Reclaiming Your Hue: A Podcast for Women Rediscovering Themselves in Motherhood & Entrepreneurship

Ep. 71 with Betsy G., Christi A. & Kim W.

• Kelly Kirk • Season 1 • Episode 71

Share episode

Three Wise Widows, One Brave Conversation

Grief doesn’t send a calendar invite—but it rewrites everything. Three women—Betsy, Christy, and Kim—share how they faced widowhood and turned devastation into purpose: faith-rooted resilience, advocacy for patients and physicians, and practical frameworks for parenting and work.

Their stories move from loss to legacy: how an oncologist’s death exposed mental health stigma in medicine, how a cancer journey became a blueprint for protecting joy, and how tragedy sparked a 20-year fight for FDA transparency.

We cover what truly helps—anchoring routines, family guardrails, and mindsets that keep you grounded—as well as the bigger picture: systemic barriers to mental health care and questions every patient and caregiver should ask.

This isn’t grief as a slogan—it’s a guide for rebuilding with faith, purpose, and impact. Stay to the end for actionable takeaways and to meet Three Wise Widows, their new platform offering talks, retreats, and resources for those walking through fire.

Connect with Betsy:

Connect with Christi:

Connect with Kim Witczak:

Contact the Host, Kelly Kirk:

  • Email: info.ryh7@gmail.com

Get Connected/Follow:

Credits:

  • Editor: Joseph Kirk
  • Music: Kristofer Tanke


Thanks for listening & cheers to Reclaiming Your Hue!

SPEAKER_05:

Hey, good morning, ladies.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi, Kelly. So happy to be here.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm so happy that the three of you are here. And this is relatively new for the listeners. Usually it's a one-on-one conversation. And the only other time I've had a few other guests is two other times. How to mom and then bus stop mamas. And it was so fun. It was like, okay, it's a little bit of a challenge as the host. But then also it's like, all right, let's fit all of the stories in. So let's go ahead and dive in.

SPEAKER_06:

All right.

SPEAKER_05:

I would love for you, Betsy, to introduce yourself and share how it is that you and I are connected.

SPEAKER_06:

Okay. Um, I am Betsy Gall. I actually just got married, so I'm Betsy Moody. But um I met Kelly through work. My first love has always been real estate. And Kelly and her husband work at Sotheby's, the greatest brokerage in town. And that's how that's how we cross paths.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, ma'am. That is so true. And, you know, we have two other gals here too. So I just want to take a moment to have the two of you introduce yourselves as well. So why don't you go ahead and start, Christy?

SPEAKER_02:

So hello everyone. My name is Christy Andringa, and I am um newer to the area. I actually moved to Stillwater, Minnesota in 2016 with my husband and children, and then headed over this way to Edina, where I crossed paths with your husband at the Speaking at the Rotary Club, and now reside downtown.

SPEAKER_01:

Beautiful. And hello, my name is Kim Whitzack, and I'm originally from Minnesota. I used to live in Chicago and uh met my husband there and moved back to Minneapolis, which I never thought I was coming back. And here I've been for 20 some years. And I lived in South Minneapolis, but now I live downtown Minneapolis. And yeah, life.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes.

SPEAKER_05:

All right. So in order to really make this flow as nice as possible, Betsy, I would love for you to start with sharing your story. And we'll kind of go around the horn here as well. And then I'd love to meld the the three of these stories together so that our listeners can understand. Um, but we're gonna we're gonna leave a little suspense here. So I'm not I don't want to share like right out the gate why you ladies are here. Okay. We're gonna leave the suspense.

SPEAKER_06:

Okay. Well, um, I was married to my late husband for 20 years. We had three teenagers at the time. Um, Matthew was an oncologist with uh a big group, a big private practice here in Minneapolis. And um, we were basically living the American dream. We had three healthy kids. We resided in Eden Prairie. I um, you know, it was just a very typical all-American life. And Matthew decided to make a career change. And so in 2019, we moved to North Carolina with hopes of a really bright future and maybe joining a smaller practice. Um, like I said, three kids. We had had some issues with our oldest getting bullied, and we just kind of thought a fresh start for everybody would be great. So we moved to the Lake Norman area, which is about 25 miles north of Charlotte, and we were there for about three months, and um, the position that my husband had taken was not, it was not a good fit for him, and I started noticing a lot of um just the well, we I mean, he just fell into a deep depression, and he started showing signs of a deep depression, and I had never been around a depressed person before. I didn't know what it was all about. I couldn't understand why he couldn't snap out of it. Um, but long story short, he actually ended up taking his own life on Thanksgiving Day of 2019. We had just been there for three months, and you know, I had three, three teenagers to raise. So um your life just gets turned up upside down overnight. You just it's it's it's been a lot, it's been a journey. But since that time, you know, it was very hard for me to wrap my head around because he was a doctor. So doctors save people's lives. And my husband prided himself on his um position as a physician. He loved his work, and he um went to life or went to work every day to save lives. And so to for him to take his own was really uh a challenge for me to wrap my head around. So I darted I started researching and um, you know, got a book actually on Amazon that said why physicians die by suicide. I couldn't believe that there was a whole book dedicated to this subject, and I ended up writing my own book because I had been journaling throughout this very difficult time to help me cope. And so I wrote a book titled The Illusion of the Perfect Profession after um I realized that we lose 400 doctors a year to suicide. And so the journey has has taken me here. I speak all over the country um uh at wellness conferences to help our docs because we're facing a real crisis in that arena. So that's kind of my story. A heavy, heavy story wrapped up in a short.

SPEAKER_05:

It is it is a heavy story for sure. And I I've had the the pleasure and the opportunity to maybe pleasure isn't the right word, but I've had the opportunity to um read about three quarters of the book. And as I mentioned to you, we had some heavy, heavy stuff happen in our community just last uh yesterday. And so I was like, I have to just set this down and pray. Like I just needed to pray. But in in reading through all of that, you know, you've you've done a really fantastic job of sort of encapsulating the the story and the journey. And it's there's a lot that's in between that. But you know, one of the one of the things that I have seen through all of that, that um that really speaks to and resonates to me is your faith through all of it. And I I'm I'm pretty confident that faith is is wholeheartedly something that speaks and resonates to the other two ladies that are here and they're shaking their heads. Yes, yes. Um, and it's it's been a journey in itself for me too, even through the podcast. But the resilience, and I can feel the resilience in this room from all three of you ladies, it's powerful. It's so incredibly powerful given the tragedies that each one of you guys have encountered and how you've moved through it with kids as well, nonetheless. Yeah. So, I mean, hats off to you. Um, I know that so typically one of the questions that I ask um the guests that are on the podcast is what came first for you? Was it entrepreneurship or was it motherhood? And I am curious, in your case, Betsy, what that looked like.

SPEAKER_06:

So, my um my story is like my career has always it's been a little bit different. I've always been um involved in the design world. And I lived in Chicago. That's where I met my my late husband when he was doing his residency, and I worked for a really cool design firm um doing store fixturing and store design for you know big brands like Prada and Gucci and all that stuff. So I had a really cool hip fun job. And so I worked, you know, I worked for the man. I always had wanted to um be involved in real estate, and um I really love remodeling and kind of the flip side of doing major renovations. And so for me, you know, I was I always worked and then I had kids and I stopped work and then I got my real estate license about 10 years ago. Um I just I love working. So I've always tried to kind of keep my foot in the door. And as you know, real estate, it's up and down, and so it's it's it's a risky business. Everybody thinks you're just out driving a Mercedes, like you know, yeah, it's just it's it's it's a lot harder than it looks on TV. So, but I love it, and um I think you know, for me, motherhood was really important, and I I I really cherished the time that I was home with my kids, and it's that's a really hard job, too. Um, so I've I've kind of always had one foot in the door and then you know, back and forth, back and forth. But I've been lucky with having a career that allowed me to, you know, to do that.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and the other thing that I am curious about too is um through all of this, let's start with as you explored getting your license, right? And melding prior work history, work experience and interior design and all of that stuff, when you decided that that was the route that you were gonna go, what did that look like within the household and harmonizing that too? Like how old were the girls, or how old were the kids?

SPEAKER_06:

Well, my kids were like 13. Yeah, they were like, you know, probably nine to 13, and I have three of them. And it was a lot. And I was super stressed about like taking that exam and um, you know, just passing, and then I got my foot in the door and I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And they kind of just throw you in. So it was a lot of work to balance um work and raising children. I was really fortunate, you know, Matthew was a physician, so I didn't have to work to put food on the table. Yeah. Um, I probably would have had to choose a different profession if that was the case, or if I was a single mom. Um just because it is it's a real risk, you know, when you have your own business.

