Grieving Your Disenfranchised Loss

Some grief gets welcomed with casseroles and open arms. Other grief is met with silence, side‑eye, or the sense that you don’t have the right to mourn. We go straight at disenfranchised grief—losses like suicide, overdose, miscarriage, pregnancy loss, or the death of an ex‑partner—naming how stigma shrinks support and deepens isolation, and how to reclaim the validation every mourner deserves.

We share Erin’s story of two very different deaths and the stark contrast in community response, then define disenfranchised grief and the “unwritten rules” that tell people to hide. Together with Colleen, we unpack sacred silence versus silent indifference, the suspicion that follows certain causes of death, and the internal self‑judgment many parents carry. You’ll hear practical ways to help kids and teens: simple scripts like “my dad died from a mental illness,” how to hold mixed feelings such as relief and sadness at the same time, and why honest conversations about complex relationships protect children from shame.

We also offer hands‑on tools you can use today. Learn expressive options beyond talk—art, music, storytelling with figurines, movement—and ceremony ideas when words fall short: lighting a candle, planting a tree after miscarriage, writing letters, and sharing one word that captures your person. We close with prompts that keep the whole person in view: what you’ll never forget, what you want others to know, and the qualities you’ll carry forward.

If this resonates, you’re not alone. Your grief matters, your bond was real, and healing grows in community. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a quick review so more families can find support. Have a topic you want us to explore next? Email info@jessicashouse.org and join the conversation.

Order the book When Grief Comes Home https://a.co/d/ijaiP5L

For more information on Jessica’s House or for additional resources, please go to jessicashouse.org 

Transcript

Welcome & Purpose Of The Show

Gary Shriver 0:00

Hello, and welcome to When Grief Comes Home, a podcast dedicated to parents living through loss while supporting their child. Let's meet the team.

Erin Nelson 0:10

I'm Erin Nelson, founding executive director at Jessica's House.

Colleen Montague 0:14

Hi, I'm Colleen Montague, Program Director for Jessica's House and a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Gary Shriver 0:21

Hi, I'm Brad Quillen, and I'm the host of When Grief Comes Home. This podcast goes along with the book of the same name. The book When Grief Comes Home is a gentle guide for parents who are grieving a partner or child while helping their children through the loss of their parent or sibling. When Grief Comes Home is now available at all major book retailers. Now let's go to the team as they share grief resources and coping skills, heartfelt stories and insights to support parents as they raise children who are grieving. Together, you'll find strength as we learn to live with loss and find ways to heal.

Introducing Disenfranchised Grief

Brad Quillen 1:01

Well, hello, hello. It's Brad from Jessica's House. Have you ever lost someone important to you but felt like you couldn't talk about it? Like your grief wasn't legitimate enough. Today we're going to discuss the topic of disenfranchised grief. Ever felt like you didn't have the right to grieve certain losses? We'll be exploring that, as well as practical ways to navigate this painful experience. Erin and Colleen, it's good to be back with you guys recording another podcast. And I wanted to start after that intro, Erin, by asking you a question, kind of putting you on the spot a little bit. Your husband Tyler died in a plane crash, and then a number of months later, uh almost a year, if I remember right, or a little bit longer, your mom died from suicide. And you've talked often to us here at Jessica's House just about the difference you felt, but then also the differences you felt in the community and people around you in those two different losses. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because that's what we're going to spend the day talking about is this word disenfranchised. And we'll come back to that, but just kind of your experience in that and how you felt that, but also how you saw it in your own life.

Erin Nelson 2:09

Yeah, as we talk about this idea of, you know, people die in all kinds of ways, and our grief is really impacted by the way someone dies. And when Tyler died, you know, this accident that just took us all by surprise. And it was so sudden. And I had a lot of support, and people were there just by our side and really coming around us. And I found myself being able to easily talk about what happened. And then my mom, who lived with bipolar, she had um one of her suicide attempts was just about a month later after Tyler died, and then she had another one um about six months later. He died in June, and then um her second attempt was in January, and you know, that's when she went into a coma and died in March. But when this happened and we got the news that she was, you know, found and that she had attempted suicide, it was just so hard to talk about. And I just remember, you know, of course I was so fragile during that time and there was just so much, and I was still grieving over Tyler and I had the little kids, but I just didn't really know how to even form words around this experience of this, you know, this attempt that ended ended up, you know, ending with her death and you know, visiting her in the hospital and being with her. And um I just I felt like people didn't really know how to interact with me around this death, you know. I think part of it was just there was it was kind of a lot, you know, because I had all this of support before, you know, when Tyler died. And so it just added a new complexity that I didn't really understand at the time. And like you mentioned that word disenfranchised. There was kind of a part of me that felt like maybe I couldn't publicly grieve for my mom the way I did for Tyler.

