Let's Talk Later
Let's Talk Later
Grief, Loss, and Moving Forward
Have you ever felt the deep emotions left behind by losing a loved one? Join us as we traverse the rough terrain of grief and loss. We open our hearts and share how the passing of cherished ones has etched profound changes in our lives. With no roadmap or timelines for grief, we all stumble toward acceptance, the final stage, after denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.
Life seldom leaves us time to mourn. Our daily routines, relationships, and responsibilities often fail to accommodate our need to grieve. In our candid conversation, we shed light on how grief seeps into our everyday lives and relationships. From personal experiences to collective wisdom, we underscore the importance of compassion, patience, and the support of our communities as we navigate the murky waters of loss. We urge ourselves and you, our listeners, to extend grace during these testing times and respect the unique ways each person copes with their grief.
The bond between a parent and child forms the bedrock of our lives. The untimely demise of a parent can shatter this foundation. But even amidst grief, a ray of hope shines - the opportunity to restore bonds, to heal. A poignant part of our conversation also nudges you to express your love and gratitude towards your loved ones now, rather than be tainted with regret later. As we wind up, we leave you with resources to aid you on your journey towards healing and acceptance. So tune in, for a heartfelt conversation about grief, loss, and healing.
Resources:
The Process of Coping with Grief and Loss - Psychology Today : https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/everyday-life-simplified/202109/the-process-coping-grief-and-loss
SAMHSA's National Helpline: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
Helping Someone Who's Grieving: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/helping-someone-who-is-grieving.htm
Hello, good morning, good afternoon for VR in the world. Welcome back to let's Talk Later. I'm your host, afree, and today, on episode four of our podcast, we are going to be talking about grief and loss. We'll be, you know, just sharing kind of some facts, some information, having just candid conversation and sharing, as usual, our own perspectives and experiences in that realm. So we're recording. It's a Friday morning right now. You'll be hearing this on a Wednesday, obviously. How are we? How am I? I'm coming down with something, something unfortunately, but I'm okay, I'm in a good mood, I think, Fairly good mood. How about you, jayla? Okay, cool, you're just so like like I don't know Succinct, is that the right word Like you know, like I feel like I just talk, and you're just like mm-hmm. Good, okay, she's shrugging her shoulder at me, so I'm gonna keep going. So, yeah, yeah, so let's get into it.
Speaker 1:So grief by definition, grief is a response to a significant loss. It's all-encompassing, right. It's emotional, it's physical, it's social and it's cognitive. Usually, when we say grief, we talk about, you know, usually talking about the loss of a loved one. But grief is you can grieve the loss of self, the loss of health, the loss of a relationship, you can grieve the loss of a job. It's really just about that kind of that reaction, response right to a loss of something. And so just wanted to kind of give you an overview of that. And there are psychologists and therapists and psychiatrists have kind of deemed five stages of grief, right, and in no particular order. And those five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And so, again, it's cyclical but it's in no particular order. You can bounce from one to the other for years and you know, according to psychology today there is no timeline right, and I think that pretty much goes without saying that okay, yeah, grief is gonna last five years or 10 years or whatnot. The goal right, the end goal, is acceptance, as you get to a point where you can smile and kind of just, you know nicely, remember that loved one or that situation or laugh at it and not feel, you know, so much sadness. So that's kind of the end goal right, but that's different for everyone when that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1:So now that we've got the particulars out of the way, let's dive into kind of experience around grief and loss. So, jaila, I think it would be good maybe to start kind of with your experience of grief and, like I said, you know we're just having kind of conversation, right and so, of any loss, like what's the first loss or major loss that comes to your mind when she says, pa, pa, that's my father. Oh, man, it's been. I can't even remember how long it's been. No, almost 12 years maybe, I don't remember, but it's been at least a decade. I'll say that.
Speaker 1:And so what was that experience like for you? Thank you, okay. So what, like what would you say was? I mean, you were young? Right, you were. I mean it had to be more than 10 years ago, because that would have meant you were only 12. So you were definitely younger than that, but, from your memory, like, what was your perspective? Because, right, I have my perspective of him as my father, but what was? What was your perspective of him? Like your relationship? Do you remember the nickname he gave you? Maybe I don't remember that one. You remember White Chick? No, okay, yeah, oh, I don't know, maybe he did. Well, that's what he would say to me. Yeah, that's my little White Chick.