SPEAKER_05:

And how old were they when you chose to get your real estate license?

SPEAKER_06:

So I would say Grady was probably 13 and um and then Gavin was 11 and Sophie was nine. You were here in Minnesota. I was here in Minnesota, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then it's like I know your story. Well, you know, it's funny, Kelly. Everybody says when they read my book, they feel like they know me. And I say, you kind of do. Yeah. Because it is my journals, and it and I did go back, you know. I start out with the night that um, you know, the night before Matt uh took his own life, but I do go back and and kind of explain our our family dynamic and history.

SPEAKER_05:

So I love it.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_05:

Like the the first day that I picked it up and I was telling Joe after like I stayed up until like 11:30, and that's not like I'm in bed by 8 45, 9 o'clock some days. Like it's like the kids are going to bed and then we're going to bed shortly after that. But I stayed up and read like 50, 60 pages, and he was like, Well, how is it so far? I'm like, I love it because it's it's raw, it's authentic, it's it's Betsy. And I had had the opportunity to like meet you in real life um at a broker open. Yep. Our broker open, especially like your broker open, yeah. Yeah. And I was like, it's totally it like it's her. And I love it. It's just so amazing.

SPEAKER_06:

That's a compliment. I thank you for that. I thank you for that.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, no problem. Yeah. So I think um for for just time's sake right now, I kind of want to make a shift over to Christy and her story, and um, and then we can start to piece all of this in together. So, Christy, you got the you got the floor.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm I'm on. Okay, let's let's do this. Um my husband and I moved to Stowaters. I shared earlier in 2016, and we lived there about a year and a half, and on December 15th, 2017, he was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer, inoperable and incurable at 49 years old. He was asymptomatic. Um, we thought he had an ulcer, he had a pretty big job, a new job, and um it still gets me a little shaky just thinking of that moment that you you just see this whole world that you don't know anything about that's about to change, and you're blindsided. It, you know, it we've we we've compared notes, the the three of us, of is it is it easier or harder to have a death right away, or is it harder to go through two and a half years? Regardless, it's the shift that's unimaginable. So he was diagnosed and he battled for two and a half years, and he died on May 29th, 2020, right in the middle of COVID, which was also very interesting to say the least. And um so during that time prior to that, I was already a professional speaker on happiness and um honoring potential. And it was not only COVID, but very difficult to hop on a stage and talk about how happiness is a skill when my husband's dying at home. So um I took a step back from that career. Uh, prior to that, I was speaking at various events, you know, in Rotary being the one where I met your husband. So I'm back at it. It took a long time. Good for you. Yeah, it took a while. Um rewrote the script a little bit because one of the things that Rob and I agreed to, and it was a non-negotiable, we lived in, we lived with cancer in a happy home. We lived with love, we lived with happiness, we lived with joy despite the pain. And we found that to be not only important for us, but more importantly for our children who um, you know, 18, 16, and 14, uh, just tough years in general, and very close to their dad. And the thought of them knowing that there was going to be this incredible loss, that inevitable loss, we decided not to wallow in that, but to live our lives as they should be lived.

SPEAKER_05:

So powerful.

SPEAKER_06:

And you can hear the love in her voice, you know, because I think back when, you know, Christy had two and a half years of living with that, and I had three months of living with that. No, I mean, I didn't know that Matt was gonna die. But I mean, you're constantly thinking of your kids. Right. Right? Because it's it's like you know you're gonna be okay, but you just want them to be okay.

SPEAKER_02:

And and I think the heart, well, I know the hardest part. So, you know, you you can't anticipate what widowhood is going to be like. None of us, you know, had a playbook or even conversations, you know, it never even would come up. I wouldn't say to somebody, oh, you're a widow, I'm not. How does it feel to be a widow? Because it was more, oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and then you would move on to the next topic. So the prep wasn't there. But I miss him terribly, and it's it's it's hard, but it's what I've learned is it's much worse for the kids because they can't have another dad. It's not like a divorce. There's no one to say, well, call your dad on that. And not that divorce isn't incredibly painful, but it it was so hard for me to be in the same room with the three of them at holidays because it was just palpable how they felt that loss and that pain that they were feeling. That it it it would almost make me feel ill just being around all that. Um, so that was a lot to work through too. And uh Rob's Rob's happy though. He he died um a kind of a beautiful death, really. I mean, he was very ill, but the moments when he went when the the angels were all over our house, and he lifted his arms to the to the sky, and he had not turned over. He laid on his right side body for probably 24 to 48 hours. He was taking one breath every 15 seconds, so four breaths a minute. So and he rolled over onto his back, threw his arms in the air, and God took him and said, I have work to do. That was that was his last words on earth, which we'll talk about later as we talk about our advocacy that that all three of us are doing, and to use this pain and this tragedy that we've all had and do something really beautiful with it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and I think that it all that I can feel through this, frankly, I'm having trouble like working through my own set of emotions. I can't even begin to imagine. I think the feelings that I feel are just echoes truly of what is felt in this room. And so you'll have to bear with me as I'm navigating all of this, but that of what you're speaking to, Christy, when you say like the works, there's work to be done, right? There's work to be done in Betsy's avenue of what she's speaking to. There's work to be done in the avenue that you speak to, Christy. There's work to be done in the avenue that you are going to speak to Kim, which our listeners are gonna come to learn who Kim is in just a moment. But there's two different paths that can come from tragedies, right? Either you take the path of negativity and you play victim and you wallow. And there certainly is probably a time period that that was the case. Why? Why does this happen? Why does this happen to good people? Why do things like this happen when we pray and we ask for God's help on a consistent basis, and then we're struck with tragedy and loss and devastation. But there's also the other choice of going, all right, buckle up. Yeah, let's do this.

SPEAKER_02:

And avoiding the bitterness, getting rid of the bitterness and praying through that because there's not just a little bit of bitterness, either you have bitterness or you don't. And so to make sure that that doesn't infest your body and your mind and your heart, right? Um, and really attaching to the idea, good things happen to good people, but guess what? Bad things happen to good people. Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_06:

And you know, I think I remember thinking to myself, why me? And then I stopped and thought, why not me? I'm not any more special than anybody else. The one thing that I think um helped me, I mean, I I don't think it, I know it, was my faith. My, and I touch on this briefly in the book, but my high school on again and off-again boyfriend of five years, high school college was killed in a car accident tragically when we were 21. And so that was my first like touch with death. Um, and it was such a tragedy because he was just the greatest guy. And I remember my mom and I standing at his grave after everybody had left, and and I was just sobbing. And she said, you know, you really only have two things in this life, yourself and your faith, and everything else can be taken away. And that was a pivotal moment for me because I was kind of a wild child, and at 21, I wasn't uh, you know, a goody two shoes by any means. And I could have gone down the path of pure destruction. But I chose to look towards the light, and I and I chose to turn over my life to God at that point. And you you just realize the older you get, you're young, Kelly. You're really young, but the older you get, you know, the more you just realize how fragile life is, and everybody is gonna be dealt something at some point.

SPEAKER_05:

Right. Something I think about too. I can already feel myself listeners, just please understand that I will for sure be getting emotional because this is just hearing your ladies' stories is impactful in such a different and profound way for me. But what I want to speak to is the difference between when I was I like to say Miss Independent Kelly, pre-meeting Jo, pre-having bonus boys, and then having my own daughter, I was free and I was like, I can for lack of better words, I can do anything and outlive it. And you just come to realize after you know, a loss or a tragedy or having children, that shift happens. And I think that that's when like I've always been a believer in God and Jesus. But when I had my daughter Maddie, something shifted in me with my faith. Something massively shifted for me. By the way, I want to resonate for just a moment because I'm not unprivy to death as well. My senior year, I had three deaths happen all within a month and a half, two months. So senior year, my grandfather passes away. We have uh uh individual within a classmate of ours graduating same year that passed away from asphyxiation. Right? Did I say that right? Yeah, and then my best friend committed suicide. And it was tragic. It was, and I I think that there's still grief as I read through your story, absolutely, and I am hearing your ladies' stories as well. It's something is stuck for sure. It changes you, it does and grief.

SPEAKER_02:

One thing we've talked about too is grief is extremely chaotic. You can't predict when one day you're feeling like, oh, I've got this. And then the next day you think somehow these two feet have to get on the floor, and I have to get out of this bed and I have to go do something. But you're you're never you're not entirely sure because you certainly get better at it, yeah. At at you know, functioning at first and then really embracing and celebrating life. But it, you know, there it's it extremely chaotic.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And for women like us who like to plan and like to know what's cooking, it's it was it was um, I mean, it was a black like a a blast, like not a fun blast, like a blast at me thinking, what the hell is going on here? I mean, I was in ch in charge. You're an entrepreneur, you make your choices and you're do this with your kids, and all of a sudden it's like, what what do I do?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

There's no guidebook.

