The Caring Death Doula
In a world that rushes past death and ignores grief, The Caring Death Doula stops to listen with tenderness, truth, and time. Whether you are grieving right now or here to learn how to help those grieving, join your host, Frances, a certified grief educator on the journey of finding connection, conversations, and comfort. Let's make grief and death a natural part of our conversations.
The Caring Death Doula
Life’s Tapestry: The Grief Threads That Connect Us All
Have you ever felt grief spiraling out of control, with one loss triggering memories of another until suddenly you're drowning in emotion?
You are not alone.
This deeply personal episode emerged from my own struggle with grief—unexpected memories of my father colliding with the anniversary of 9/11 and the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk. When grief compounds this way, it can feel overwhelming, leaving us wanting to quit everything and run away.
The sacred work of grief requires honesty and vulnerability. Despite being educated about grief, I share how I still find myself crying unexpectedly, questioning past decisions, and feeling overwhelmed by loss both personal and collective. That country home we sold eight years ago? I'm still grieving it. Those moments when social media becomes too painful during national tragedies? Many of us experience that withdrawal.
Grief isn't something we overcome—it becomes woven into "the beautiful tapestry of our lives."
This podcast exists as a safe harbor where we can acknowledge our pain without judgment. When grief hits hard and you have nowhere else to turn, remember this space we've created together.
Your presence as a listener helps me through my grief journey, just as I hope my voice provides comfort during yours. We see each other. We understand each other. And in that connection, we find the strength to continue carrying our losses with grace and compassion.
Subscribe to this podcast for more honest conversations about grief, and remember: however isolated you feel in your grief, you are never truly alone.
Click here to send me a text. I would love to hear from you your thoughts on this episode.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I am very grateful that you are here with me. I will always be honest and open with you, perhaps times more openness than you're comfortable with you're used to you want. But grief is hard. Grief is hard. The sacred work of grief whether you're going through it, whether you're supporting somebody, whether you are educating people, as I am attempting to do it's sacred. Grief is hard and I'm really struggling right now, and so it is a comfort to me to know that you, my listener, are out there, that you are walking this journey with me. I am not alone. I am seen, I am understood, just as you see and understand me, I see and understand you, and this is our safe place to come when grief is hitting us hard and we need someone to listen and we need someone to understand. So I'm here for you, just as you are here for me every time you listen to this podcast. So thank you. I think I mentioned a week or so ago that I was struggling with, just out of the blue, memories of my dad and how I'm really. I'm just really struggling in that grief right now. And then 9-11 was approaching it's been 24 years and then on September 10th, we had the assassination of Charlie Kirk and no matter whether you knew him or not, or you liked him or not, he had a worldwide influence and touch. People all over the world are grieving him. So you mix this all together and I'm just having a hard week and I'm struggling and I didn't know what to say to you. I taped several episodes, or attempted episodes, and they just didn't feel right. They just they just didn't feel right. And then I realized this morning it was like that's what this is for.
Speaker 1:This podcast is for you to come when grief is hitting you and you have nowhere else to go. You don't know how, and you spiral. You know it started with just something out of the blue with my dad, and then there's 9-11. And you just think of all that and you remember I mean no one, I don't believe we don't forget where we were when we got the call that hey, turn on the TV or you know. However you found out, or however you found out.
Speaker 1:And then, with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, it has just blown up the grief issues. There is so much in his death and so much pain and so much confusion and so much controversy over this man and what he said and what he didn't say and taking things out of context and blowing things up. And social media has gotten rough and many people have stopped and have pulled back and it's been hard. And as I go along, you start spiraling. Have you noticed that? That you might be hit with one grief and okay, then there's maybe something in the world or something in your community, like the school shooting in Colorado that happened the same day, september 10th, and you think of those families, whether it's your community or not. But that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like grief is a part of our life, our lives. Grief is around us. Grief is always happening. Death and loss changes. They're always happening and that's why we need to have these conversations. We need to be willing to be open and say I'm hurting right now, I'm grieving, I'm angry, I'm whatever. We need to be here for each other. We need to know that we can be open to somebody and when someone is open to us, we need to be willing to just listen and to be that presence, to be that safe place of understanding and compassion.
Speaker 1:Because for me it's spiraling. You know it's been what? Two weeks probably now, and I'll be driving down the road and I'll think of the house we used to live in and how much I miss that and how it was a dream. It took us 25 years to get this place out in the country, and I miss it. And you know, and I miss it, and you know we gave it up eight years ago. We sold it, and it's so easy to look back and to beat yourself up and to wonder if you made the right decisions, and then you're just spiraling through every interaction. You regret doing this, you regret doing that and you're beating yourself up and you're grieving over changes. Doing this, you regret doing that and you're beating yourself up and you're grieving over changes, some in your control and some not in your control, and it's hard. It's hard and as much as I, as the educated one, know what I should do, know a little bit more than the average person on what to do or how to do it, or you know how to move, not necessarily out, but just move through this, move through this. It's hard and I feel all alone and I wonder is this ever going to stop? Can I go on with my life? Can I not cry today? Can I not beat myself up today? Up today.
Speaker 1:And so I'm here in this episode to let you know you're not alone. You're not alone. Grief is so much, so much in our lives, so woven into the tapestry. The beautiful tapestry of our lives contains grief, and you don't want to stuff it down, you don't want to run from it, because I mean, that's, that's where I'm at. I want to quit. I want to quit everything, not necessarily this podcast, because this podcast is for you and this podcast is for me and we're in this together, and so I'm not going to quit the podcast, but I want to quit everything else. I want to run away.
Speaker 1:So, if you've ever felt that way, you're not alone, it's not wrong. Don't beat yourself up for it. Don't, you know, feel guilty. Just realize it's just part of the journey. It is part of the journey. It is part of the journey. So thank you for listening to me today. Thank you for being here, for being my safe place, for being the presence in my life that helps me through my grief, or along the grief journey that I'm on, because my grief is never along, the grief journey that I'm on, because my grief is never going to leave me. You know, all those things that we grieve, they're gone. We can't get them back, so thank you. No-transcript.