What Grief Taught Us About Family

Grief doesn’t just change how we feel — it can change how we see family, relationships, and even ourselves.

In this heartfelt episode of Sherapy with Sheri & Randy, we talk honestly about sibling grief, complicated emotions after losing a parent, and the surprising lessons that come when families grieve differently. Some people pull closer. Some pull away. Some show up quietly in ways you never forget.

We share personal stories about grace, boundaries, healing, and learning that protecting your peace is not selfish — it’s necessary.

If you’ve ever felt guilty for grieving differently, struggled with family tension after a loss, or realized grief revealed who your true support system really was, this conversation is for you.

Because there’s no “right” way to grieve… only your way.

💛 Healing, humor, and the road ahead.

#Grief #Family #SiblingGrief #MentalHealth #Healing #Sherapy

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Theme music by: Sheri Todd and MakeBestMusic

Written & hosted by: Sheri Todd

 Recorded somewhere between healing and humor.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, here we are back for another session with uh Sherry and Randy, cruising the IE. Uh we're gonna talk about something that's uh important to both of us, and that's uh grief. And we're gonna kind of get into that today about our about how it was for us uh individually uh with my mom. And um how do you feel about that, Sherry?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Well, I think losing a parent is something we all know will happen one day. Someday, yeah. Um but nothing prepares you for it and uh and how it happens or how differently people react to it, um, especially the people around you that you love and and how everybody kind of reacts differently to grief.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

And everybody's grief is um their own and maybe sometimes misunderstood by others how you grief and how you deal with it. Because everybody's like we said different. Um how was it for you individually, Sherry, to deal with mom when she passed away?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Um we were all around my mom when she passed, she passed at home, and um I couldn't stay in the room for her to take her last breaths. Everybody else stayed. My sisters, my nieces. Um I couldn't do it. It was too hard for me to watch. Um I think part of it was because for so long I was taking care of her and keeping her alive. You know, and so to see her struggle to breathe, which was natural and is and is what my mom wanted, um, I I instantly wanted to help her. And I knew I couldn't do that. And it was it was hard. I I I couldn't watch it. Three about four or five days before she passed away, she started not to eat anymore, which we all knew was gonna come. Hospice told us that, but not me, I didn't believe it. I'm like, no, no, no, she's fine, she just got a bad tooth. Give me some antibiotics and she'll be fine. And I'll never forget the look on the hospice nurse's face. She looked at me like, you poor thing, like, like I wasn't accepting the reality. And I wasn't. I I just couldn't. I was def I was so so hoping that that was fine, because I thought maybe this is this just it's just a bump, and she'll be buying. She'll be fine. This is not what they think is happening. And they she prescribed me antibiotics, and we gave it to mom, and of course, she couldn't swallow it.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

You just didn't want to give up on hope.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

You gotta have hope. And yeah, my hope was that this was not true the time. This was not it. I wasn't ready for it, even though we had been told the hospice nurses told us it's coming. Everybody was coming to say their goodbyes, but I'm like, nope, nope, it's just a bad tooth. So to watch her pass away, um, I I couldn't do it. I went outside and sat on the porch and I called Randy to let him know that mom was passing away. And um eventually Janelle came out and told me that mom was gone and everybody was crying and whatever, and I stayed away. I still distanced myself. I watched everybody grieve, I watched everybody hug each other. I couldn't do that. I just I don't know why. It was just hard for me to do it. I I didn't want everybody to worry about me, which everybody was. And I know with Maggie, when I the only time she's ever seen me break down and cry is when my cat died. And Maggie didn't take that well. She was shocked. So I didn't want anybody to worry about me. I was more there for everybody else. I'll take care of this, we'll do this, I'll be there, let's get food, you know, trying to, okay, let's do this, let's do that, let's work on this. I didn't want, I couldn't do it. It and I found different ways to grieve, and it came out in weird ways eventually. But I I was I was there, but I wasn't. And my mind just wouldn't accept what was happening, I think.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

It took you a while to kind of adjust to it.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I'm saying probably two years, literally, because I it it was just little things that would just throw me. You know, everybody else would be like, oh, that's sad. But for me, it literally would put me in a depression. And I just I didn't know how to grieve with it. And honestly, I was afraid of of grieving. I was afraid of letting all that emotions out and and feeling all that pain. I I didn't want to go through that. But eventually, and in little you know, increments I did. Um like I said, it would come out, and there's a Disneyland incident that you know people talk about to this day that I'm not allowed in Disneyland anymore. But it was because it was just a lot of things, a lot of memories. A mom was at Disneyland. And it would just, yeah, and I just I didn't know how to handle a lot of it. Now I know with you, you even though I was calling you constantly, const constantly letting you know what was going on, I go, this is you never answered. I've got a hold of Connie, your wife. She said she'd try to get a hold of you. I bugged out. You did. You didn't um Randy dealt with it differently than I did. Yep. Kinda the same way.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Kinda. Um in a different but different. I um I said my goodbyes the day before. And I went to the room with mom and talked to her and told her things and stuff that, you know, are between me and mom, but um I went home and immediately griefed on my own terms. And when mom passed I felt okay because I gave my goodbyes, but I didn't think of everybody else that might need me there and comfort 'em and stuff like that. That's where I made my big mistake. And um I hope my family forgives me for that, but I still felt well now I understand it, but then I didn't. I felt I was doing the right thing. Just dealing on my own, just being alone and not talking to anybody. I didn't talk to Connie for a long time. My friends, you know, I talked to them, but I just kind of bugged out and just, you know, because you know, I had a different relationship with mom than everybody else did.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Mine was more And I don't think it has to do with anything with relationship, it has to do with love. When you love somebody so much and you lose them, sometimes you just you can't Well, it just goes for a loop. Yeah, you just don't know how to deal with it. You don't know how to deal with that loss.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

