Understanding Grief: A Personal Journey Through Loss and Healing

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, you're listening to Five Years Time with your host, grace Black. Hey cuties, grace here, welcome back to Five Years Time podcast. Now that I've started talking, I thought I had my mic figured out, but it feels a little funny. Sometimes a row comes in here and pretends that she's hosting a podcast and it gets all moved around. But I think we're good. I was just worried I was bumping in the wrong way. Anyways, welcome back, cutes.

Speaker 1: 0:46

This is the most anticipated episode. I feel like every single time I speak a little bit about grief here or there, people are always asking for a whole episode about it. So this is the time I want it to be really thoughtful with it, and also it's a pretty personal and meaningful topic to me. So I wanted to know that I was coming from the right headspace and the right mindset to share with everyone. So this episode's going to go a little different than all our other episodes. There won't be a this week, I learned, like all our segments, we're just going to really have an open conversation about my journey with grief. It's going to be very personal my perspective, I'm speaking on behalf of myself, not anyone else, and just sharing a bit. I'm going to share my four stage. That's kind of what. I've broken it down into my four stages of grief and just just let's get into it Cute. I'm really excited for this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:58

I also am sipping in my beautiful pumpkin mug A creamy wait, is it called that? It's vanilla peppermint, I feel like it's called creamy vanilla peppermint, and I also put some lavender honey in it. So let's take a sip together. Oh, that's really delicious. And we're recording this in the evening. It felt like an evening episode. I all day was like I need to record this episode. What am I going to do it? And I typically don't enjoy recording in the evening just because it can be really stressful with bedtime routines and everything going on, and then I end up being so drained and honestly, it felt like that just before I was going to record, but the second I sat down it was like nope. This is why I left it for the evening. This is when it was meant to be, so let's hop into everything that has to do with that.

Speaker 1: 2:52

I also am using my phone. I just I normally use my iPad and I'm realizing that my phone keeps turning off. But I think we should be good. I just wrote down a lot of bullet points on each stage because it's been a it's been a big, big chunk of time since since, I guess, the start of my grief began. So, that being said, let's start from the beginning. So I just want to say that what we're going to be talking about today is my dad passing away, and I was 15 when he passed away. So it was a big change in the middle of a very typically changing time for any young girl or boy or human as a teenager going through all these changes. So that's kind of what the grief journey will be talking about.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Prior to that I I actually have had other people in my family pass away. All my grandparents passed away before the age of six, like before I was six years old, obviously not before they were six. I don't know how that would. The math wouldn't math on how I would be here, but because I was so young I don't remember very much. I definitely have picture memories and a few memories that I think are my like real memories, but of the actual, like funerals and deaths and stuff, a bit of my grandma's. But again, I am talking totally personally. But to me a grandparent passing feels more in this sense because I had two loving parents who were my parents and my grandparents were my grandparents, but I know other people. Anyways, I'm not going to, I'm not putting disclaimers here, this is me talking my journey. So anyways, that's a very like natural way of life. I'm not saying it's not sad, but also I was very young, so I don't think I hold much in this for that.

Speaker 1: 4:57

But then, moving forward, yeah, so a little backstory on my dad's death. So it was very unexpected. He wasn't sick. It wasn't something that was like we all knew it was coming. It was very much like one day he was there, one day he wasn't. So, yeah, I and I've only ever experienced that in loss I haven't had someone close to me again my grandparents, but I was younger. I haven't had someone close to me in a time in my life where I remember where they were sick and it was something that we knew was coming. So I can't speak on grief, on either of those on like the comparison or contrast and either of, but just unexpected.

Speaker 1: 5:42

So, yeah, I wanted to do this episode now while I was waiting until this time. Specifically is because it is officially been the 15 year mark since he passed away, which is absolutely wild to think that it's been 15 years and I feel like this date has always been in my mind, this specific one, because I was 15 when he passed away. This is the 15 year mark, which means that we are officially entering a stage of me being alive on this earth longer than I would have known my dad, for which it feels heavy. It does feel strange, it feels. It feels I don't know how to explain it it's definitely a heavy feeling and it's not that it feels like he doesn't exist, but it feels like entering this stage feels like am I moving somewhere where he doesn't exist? But I know that's not true because of my, my stage, my processing stages or all of these stages. So let's start with the beginning, stage one, processing. So I call this one processing because stage one encompasses the beginning where he passed away.