SPEAKER_05:

Um, Christy, because I want to um loop the listeners in on what your journey for entrepreneurship has looked like too. I think that you alluded to it a little bit, but was it motherhood that came first for you or was it entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_02:

So I was in um pharmaceutical sales initially for a lot of years. And my kids at the time that I shifted were, I think, six, four, and two. And I was calling on docs, traveling around a lot on somebody else's schedule. And I really decided when I was sitting in the waiting room because I repped for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. And I'm sitting in the waiting room waiting to talk to the docs and thinking, I don't want to talk to them about the drugs. I want to, I'm looking around this waiting room thinking, I would like to somehow affect these patients prior to getting in here because there's a lot of lifestyle choices associated with both those disease states. Um, certainly there's a genetic component, but fitness and exercise and stress and sleep and all those things that I was very, very passionate about. So I told my husband one day, I said, you know what, I am, I don't want to do this job anymore. And you know, we were we were scraping away pretty good trying to raise the kids, and I had a full-time job, company car and you know, insurance, all the things. And he's a fine, he was a financial guy, and they freak out when you say something like that. Like, what, what so I take a look at the numbers, yeah. I know all the spreadsheets, the spreadsheets that came out after that for me to look at budgets. Um, the person who's never bounced a checkbook in their lives, not frivolous with money, but not my jam. Um, so anyway, he I'm I'm you know, yeah, I mean I thought this is so stressful that you keep showing me all these numbers. Um so then I quit and started to get back into fitness and then made it bigger and became what's called a national fitness presenter, which just sounds way more glamorous than it is, but I traveled to almost every state in some way, shape, or form, training instructors or speaking. And then I thought I'm gonna take my business degree and my passion for fitness and this message, and I'm gonna write something down and I'm gonna ask people to pay me for it. And I'm gonna start with 10 people, and if they pay me, maybe I get to 20. And then it just kept growing, and and um, I've been very blessed to be able to do what I truly love doing.

SPEAKER_05:

And it's how do you pronounce your last name?

SPEAKER_02:

Yep, Kandringa Productions is the name of it. So it's just Christy, first name seed, Kandringa. Kind of a spin, a uh really cheesy spin on you can do it. Kandringa. I let that one go really quickly. Like I don't I don't think that's gonna work.

SPEAKER_05:

I I am curious if you have read um Dr. Casey Means Good Energy. That's the reason I'm grabbing my phone, is because I had to, I wanted to make sure that I was referencing the book properly. Okay, I have that. I will send it to you. Okay. Um it's powerful because she was this profound, she is a profound doctor, and she had kind of gone through all the ranks of where she needed to be going as a doctor. And I think she did ear, nose, and throat. But she was to your point about seeing all of these patients and going, I'm I'm solving something for them that is quite literally temporary. Right. Like I'm I'm fixing things within their nose, they can finally breathe again, and they're back in the hospital within months because there's other issues that are are there. And she wanted to understand and address like what is actually happening with people's health.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. That was like what I you know, and I was I wasn't very interested in science, secondly. So I knew that I didn't really care how the drugs worked. It was, I just memorized the package insert and would talk to the doctors and competitive, so try to meet my quota and you know, do the job that that I was hired to do, but no passion for it. And um, it's you know, to talk to them and hear about the lives that you can change through health and wellness and have real clients and have them express these stories to me. I had these t-shirts made. My my company tagline was because I can before was it Pepsi or Coke that got a hold of that? I knew I should have trademarked that. Um but I would say you can just why do why do you do this? Well, because you can. So people started putting these t-shirts on, sort of like capes, like magic capes and superwoman superhero capes. And it's like, well, why did you start getting more sleep? Because I can. Why did you start working out? Well, because I can. Why did you start eating better instead of the excuses because I can. So it was really a simple, it still is a pretty simple message. It's just difficult for people to make the shift. So it's nice to be a part of that space.

SPEAKER_05:

I love it. We're gonna have a nice tie-in here too, with like health and wellness, because each one of your ladies' respective journeys is talking about health and wellness and you know, mindset as well. So we'll we'll do a nice little tie-in. All right, Kim. You're up.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Um well, first of all, it was great like hearing my friends sitting here, but I like to call myself uh the accidental advocate because I think I when I listen to both of their Stories. I think mine kind of touches the same. Um, I was actually, I'm probably the old widow, um, which is such a funny thing to say. But my husband actually passed away 22 years ago this month.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01:

It's been 22 years, and um, I was married for 10 years, um, living life. We'd moved from Chicago, we hadn't had kids yet, and um, and my husband just started his dream job with a startup company and was having trouble sleeping. I didn't think anything of it. We've, you know, lived life. I happened to be going on a big BMW shoot down in New Zealand for three um three weeks. And during that time, my husband went to his doctor. He was a guy that needed eight hours of sleep. And uh his doctor just quickly gave him the antidepressant Zoloft and said it would take the edge off and help him sleep. Um, so I wasn't even in the country. And so on August 6, 2003, it was um the call that changed my trajectory of my life forever. And in one minute, boom, my life came crashing down. My dad, I hadn't heard from him, um, my husband, and so I go, hey dad, do me a favor, I haven't heard from Woody all day to um go over and just see um if Woody's all right. So my dad went over to our house, which is um really close to where the shooting was yesterday, and uh Woody was, you know, the car was outside. My dad's like, huh, this is weird. Um, walks into our back door in the garage, and my dad calls me when I'm out of town. He goes, Kim, he's dead. I'm like, what do you mean he's dead? He's like, I go, how do you know he's dead, Dad? How do you know he's dead? And he's like, he's hanging. I go, what? And in that minute, my life shattered. Uh Woody had no history of depression. He had no history, he had just started his dream job. We just started, we just booked our 10-year anniversary trip. We were going to Hawaii with his parents in November. We couldn't have kids without doing in vitro. And so when um right before I left out of town, Wood said, Hey, when you get back, let's get the in vitro thing, you know, set up. And so my life took a very different direction than I ever in a million years thought my life would take. And in one, like I say, one second, uh the life that I had no longer existed. And um, it's what I do today, you know, I'm listening to Chrissy talk, or you asked the Casey Means, like, you know, I do a lot of advocacy in this work, this space, 22 years. But the night that my husband was found, and it's why I always am big on asking questions or the right information, the coroner asked a simple question. As you can imagine, I'm like in Detroit on another shoot. I had, I mean, I'm just trying to figure out how am I getting home? Like, what just happened? I was literally outside my body watching this, what had transpired. Um, but the coroner asked, Woody, well, first of all, Woody and I both traveled for work all the time, and he always left notes. And here's his biggest trip of his life, meaning taking his life. There was no note. And but that night that Woody was found, there were two things that happened. The coroner asked us a simple question was um, Woody taking any medication? And the only medication he was on was Zoleft. And she goes, Oh, we're gonna take it with us. It might have something to do with his death. And like to me, that meant nothing, you know, because I'm thinking, you know, what's like it meant nothing. And the other, our front page of our newspaper, that same day had an article that said the UK finds link between antidepressants and suicide in teens. And it's like looking back now 22 years, and it's been my life's work since. Um, and I still do advertising, but um, and it's all part of the whole thing. But I look back and I think uh when you know, I was I wasn't there the first three weeks. Wood was on it. I come home, Wood's telling me his head's outside his body, and he's crying, and he's like, Kim, I don't know what's happening. He's bawling his head, he goes, My head's outside my body, I don't know if I can handle this. I'm like, what? And I'm like, quit your job. Like, I was so not part of because I didn't have kids, like, you know, you're adults, you're like taking your meds, you take like nobody even thinks about it, right? And um, and looking back, he called his doctor that night, and the doctor goes, You got to give the drug four to six weeks to kick in. And um, every night the next week, would he be like, What do you think about hypnosis? What do you think about acupuncture? Everything to beat this feeling outside his head. And so, anyways, it's been a long, long journey. It's really, you know, my own personal, like going through the healing of it, um, of like literally, you know, but I start piecing and the breadcrumbs, as I call it call it, about life, you know. I had um years before that had started um a program called Free Arts, and it was um brought it from California. It was working with kids abused, neglected at risk using the power of art and mentors. And I had started that back in the mid-90s, and it's now part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters here in Minneapolis. But I remember one of like working with these kids who have seen tragedy and tragic situations, but but we were using the power of art and you know, caring adults, right? But afterwards, their volunteers were like, Hey, do you want to or the staff, do you want to see where you where the kids live? And the kids are all like excited because they live in dorm rooms or like eight to 12 years old. Literally, every one of those kids picked up a cup of meds and said, um, this was their behavior medicine. And I was like, What? Like I'd never heard that was like so. That was almost like foreshadowing what was coming up with my life. I like this is where I say I had completely no background, no, we didn't live with mental health issues, right? And so I think when I put that together, and then you know, Woody having no history, it was completely a hundred percent shocking. And so it's what I do um today and and whatnot. So I know it's a heavy story, but I've lived it for 22 years. Um it is a heavy story, and I know that.

