Grief Wave and Joy

In this episode, Frances shows up raw on a hard day and names the numbness that can hit without warning when grief waves roll in. 
A quiet morning in the park becomes a reminder that joy can break through in an instant, even when sorrow is still close. 

• admitting how grief can flatten energy and motivation 
• using nature and stillness to notice what is happening inside 
• recognizing “joy waves” that arrive as suddenly as grief 
• grieving life changes like children growing up and roles ending 
• naming losses beyond death, including friendships that shift 
• holding both joy and sorrow during illness and anticipatory grief 
•understanding life is full of grief
•life and death, beginning and end

It’s a full episode, raw and real. Listen in and share with the one who comes to mind. Let’s not let anyone journey this life alone. 

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Transcript

A Hard Day And Raw Honesty

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Hello, thank you for joining me today. Today has been a hard day for me. I really almost didn't even want to come in and record this. So I'm just being real and in raw with you. That as a grief educator, a grief podcast host, that my life also, like yours, is full of grief. The grief wave that I talked about in the past, when that just comes out of the blue and just hits you. I woke up tired this morning and just really struggling with some things.

Going To The Park Numb

SPEAKER_01 1:38

And I decided to go to my town's park that has a little pond and there's benches around it. And I was like, I'm just gonna go sit out there, you know, get out in nature. It's always good and healing and refreshing and very needed at times. So I was sitting there and just going through my thoughts of how I needed to be make an episode for for tomorrow and just thinking. And at the same time not thinking, just just sitting there, listening to everything, feeling the raindrops from the tree above me, the breeze, listening to the the frog croaking, the birds chirping, looking around at the movement, cars coming in and out, people fishing. And I was just thinking about how I just I didn't really want to care. I didn't really want to do anything. I'm not even sure I really wanted to do this episode for the podcast. It's like, what is the point? Why care? And so I got to thinking about being numb when you're grieving things, and how hard it is, isn't it? It is just so hard. And we can sometimes ignore that we have grief in our life. We can, I don't know if it's pretend that it's not there. You know, we push it down, we keep busy, we ignore it, we shake it off. But it's all around us. Death and grief, it's all around us. And I was always, as I was sitting there with no energy, no enthusiasm, no feelings of really anything, just numb, just sitting there.

When A Child’s Laugh Breaks Through

SPEAKER_01 4:02

And one of the men that were fishing uh had his um had some children with him, and the little boy laughed. And that pure joy just brought a smile, smile to my face, a smile to my heart, a smile to my spirit. So just as the grief wave comes and hits us, the joy wave can hit us. It's I don't know who these people were. It wasn't my child, but still just that pure delight that's in a child's voice when they're laughing in delight of something.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

It touched me.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

So I got up, headed back home, and I went through a different park that we have in our town. And as I arrived at the park, there was uh a family that arrived in their golf cart. They got out and they were running around. It was a family with two boys. And I looked at those two boys, and it made me think I had two boys. Of course, they had an older sister, so I would have to add her to the picture, but it got me crying. I mean, just like that. Because my my children are grown up. So I feel like this morning I've been hit with not just one grief wave, but more than one.

Grieving Changes Beyond Death

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Because we don't just grieve death of a loved one or death of a beloved pet. We grieve so much. Life is so wrapped up with death. You know, there's the beginning of life, and there's the end of life. There's the beginning, there's the end, there is life, there is death. And there's just, it's all wrapped up together. It belongs together, it exists together. And when we deny that, we make it harder on ourselves. And death brings grief, loss, the end of something. You know, when you think about like fall, there's everything's dying, but yet it's also so beautiful. So I just want to encourage you, as I am encouraging myself today, that this life journey, it's a grief journey. And at the same time, it's a joy journey. Grief and joy. How at one moment hearing a child laugh brought a smile to my heart, to my face, a little twinkle of joy, and then in the next moment seeing two boys running around and hearing them talking and interacting and laughing together brought tears. It brought sorrow. It reminded me that that time is over for me. I don't have little ones running around. And so there's grieving in that. There's grieving in the loss of my role as a mama to young children. You know, it's different. When children grow up and they're adults and they have their own lives, they still need you. They may not admit it to you, and not even to themselves, but definitely not to you. They want to be independent, and that's right, because at some point I won't be here. But it's hard, isn't it? And I think sometimes we don't keep in mind that there is so much grief around us, and that it doesn't do us any good not to talk about it, to stuff it down, to deny it, to try and hide it, to not face it.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

I'm not gonna go back to ever being a mama of little children. That's done. It's ended.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

You know, and we can grieve when a relationship changes. Maybe a friend moves away and it's just not the same. You know, FaceTime is not the same as meeting together at the coffee shop or in your home, watching a movie together, laughing over life. It's not quite the same. So you FaceTime and you you talk about your lives, and you're doing one thing, she's she or he is doing another. And it hurts. There's sorrow there, and yes, you you can still share in the joy of whatever's going on in their lives as they share in the joy of your life, but there's also sorrow, and I think that's something we miss. I know it's something we miss that joy and sorrow are together.

Joy And Sorrow In Illness

SPEAKER_01 10:19

If you have a loved one right now who's suffering, maybe from cancer or some other disease that makes their life hard or is going to be ending their life, you can still have moments of fun and joy. Even though the coming grief is just kind of hanging over you as a cloud, there's still rainbows, there's still sunshine, there's still joy sparkles. And often when someone does die who's been in a lot of pain, we acknowledge that, you know, we're happy that they're no longer suffering. And we're glad it's over for them, even though we miss them. We miss them in our life. So I hope this podcast has helped you today, this episode. Whether you're grieving one thing, whether your grief is not really raw right now, but it's raw in the wave that hits you. And if you're going through more than one grief, or more than one grief wave comes out of nowhere and hits you, maybe you're in the duality of joy and sorrow in your grief. Just know that I'm holding space for you. This is the caring death, doula, and I am here for you.