Speaker 1:I don't know, this is going to root, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay, I think that that does tend to happen too, because while, as you say, you were a sponge for everybody else. Like you were sad because you saw others sad. Like I think that was a part of my group grief as well To see how everyone else was responding was overwhelming, and so sometimes I didn't know Is this my sadness or is it someone else's sadness that I'm feeling? Because everybody said all around you, everybody's crying, everybody has a story to share, and it's like, oh, we're all sad. And then everybody was getting tattoos and so I was like, oh, I should get a tattoo as well. I mean that sounds crazy, but that's really the reason why I got. It's like a kind of in memory tattoo I have on my chest. And it was not of my own. I mean, obviously I made the decision because I went and got it and paid for it, but it was kind of like everyone was doing it in some fashion, so I should do it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also still very young when he died and still very impressionable and still kind of like not of my own mind. So, yeah, I get it. It makes sense. So, with what you said, jaila, like you don't feel like you were sad, do you feel like it affected your life, like who you are today, like, when you think about him or any memories you have of him, do you feel or do you experience anything. You feel like it's like long term grief, like did you grieve him or was it just kind of like that's your first loss experience? Yeah, well, that was definitely my well, not my first loss experience, but maybe my first grief experience, because I think the first loss I experienced was like my great aunt I don't think you ever met her, lynette and that was complicated because I think I was.
Speaker 1:I actually was probably the same age you were when Paul Paul died. I feel like I was maybe like seven or something, but I was very young. And that was complicated because at that age, who do you really know? Well, I guess, like thinking about her, like I remember things about her, but not like an endearing relationship, like we shared memories, like I have nothing and that's not to take anything away from anyone, you know, may her soul rest in peace, of course but I was so young it was like, oh, past, okay, all right, so everyone's sad, like what do we do now? And really like and it was probably the same for you. I'd love to know, though, like I don't know for me when people passed when I was younger, there was no like conversation about it, like what it means or how I felt or anything. Did you get that no-transcript?
Speaker 1:Um, the older I get, I'm slowly realizing these things like I don't know if free listeners out there if this is true or not for your families, but we tend not to talk about things in general. I mean again, that brings us back to the reason for the birth of this podcast is like those conversations that are not being had and have never been had, and I don't know if it's just the, it's just things happen and then you just keep living, you just keep going about life. Like, as you mentioned, you know, I called her Granny. Granny passed. This is my grandmother, her great grandmother.
Speaker 1:I was at work and like we knew she was going to pass because she was in the hospital for a little while with different, you know, systems failing. We knew it was coming and then when it was final, it was just like oh, wow, okay, and we didn't talk about it, like it was just kind of a. I don't even remember. Like the funeral. I remember bits and pieces of it, pieces of it. Do you remember her funeral? No, yeah, it's. It's actually pretty crazy. Everything just happened and then you just wake up and you just keep going, like you just keep going forward.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's just the way it's always been handled, like there was no kind of process but how I get? Maybe no one knew how to process, but anyway, that's that's. You know, something to be solved, right, something to be worked at, something to be better understood. Because even now, like you know, thinking, okay, how do you process grief? You know, I'm sure a part of it is, you know, connecting with others. You know feeling through your emotions, talking about it, journaling, therapy, you know the usual steps, but I mean, I'm sure there's a more finite process to to, you know, processing grief, right, so, anyhow.
Speaker 1:So who would you say Jaila? Then you know you've had these losses right, from your grandfather to your great grandmother, to your great aunt that you never met. You know all of these things. What would you say? Or would you say you have had a significant loss. And when you say grandma, you mean Okay, I just want to be clear to the people, because you know you have a mom side and a dad side and all that stuff. So what tell us about her? I mean, I know about her, but you know, our listeners talk a little bit about her and that relationship. Come on, tim, you don't want to. He doesn't want to talk about the deepness of it. See, I think this is important though, because where, at what point, you know, and not to rush, of course, there's no rush on when somebody is ready to, or allowed to, process, but I mean, does it? Do you think this means you're not ready to process it? Yeah, okay, well, we don't have to, obviously, we don't have to go into that. We can, you know, talk about other experiences. I'm happy to, happy to won't say happy, but you know, I honestly don't know if I've had a significant loss.
Speaker 1:One would think that my father was a significant loss. He was a complicated loss. Honestly, I felt grief and I felt frustration and I felt anger and I felt almost a release, in a way. And so, you know, while Jaila mentioned that she saw me, so sad I was because I was so sad, while I say, my father and I had a very hard or not hard. We had a tense relationship and there were many hurdles that we had to get through, you know, together in like the year, even year, year and a half before he passed, things seemed to be changing. We talked more, he apologized for a lot of things and things were just changing things. The relationship was finding its way to kind of a normal, if you will. We were healing, I think, and then he passed, and so it was just like.