SPEAKER_05:

So the advocacy is around prescription drugs, yeah. Specifically antidepressants, uh well, drug safety. Drug safety. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I I was actually instrumental in helping get the black box suicide warnings put on antidepressants in 2004 and 2006. When these drugs came on the market, I had no idea that night that the coroner asked that question. My brother-in-law, who's married to my sister, went home and Googled and found out the FDA had hearings in 1991 on the emergence of violence and suicide with Prozac. And almost every one of those members took money from pharmaceutical companies that had no um, and they all said, nope, we don't see anything. And so fast forward, the FDA um doesn't they tell Eli Lilly to study suicidality, they didn't. Meanwhile, they now approve Paxel and Zoloft, and and it's getting used for kids, and this is well before Woody um even died. And and when the time Woody died in 2003, there were no warnings. So that all of that came together, and it's kind of like when I hear Christy say, uh, you know, my work's not done, I feel like all of this was um the gift that Woody gave me that came from a really painful place. But I think it was like I can, and I still get emotional thinking about it, but you know, if I think about who he was, like there were um, they were putting two cell phone towers around our neighborhood, and he asked me to get involved and go get uh signatures like from the neighbors, and I was like, I know what you can go and get I'm not walking around the neighborhood and getting signatures, but you can. He goes, Well, we're gonna bring it to the city council, and I'm like, uh, you'll never win. You're going up against the city council and two drug companies or two cell phone companies. And I remember him saying, Well, Kim, I'd rather try like hell and lose than do nothing at all. And and I literally think back and I was like, Wow, Woody, it was almost like when you died, you gave me a pet baton. You passed the baton and said, Guess what? I'm not leaving you with the city council and the cell phone companies. I'm leaving you with Pfizer, the FDA, Congress, Big Pharma. And I still like that committee that in 91 didn't do their job. I now sit on that committee as the consumer rep representing the public because we didn't have a Woody didn't have a voice, all those other people, and I've met families and families who lost little 12-year-old kids that should never be hanging themselves, taking those drugs. And family, and so this is my like passion. I get passionate about it because mental health is not going away. Um, it's becoming a huge topic, and we have to have information as the public because it scares me knowing what I know and the work. And I did have a big lawsuit against Pfizer too. And so there's a lot of information. This could be like a five-hour conversation. And I do speak all over the world now on this from the perspective that I have.

SPEAKER_05:

So are you familiar with Casey Mean's book?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, she's a surgeon general. I know her and her brother, and that whole movement. I've been a part of it.

SPEAKER_05:

So obsessed, by the way. I think my for me personally, the last couple of years, I've been my eyes have just I feel like the rose-colored glasses have come off when it comes to wellness and the healthcare system and just the follow the money.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, follow the money. Blindly trust, you know. I mean, I know, and it's funny, like when I think about how our stories are, we've got Betsy, her husband, the doctor, took his life, and Christy, um, with and then those guys, and then also being a sales rep. So back when I got out of college, either you went into um all my friends who either went into advertising or we wanted to be a pharmaceutical sales rep. So I went into advertising, but after five years, I was watching my roommate who was driving a really fancy car, hanging out with all the doctors, and you know, buying expensive clothes, you know, expensive for back in the you know, two, I would gladly pay those prices now. But I remember I'm like, I'm gonna go be a pharmaceutical sales rep. And uh, they give the first thing this um, and I think it was GSK, the first thing they do is they give you a whole list of all the chemical names. And I was like, uh cinnamonophrin, like I couldn't even say any of like or down, and I looked at him, I'm like, I don't think I'm cut out for this. And he goes, No. And then because that is how they quickly can tell if you're um, yeah, if you are gonna be a good pharma rep. And then the funny thing is, I did stay in advertising, and I think that has been the biggest gift. Where I think back in the day, um Woody, you know, Woody had just started his dream job. He loved like entrepreneurship and business, and he always said, Kim, you can do so much more than just advertising. And what I realized is uh I'm so grateful that I've had all of my experiences because advertising has been the gift, because I understand how the marketing and how companies, these these guys are marketers, advertising. Um, I know messaging, I know hope, I know I know how you sell hope, I know how you sell fear, like it's the game. And so that insight has been really an amazing place to sit on the FDA because of course the of course the clinical trials are gonna show that the drug works. That's the whole game of the FDA. Yeah, so I'm like, I'm asking questions about marketing. What are you gonna do with advertising? How are you gonna do it? And everybody on the committee that are all like brainiacs, um, they're looking at me like, why is she bringing up marketing? I'm like, uh, this isn't about this, it's really about the marketing. Yeah. And so it's been a super fascinating. And I have my own, you know, I've been doing advertising still, along with all of this advocacy work. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_06:

It's a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a lot. I know the three of us together are a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

You can't help I know we are a lot.

SPEAKER_05:

Here's here's something that is coming to mind is as somebody who hasn't experienced this, right? I talk about this frequently on the podcast, and it's the the difference between empathy and sympathy. I can sim I can sympathize to pain, I can sympathize to loss, but I cannot empathize, right? Like I don't I could never say I empathize with you because I can't be empathetic to losing a husband via suicide or by cancer. I can't. I could never relate to that.

SPEAKER_02:

But can I add to that what you're saying? Um this is Christy. I I think I became a better professional after Rob's death because clients would say to me, I can't get out of bed in the morning, Christy, or you know, I'm just I I can't get motivated or I'm too sad or this happened. And it wasn't relatable to me because I had lived this life that wasn't very sad and I didn't know that tragedy. So I could I couldn't empathize with them. So now when I when they share these hurdles with me, I think I know exactly what you're feeling. We may have gotten there differently, right? But I feel it now. Yeah. So when we talk about the positives that have come from this, that's definitely one for me.

SPEAKER_05:

Kim, would you like, would you like to speak to well, go ahead and share what you were gonna share first.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I was just gonna say, I even say, even to your point, like, yes, you you may not have lost a husband, but I could never say because I've never had kids. And so when I see somebody who is um has lost kids, and I and try and trust me, in this work, I come across the painful reality of suicide all the time. And and I'm looking at these parents and these moms, I don't know what it's like to lose a kid, because I can re I can replace the role of a husband. I can never like you can't ever replace the role of a kid, that kid, or that, you know, um, parent. And so I feel like even as much as I can maybe empathize and that pain, and that's probably why I feel pain, but I don't know their loss. And I always have to remember that that I don't know what their loss is like. I don't know what their pain, people who have pain. I have people that question my like some of my work, not necessarily, but they're like, you don't know what it's like, Kim, you have never lived with physical pain. And I'm like, you know what? You're right. I don't know what physical pain is that you can't get out of bed because you've done something. But I do know and I do believe more than ever that, and I know you would never say this because if somebody said this at the time that Woody died, or you know, Rob or Matt, um, Matt died, God doesn't give you anything that you can't handle. But I can tell you right now, I didn't think I could handle this, and 22 years later, I look back and I'm like, whoa. And so, but I still don't know what it's like to because I haven't walked in their shoes, but I can feel the pain percent 100%.

SPEAKER_05:

I want to pivot and um start to tie in how the three of you your paths crossed, um, where that happened, and and it's evident that it's been a while now since you guys have known one another, and so talk yeah about myself in the past. Not that long. Not that long.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say first, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, I was gonna say, I well, I think oh well, so Christy had a sick friend, um, a very sick friend that was a physician, and he was really struggling with mental health, and we connected that way. And right when I met her, I just thought she is just awesome. Like she's just such a cool, positive person. Like you just have that vibe. So that's how we met.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and then how Betsy, you know, how I met Betsy was through her book. So one of my friends uh saw her book on Instagram and said, Oh my gosh, Kim, you gotta write to this person. And I've learned something through all my advocacy. If you're inspired by somebody or you want to learn something from somebody, reach out and they don't have to respond. But you know, most times they will.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, or at least that's what I've found. And so I wrote to Betsy and I was like, Oh my gosh, your book, like you, you know, my husband died. You know, not that you're gonna go, my husband died the same way. Like it's such a weird thing to say. But um, so when Betsy came back into Minneapolis, we went and had lunch. And I think that was kind of the start of our yeah, love for each other. And that was like not even two years, not even two. No, this is all new. Yeah, this is new.