Speaker 1: 7:00

It was unexpected. That took time to process, but also without having much time to process. If you've had one loved ones pass away, you know that the process from death to funeral is typically pretty quick within the week. When it's unexpected, that's a lot of stuff to be doing in a week and also trying to like figure out and just understand what's happening. So, yeah, I.

Speaker 1: 7:34

I just remember that first week being so confused and maybe not fully registered and maybe not fully registering the the extent or weight of what had just happened. I was really looking for normalcy. I was craving it. I remember so specifically. I'm blessed with such a beautiful memory and I'm so grateful for it. But sometimes I wish I didn't have to remember everything, but then I'm also grateful for it. But anyways, I remember very vividly pretty much that week, but especially the moment that we found out. And then I remember going to sleep that night and my mom lay with me and we cuddled in bed and I feel like she hadn't done that in forever. Oh, also, I did bring one second. I did bring a box of Kleenex because I had a feeling.

Speaker 1: 8:24

But anyways, I remember waking up the next morning and just thinking like how could this be real? Like I just remember like almost not wanting to open my eyes, like thinking if I opened my eyes then the realness would consume me, and that felt too much. It felt too much for me to be able to handle that. So I just remember that was like very much my mindset. And then I remember I'd fallen asleep with my mom, but my mom had woken up before me and I think people were over I'm pretty sure my aunt was over and so I just remember hearing voices upstairs and I remember thinking like multiple voices that what I knew wasn't just my mom and I remember just thinking I don't want to see anyone, like I don't know, I feel awkward and confused and I just felt like a lot and I think that's how that week really felt.

Speaker 1: 9:29

But I did learn something like in that week of really awkward meetings with people and not meetings like people coming to your door, whatever. I remember the first thing I said to my mom was I want to go to school and she's like you can't go to school. It was like I was really craving, just like being back. It's like I wanted nothing to have happened. Obviously it was like I wanted that normal scene. She's like you can't go to school, you have to stay home. This week, we have to get things in order. I was like, okay, okay, and then people would come to the door and they would knock and bring flowers and have words to say and it's like I just I've never had, like I physically could not even hear what people were saying. It was a blur and I just felt lost, confused. It just felt really, really sad.

Speaker 1: 10:38

And I remember the funeral finally came. The week was really long and then the funeral finally came and that was really hard Probably the hardest thing I've done, I think Standing at the front and meeting everyone before at the visitation and I just could not. I was, it was, I did not want to be there, like not that I didn't want to be there, but like I just couldn't and I just like was a wreck. People would take turns walking me around the block like a little doggy Just getting all like a dog, but I it was really hard for me. The funeral itself was really hard too. I remember just like consistent crying. My eyes were never open, I couldn't. I couldn't process or understand and listen and imagine that we were all sitting here saying our final, final goodbyes. It just didn't make sense.

Speaker 1: 12:12

And then after the funeral, things felt lighter. We had it back. Well, actually we were standing outside after the funeral and I was talking to my cousins and I think I was just talking to my cousins and it just felt good to just talk and laugh and just like joke around and like I always use humor as a way to cope I use humor in a lot of ways, but I definitely like it for coping and it felt good to be with people and to be past that part, because the whole leading up to that felt really, really a lot. Then we all went back to my house and we had our whatever it's called was it called after the funeral, you know nibbly bits and socializing and that felt so good. It felt so refreshing. Friends had come and family and the house was full of people and love and sharing memories, and I escaped to the basement with my friends and we were able to just like see each other for pretty much the first time in a week since, like something really horrible happened that I had to do myself well, not myself, but you know and it just felt like a breath of fresh air.