Speaker 1:I think I was upset about that the most because it's like wow, like right, when this could really, you know, be the beginning of some major healing work, I lose them. So it's like well dang, you know. So that was really frustrating for me and so I was sad a lot and again, even though our relationship wasn't great, it wasn't even good for a long time I felt like I had lost a protector. You know, as a young girl in the world with a daughter a young daughter at that, and all of these, you know different types of men around and things happening. You know it's nice to have a dad, an uncle, a grandfather, a brother. You know somebody who you can call on to protect you, and that's the biggest memory I have.
Speaker 1:Like the deepest feeling I have of the loss is that I don't have anyone to call on for protection if something happens to me, if some guys slapped me or something. You know what I'm saying Like anything, who do I call? And so I felt that very deeply and so I think that that was kind of a part of the reason that, again, in the shared grief right of everyone around me, I think that was the beginning of discovering kind of my own hardness, if you well, I don't even know if I'd call it strength I just became hard because I felt like I had to be. And then, you know, if you listen to our previous episode, we talked about Jaila's dad and how he was absent. You know, I had to be hard because I didn't have a protector, and then harder because she didn't have an active father, and so I just gave myself those roles and I hardened. And you know, because of that, a lot of other things happened, being, you know, loss of relationships and loss of self and you know, burnout and anxiety and all of these other things, right. So it again healing and therapy and connection and recovery, and it's still a journey. So that's important to remember that there's no timeline for any of this. It's really just about the effort you put in the work, you put in your output, right, it's really, really about that.
Speaker 1:So I do want to talk a little bit about Jaila's grandma, because I think her story is one that is both amazing and impactful. And while I could never empathize the loss because it was a great, great loss I did grieve her because, while, you know, the father was absent, she was very, very present, I mean very present, and she was just a matriarch in so many ways and you know, she just loved Jaila to the depths of her soul and would do anything for her. And she accepted me and you know, not that she had to accept me, but she treated me as if I was just another daughter. You know, I was just. I was family too, and I really appreciated that, because you know my issues with neglect. It felt good to be acknowledged and included and you know I looked at her as a source of wisdom and you know I had great, great respect for her and I would take her to Michaels and she liked to do like you know, like crafting and stuff, and she would make little like jewelry pieces and stuff, and so we would go to Michaels and she would get like all these beads and such and it was just good time she would.
Speaker 1:You know we'd get a bottle of wine, and you know we would. We would have a glass together and she would have jokes and stories, and I just I feel like I got to know her more in maybe her last five years of life than I ever had before, because I felt, I made the assumption that, because of this tension between her son and I, that she would maybe have tension with me, because you know, family sticks together, especially a mother and her son. But that wasn't it. Although she wanted very much to excuse him and try to have us understand a different perspective, she knew and she just focused on her love and her relationship with Jaila and I, and so I think that was a good move, honestly, because you know, if you focus so much on what you don't have and who isn't doing what and who you know what's not enough, then oftentimes you don't get to experience the fullness of what you do have, and so I think that her doing that was very important.
Speaker 1:Jaila, would you be willing to share a memory of her? No, okay, well, I think it's definitely something that your body is ready to process. I think, just because of your response right now and listeners, you're getting the full. I mean, you can't see, but I'm sure you can maybe even feel just right away the emotion that comes from processing grief for someone that you've lost and it's not I hope that it's never something that is pushed down and pushed away, because it's just like a seed you push it into the dirt, it's gonna come to the surface. It's supposed to come to the surface so that it can bloom into something else and that's healing and processing, right. I'll say that what I think about this loss, I think so.
Speaker 1:Jaila was, and I don't, I dare not, try and speak for her, so I'm just sharing my perspective of what I saw. She was obviously young still, I mean she's only 22 now but when she passed she was in high school and, like we mentioned earlier, we didn't talk about I mean, we talked about the person, her grandmother, memories and stories and would bring it up. But how to Again, how does one truly process grief, to find grief partners and make connections and talk therapy, et cetera, and I don't think any of that really happened. I think it was just another like boom. This happened, now what? And Jaila had shared, because we talked about this a little before that. She had to kind of like pull together memories from, like the year after, I think, she passed, because she kind of felt like she went on autopilot a little bit and kind of just kind of maybe closed off, if you will. I've definitely done that before.
Speaker 1:I mean, I mentioned that in the birth story podcast, where, after I had her, there are a lot of memories that I can't pull together anymore. I think, because when you experience something significant in your life and you don't have the tools, the resources, the people around you to help you, like, pull everything together, you do kind of go numb, you go on autopilot because you don't know what to do with all of the emotion that comes with that. Right, I'm really hopeful that that becomes a new system in our family and in your families as well, because there's just so many of us kind of like letting life happen and we're just kind of continuing through and wondering why we have headaches, wondering why our health is declining, wondering why we're we have mood disorders and we're snapping and we're irrational and we're frustrated. It's a lot of the times the experts say that it's due to the lack of process, because you've had a traumatic event or a traumatic experience that you have not healed through, you have not talked about you have not processed. I feel like I'm going to say that word a thousand times. It's very important. It's critical to the family status and mental and physical wellness as well.