And mom is a big part of my life.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, and if this is a person that you were there with them every single day, talk to them every single day. Even though, yes, for the last few years, you know, it was hard for everybody to be around mom because of all the changes that she went through.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

It's just weird though for me, it was seeing mom sit there and not really converse with us and not really knowing who we were. It just blew me away. It just was totally tripped me out. The whole thing tripped me out, the funeral tripped me out.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Um I'm telling you, Alzheimer's is a horrible disease. It is. And uh, you know I've made this comment. But they call it like the long goodbye, which is true. Yeah. It's you see somebody slowly.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, it's horrible. And you know, and it's no different than I guess cancer, but yeah, it is but at least if you're dying from cancer, you still have you're still responding to your people, to your loved ones. You can know them, still know them, they'll be there. You'll remember these things. I'll never forget the mention's horrible, they don't remember shit.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

The day I realized that mom didn't know who I was, we were in her room, and every night I would give her jello, chocolate pudding. She loved that. And and then sure, that was every night before she went to bed, that was her snack. And she was sitting on the bed and she was talking, and I we were just talking, I don't remember what. And she looked at me and she goes, What's your name? And I'm like, Oh, like this is it. Because up until that point, I kind of figured she might know who I was. But when she asked my name, it was just like oh so I said, Sherry, and then she said, Oh, I have a daughter named Sherry. And I'm like, Okay. And then I'm like, oh, well, making a joke out of it, oh, oh, people named Sherry, they're the greatest people ever. And she goes, Oh, I know. I don't know what I would do without her. So it's like all these emotions, it's like, okay, she doesn't know who I am, but she knows she has a daughter, Sherry, that helps her.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And it was just isn't that trip? They think they know and they're looking right at you and they don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

And then they obviously knew what I did. She knew what it remembered what I did and who I was, but she didn't recognize me. And then she said, Can you take me home tomorrow? And I said, Yes. She'll every night I was gonna take her home every night. But it was it was just that weird, like, how do you it's like a twilight zone thing. It was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

I will I I will say one thing though. Mom died the most peaceful way that we could have ever asked for mom to die. Oh, yeah. You know, she died at home, she was peaceful, peaceful, warm.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

She she didn't have no she had everybody she loved around her, including her dog.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah. A lot of people would say that I was insensitive for what I how I did it. Maybe so. Because to be honest with you, I was thinking about myself, about how to feel.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

And well, and you know, and I underst I did understand it because I didn't like I said, I didn't stay in the room with mom. I I I couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Right. I I well I didn't want to see mom. Uh I didn't want to see mom in that position where she's I knew she was gone and she w they walk her out and stuff. I didn't want to see any of that. Well, I didn't want to be part of my vision.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

That was a hard uh probably the hardest part is when they came for her and they you know they took her.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

That was and you remember that?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Tammy lost it. Tammy, I remember I was in the room because Josie was crying and crying, so I was in the room kind of comforting Josie. That's my mom's dog. Um and I heard this noise, and I'm like, who what is that? And it was Tammy, just she just was wailing. She was out in the front yard, just she had just broke down, and Janelle was out there, and her kids, everybody was out there comforting her, and it was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

And that's what I was trying to avoid.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

See, that's a good point. She's doing that. I'm in another place grieving on my own, not realizing my sister needed me there at that time, and I didn't understand that or realize that.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah. You know, you know, I mean I was there, but I didn't go out and hug her or anything because I I was holding it all in. I did not want to let it go out because I didn't want to feel the pain.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So kinda in my own way, I let my sister down, who I was very close to, down at the most important time at this time in our lives, my mom dying. And I didn't realize that. But but you were grieving. I was grieving, but we were all grieving for the same person that we all that we love.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah. It was it was we were all grieving for the same person. Everybody just does it differently, and you have to give people grace. It's not like you purposely said, Whoops, I don't want to care, because you were trying to deal with what you had to deal with. And if you were like me, which for me I knew that I didn't want to show those emotions to everybody for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

When it comes to my family, it's all weird relationships we all have with one another. Um, we've gotten, I have to say, 100% closer since mom passed. I think that all brought us a lot closer. Brought us closer, but um, but family, you know, sibling dynamics is just it's just, you know, everybody's different. Every family's different, and we're all different, and everybody grieves different. And you got to give everybody grace and just let people grieve the way they need to grieve, not the way you think they should grieve. But to sum it up, you might be hurting in different ways, but you still need to. I have this written down, I'll just read it. You might be hurting in different ways, but you're still hurting over the same love. And if this conversation meant something to you, we'd love you to subscribe and be part of the Sheropee community.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

And just understand it's okay to grieve your way. Well, that's it for our show today.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

And whatever journey you may be on, always remember to embrace your voice. See you next week. See everybody. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Thanks for listening to Sheropee with Sherry and Randy. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great week.