SPEAKER_06:

This is fairly new, two to three years. Yeah. And us probably three years. Yeah, about the same. Um yeah, and then I how one of gathering. I I had the girls over because I was like, here we are in this situation where we're all widows, and um, we just really hit it off.

SPEAKER_01:

And that was right before I think you were moving full time back to Carolina. Yeah, to to North Carolina. And then I was like, oh, wait, I love these ladies. And then you start going, wait, we're not just friends. I mean, I think people think, oh, you're a widow, you're a widow, you should be friends. But there was something in the energy of us that we're like, oh, I see you, I get you.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, and you know, my late husband was an oncologist. Christy's husband died of cancer, and then you know, Kim's died by suicide. So we had this weird tie.

SPEAKER_02:

Karmically strange, like like God put us together. And it's it's interesting to uh to add on to what Kim noted. We did it, somebody said to me, You should meet this Betsy Gall. She's a widow too, was kind of the opener. And I thought, I don't want to get set up with widows. I mean, you know, just because we're widows, um, I don't even I don't even because I had gone to one widow support group, and it was to me, it was just all this complaining. And and that was just my perception. Well, now, and so I thought, well, what are we gonna talk about? Widowhood? Are we gonna talk about and then it was she we got connected through this this ill friend, even more so, and then we reached out, you reached out to me. I met you at that Starbucks, and I was telling, you know, be about my parents, someone very close to me. I'm like, oh, oh, I love her. I'll be friends with her anyway. I wouldn't, you know, it's not widowhood. And then the same when you came to the party. So we're we're all very blessed that we were connected in, you know, because there's true love and friendship.

SPEAKER_06:

And I think just positivity, and when when you can relate, like we've all been to hell and back. I mean, I think we can honestly say that we feel like we've been to hell and back, but we we are all just genetically positive people, and I think all three of us have a deep faith. And so it was easy for us to relate and connect with each other. I mean, that makes it easy, right?

SPEAKER_05:

Perfect segue into talking a little bit more about faith, faith journeys as well. But one thing I have to, I I'm sure you've already made this connection, but you um in your book, Betsy, you mentioned that Matthew uh was advised to take antidepressants, right? And he he was like, absolutely not for a for a very long time.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, Matthew, well, it wasn't very long time because he his depression was very short, to be honest with you. But he thought he was gonna lose his medical license if he took any sort of antidepressant. So I I'm on the advocacy side too. I'm I'm fighting for our physicians' well-being so that they can get mental health care without the threat of losing their medical license, which is such a strange thing to me because you know, mental health is just part of, you know, it's just like exercise. You've got to take care of it.

SPEAKER_05:

It's interesting too the the time frame that we're living in right now. Mental health is it it's like it's talked about so much more, yet there's so much, there's so many more issues, it feels like. Am I do I maybe I'm not emphasizing that properly, but oh it you definitely are.

SPEAKER_01:

But so I'm in it, like I'll probably take it way too deep. So I will I apologize and you can kick me off. Go ahead. It's okay. But you know, part of it. We have to so at one point there was a time, place in time where nobody talked about mental health, right? Nobody talked about like you're struggling, you would never tell anybody. Then all of a sudden it became it was it not it was like probably 20 or 15 years ago, it became um all the make it okay campaigns, but you have to know who put the monies behind it. Follow the money, follow the money, which is what Woody told me always if you wanted to get to the bottom of anything, just follow the money trail. And so it became where everybody talks about it now. Every kid has depression, every kid has anxiety. I'm on I'm Alexa Bro, I'm Alexa Ho. I mean, that's how they talk, the kids, and they're almost like proud of it. And so it's become almost to the extreme as opposed to like I think they're I mean, mental, we're mental, physical, spiritual beings, and we have to remember that that we have to like to Betsy said with mental health, we have to take care of it. But is it like then is it how does it fit in with the physical? And how does spiritual line into this? And that to me is really where I think there's so much connection between mental health and spiritual health, and and the because faith is a really big piece that has been missing in society, and you don't say yeah, and but you know the interesting thing when I look at these girls here, um, I think that is what has connected us. Like I will just share mine and I'm gonna give it. But after Woody died, when he the at we were throwing his ashes out in the middle of Lake Michigan, which he always said when I died, throw my ashes in the middle of the lake. And um, right, my brother-in-law, this is like nobody said you can take on the FDA and all this stuff. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I'm holding this box of Woody ashes, which is so weird. A box of Woody. Um, and all of a sudden, in the middle of the lake, there's this red book floating by, literally open face, with my brother-in-law, who became my person out that helped me in DC. I go, does that say what I think it does? And he and we both went, yeah, in gold letters, it said the Holy Bible, and it floated right by us in the middle of Lake Michigan. And at that moment, that was six weeks after Woody died. And at that moment, I was like, oh, wait, life is so much bigger than what we are living physically. At that moment, God's saying, I'm here, I'm watching, I've got you, I've got Woody. And I also am super uber uber grateful that I was raised in a family. Um, even though you didn't, I never understood what a relationship meant with God. I was like, Yeah, I don't know what that means, but I'm so grateful that my parents gave me the gift of going to church. I didn't always like it, but I it was something that I got to fall back on when I was 37 years old and never knew that it would mean as much as it did, and I'm super grateful for it.

SPEAKER_05:

So go ahead, Christy.

SPEAKER_02:

I I feel the same. I it was interesting, not interesting, a very a very real real part of Rob's death journey. Every morning we would pray together, and we would drive to chemo appointments, and I would read to him prayers from a prayer book, and it was very important to him, very important to me. It was a little methodical at that time because it was part of our routine because we had so many things we needed to do to prolong his life or create the best space for him. But faith became very instrumental in that. And then when he died, as I shared, I he wasn't dying. He was taking these four breaths per minute and being a bit of a control freak. I'm trying to coach him to his death, like, God is ready for you, it'll be okay. And I ended up calling this woman who owned the yoga studio where he used to teach and did some work on me. And I said, He's not dying. He's been he's been like this for two days. It's time for him to go and to find peace. And she said, Give me a moment. She went out on her porch. She lived on the St. Croix and she said, Oh, Christy, there's angels all over your house. The portal is open. They are waiting for him. She said, You need to leave the room. You cannot be in the same room with him. He doesn't want to leave you. There's too much there. So she said, Go out and lay in the hallway in like a shavasana position. And my best friend was there. I had to clear the house. His parents were downstairs. There were too many people who loved him there. And he didn't want to leave. And so Lisa looked at a crack through the bedroom door as I laid in the hallway because I said, I can't, I need eyes on him. I need to know, like you tell me. And she said, He's breathing slower. Um, the TV was playing songs, and the song came on Look to the Stars. And she said, now he had been laying in a fetal side, right side body position. I used to have to kneel down to make eye contact with him. He couldn't even lift his head. And she said, Oh my gosh, he has just rolled over. And he threw his arms in the air, and the first thing he said was, This is so effing hard. But he didn't say effing. And then he rolled back over. And then he rolled over again, he threw his arms in the air and he said, I love you so much. And he rolled back down. And then he rolled over the last time, threw his arms in the air, and he said, I have work to do. And he died. God, so I mean, I witnessed so much love and really a miracle. And I w I, you know, it's like when a baby is born and they come into this world with so much love. He left, just consumed with love, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

I think this is the first time on this podcast I have literally no words.

SPEAKER_06:

And this is life. And this is life. And we take the lessons that we're given here on earth because nobody's gonna be here forever. Yeah. And so, what you know, once you've been through tragedies like we have, um, you really need to look at how you want to live. And my brother, my 50-year-old brother, just had a heart attack, God willing. I mean, it wasn't his time to go. But 50 years old, I mean, Matthew took his own life at 49. You just never know when your last breath is gonna be. So it it it's a real, it's super important to look at how you want to live your life.

SPEAKER_05:

I I think it's a beautiful statement, right? And um, to work my best to tie that into the theme of the podcast, that being entrepreneurship and then motherhood as well, the harmonization that you do. There's so many individuals, and I am a part of this too, that live in fear. To make a decision because of how somebody is gonna view that decision to make a step in what feels like the best direction for you, for your family at that time. And I I think wow, what you just said, Betsy, is like this the circumstance of having all three of you women in here based off of your individual stories is a friendly reminder. Like wow, life life can be just incredibly short at times.