Speaker 1: 13:43

I remember thinking I feel like I did say to my mom like I feel guilty, but I had so much fun after, like it felt so good. She was like are you kidding? That's the only thing your dad would ever want and that's so true. Don't worry, guys, I'm not gonna be crying the whole time. This part is the I feel like this part is the saddest part, obviously, but my dad was someone who would walk into a room and instantly be like be the center, be the entertainment, be the party boy, like he would bring people together and make people feel welcomed and loved, and he always wanted to have a good time and a good laugh. And so I'm glad my mom said that because I felt good about it. I was like good, I took advantage of us having a party or whatever it's called, and I had a good time for a good laugh and it just felt good to be with people again my age, my friends, like it just felt good to just catch up and not have to think about the reality of what was going on. Okay, then, still in processing, after that first week I had to go back to school. Oh gosh, now this was, this was one thing I like.

Speaker 1: 15:11

I don't know what I was expecting, but inside of I think like, think of us as teenagers, think like of young adults, think of, just like yourself, as a human living life for the first time. It's awkward, especially when you're a teenager. You feel awkward, things feel awkward. You also feel like you don't know how to handle big things, sometimes like it feels overwhelming. So I never blame anyone and I don't hold grudges or anything, but I remember going back to school and feeling so out of place, my good friends who knew my dad.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Nobody in my high school really knew my dad because I went to a high school completely different from my middle school and he passed away at the beginning of grade 10. So in grade nine I had met a few friends, but not like any really really good friends that I was necessarily like taking over to my house, except for one who definitely knew my dad, but other than that, like I didn't have, I had lots of friends from like other schools that I was still like kind of hanging around with or my good friends were, and so at school nobody really knew, like in my high school nobody really knew my dad there, didn't know that side of me, and so it's not like they were at the funeral or I mean or whatever, not that they, they could have come to the funeral. I'll tell you, I'll remember everyone who came to my funeral and I'll I who are the people who didn't come. I don't remember them. They didn't last very long in my life, not because of that, but I went back to school and I instantly felt very isolated.

Speaker 1: 16:57

I think people felt awkward. They didn't know I'm now the kid with the dead dad like they didn't know how to approach the situation. They either knew that it happened, they didn't know that it happened, whatever. It felt weird. And it felt weird because I was gone a week so people would ask like, oh, where were you? And then it felt weird, it felt horrible, it felt oh, I hate it saying it, but like I would have to say like, oh well, I guess I didn't have to. But like I'm an honest person, my dad passed away like and then just having to like I hate it telling people because I hate it dealing with like what, whatever they were gonna, how they were gonna react, I just didn't lie, I didn't want it, I didn't want to hear it, I didn't want to have to feel the need to comfort them. I don't know, I just never liked it. And that's not to say that people didn't react nicely or like in a way that was like felt good. Sometimes maybe I don't know like I feel like, no matter what, you really can never say the right thing to someone who's like in the midst of like the deep dark grieving.

Speaker 1: 18:03

But I just remember that year feeling really isolated and really lonely. That school year. All of my friends who I thought I was like kind of they were kind of like a clique, like a group, and then I had like somehow joined in and I felt like I was like in this group and then it only been a couple months because or like a month because of the beginning of the year, and then, yeah, quickly I was exiled from that group for reasons I don't even understand. It was so silly, but whatever, I think a lot of people just couldn't deal with. I don't know, and I feel like at that time I would want it to be. Really I wanted to fill my life with so much joy where I could. I wanted to have fun and I wanted to laugh and I wanted to feel good. And I think a lot of people that I was hanging around with wanted to feel bad about their own lives and sad, and that's fair, everyone has their own struggles and their own mental health and whatever. But, like I don't know, I guess I came off to them as someone who couldn't be serious and couldn't take things seriously and yeah, so we went our separate ways and it was for the better, of course, but that year I felt really lonely and I was really trying to figure out where I fit in and I was just processing something that had been a really big change. That kind of obviously didn't make sense and I needed to make sense of it. So then we move into stage two, which is openness.