Brad Quillen 4:27

Yeah, it's almost like there you did something wrong.

Erin Nelson 4:30

Yeah, I felt like I did something wrong. Yeah, I felt a lot of embarrassment and shame that maybe, you know, I didn't do everything I could have done for my mom. And, you know, that it was just a feeling of just, yeah, shame and embarrassment.

Brad Quillen 4:49

And we we hear that and see that here at Jessica's House, just not only in the stories that we hear, but truly we've seen the way people enter the house and enter into the space just differently when it's a night of homicide or suicide, maybe, or even overdose, that there's just a different cadence that people somewhat walk with.

Defining Disenfranchised Grief

Erin Nelson 5:09

Yeah, and I think here at Jessica's House we really put these grievers together because we want them to have each other. Yeah. We are working so hard to really counter the stigma that so many people feel when someone does die of some of these losses like suicide, overdose, even with miscarriage, stillbirth. There's these are deaths that we don't openly talk about every day. And so we want to we want people to feel supported as if it was any other type of death. And you know, it's not their fault, and they can feel like they have the same kind of support that they deserve. And um, that is really something that we work really hard at here.

Brad Quillen 6:06

And in the intro, in just a few minutes here, we've talked about this word disenfranchised loss or disenfranchised grief. Do you want to we've you've kind of shared it from your story, but can you define what that means? Yeah. That word. It's a big word, you know, bar to spell, let's be honest. But what do you mean when you say disenfranchised?

Erin Nelson 6:25

Yeah, this word disenfranchised, it really means that you're facing a loss that really isn't fully recognized. This is a loss that may not be validated by your community, by society, and it's a loss that really compromises your ability to get the support that you need. And so this word and the experience of having a disenfranchised loss adds a lot of complexity to your grief experience. And it also leads to isolation. And what we know is that isolation it can um inhibit your ability to heal. And so just understanding that you have faced this disenfranchised loss, how maybe even help some of our listeners to feel like, oh, that's what I'm feeling right now, is that maybe my loss isn't really being validated the way I need it to be. And so it's so important that we all have that validation and that we have this support.

Brad Quillen 7:35

Colleen, you and I have done a lot of groups over the years with homicide and suicide and overdose and just some of these disenfranchised groups, and you just kind of see those folks walk in, right? And it's it's just kind of a different night here at the house. Can you share a little bit about from your experience just uh how people feel and and some of the emotion that comes along with that disenfranchised grief?

Colleen Montague 7:55

I feel like there are more layers for those families that they're coming in with, you know, whether it's a mom who was no longer married to her children's father, they were divorced, but you know, she is still grieving him, or perhaps she doesn't have the same intense feelings as maybe somebody else, but her kids are grieving him, and the complexity around that, or the layers of the history with that person if they died of an accidental overdose. There's been a history of, you know, possibly, you know, with substance abuse, and there's so much complexity there. And whether it was homicide, maybe their child was or was not involved in risky behavior. I think just to sum it up, there's so many more layers for somebody coming in with those um complex losses.

Brad Quillen 8:54

And that's the word that I kind of came back to in all my years of doing groups was complex. There's just more complexity to and how the person died. Yeah.

Colleen Montague 9:04

Yeah. And I think what we're talking about today is how that complexity is intensified by the reactions of others, you know, or the reactions of society or the judgment maybe you put on it yourself.

Erin Nelson 9:19

Yeah, and you know, when you're talking about that, Colleen, you know, we're so grateful that Dr. Kenneth Doka really put words to this and he came up with this term, disenfranchised grief. And what he noticed was that, you know, people didn't even realize that there were kind of these unwritten rules about um, you know, how you can or can't grieve, and that society has kind of put these rules in place, and that what happens when you have that kind of experience is that you have this feeling um that your grief is wrong and that it doesn't deserve to be felt the way other people feel their grief.