Speaker 1:My grandfather passed earlier this year on my mother's side. I mean, I didn't cry because I didn't know him. I knew who he was. I've experienced him in my life but there was no significant relationship. For years and years of my life he was in prison and in and out of prison, and when he wasn't in prison I don't really know where he was. That's difficult. I feel like, even though I didn't grieve in what would be a typical experience or what grief would normally, if you will, look like there is still something there to be processed because while I didn't have a relationship with him, I didn't know him well. I didn't have a relationship and I didn't know him well.
Speaker 1:That's a loss as well, because when you get up in life and you want to have family around, you want to maintain and build new connections. As you get older, I feel like it's the need for that changes. For me, it's a missed opportunity a grandfather that I could have known. I could have had a relationship that could have been much better when I lost my father and lost that sense of protection that could have filled that area. There's still processing. I think that needs to happen. Being there for my mom, wondering if she's processing and how she's feeling through it and thinking about it. So just conversations and communication. That is really, really missing around these critical life events. It's not happening, I think, adding to the falling of the black family structure. I say that because that's the only family structure that I have experience and perspective with, but it is because conversations are not being had, connections are not being made. These generations, these last maybe three, four generations, the priorities are different from what I can see and what I can tell. I just want to put that out there as a reminder again. In this holistic healing that really needs to happen. Hopefully, the more we say it and speak to it, the more likely it is to present itself in the spaces where it's needed.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you, jaila, do you remember your other grandfather? No, yeah, he was very. Yeah, I don't think he was around much. I mean maybe when you were a baby. But other than that, like I said, either in you know, unfortunately, either in prison or elsewhere. So I see you look like you're kind of still processing. Do you have anything you want to share, just in general on the topic? It doesn't have to be about your grandmother, just anything on the topic. Just thinking about loss or loss of a relationship, loss of a certain part of you, or anything that's based. Well, I can prompt you with some questions. I'm happy to do that. So if we move away from the loss of the loved one and we move into a space of the loss of, maybe, self or relationships, can you speak to either of those and, with a mind that something was like really impactful for you?
Speaker 1:Okay, we had to take a quick intersession and breathe and Jaila journal and we're back and we're ready. So we're telling and we're being raw here, right, so we're back and I think we are ready to continue and have this really good conversation now. So I'm really going to sit back and allow Jaila to flow a little bit. I'll pop in with questions, but I really want you to take this time and use it as your platform and however you want. I said I'll have prompt questions, but I really want to make this time yours.
Speaker 1:I did a lot of you know. I just don't feel like, honestly, I'm grieving very much. So I would just like, jaila, as a beginning, let's dip our toe in the water right and tell us about your grandmother. You, I think I just want to take this moment and give you a silent round of applause, because the way it was affecting you before we took an intercession and now you acknowledge you felt through it. You did what you had to do and you said let's go. You know, let's, let's continue the conversation. I was offering to like completely change the topic, but Jaila wanted to continue and so I think that's. That's extraordinary, it's very strong of you, it's. It's just just just kudos to you, because that's not a typical response. So just just good for you for doing that.
Speaker 1:So your grandma, like you said, yeah, she was, she was a lot of things for you, right, and it was almost like a double loss. I get that, you know, because she filled that absence leftover from your father. So a question. So again, like I said, I have a couple questions, right, what's your favorite memory about her? Okay, awesome, when she passed, did you feel like you needed to hide your grief? Yeah, I can, I can definitely understand that. Again, I think.
Speaker 1:I think it'd be really great to kind of like again look at right, just just for for Jaila, for myself, for anyone that is experiencing a grief, a season of grief, a situation in life, to to really look at what are kind of like recommended steps to process grief, because we as a people should know how to do that, because loss is a part of life. Loss is going to happen, you know one day. I'm not even gonna put that out there, but you know loss is going to happen and so I think learning and experiencing and understanding how to process grief is a beneficial tool. So next thing I want to ask is are there feelings today that when you reflect on, like the past, like what did you need back then, when you first heard it, the the year after, just into life, like what did you need from people around you, what did you need from yourself, as you kind of, you know, went through that? It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:Going back to those five stages, right, If you follow the spectrum, anger is the second emotion in the stages of grief. So that definitely makes sense and just the content in which you just shared it definitely makes sense why you were upset and so I think even, yeah, it just makes me kind of feel. Not feel, but think about how, when things happen in life, kind of people, instead of like it being a collective thing, like coming, coming together and I think that's what's missing in like the process of grief or processing of grief, is the connectedness. But instead of coming together, people are so much about self like what do I feel? What do I think, what do I want, instead of we, especially from the parent, child perspective. When you're grieving as a parent, it's important to remember your children are grieving too, whether it's the loss of the other parent or grandparent, whoever it be in the family, they're grieving too, and so it's very important not to say, hey, forget about what you're going through. This is what I'm going through, but what are we going through? The unit, the connection.
