Raw Numbing Grief

The phone rings, life splits, and the air goes thin.  A moment you won’t forget. 

That’s the feeling we step into in this episode: raw, sudden grief after an unexpected death in the family, the kind that makes time wobble and ordinary tasks feel impossible. I share what the numbness is like, how disbelief shields the heart in those first days, and why even people who think they’re “ready” are caught off guard by the weight of loss.

We pull apart the difference between anticipated and sudden death without ranking anyone’s pain. I talk about how grief reshapes identity—how losing a parent set me on the path to serve as  a caring death doula—and why you can’t simply return to who you were before. 

We explore the family side too: children and siblings reacting in their own ways, the shock of unexpected emotions, the simple power of holding each other and showing up in person when it matters most.

Then we face a hard truth about work. Too many employers treat bereavement like a short interruption, not a seismic shift. I share a listener’s story of being asked to work during the first week after her spouse died. 

If you’re grieving, I’m holding space for you. If you love someone who’s grieving, I’m here for you as well. And if you lead a team, you’ll hear a clear case for changing how we respond to loss at work.  We must start supporting each other better. 

Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and tell me: what one change would make grieving less lonely where you live or work?

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Chapters

• 1:22 Entering Raw, Unexpected Grief
• 3:04 Comparing Anticipated And Sudden Loss
• 5:41 Family Shock And Fragility Of Life
• 8:05 Identity After Loss And Society’s Blind Spots
• 11:06 The Workplace Problem With Grief

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

This is a different episode. It's not the episode that I had planned to release today. This one hits home. This is an episode where I am in that raw grief. The numbness. The this doesn't feel real. I can't believe this. My family two days ago experienced an unexpected death. My husband, his closest brother, a few years older, but not the oldest of the siblings, unexpectedly died. And I find it interesting that last Thursday I did an episode on how we can't prepare. That even if your loved one has some illness, or maybe even just old age, where you know they're going to die. You know, it's not like the general, yes, everyone's going to die. We all know that. It's like, no, they're sick. They're, you know, older and maybe having health issues. And you and you know they're going to die. Or perhaps they're on hospice and you know it's coming. You know it's coming. But an unexpected death hits you differently. Now, I'm not saying that one grief, you know I don't say that. One grief is not greater or worse or, you know, anything like that. Because we could go through this exact same type of grief, of a situation that creates grief, and we would all handle it, experience, feel it differently.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

But that unexpected death. It just takes your breath away.

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

You sit there numb and it feels so unreal. It just it's very interesting to me that I posted that about unexpected or not unexpected, but how we can't plan for the loss that comes up in our lives, the death. I posted that Thursday. I released that episode Thursday, and then Friday, my brother-in-law unexpectedly just dies. And you get that phone call, and it's just, it's it's a it's it's a shock, isn't it? It it's I mean, all death. As I said, we can't prepare for any death. We think we are sometimes. We think we're ready, we think we'll be okay, we think I don't know. Sometimes we maybe don't think, and that's why it hits us so hard. This is the uncle that my children are closest to. But even they have been surprised at how hard it hit them. Whenever you have a death in your family, you you understand, you you get a glimpse of the fragility of life. Like I am so thankful that my children that live out of state are coming, coming home, coming back for the funeral of their dear uncle. Because I need to see them. I need to hold them, to hug them, to see those grandbabies. And this was gonna be the month February. This is the month of February, and it's the month that I was gonna share with you how why I became the caring death doula. My dad's birthday is in this month, and I was gonna talk about his death, his death journey, and kind of come in from that aspect. And now I'm in fresher grief. You know, the death of my dad changed my identity, it put me on the path of who I am today. And that's one thing we don't talk about when there has been a death in your life. You're not the same person. And you can't even go back to being the same person, can you? And I think sometimes we are all so, I don't know if I want to say numb to this or just we ignore this, we we refuse to think about death and think about how it changes us, and think about, you know, I'm thinking about a boss who gives no leeway. I had a woman share with me this week how when her husband died, she wasn't even allowed a week off. And that just blew my mind. She was allowed a week off to not come into work, but then she had to virtually do half a day's work. And I'm I'm like, how on earth could she do that? I mean, this was her spouse that died. There is so many decisions, there's so many, maybe not decisions that first week, but there's gonna be all those decisions coming up. And that first week, there's still a lot. There's the the decisions of the of how you want to do a service or how you want to honor your loved one. So, how she even turned any kind of work that was of any value while she was grieving and and in that numb, fresh state of grief. We need to change the policies in our workplaces. We need to, as communities, as families, as neighborhoods, as co-workers, as churchgoers, as whatever. But especially in the workplace, especially in our societies, we need to change our view of grieving. Because I'm holding space today for my sister-in-law and her girls and their families. I'm holding space for you if you are grieving today. I'm holding space for myself, for my husband, for my children. This is not a time to have to figure out some issue at work. We need to value grieving. We need to honor it and allow it and to remember that we all grieve differently. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, that even if we could have the same exact experience, we would perceive it, we would absorb it in, we would grieve it differently. Because we're not the same people, we're not, we don't have the same environments, the same experiences, the same life. And it breaks my heart for that woman that shared with me how she didn't even get a week off. How as a boss, as an employer, how how how can you expect that? How can you even expect that their the value of their work would be worth anything? They are so numb. They're actually not even really in a lot of cases you're not grieving that first week. You're so numb. It doesn't feel real. I want you to know I'm here for you. Like you, I'm grieving. Like you, I'm holding space for those who are grieving. I'm holding space for loved ones that are grieving. This is the Caring Death Doula, and I am here for you.