Brad Quillen 10:04

And there's some ways that that happens in the communities in which we live or the the folks that we know. Because I know Erin, you've talked about, and I've heard this in groups too, just when people are in in the grocery store or at a school saying with their kids or at work, how they're just treated different than others that have had a death because of how the person died, or the relationship, and there was some suspicion around the relationship that that we feel that. And so it's defined maybe not verbally, right, but it's defined in how we're treated.

Stigma, Judgment, And Isolation

Erin Nelson 10:34

Exactly, with the judgment, right? And so people may judge, well, that was oh, their stepson who died, or maybe it was their foster child, or something like that. It and what happens in that is that they just don't feel like that relationship is what someone else's might be. And so that yeah, they do feel that.

Brad Quillen 11:00

Yeah. And Colleen, there's some ways that society stigmatizes certain types of death. And can you just give us a few examples of some of those? And I think the word that I come back to, I said it a minute ago, was suspicion. Like there's some suspicion about this, that, or the other thing that went on in, like you said, the relationship or the how the person died.

Colleen Montague 11:20

Yeah, Brad. You know, whether the death was by suicide, a death involving substance abuse, whether it was an accidental overdose or a poisoning, miscarriage or pregnancy loss, a death um related to HIV or AIDS, death involving a crime or incarceration or even abortion. You know, some of these types of loss we have specified or specialized groups for at Jessica's House. And I'm so grateful because we can narrow down this type of loss for the family so that they're in a room with others who really truly can understand what the other is feeling because they share that commonality and they are all in that room together knowing that their grief matters and that their loss was significant. And I think that has proven to be such a helpful thing for families to have is to be able to have at least one other person in their life who can honor that for them and recognize that grief.

Types Of Loss Often Stigmatized

Erin Nelson 12:22

Yeah, being able to grieve something in just in an open way, really living kind of, I think about it as in the light. And I even just in my own story, grieving Tyler, I felt like it was like in the light, it was in community, it was everybody coming around. And with my mom, it felt like in the dark. Yeah, it was just like this, like very like hiding. I I felt like I needed to hide my grief in some way. And you know, I felt awkward talking about it. I could tell other people felt awkward. Nobody knew whether they should bring it up. And I remember specific awkward conversations about it. And people didn't want to say to me, even in those months that my mom was in a coma, like, how's your mom today? You would normally say that if someone's, you know, loved one was, you know, sick or had an accident or something like that. If they were living, you know, being treated for cancer or something like that, you would just check in, right? In this very natural way. And it took all of that organic kind of like interaction that you would have in a community, kind of took it out of that.

Brad Quillen 13:36

And I years ago, a couple of years after we started Jessica's house, Erin, I remember you coming and saying, Hey, we've got to start a group night for those families that are affected by homicide and suicide. And because we saw that in group and we did a part of your story too, um, was the reality of, hey, these folks need somewhere where they can just they understand what it's like in the room of people. And I remember when we started that, the difference when those folks were able to sit shoulder to shoulder, it was just a difference trans a different transparency level because of all the stigma, the disenfranchisement that that goes on with that. But then also um when one of our other staff members years ago came and said, We need a place for moms that have had a miscarriage, it's just the different levels that people are able to go to and experience with those that have experienced something similar.

Erin Nelson 14:21

Right. And in those when you're grieving that type of death, it's just you don't feel like you can bring it up, you know, just in a regular conversation and you know, being able to have a place where this is the focus of your connection, and you can just talk about it and also talk about what it feels like to be isolated and feeling so alone and not being able to really even talk about the person. And I think as we, you know, have talked about before on this podcast, we want to talk about them and not just about how they died. We want to talk about who they were. We want to have just people ask curious questions because you know, my mom was so much more than her mental illness, you know, and I know I've talked about her before, and I wanted people to ask kind of like what was she like? And I wanted to talk about her sense of humor and her laugh and all the ways that she was such a good mom to me. But it's almost like when we have a stigmatized loss that we are just, you know, kind of pushing that person away and like, okay, we can't talk about them anymore.

Brad Quillen 15:34

So as you were talking, we didn't talk about this in the the pre-meeting, but I'm gonna throw this out there. The way in which how someone dies almost shuts down the interactions we would normally receive, but it also almost shuts down the way we would express ourselves.