Speaker 1: 19:37

So out of my first, out of that first year of school, into spring and summer, I started stepping out of my comfort zone. And one of my friends, who I grew up with, who knew everything that happened, was at funeral, like knew my family. She invited me to I mean, I think it was maybe her birthday party, I'm not sure and I met some really amazing people who became really key players in my teenage years and I felt this relief and I felt this joy and they wanted to know, they wanted to know me for who I was and and they were open to listening to my story and hearing about my grief and they weren't afraid of it and they were a shoulder to cry on, but also people to have fun with and feel young and be a teenager and be myself. And it felt really free. And that led me into my summer, where I was signed up to go to LIT, which is leader in training program at the summer camp that I grew up at, and it's supposed to be like the best summer ever of your whole wide life and I had been so looking forward to it all year long. And then summer came and I was equally looking forward to it, but I had this weight on my shoulders, obviously because I had a cloud of grief following me around a bit.

Speaker 1: 21:10

But I'd met those friends in the spring who taught me a lot about being able to I don't want to say juggle, but being able to live life in beauty and in sadness and feel the support from from good people around you, and so that they helped me to get to camp and be open. And so I got to camp and there are a few people I knew there already and then lots of people that I was meeting for the first time and so many people who just and so my camp is religious Christian. I grew up Christian, I am a Christian, but I hadn't really, like I don't know, experienced a godly friendship since my dad passed away, I guess and so this was the first place where I was doing that and the conversations I had, even just with my small group leader, the first one-on-one where I really got to. Just we just I don't know, I guess I just opened up and we just had the best conversation ever and it was literally the most cleansing thing ever. It does make me emotional because it was one of those things where I needed that and I felt like she needed it just as much out of that conversation and I felt so much openness after I left and a willingness to find really goodness and find find new, new purpose. I think I'll go further into that when we get to the next stage, but anyways, I met some really fantastic people at this camp and a few of them are still key players in my life today, similar to those friends that I made in spring, and I do fully believe that those people wouldn't have come into my life in a way that they did if I wasn't going through that grief journey, one of them being Trevor, my husband currently, who I met at that camp and we started dating the next year after. But I I just am so, so grateful for that experience and for the people that I met there and for the way that it turned my life into a different journey, because when you have vulnerable teenagers which every teenager is, and then you add on grief that's so heavy it can make them extra vulnerable, and I'm happy that I didn't put myself into a situation or that I wasn't placed in that or kept stayed in that loneliness and put myself in situations where I did other things, because I'm really grateful for, for the trajectory trajectory of the way that that journey went, and so I really gained an openness as the closure of the full year of my dad's passing. So, going into that fall coming home camp, I met really great people from the camp who also lived close to me and I was able to actually just went out and visited them out west this past summer in Vancouver and I was able to. We fostered a beautiful relationship. Clearly, to this day we still have it and it's just one of those things where I am so, so grateful for it and I'm so happy that I was able to work through, work through what I needed to and end up with an open heart searching for something beautiful.

Speaker 1: 24:54

Okay, stage three, closure. This was about me granting peace and just allowing myself the freedom to not be the kid with the dead dad. I will always be that person, but I need it. I need it peace. And, as I said earlier, I hate it. For the first year even maybe year and a half, two years, but definitely the first year I hate it. I dread it. Telling people that my dad passed away and I would only do it if it ever came up in conversation they'd be like, oh, what does your mom do, what does your dad do? And then I'd have to like answer the question. I just like did not like people's reactions, not that I didn't like them, I just like they made me feel uncomfortable and it's nothing on them, it's just like. I just did not like. I just wish it was like known information.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Anyways, a big thing on my closure stage was letting go of the expectation I had for my future. Obviously, as a child with two loving parents, and one of them being my father who passed away. Before he passed away, I saw my future as many memories that would be shared, with him moving into my college dorm, walking down the aisle, him being the grand dad to my kids, all of these things. And so I needed to let go of that expectation for my future because, one, it wasn't gonna happen, and not to say that he isn't remembered in all of those moments, but two. It was sad. It was sad to. It was sad and heavy and almost brought me I don't know hopelessness feeling and there's enough hopelessness on its own. I didn't want to continue feeling that and so part of that closure was just letting go of that, and it doesn't mean I can't be sad about it. But it allowed me to open my heart to what life had for me, what goodness lived beyond my current imagination, because all I had seen was what I felt, like you know, the movies tell you and people in your life have experienced, and all of that stuff for your future.