Speaker 1:I remember when my, when my dad passed, we had family that came down from the South, of course, for the funeral and everything, and there was a person within that family that came down in a room full of us children and aunts and whoever it was. Just I just remember a bunch of people. I really don't remember who it was, but she said she pointed to my stepmother and said she's hurting more than anybody else in this room. Give her that respect. And in that moment I said to myself how dare you not that she isn't hurting, because that was her husband? Obviously she's hurting, but how dare you dismiss everyone else's pain in this room? You do not have that authority, you do not have that place and that's shame on you. I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. Shame on you, because everyone in that room was hurting in their own way, into their own degree.
Speaker 1:You cannot say that someone's grieving worse than someone else, I mean unless it's, even if it's physically showing. Say, you have two people sitting next to each other grieving their sister just past or something right, somebody on the floor just crying and screaming, and then the other person just sitting there perfectly still. Someone without you know, I feel like common sense would say, oh, the person that's fallen out is grieving more. That's not true. That's not automatically true, because people grieve differently. That person that's sitting there perfectly still could be zoned TF out and in their head all of that that fallen out, that screaming, that, everything that's happening internally, and so that's not fair. And so I caution people from saying that somebody is experiencing something worse than anyone or someone else, because you do not know. So just putting that piece out there.
Speaker 1:It's easy, I think, to get in that space because if grief is heavy enough, it's, you know. It's easy for you to feel like you're feeling so much, so deeply, that it can very much seem like you're like alone in your feelings, Like I am feeling this and no one else, like it doesn't even matter about anyone else, especially at such a young age, especially with so much responsibility assumed and unassumed, especially with you know, every, you know the lack of processing with the lack of, you know, a safe, supportive environment, just all of those things. Like I can understand how you would feel that way. But you know that's a part of the learning process as well. Is I did that, I felt that maybe that wasn't the right way. You know, and you know in retrospect you find healing and that's another very important thing I think people need to remember is that just because you did something or acted or reacted some way, you know, five years ago, five months ago, if you are able to reflect on that, find you know the lesson in it and then change that position and move forward correctly, that's a win.
Speaker 1:So many people are holding on to what they did or didn't do in the past and not allowing themselves to forgive that part of them. Because you grow up, you change your perspective, change your experience, things Even. I mean I know this episode isn't all about absentee parents at all, but I think that's a part of that's a perspective. I've heard from an absentee parent before that it's too late, they hate me, I can't come back, it's too much. It's too late. It's not. I don't think it's ever too late to at least try. I don't think it's ever too late in any situation, especially as the parent. It's never too late.
Speaker 1:I am 36, 76 years old and I still call my mom. I still want my mom, her opinion, her advice. I just sometimes I just want to sit next to her and watch a movie. You know, it's just and I'm grown and someone say, oh, you're grown now or it's too late, but no, it's very much. The parent child relationship is lifelong. It does not stop at 18, 19, 21. It does not. So just want to put that piece in there. So, moving forward, just one more question for you, jayla Is there anything that you would say to your grandma or wish you could have said?
Speaker 1:That you would say today, if you're willing to share that no-transcript, but you feel like there was no unfinished business with her, because many people I feel like you know you hear people in grief they say I wish I could have told them I loved them more.
Speaker 1:I wish that I wouldn't have said this, I wish I wouldn't have hung up. You know they have all these wishes after someone passes, but to say that, you know, I just wanted to be there, I think, I think that that you know, not at all telling you how you should feel, but were it me, I would feel good about that, you know, because I think that's that's a big deal to not have regrets about a relationship, about something or about something said or unsaid. So, yeah, just just accolades all the way around. So I think with that, we're going to go ahead and wrap this episode up. It's been, I feel, like a really good one and I'm very happy that we had this conversation and I we will include some resources about grief processing in the show notes. Please review those if you feel like they'll be a helpful tool for you or someone that you love, and keep an eye out for us next week as we journey into our next topics. I hope it's been good for you so far and we look forward to talking more. Thank you.