Erin Nelson 15:50

Yeah.

Brad Quillen 15:50

If it was a different death. Am I off base there?

Erin Nelson 15:53

Absolutely. And it again, like you use that word complexity, and I'm even thinking about, you know, our dads who are grieving, you know, an ex-wife.

Speaker 3 16:04

Right.

Erin Nelson 16:04

Hey, there's a reason why they got married, and just even the relationship and where, you know, maybe no one's saying to him, Well, hey, like what, you know, how'd you guys meet? And like what drew you to her, you know, and you know, tell me about her qualities and what what did you really like about her? And maybe they wouldn't even feel comfortable even talking about that relationship and the good times and even being honest about the bad times and how so much of the time what we're hearing in group is that they really wished that it didn't have to end that way. Yeah, you know, and they wished that they could have worked through some things and that didn't end so even some of their hopes and dreams, of course, they were grieving over them, but also now that never got resolved.

Brad Quillen 16:54

Right.

Erin Nelson 16:54

And so they have to live with that as well.

Naming The Person Beyond The Death

Brad Quillen 16:56

So I'm gonna be very honest, even for us, and I I've not done the grief work as long as you have, Aaron, but I I've been here involved in Jessica's House for over a decade. There's still times where some of the first thoughts I have about your mom is how she died, even though I know your mom wouldn't kill a spider, and you do you're like, nope, we put it outside. I'm like, no, that's a bug. And that's a bug in the house. We're done. Or the way that she laughed and slapped her knee, like all the things that I've learned about your mom. But like, yeah, I work in the space, but I still fall back to that. And I think that's a a lot of just some of the culture pieces.

Erin Nelson 17:30

Yeah, it's so true. I do believe that we are growing as kind of a society, as a community, to be able to talk about those kinds of deaths a little bit more openly. And I think we're able, we had a training even here at Jessica's House this week about suicide prevention and being able to have those kinds of conversations a little bit easier. It's just so important, right? To talk about suicide really is about an illness. I know we have some art hanging in our grief center here. And when a brain is sick, yeah, you know, and how we can have these conversations with children about what does it look like, and just as we have them with illnesses from cancer, and kids can just they're talking about this. Hey, you know what? My dad's brain was sick, and um, he died from that, and being able to talk about um, you know, mental illness in new ways.

Colleen Montague 18:35

Yeah, with what you're saying, Erin, I think the anecdote is to talk about it more, and I think that's what we've we've seen to be helpful, and that's what we are trying to do here as advocates for grief, right? You know, of just that all grief, you know, that somebody is going through, it matters. It matters. And so let's raise more awareness about it, let's actually talk about it instead of kind of hiding it away to give permission to others that that what they're feeling it it's valid and it matters.

Erin Nelson 19:06

It matters, and you know, we've said at Jusca's House, we've talked about these two words, get closer, you know. So when you don't know like what to say or what to do, and even with these stigmatized losses, get closer. Ask the questions, keep just press in. And people want to talk about their person, and so just continue to lean in and get closer and learn more and be curious, and it really does help with countering the stigma.

Brad Quillen 19:37

Can I ask you a question?

Erin Nelson 19:39

Yeah.

Brad Quillen 19:39

Sometimes you just have to sit and be with them.

Erin Nelson 19:42

Yeah.

Brad Quillen 19:43

And I mean sit in the in the even in the silence.

Erin Nelson 19:47

Yeah.

Brad Quillen 19:47

Before they're gonna let you into what they're really feeling.

Erin Nelson 19:50

Absolutely. I mean, we've learned that here. Yeah, you know, we always talk about how just let the moment go longer than you think you can. Can stand it, right? Even in group. And then that whatever emerges in the room, but just being able to, you know, you can't fix it. You can't fix it. And you know, what we've learned here is when you can't fix it, just be with.

Brad Quillen 20:16

Dr. Alan Wolfelt uses the word sacred silence.

Sacred Silence Vs Silent Indifference

Erin Nelson 20:19

Absolutely. Mm-hmm. And I like what you're seeing here, because something else Dr. Wolfelt really puts words to so well is the silent indifference. And there is such a big difference in sitting in sacred silence and being met with silent indifference. And when I say that, when I say get closer, that's the opposite of that. This this silent indifference where people kind of imagine someone with their arms crossed, you know, and kind of looking at you. And there's just space between you and that person. And they're leaning back. And you just feel so alone. And they are bringing judgment and you feel that.