Speaker 1: 27:12

But once I was able to let go of that expectation, I feel like I really gained this again back to that openness, but gain this, this, this really open, unbelievably open heart for living each day, for what it has, because in front of you is so unknown, all you have is this moment that you live in. And I'm not saying that in a way that you can't get excited about things in the future of course not. But just like really go with the flow attitude and I think that's why I do have such a go with the flow attitude like really truly pivoting and turning with each wave that comes crashing in and being as open as you can to the path, changes that happen unexpectedly and can set you back. And also, just sometimes, like even the smallest things, like getting stuck in traffic and believing that that happened for a reason, like just things like that, like I just felt like I, in that closure phase, I was really able to open my heart to a new, a new beginning, where I believed that goodness was coming and that I wasn't in charge of how it got to me, but I was along for the ride and I was there to work hard and do good and be, be a good person and a kind person. But, yeah, just like kind of taken, taken the world as it comes. And that led me into stage four, which was, is and is where I am now and I think I will be forever is remembering and honoring.

Speaker 1: 29:07

I love to talk about my dad. I think that was one of the hardest things at the beginning was that it was really hard to talk about him. Like that first year maybe even two years, definitely the first year I could not talk about him without like bawling my eyes out, which is totally understandable, but it made it very hard to tell stories about him. Now I love to talk about my dad. I love when I have the opportunity to bring him up. I have a lot of people who know him or who knew him, and so I make the opportunities for the conversations to come up most of the time and I will run with it if I do get the opportunity. I love sharing the beautiful memories and moments. I love to talk about them, I love to think about them, I love to journal about them. I love to live sometimes in this imagination world where I still get to talk to him and debrief on what's going on in life and what's good and what's new. Introduce him to Trevor all row. Is he all the people that are really important in my life? Now?

Speaker 1: 30:35

My dad was always taking photos and videos. He had the classic camcorder, he had a film camera, a couple film cameras or a blacks, which used to be a photography shop here in I don't know if it was all of Canada or just Ontario, but they went out of business a few years ago, which is so sad. But he would always have a blacks disposable camera in his pocket, a red one, and I also love that it was called blacks, because our last name is black or his last name and my last name is black. We have buckets and buckets and buckets like Tupperware, not Tupperware Tuppermaid bins full of photos From all these beautiful photos that were developed. He always was taking a camera out of his pocket and taking photos here and there and getting them developed and giving them to people as gifts just for funds, giving them to us.

Speaker 1: 31:41

Every memory, memories in the moment that you were like dad, stop, I love it, I love them all and that was a big part of him and a big part of my childhood was always those. What is it called when it's not a posed photo? I was gonna say in the moment photo, but what is that called Candid? All those Candid photos and the posed ones from family vacations? Yeah, lots of funny stories from those.

Speaker 1: 32:09

One time we were in Ireland and pulled over at the side of the road and I was so grumpy Family vacation afternoon, long drive, you're hungry and my dad's like, come on, come on, we gotta take a picture. Literally, we're standing on the side of a sheep field which is very common in Ireland at a stop sign and he's like Grace, keep moving back, keep moving back. And I move back. I'm like please, can we get this over with? He's like keep going, keep going. And then I fall into a rose bush. He didn't know it was there, but it was like a lip into the ditch. And there's a rose bush Scratched with the thorns. But it's one of those things that was so funny because the photo was hilarious too. But it made us laugh when we were stressed out or when I was stressed out as whatever a preteen traveling with your family.