SPEAKER_06:

And well, and it's important to be prepared, right? Like I mean, I think that we want to use our platform to not only help widows, but to help families before you become a widow. I mean, there's practical things you can do, right? I mean, for for all of us, we were raised in the church, and as a parent, you know, you have to parent, and you get to make that choice with with how you want to lead your kids. I I think we all agree that it was a gift our parents gave us. And then there's practical things too, like you should have a will, you should have an estate plan, you should get life insurance.

SPEAKER_01:

Life insurance.

SPEAKER_06:

Everybody thinks everybody, I mean, you need it. Yeah, it's totally it's an awful way to, you know, get money, but it is such a gift because you, especially when you have children, and especially if they're you know accustomed to a certain lifestyle, there is not a day that goes by that I tell my children, and we've been extremely blessed, that I do not take for granted the fact that I'm not living in my parents' basement because you just never know what's gonna happen. So there are practical things that you can do as a leader of your family.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was gonna say, even for the people who don't have children yet, I mean, I'm so grateful that for Wood and I, when we got married at 28, he was super organized, planned, you know, like we had to, I mean, we had trust before. I'm like, we don't even have any money. Why do we have a trust? I mean, he did that years ago. I'd be like, you're wasting all of our money. And he would be like, and we had life insurance. Yeah. And way back, and nobody thinks, but like, you know what, I'm gonna say this. One of the biggest gifts is, and I didn't even have kids. I didn't have to move from my house after Woody died because we had life insurance. And that to me, those simple things, and we were young, and everybody thinks you're gonna live till you're like a hundred, or you know, you're gonna have many years to take, you know, take care of this business. But I also want to say for the, you know, what I have come to realize is even with as organized and all the driven as Woody was, he was super organized, successful, you don't take anything with you. When you like literally all the money you like, you know, and the stress that you had would or the money you made, like you didn't take anything with you. I'd go into a closet because I didn't have kids. So my I was like, wait, were you real? Were you real? And then I'd go in the closet and I'm like, whoa, and it's why I didn't give away his clothes for like three, four years, because I had to know that he was real. And and so, but you don't take anything with you. And it's also why with my nieces and nephew, and I have um, and I collect kids. So if you've got kids I can take, I do, and I'll work kids. Well, you're not too perfect with this. He does, and even my like words for even my I did have an ex. Um, and his are now my nieces. I mean, yeah, it's really crazy. But um, but here's what I'm gonna say is what you do, it's the experiences, it's how you live. Like, these are legacies that you leave. The only thing Rob took with him is the love and his family, the memories that he created, and that's what he left you too. He didn't leave his club, you know, sure he left the club, but but you know what I'm saying? Like, you and he took with all that love and that experience, and that's what I think I try to now live. And I think as Betsy was starting to say, um, it's this happened, and you can't, we none of us had any choice in this, but it's our choice in what we do going forward. And how do you live now? It doesn't mean that you don't wish or you would take something back, but it's this is what we have.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, and it's important, you know, you don't want to live your life with regrets. I just actually did a really interesting experiment, and I wrote my own obituary, and it wasn't, it was funny. It it's what you want people to say about you. So how then you reflect and live that way, right? I mean, what do you want to be remembered by? Is it your fancy car? Because nobody's nobody cares. Nobody cares. It is how you impact other people through love and kindness, and I think that's the three of us. What we have decided to do with this is to help, you know, we want to share our experiences because let's face it, at the end of the day, everybody is gonna experience grief. It is the truth. There are death and taxes, and that is what you are guaranteed in this life. So, what do you want to do with that? How do you want your life to look? I know after, you know, Matt died, I, you know, I I got real specific in manifesting what I wanted my life to look like. I never expected it to look a different way than, you know, being married to a doctor with three kids. And, you know, just just I had a great life then and I have a great life now. And um, you just you take, you collect all of these experiences that you go through and hopefully can impact and help somebody else along the way. Um, you know, death is it's it's a really, really hard thing. I think God you're in shock as a protection. I think God, that's God's way of protecting you initially because it's so overwhelming. And you just are, I mean, and and shock for me lasted well over a year. And I would have this experience of floating. I felt like I it happened all the time when I would walk my dog and put on my ear pods and walk my dog, and I felt like I was floating, looking down at myself, that living somebody else's life. Like this was a dream, this was a nightmare. How am I in this position? And so, you know, and and and eventually that kind of wears off. And now I'm living my life and and and I have a great life. But think about how you want to live your life. What do you want people to remember you by? Well, you know, write your own obituary. It's real eye-opening.

SPEAKER_05:

It's weird.

SPEAKER_06:

I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I am too, as much as I dislike the thought of even doing it, but I'm going to. I think that there's such power in, you know, I talk about this with other women on the podcast, like the power of writing stuff down.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Right? The power of writing down what your goals are, what your visions are, what are your core values? Like, what is important to you? What is your why? Right. And I think we can all speak to that here, certainly, about like our why shifts too, depending on what God throws at us, what and what stage of life.

SPEAKER_06:

I mean, yeah. And a two and a half year old, Kelly. I mean, your life is that's a busy time of life. I love that channel. I'm so happy for you, Kelly. We're going to.

SPEAKER_05:

As Joe's downstairs, you know, like we've got two entrepreneurs in this house. And it's so funny. He's like, I'm like, we don't have like Nana was getting her hair done, and so she wasn't able to watch Maddie. Maddie doesn't have school today. She didn't have it yesterday, today, tomorrow. The boys went off to school. I was like, I have assurance. We're good. We're nope, we're not golden. Schedules are shifting again. Nana can't go and get her. I was like, you've got to stay home with Maddie. I've got, I have Betsy and the girls that are coming for the podcast, and he's he's holding on tight to the you know, the Godzilla minister.

SPEAKER_02:

He's hoping this isn't two hours.

SPEAKER_05:

We're golden, we're golden. I know that we've got flights and stuff though, so we do want, I want to respect your time. But, you know, Kim, I do want to just ask, um, in in all that you had gone through, I I heard you loud and clear about, you know, the you're in Detroit, it was Detroit, right, when this happened. And you guys had plans set in place about um what the future would look like with children. And so what how does that all tie in to where you were at at that moment? I mean, I can't, I just can't even imagine. First and foremost, I've had an individual, one individual on this podcast who had continued to do in vitro and what's the other one? There's like two different ways of getting pregnant. I can't think of it too. I know it starts with an IUI and I V F. Yeah. And I can't think of the the word, but and then even adoption too. And the challenges and the emotions that she experienced going through that process, and then of course, faith being such a huge component for her and just trusting like this is the path for me. And so I am curious for for you specifically um what that had looked like and how you have worked through those emotions as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh that's a good question. Uh, I think you know, looking back now, and again, I have 22 years to look back at this. And I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I mean I think God knew I wasn't gonna be a parent because if I had kids, I couldn't go do the work that I had to do, which was I was on a plane almost every other week to DC. And I don't know that I could have had kids. Um, and so I was so what I realized is the idea of grief and like numbing.

SPEAKER_01:

And in some ways, I threw myself into my advocacy weeks after Woody died because I couldn't make sense of any of it, and it was the one thing that made sense. And so at that time, my sister's kids were one and three, Samantha and Austin, and Woody was Samantha's godfather. And Eric, my brother-in-law, was the one who was with me and was on the planes with me with my sister at home with those two little kids. And I remember her, like, I mean, the just the relationship stress between those two because she was at home with those little kids, and Eric was able to go do what he did with me, and forever grateful for that. But I I just have made just said that it wasn't gonna happen in this lifetime. I could have, you know, I probably could have. Um, I know some people who are in their like 40s who never got married or didn't work and so um or it didn't work out with the relationship, so they still went ahead and adopted or had in vitro. But I don't at this point, I think I had gone too far down a path. And I just think this was the legacy that I was supposed to, you know, that you know, Woody always wanted kids. Um, I think this was his kid, yeah, and um that I kind of birthed.

SPEAKER_05:

That is such a fascinating perspective. Well, think about the lives you're saving too.

SPEAKER_06:

And and she has, I mean, because Kim speaks all over the world. I mean, it's it's quite impressive if you look at her resume. But the one thing that I take away when listening to you say that, and for Christy too, we are all three authentically living the lives that we were meant to live. I think we all believe that, and we have taken our pain and turned it into purpose. Um, but it's so important. It's it's it's hard, and you're really young, Kelly, so I remember those.

SPEAKER_05:

Turning 40 here in a couple of weeks. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

40 girls.