Brad Quillen 21:07

Even though I don't say a thing. It's energy.

Erin Nelson 21:09

There's this judgment energy where you know they're not leaning in, you know they're not curious, you know they don't want to get closer. They're silent, but it's not comforting. And you don't you don't feel that they're with you and in the way you need. And you can't heal without that. I mean, you cannot heal without people getting closer. And so it's just so critical to our ability to thrive and actually integrate a very complex stigmatized death that we can do that in community without shame.

Brad Quillen 21:47

Two things to that. I'm gonna use the word awkward. Silence awkwardness. Like you just know it's not right.

Speaker 3 21:53

Yes.

Brad Quillen 21:53

Indifference. I'm just trying to because we've all felt that like we're in a room in silence, and it's just that awkward silence. Um and there's also a fear for some of those in grief that what will they think if I really tell them what I'm thinking?

Erin Nelson 22:06

Right.

Brad Quillen 22:07

Like if I really am being known. If you're being known about how they died and the the relationship status and where we were and the last conversation we had that right.

Erin Nelson 22:16

All of it. All of it. What happened before the death, right? I mean, I think I lived with a very big fear for a really long time that if I told people that my mom died of suicide, that they would think, oh, maybe she has a mental illness, and maybe she's not really okay. And, you know, maybe we can't trust her for some reason. And like even as we sat in our um in our suicide prevention training this week, you know, we saw statistics and just some things that can be um passed down and in um and and just thinking like we know that, you know, sometimes that can be a fact about mental illness. And I can feel shame in those moments, even, even today, even now, even with all this knowledge that I have. And so I think it's just that we yeah, we just can feel so alone, right? And just like you said, it can just feel so awkward, but like being able to just speak that, speak the fear and speak whatever it is, and know that you'll be um like welcomed with acceptance and full just presence from someone else.

Brad Quillen 23:32

And I feel like we've seen that years ago, but even more so in the house here at Jessica's House, with some of those spaces, with how the person died when we give those folks um that similarity, and they're able to find their people in Colleen. You've sat in those spaces, and what's that like when you get to see those folks share just kind of those deep, and I'm gonna use the word dark feelings sometimes that surround the how, or you and I've talked about the relationship was in a real rough place, but they're able to express that and just verbalize what was going on and kind of take the what we talk around here at the house of take what's on the inside and just put it out and just share it with other people.

Colleen Montague 24:08

Yeah, our families, when they're in that group with others, they can put those thoughts, they can put those feelings into the room and they know that they're putting them into a room of people who can hold them, who are able to hold the heaviness or the darkness because they know that person has lived through something similar. And so they know that this time they won't be met with that silent indifference because they can trust those other group members that have become their friends, yeah, that they'll hold it for them, you know, and even validate it and share something similar that they felt as well. And there's just so much power in that, it's incredible.

Brad Quillen 24:51

And sometimes it's not those you think you're close to, but it's someone that you meet after the death that you're really able to dump and find that community and find your people.

Self‑Judgment And Fears Of Being Known

Colleen Montague 25:00

Yeah, I've had um parents share in group before that now most of their friends are somebody who have also lost a person to, you know, whether it was an overdose or um, you know, just something really hard, that there's a commonality there and and now they have connections with others because of it, more so than maybe other friends who haven't been able to quite get it. I wanted to return to something that Erin had mentioned earlier about, you know, how we as supporters can lean in and get closer. And I also want to deepen that to how we can do that for ourselves, the person that's holding that disenfranchised loss of you have those feelings lean in to them, allow them to be, sit with them, you know, understand them, just kind of befriending that harder side of just trying to understand why it is that you're feeling this way. Yeah. As opposed to shutting it down or turning it off or pushing it away because you don't feel like you have the right to express it or hold it or feel it.

Erin Nelson 26:06

Yeah, because we just like we can at times feel that judgment from others, we can also bring that judgment upon ourselves. And it can be an internal judgment of that this this loss isn't worthy. And what you know, I'm thinking about what some of our moms who say, you know, they don't feel like, you know, this their pregnancy loss is as worthy of a death, and but it feels so huge to them. But sometimes they'll minimize it and even bring judgment to themselves around that.