Speaker 1: 33:09

But I talk about the photos because I feel like, as I said, this is my remembering and honoring. I'm so grateful for that and I'm thankful that that side of him is a huge part of me. I've always been that way, me and him together learning film and spending summers in Ireland learning film with him and my uncle and cousins, and then also just always carrying the tradition on of having that disposable camera. And now, with an iPhone, it's so much easier to just take photos all the time, and videos and sharing and documenting. And I tell you, every photo I take I think of him, even when I don't know that I'm thinking of him. But it's a way that I honor him and honor his memory and honor our time together.

Speaker 1: 34:16

I haven't cried about this in a long time. Not a long time. I definitely did cry about it. I told you actually this summer. I haven't cried and talked about it in a long time like this.

Speaker 1: 34:27

I've met many new people I guess in my life, but also you don't get the opportunity to share in long form your whole grief journey. A lot of the time it feels good, but what I was going to say was I used to think of my dad all the time at the beginning and it would be sadness not him that was sad, but it would be. Something was taken for me and I'm sad and this is sad and it is sad. It is sad. I'm not saying it's not sad, but now, 15 years later and lots of years in those 15 years the last five at least, and probably even closer to 10, I think of it with joy and I'm filled with happiness for these memories that I hold and cherish and that I knew him and that I'm here because of him and that I now have Ro who is so much like him and has the zest for life and there's joy and this go with the flow makes people she literally makes people feel so loved the second that she greets them and it is so beautiful.

Speaker 1: 35:59

I'm literally I was like I'm trying to say this in a happy way as I cry their tears of joy, those ones, because I think that's something that was healing for me too, after I had Ro was seeing that my dad lives on and, like he's in me, he's in her, he's in my brother, as another way that I, we, I love to remember and honor is, whenever me, my mom and my brother get together, I feel like we can talk stories for hours and it feels so good and Trevor's always just along for the ride. These are all the stories, so it can be like he's there, he was there, but yeah, so I'm grateful for having them and for them being close to me and knowing him. But those are my four stages of grief and I have another bonus column that I wrote. But I feel like I need to like compose myself for a second. This whole time I was like I'm not going to apologize for crying, I'm going to take my time to speak and I'm not going to feel like I have to rush through this, because it's not something. Grief is not something that you can rush, okay, and also, I never want to rush through talking about my side effects of joining the dead dad club.

Speaker 1: 37:31

Okay, dead dad club is one of those things that like when I joined it, I'm pretty sure my mom was the one that was like welcome because obviously her dad had passed away, because that's my grandpa and I don't think she said it in that moment, I think she said it later on and she said it like not in like a weird way, but like everyone I know who's had their dad pass away or has a dead dad, I feel weird to be like, oh, welcome to the club or oh, are you part of the club? But like I feel like people will say it to me and it feels really like warm and welcoming, but like I feel like I'm going to offend someone if I say to them so let's just a little funny side thing. But anyway, side effects of joining the dead dad club for me, awkward encounters so many. I think I've talked about this but like even to this day, like telling people that your dad passed away now that I'm an adult I don't have to it doesn't seem as like tragic because when you're a like child saying it, I feel like people feel really bad for you. But now, as an adult, like it's more common, our parents are getting older like I feel like people don't ask specifics, they're not like I don't, and I'm not like, oh yeah, my dad passed away when I was 15. I just say like, oh yeah, my dad died or my dad's no longer with us, or whatever, and it's always just like oh, I'm sorry, but sometimes you do get awkward encounters and more of them from when I was younger and like sometimes you're like having to support the other person through them, telling you which is nice, people are very empathetic. Oh, this one, this one is really like triggering for me and I get a feeling of really immense grief when people my age it's not even if they were, they're not, it's not 15 year olds, it's just my age if their dads pass away. Like actually, a year after my dad passed away, a good friend of mine dad passed away and I was like uncontrollably grieving because of that and it was like it was like it unlocked all the feelings that I had had and then I felt them for someone else and then that was one instance and then within the past, like I can't think four or five years, within the past five years, I had a good friend of mine whose dad passed away unexpectedly, very similar like in the sense that it was unexpectedly and we would have been in our early 20s and I, or maybe mid 20s I'm like how old am I? And I was literally like that funeral. It was like everything just like came back. It unlocked that part of me. It unlocked that grief that lived inside of me and that sadness and that tragedy. And yeah, so that's something that's a side effect is that I feel immense grief when people my age, like I had people older than me who've had their parents pass away, and I don't it doesn't hit me the same way, but like it's when they're my age, for some reason.

