees. And for a few minutes each week, her bed became a salon. Calling my mom, Ivani. As my mom's memory continued to slip, oftentimes I could, I could almost see that she was struggling to connect with what I was saying because she was trying to identify exactly who I was, but calling my mom by her name helped me to engage with her at a different level. I still called her mom every single day, but when I was giving instruction or walking her through or telling her what we were going to do next, oftentimes her first name was the way I created the connection I needed to. Making my mom smile, dancing around the room, playing worship music, telling her jokes, reading to her, all memories I'll cherish forever. And then watching my dad love her faithfully every single day. These things became holy moments. Paul reminds us in Galatians chapter six, verse nine, let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. There were days I was weary, but there was never a day I regretted my choice to step into that calling. The last 10 days of mom's life became one of God's greatest gifts to me. Because of the love surrounding our family, I wasn't just the caregiver anymore. I got to step back from the majority of that role and simply be her daughter. I held her hand. I talked to her. I loved her. And after she peacefully entered eternity, I climbed on that hospital bed next to her and I held her one last time to tell her everything my heart needed to say, not as her caregiver, but as her daughter. Mom, these last four years have been hard. They have also been beautiful. And I would choose every single one of them again. It has been the greatest honor of my life to walk beside you, to escort you back into the arms of the savior. Ecclesiastes reminds us to everything there is a season, a time to be born and a time to die. None of us are ready for the goodbye, but because of Jesus Christ, goodbye is not forever. It's simply until we meet again. So today I'm not saying goodbye. I'm saying thank you. Thank you for your love, for your faith, for your example, for teaching me that family comes first, for showing me what love looks like, for making ordinary days unforgettable, and for letting me have the privilege of being your daughter. O falahi'atim, Mom. I love you. Until we meet again.