Colleen Montague 26:42

I've had that same experience with parents in my group um who've you know, their their ex-husband or ex-wife had died, and they've said to their group, you know, I feel like I feel bad even talking about it because I know I wasn't still married to my kid's dad. And it's it's been a really beautiful thing because the other parents in the group have been able to counter that feeling. The mom has expressed and said, No, your grief matters. We're still here for it. It's okay. You know, even though they actually lost their spouse, their current spouse, but they're still here for it. They get it. And I have really appreciated that. And so I'm glad that that mom in particular put that feeling into the room and was honest about how she was feeling so that she could be met with support. Yeah.

Erin Nelson 27:32

And I think just that's such an important part of as parents being able to bring acceptance to ourselves because then we can then really embody that and also mirror that for our children.

Finding Community With Shared Loss

Brad Quillen 27:46

Colleen, I'm glad you brought up that I that thought of circling back to some of those feelings that we stuff or we say they're not there because we're not worthy or we shouldn't have those feelings. Because when we come back from the break, we want to talk about some of uh rituals we can put in our lives and different things we can do to help bring some of that out, but also how can we help our kiddos that are wrestling with some of the disenfranchised grief and lost pieces as well.

Gary Shriver 28:11

Jessica's House is a children's bereavement center located in California's Central Valley since 2012. We provide free peer support for children, teens, young adults, and their families grieving a loss. The When Grief Comes Home podcast goes along with the book of the same name. The book When Grief Comes Home is a gentle guide for parents who are grieving a partner or child while helping their children through the loss of their parent or sibling. When Grief Comes Home is now available at all major book retailers. And if you need grief-related support, please visit jessicashouse.org to download our free resources and be sure to follow Jessica's House on social media. If you have any questions or topics that you'd like us to explore in a future episode, just send us an email to info at jessicashouse.org.

Brad Quillen 29:03

Hey, as we come back from the break, we wanted to get back into it and talk a little bit about the idea of how do we support kiddos and disenfranchised grief, but also how do we let them share some of those feelings that we as adults are even a little scared to share sometimes. And so, Aaron, you mentioned a little while ago in our pre-meeting about this idea and a quote that Brene Brown says about her own daughter. So would you kind of share that? Because I think it really opens up to where we're headed here in a few minutes.

Erin Nelson 29:30

Yeah, I just appreciate Brene Brown. And I remember hearing her talk about how her daughter came home one day, one evening, and she had been out with friends, and she came back and she said, you know what? I had that lonely feeling again. And it really struck something inside of me because first of all, I think that's a universal experience to have a lonely feeling. And it really made me think about our families and those listeners that we have today that have felt that lonely feeling because maybe they are grieving, uh dis and you know, having that disenfranchised kind of experience of grief where they can feel lonely even in what you would think is a supportive environment, even in the midst of a lot of people that they're with, and they just feel lonely in it because no one really maybe can understand their grief or they don't really want to.

Brad Quillen 30:31

I think it'd be safe to say that one of the words that comes up most often with grieving folks is lonely. And I would say it's double or triple with stigmatized death.

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Erin Nelson 30:42

Absolutely. Yeah, just that feeling alone. And but for a child to come home and be able to just tell that to their mom, it's so huge. And as we've talked a little bit about when we begin to be a little more gentle with ourselves and begin to say, you know what, yeah, my loss matters just as much as anybody else's. And grief in the way I feel it is valid, and just we're gentle with ourselves and we're present to ourselves, and we don't absorb some of maybe others' judgment around how the person died or the relationship. And so as we begin to do our healing, maybe as children, you know, as we can be honest with them, that maybe some people will judge the way dad died or mom died, and they can express kind of what that feels like out in the world with any kind of insensitive comments that people might have and even just at school and be able to come home and talk about it.

Brad Quillen 31:53

I'm glad you brought that up, the comments, because we've talked about it on other podcasts, but I think it's so appropriate. We sometimes need to give kids script on how to say things when sometimes unfortunately with stigmatized deaths and disenfranchised grief. So what what can we do to empower our kiddos with with verbiage and words that they can say when someone asks about how the their person died?

Erin Nelson 32:16

Yeah, I think what we've talked about earlier in this podcast, just seeing, you know, my mom died from an illness of addiction, or my dad died from a mental illness, and being able to talk about it as an illness because it really does help to give just words and also I think be more sensitive to some of what the person was living with.