SPEAKER_05:

I wish I was 40. I am so thrilled to be turning 40. I know a lot of women come to this sort of threshold and they're like, I don't want it. I am ready. I'm like, bye 30s, see ya.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's the best attitude to have. Every and every decade, you know, I love birthdays. We either have them or we don't, right?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But every decade offers something really fabulous. And, you know, even every birthday, but I think you look back at 30s or 40s or 50s now. Um, I think it's awesome. I'm I'm excited for you.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

But go ahead, I was just gonna say one quick thing. I couldn't wait to turn Woody died when I was 37, and I was like, oh my gosh, I want to be 40 because I cannot handle any of the 30s anymore. So I was super excited to be 40. And even with the pain and all of that. So I think love it. You're gonna do awesome. And the fact, embrace it, like to your point, you just hit it just hit me when you said, Well, you either have them or you don't. That means that you're either alive or you're dead. Yeah. So I'll take a birthday at any age. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah, and celebrate it to the fullest. Joe used to joke, like he still does. He literally just brought it up. He's like, I remember meeting you and talking about um, you know, your birthday month. And I was like, Okay, let's just hold the phone for a second. It wasn't quite like that. And at that point, you know, I was like casting the net really wide, and I had a lot of girlfriends, and they all wanted to go out and celebrate. And it was this weekend and that night, and then this morning, and having coffee, and that's really what it was about. But like, hey, hell yeah, let's celebrate for the entire month and go, we are here on this planet, and that's amazing.

SPEAKER_06:

And I have to say, I'll never forget because Matt, when Matthew was very, very sick, and it was our wedding anniversary, it was our 20-year wedding anniversary on September 4th. And he he said, 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sick.' And I said, We'll do it next year, Matt. We'll celebrate next year. And next year never came. So it is so important to celebrate everything. I think just celebrate every birthday, everything that you cherish in your life should be celebrated and live your authentic life, right? At the end of the day, everybody gets handed a shit sandwich at some point. I tell my kids that all the time. Yeah, it's what you're gonna do with it and how you're gonna work through it. And nobody cares that you fall down, it's how you get back up that matters.

SPEAKER_05:

Absolutely. I want to speak to this. I am in um the world of discipleship right now, and my mentor, my discipler, is the spray 80 years old. Okay, so she has been through a lot of stuff. And we're reading, um, we're reading through a Bible study right now in the book of Elijah, and how Elijah had built the spiritual backbone for themselves, for himself, right? And I I think to your point, Betsy, really, it yes, about we're all gonna fall, we're all gonna be handed that shit sandwich at some point or another, and maybe it happens, you know, a couple times, and it's about that resiliency and that backbone and the spiritual backbone as well through all of it.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, and gratitude. I was just you know, you think out of what the billion people in the world, God chose us as the only us. We are the only the person wearing our shirt right now, we're the only us. And for some reason, we were chosen. So no matter what happens in our lives, we have to resonate back to gratitude that, well, he picked me, so I'm gonna I'm gonna get through this and I'm gonna move on to the next thing because I was chosen to live this life.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was just gonna say, I think back to a song that I listened to every night on repeat after Woody um died, which was I'll praise you through the storm by um casting crown. And and I think there's still praise and gratitude through the pain, and to Christy's point, there's only one of us. So that's all I'm gonna say is praise you through the storm.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, and I think we could come back and do a whole entire podcast segment on gratitude. Oh, seriously, and I remember uh the going through my brain when Matt was the actually it was the morning after he died, is God says to be grateful in all circumstances, not just the good ones. In all circumstances, we are to be thankful. And so, to to your point, celebrating birthdays, thankful. Um, and when you're in the storm, you don't see it at the time, but there will come a point when you are through the storm that you look back and realize okay, because of that, something good did come out of this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and there's always it's like the line, my favorite song, YouTube, beautiful day, and the line that says the best line is after the floods, all the colors came out. So after the storm, there is that beautiful rainbow. Yeah, and it will be there, it will.

SPEAKER_05:

Let's start to land the plane so you can get on a plane boat. I know. I do know the game. I just want the listeners to understand this has been it's it's been powerful, first and foremost, but it's been a raw and sad. And there's a lot of um, you know, for lack of better words, just grief that we've talked through. But the beauty on the other side of that, to your point, Christy, is like there's so much good that can come out of how we are hit upside the head. Pieces of advice you would give some issue. How do I want to phrase this? I just think that I think that the best way to do this is what's a piece of advice you would give a woman listening right now, and it's just kind of broad stroke it, I guess, is maybe uh how I would want to do it. Because usually I ask, like, what's a piece of advice you would give? We're taking a step back, and I'm not editing this out, by the way. Okay. What's a piece of advice that you would give a younger version of yourself, knowing all that you know now?

SPEAKER_02:

It's all gonna be okay. You are not broken, you're just about to break through.

SPEAKER_01:

There's power in your voice.

SPEAKER_05:

Holy shit. All right, now I want to go around the horn and um have you ladies speak to um advice you would give a woman listening right now that's fearful.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, you know, fear is a very powerful feeling, but a lot of the times we're afraid of things that never come to fruition. So it can be a big waste of time. I have always struggled with living in the present. Um, I'm a planner and it's hard, but I think you need to live in the present moment and just know when when when the dark days come, the sun will always come out tomorrow. And I will say my whole life uh uh has changed obviously since since my late husband passed away, but it has been rooted in gratitude, and it's very hard to be negative when you're thankful.

SPEAKER_05:

So good. Go ahead, Christy.

SPEAKER_02:

So I would speak to fear in um the sense that when I initially lost Rob and had this new life, I I masked and I ran from the fear. I was even labeled a runner. So I would buy a new car or move to a new house, or you know, forget that. I'll just I'll I'll but the fear of everything was still, I mean, it's my head at night that is on the pillow and mine that wakes up, and that fear is still in my body and in my mind, and I I ran from it and I masked it, and it was um it was it injured me, and it it it was not good modeling or example setting. Sit in the fear, look it in the eye, feel it, and then do the best you can that day. But it's not going anywhere. You know, you have to face it. And you you I I tried running from it, it does not work. So just sit in it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you took mine. Oh, no, just kidding. Um I would have said, I would have no, I would say, don't numb the fear and don't numb the pain. But for me, the fear is, and I have to remember this myself. I have to go back to as I call my fire um method now that I talk about, faith, and going like, wait, pray about everything, worry about nothing. And I have to every time, and I still do it, trust me, um, I'll be like, oh no, Kim, you gotta pray, gotta pray. And just so that that and intuitively, like, listen, there's signs everywhere, even coming to your house today. Like, we have signs that are coming everywhere and look at them and don't be in a rush to make something happen because what is meant for you will happen, will come to you. You don't have to go try to like tell God you know his plan, you're gonna make it happen faster. So, like, slow down, be still, but also when you have that fear, move it. Move, like you know, energy is move, like it gets stuck in your body. And so that could be just go out and move your body, go dance if you can dance or walk, and just like shake it out and be present and breathe.

SPEAKER_05:

I want you to speak to the sign that you were just talking about when you got to my house.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yes, I love butterflies, and so do all my other girls, but butterflies literally after Woody died, butterflies like everywhere. I'm like, oh my god, stop! Like, I get it. And so I have a butterfly shirt on, I have a butterfly um little necklace on, and then today you gave me a butterfly cup for my coffee, and you didn't even know anything about my butterfly.

SPEAKER_05:

And so did you even notice your butterflies?

SPEAKER_01:

No, she didn't even notice it, but let me tell you, I did, and I was like, oh my gosh. And that was my nod, that all's well.

SPEAKER_05:

All right, so I'm just gonna make, I'm gonna take a few more minutes because something else that came to me is I want, I want to hear just uh pieces of advice of working through if you are in this moment of sadness or tragedy, um, how you work through that and also harmonize it with caring for children, but then also operating your business as well.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah. I think work is really important. Purpose, you know, we need our lives to have purpose. So work, um, I would say when you're when you're in it, something about just getting up and doing your routine is wonderful that can help. Um for me, exercise was huge. I went to the gym uh the day after my husband died. I I'm an early morning workout person. It was 6 a.m. And I'll never forget pulling out of my driveway. My brother had flown in the night before Thanksgiving night. Um, and I was so bewildered. I didn't understand how he had gotten to North Carolina from Minnesota. But I remember pulling out of my driveway, and he's standing in my driveway looking at me like, what the hell? Where are you? What do you do? Where are you going? And I'm like, I'm going to work out. Like, what the hell else am I supposed to do? Like, just lay here. I mean, that's a me, that's a me kind of if you know me, I'm a doer. So, but I will say, you need to, and then you know, we had children around, right? My kids were there, and it it was it was just an awful chaotic time, but they do model you. So what you put out there, they will eventually they will follow in your footsteps. I mean, all three of my kids work out really hard. They have, you know, they have watched my have had bad days too, you know. Um, I think what Kim said is real, you got to be real careful not to numb yourself with wine. Um that's an easy way out. So you just need to, you need to do what feels good for you. And getting out and moving, but exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling, and and praying.