Speaker 1: 40:40

Finding beauty in everything, this is one of my favorites. I think I've always been like a very easygoing, optimistic, joy filled kind of person, but like even more so now. I really really appreciate the beauty that the world is and I think you can tell that when I talk about the sunlight dappling and everything. But like not even just that, it's just sometimes it's even the beauty that comes from like negative situations. I just like really enjoy finding the beauty in everything. There are only a handful.

Speaker 1: 41:16

Oh yeah, this one's kind of this, one's kind of this one always like makes me feel a bit weird. Not weird, okay, I've kind of I've already kind of said this, but there's only a handful of people in my life now who knew my dad. Some family, obviously, but for friends, I only have two friends that I know to this day still and I'm not even very close not that I'm very close to them, we're not talk everyday friends, but like I definitely do catch up with them once, at least once a year, sometimes twice, that knew my dad and they are very special people to my heart. And it feels kind of wild that, like other, like the main players in my life, like the people that I interact with on the daily other than my mom, of course, and that are in my life, haven't don't know my dad, have never met my dad, like it just feels like I don't know when I think about it too much, it feels heavy and weird and that's why I'm in that honoring and remembering stage forever, because I think it's so important to carry on people.

Speaker 1: 42:26

I actually had a TikTok recently that came on my page that said something about, like how the funeral is. Like the last time people are gonna ask you about this person. Not necessarily ask you, but like it's the last time that this person's like alive. Remember I don't know how they said it, but it was kind of sad. I was like obviously it was sad, but it was sad and true. But then also it was like I will not. I will always, if I have an opportunity to say a story or a memory about my dad, I will always take the opportunity to say it. And I hope that when I pass that, people who loved and cared for me do the same thing. Because, like, what are we in this world without the people who have given us joy and hope and filled our lives with goodness in one way or another and made us into who we are today? And yeah, so those are my side effects of joining the Dad Club. I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones I can think of for now.

Speaker 1: 43:25

But, and those are my four stages of grief processing, openness, closure and remembering and honoring Thank you for listening to me. And I feel like I put off this episode not put off, but like people asked for a while and then I felt like, oh, what do I really have to say about grief? But I think a lot of what I was looking for, especially in that processing phase, was people to share an experience with me. Of course, no two experiences are the same, but to know that someone out there has gone through something similar and to hear how they have worked through things and to hear how they have felt things was something that I really appreciate it. And now, with the beauty of the internet and YouTube, I remember I used to follow a few girls that had dead tats on YouTube, but I and podcasting and social media you're able to get those connections in a broader way than just having people in your life, especially for me.

Speaker 1: 44:33

I know how lonely it was at the beginning and it can still feel lonely sometimes now, but I appreciate you for listening and I'm sending you the biggest hugs and love. If you're grieving right now, know that you are truly remarkable and that your memories and thoughts will forever be yours and you have every right to share and talk and find community that fits you and fits this new stage of your life that will be accepting and open to you, sharing and growing and changing, while all still remembering and honoring. I send you so much love and I am just so grateful for everything because I'm here and I'm doing what I love and I'm meeting the most amazing people, and sometimes it feels like a lot, and other days I just am so grateful for all the beautiful memories I have. I love you all so much. Thank you so so much for coming for this episode.

Speaker 1: 46:08

We'll be back again next week for another episode, and my trip to Italy is coming to an end now, so go follow me over on TikTok and Instagram at five years time podcast. I'd also love any DMs if you wanna continue the conversation. Sometimes it feels like I'm talking to, like I was gonna say a bisque, that's a soup, a no bisque, I don't know. An openness Do a bisque, that's funny. Anyways, even if I am, this was cleansing for me. Love you all. Cute, okay.