Helping Kids Name Lonely Feelings

Brad Quillen 32:44

Hey, Colleen, in some of these conversations we've heard over the years, um there's some parts of the feelings we don't want to talk about because there's shame and there's guilt around it, because sometimes the person that's died has some of those relationship dynamics that make it all the more and what I mean by that is some people are listening and they're like, Yeah, but dad was abusive or mom was abusive, and so that's why we were getting divorced, and then the death happens, and so so many more of these complexities come into play. How do we lean into our kids that are that are wrestling through some of those feelings and some of those realities?

Colleen Montague 33:18

I'm so glad that we're gonna talk about that, Brad, because yes, you know, there's so many dynamics in a relationship. And so to start with, yeah, maybe maybe their parent was abusive. And so there's some relief that comes that they can't be heard anymore. But so often it's so easy for kids to feel ashamed about the feelings they're having inside. And so to counter those feelings of shame, the parent can just be honest with them, bring up the conversation, go there with them, you know, and that way it's it's an open dialogue between you that, hey, I wonder if this is feeling extra hard because, you know, we had a really hard time with daddy at times. You know, and even beyond that, just grief for what can never be now. You know, I think I think everybody wants somebody to be better, you know, and they hope that that can happen someday. But now that that person is gone, it's grief that it can't ever be something that they were wishing for.

Brad Quillen 34:23

Is it safe to say that we we wanna forget some of those moments, but we still need to talk about those moments now that they've died too, because we don't want to just stuff those things and and have them fester and continue to be negative spots.

Colleen Montague 34:37

Yeah, it it goes back to what we were saying about how we can kind of disenfranchise our own grief. You know, well, I guess it's good he's gone because he can't hurt us anymore, but or he can't, you know, him being drunk at home was so disruptive and now we don't have to deal with that energy. But why not just kind of put it all out there? But you still lost your mom or your dad or your older sibling, and that's still hard. And we can be we can feel both, you know, we can be really sad, but it's okay if there's also this little bit of relief that you're feeling too. I would even add on to that, you know, you have your your person, maybe they were um battling a long-term illness and just really sick and in a lot of pain, and um even somebody, you know, suffering from a long, a long-term illness like dementia or Alzheimer's, even just that there's a part of you that's might be relieved for them to be out of that suffering. But of course, that's not what you ultimately wanted. You wanted them here. And so just to be honest about it, to be real with your child. And when you do that, you're giving them the permission to acknowledge those feelings about themselves or even understand what's going on inside. They may not even really understand what those feelings are, but you can help name that for them.

Brad Quillen 35:54

And what are some ways that we can help kids take those feelings from the outs, from the inside and bring them to the outside? Like let them come out in different ways. And because sometimes conversation is gonna be just tough and they they don't have the words.

Scripts For Kids About Cause Of Death

Colleen Montague 36:09

Absolutely. And that's what we love to do here with all of the different forms of expression that we can offer kids. That's what we know works that beyond just talking, that's that's pretty limiting at times, you know. But show us, draw a picture. Um, if you have little figurines at home, you know, from like a dollhouse or something, you know. Can you tell me a story with these? Can you show me musically, you know, what it what's going on inside your body? How are you feeling in your body right now if you were to show me with a sound or there's so many different expressive ways, and I know we're gonna talk about that um in another episode where you can invite them to tell you how they're doing or how they're feeling or thinking beyond just the use of words.

Brad Quillen 36:55

Yeah, even a song that that tells me how you're feeling, like that's that's out there in in pop culture.

Colleen Montague 37:01

Yeah, maybe even a song that reminds you of that person, you know, and you have a good memory associated to that. And that's true, you know, for some people they they hold both the hard memories and the good memories.

Brad Quillen 37:15

Yeah.

Colleen Montague 37:15

And so leaning into those those times as well.

Brad Quillen 37:18

And sometimes that's brought about by some of the rituals or ceremonies that we have in the spaces in our life as well.