SPEAKER_02:

So to add on to what you're saying with the children and the modeling, I'll start with that. I was, it was the um Rob had died in May, and it was the December post-death, and we were in Florida, and we were staying at my parents, and there's two queen beds in there in our room, and Dara, our youngest, crawled into bed with me, and I was already thinking I was trying to go to sleep, and she put her arm around me, and she said, Mom, and I said, What? She goes, You're breathing too fast. And I said, What? She goes, You're breathing so fast. And I didn't know exactly what that meant, but if I could extrapolate that and what that metaphor was, my whole frigging life was moving too fast because I was running. And the modeling for her was I'm used to a present. I mean, I mean I'm a yoga teacher too. I know how to be present. It's it's part of who I am. So I think I know that that was a pivotal moment for me about okay, how do I get through this and be an example? So as I started to not breathe so fast, in quotes, then I also started to get back into my work. It allowed me to be present to get back into my work and back into routines that were healthy for me. Very, very hard to do. But first thing in the morning, I read for 15 minutes. It sometimes if it's longer, but I I don't deviate from that. I don't get the phone going. It's 15 minutes of reading, whatever it is. And then you go on with your day. I like like all three of us, we all also love exercise and movement and dance, um, particularly at Betsy's wedding. But um, yeah, so I I just think that you know, staying in your routine, even when it's hard, think well, what would I have done prior to this? What did I do before this? And do it. Just don't overthink it, do it.

SPEAKER_05:

It's so interesting because I think that for me personally, like uh we just had again, I have to reference this by the time this episode drops, um, we'll be about a month and a half out from what happened at the Annunciation Church and school. But that has hit me like a ton of bricks. And we've got we have friends and um lots of friends who have been impacted by that. I've had women on the podcast who have been impacted by that. And I get I stayed up way too late last night and drowned myself in all of what was happening with the news and stuff, and then was like, okay, I can't almost picked up Betsy's book to finish reading, and I was like, I can't, I gotta go to bed. But but I slept in, I slept in for me, and my routine was completely disrupted. And I think, oh my gosh, I've got to get some movement in today, otherwise I will go absolutely bonkers, right? Right. But to your point here, and that's just a minor, you know, uh circumstance of what you're speaking to, right? Like I was I'm kind of echoing through what has impacted and been a direct impact to other people, but sticking with the routine, I literally was like, oh my gosh, I think it's necessary.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, it's we do we all have those days, but honestly, and now that I have my routine back, it's changed my life. I mean, it for you know, I the trajectory of what was going on before, and you know, I look at some of the decisions that I was making on the fly, but and really on the fly. And it wasn't healthy, and my kids were watching. The most important people in my life were the closest to the to the fire. And yeah, it it was it was I I had shame about it at the time, and that was to work through that too. Like, what the hell was I thinking? Well, I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was gonna say, I would add to what they said with root routines, super important, but I also feel like it's given yourself grace when like you were just saying that you weren't able to do your routine today because of what happened. And it's also sometimes you gotta feel those emotions, and we shouldn't be afraid to feel the sadness. I mean, that was pretty shocking yesterday, and it's why I woke up at 3:33 today, this morning. Um, again, my sign. Um, but I think um it's okay to feel, but at the same time, at some point, like be really careful about the numbing. I mean, I numbed it with my advocacy, I'm not gonna lie. I numbed it with a long-term relationship after my husband passed away. And guess what? Uh, it still came back because now I had two relationships I had to heal because I never healed my heart from the first time. So it doesn't go away. And I remember I wanted to move to LA right after Woody died, and my um and my therapist said, she goes, wherever you go, there you are, Kim. And I was like, because I just wanted to escape it and pretend like it didn't exist. And guess what? It did exist. And then I would say, one last thing is the idea of finding a purpose, whatever it is, if it's the purpose of your kids getting up, or if it's a purpose. I think purpose is one thing that we're missing, and it will also helps with the anxiety and fear, and even with um, and also what are you putting in your brain? Like, what are you listening to? Like the news. I stopped after the whole, like after COVID hit, like I don't listen to news. I won't even listen to it, and I'll talk to my parents and they'll be like, didn't you know there's a huge storm coming? And I'm out walking as the storm's coming. I'm like, uh not surprise me. Not one bit. I didn't watch the news. My dad's like, why aren't you watching the news? I'm like, I don't want to put that garbage in my I don't want that garbage in my ears.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

In my, you know. So, anyways, that would be my advice.

SPEAKER_05:

So interesting. The first thought that came to mind when we were talking about that, Kim, is um, I've I've come across a couple different individuals that have this like catch flights, not feelings whole thing. Have you ever heard of that? Like catch flights, not feelings, like kind of run away, numb. And you were talking about when you first mentioned to avoid numbing, my thought was alcohol, drugs. But you bring up a really interesting point about there's other ways diving.

SPEAKER_06:

There's a lot of ways, remodeling, construction projects.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's any way that you can avoid really hitting that that feeling and that emotion head on, right? It's the avoidance factor. But I I love that you point out it's not just the drugs, it's not just the alcohol as a means to numb the pain. There's other ways that you can do that. But at the end of the day, moving to LA and catching the flight versus facing the feelings isn't gonna solve anything. So ladies, I I literally hopefully feel like I did some form of justice for each one of your stories and the advocacy that you're you're putting out there into the world and the mission that God has put on each one of your guys' hearts, your ladies' hearts. I'm so appreciative. I wish we had more time. I truly wish we did.

SPEAKER_06:

So well, invite us back. We'll come back. This was awesome. Absolutely. We we we really um we are so grateful for the opportunity and uh you're amazing, I think that what this podcast, and you're raising littles right now. So um we just we're really grateful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and this is our first time, the three of us, and we are actually starting something called the Three Wise Widows. And so, anyways, this was our first time, like that we've all three been in the same room having to professionally. I mean, you know, we've been a lot of other places, but just to go, oh wait, like so. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to just you know, we've never sat in a room having this kind of conversation. So I'm gonna just say thank you.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I think that that is going to be so, so cool. Okay, so with that being said, yeah, how can the listeners find and get connected to each one of you? Betsy, why don't you start?

SPEAKER_06:

Well, um, you can find me on Instagram, my books on Amazon, I'm on Facebook, so real easy.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Same. Uh social media is a great way, and it's just my name, Christy Andringa. And I also have a website, just Christyandringa.com. Um, and yeah. Call me, send me a lot of private messages now and I will not play that.

SPEAKER_01:

I have a lot of those uh Kim Woodsack, uh, my web, my name, W-I-T-C-Z-A-K.com, and then um Instagram, Facebook. I have a substack um that I do a lot of my advocacy called Acceptable Collateral Damage, um, where I write a lot about it. And I'm on X because that's where all the advocacy is.

SPEAKER_05:

Ooh, I didn't realize that. I mean, that makes sense though, now that I think about it. All right, so speak to what you were just mentioning, though, Kim, with the three wise widows.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, that I don't even remember where this came. The three of us just started. Where did this come from, ladies? I don't even it came from our heart, and you know what? I think it's a mixture of hope, inspiration. There's of course they're sad stories. And for me, it's gonna be a really good training to get out of my advocacy space and have life discussions that are way bigger that can be relevant to everyday um living. And I don't think it's just for widows. We just like the idea. I mean, that's what we are, widows. Um, but wise and wise, and we are wise.

SPEAKER_06:

And yeah, and I and I think too, um we just genuinely enjoy each other. And we we every every one of us has different individuals that come to us looking to to us for advice. And so we just thought let's let's bring it all together and see if we can do some good.

SPEAKER_02:

Basically, this is a this is all of us being entrepreneurs, this is our way of packaging it differently. We want to speak to groups, large groups, small groups. We want to do retreats, we want to do um blogging and writing and social media. So we're gonna we have a website secured and we have some photos taken and um that we're in the very baby steps. We're in the baby steps. But we we we have the material because we lived it. Okay, and all of us have been on stages before speaking, so we just thought how awesome would it be if we could help even more people, how if we could impact more lives, and so we put it together and we're this is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so what I'll plan to do is I'll get some of that information and I'll drop it into the show notes because it'll be housed there. And as listeners are coming to your um respective interview, as that continues to grow, they have access to it. Thank you. How wonderful. Thank you. Ladies, thank you so much. Such an honor and a privilege to have all three of you here speaking to your stories and and what you're advocating for as well. Thank you. I know. I appreciate it. Well, I hope you have a great rest of the day and safe travels to you, Bethesda. Thank you, Kelly.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks. Super fun.

Head Shot

Kelly Kirk

Host