Holding Mixed Feelings After Complex Loss

Erin Nelson 37:24

Yeah, I think we know, and again to quote Dr. Wolfelt, he says, you know, when words are inadequate, have a ceremony. And I think especially with a disenfranchised loss, words are so so much of the time they're inadequate for not only you, but for others. And so when you can come together and really grieve your loss in community, it really helps you move through your loss and to integrate it, and you can do that by even just, you know, writing a letter or creating some type of art that honors them, as Colleen mentioned. You could come together, maybe even light a candle. And I know we've talked to our families who have experienced a pregnancy loss where, you know, they may plant a tree in memory of their baby. And there are these tangible ways, and it's like you're putting this loss into action. You know, one thing that we always do the very first time someone comes to Jessica's House is to have a candle ceremony. And so we just light candles and really stand around in a circle and remember the person. And it's so powerful to do that, you know, just to say one thing. And even if, like Colleen mentioned, maybe Daddy, you know, was, you know, living with the illness of addiction and they just weren't themselves sometimes, and maybe it was really causing a lot of chaos at home, and you had to take these actions that you never wanted to take to separate to keep safety. And but like you remember some really good stuff about dad. Like, can we talk about that? And you maybe even paint his qualities that you want to carry forward on something and um remember him for all that he was. So we don't want to ever diminish a life, right? We want to remember all of them. We want to remember the darkness and the light of that human and to um just remember them and whatever we can do to do that and just give each person also the permission to grieve in their own way.

Brad Quillen 39:44

So I know there's folks that are listening that the given some art and some space for for kids to be creative. Um, that makes sense. But some of them are still going, okay, what kind of questions can I ask? Like, where do I start with some of that? What are some of those that we use here at the house that Would be usable for families.

Colleen Montague 40:02

How about what's one word you would use to describe your person? Or what's a memory you wish you could have made? Yeah. Or that you could change if you wanted to. Kind of simplifying the prompt a little bit to be a little bit more kind of tangible for them, not so big and scary. You know, and so in that ceremony piece going around the room and sharing one word that reminds you of them, or you know, one thing you forg you'll never forget about them.

Erin Nelson 40:29

I think too, like saying thank you. You know, sometimes you get it don't get an opportunity to say those words. And there's so much unsaid. You know, like Colleen said, being able to say, you know, I never I'll never forget the time, whatever that might be. And thank you for. And just being able to say some of those things that maybe you didn't get a chance to say when they were here.

Colleen Montague 40:58

And what I want others to know about you. You know, this is one thing that I want others to know about you.

Erin Nelson 41:04

Yeah, and I would add to that, the way you live inside of me is this way. And so, you know, for a child to kind of choose that attribute, whatever that might be, because even with someone that has, you know, lived with addiction or mental illness, whatever it might be, man, there was something really inside of them that was pretty strong that kept them alive, you know, a tenacity. And, you know, we can use that in ways that really can help us go forward and to carry that strength inside of us, whatever it might be, to go forward and to just pull in some of those strengths that they had that you want to live as well.

Brad Quillen 41:52

Erinn and Colleen, thank you so much for doing this with me today. Erin, I know there's something you wanted to share with our listeners today as we wrap up this podcast. Why don't you go ahead and take a moment?

Erin Nelson 42:02

Just as our listeners have given us really great feedback, I just want to say if you could just take a moment to rate our podcast and also write a review. It helps get it into the hands of those who need it most. And so every time you review a podcast, it goes up a little bit into ratings. And so if somebody just types in grief in a podcast search, they can find this podcast. And as we know that it's been so helpful for parents who are grieving, we want to get it into more hands. So please rate and review.

Brad Quillen 42:40

Thanks, Erin. And let me remind you: be sure to visit jesscashouse.org for more grief resources. And if you have any other topics or questions you'd like us to cover on this podcast, we welcome your email at info at jessicas house.org. Be sure to join us for the next episode of When Grief Comes Home. Until then, we wish you well.

Gary Shriver 43:05

Jessica's House is a children's bereavement center located in California's Central Valley since 2012. We provide free peer support for children, teens, young adults, and their families grieving a loss. The When Grief Comes Home podcast goes along with the book of the same name. The book When Grief Comes Home is a gentle guide for parents who are grieving a partner or child while helping their children through the loss of their parent or sibling. When Grief Comes Home is now available at all major book retailers. And if you need grief-related support, please visit jessica'shouse.org to download our free resources and be sure to follow Jessica's House on social media. If you have any questions or topics that you'd like us to explore in a future episode, just send us an email to info at jessicashouse.org. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time for When Grief Comes Home.