Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom

As I listened to this week's episode, one word kept coming into my mind. Compassion. I initially thought of this word as it is a great way to describe Jam's daughter, Taylor. There aren't many 13 year old girls who would be described as compassionate, but I think that it describes Taylor perfectly. Her mom says that Taylor never met a stranger. She was quick to compliment people whom she barely kn...

When Kellie sent an audition tape to be on Ellen DeGeneres' Game of Games in 2018, she was a teacher, making the tape with her students hoping to be be selected to be on this fun game show. She had an abundance of creative energy. At the time, Kellie was passionately working on writing a fiction book dedicated to Matthew Shepard and the LGTBQ+ community. Time went by, however, and no call came abo...

Without a doubt, the most common questions that I am asked by bereaved mothers concern understanding the men in their lives. Whether it is a husband, an ex-husband, or even teenage sons, women can have trouble understanding how men grieve. Men tend to grieve differently than women. Today, Gwen and I delve into the subject more deeply. Recently, Gwen was at a Compassionate Friends conference listen...

I feel like I have so much in common with today's guest, Sheila. Perhaps that is why even though I have never met Sheila in person and only talked with her remotely, I consider her a good friend now. Throughout Sheila's adult life, she has become used to being able to fix problems. Whether at work or at home, it seemed that if she worked on the problem hard enough, it could be solved. Sheila paren...

Technology has changed how we look at the world in so many ways. Information is available with the click on your phone or computer at any time of the day or night. Today's guest, Reid, worked in the field of technology for many years. Although his education background was in psychology, he never really felt called to work in psychology after college. When Reid was hit with his own grief after the...

My favorite quote from today's guest, Ninette, is perhaps the best line ever uttered on the podcast. When describing grief, Ninette said, "It's a long journey, you know. Bring some snacks." Truer words have never been said. Grief is a long journey. If anyone understands just how long the grief journey is, Ninette would. Ninette lost her infant son, Erick, 30 years ago now. Her grief journey starte...

After Andy died, many well meaning people had all sorts of ideas of things that we could do in his memory. People encouraged me to go to our state capitol to work on registration to combat distracted driving. People recommended scholarships to be made in Andy's name, plaques to help remember him. Everyone seemed to have a different idea and they were all good ideas, but just because someone has a...

You can't judge what is going on the inside by what you see of the outside. From the outside, Dani looked like she had it all. She lived in a great place on Capitol Hill, drove an expensive car, had many designer purses, sunglasses and shoes, but on the inside, Dani struggled with her mental health. She was always quick to help others going through a hard time, but sometimes did so even when her o...

I have recently been feeling sort of drained emotionally. I want to keep giving to others and helping other people, but there are days when the well seems a little dry. I worry that I won't have the capacity to do everything I want to do. My therapist told me to take care of myself. Gwen tells me to take care of myself. Friends and family members remind me to take care of myself, but I'm not even...

'Everything happens for a reason, life goes on.' Please know that bereaved parents have not lost their ability to think or to be logical. We know life goes on; we just don't know how. Yes, everything does happen for a reason; we struggle with the why's. Our child's life as we once knew it, does not go on. Our child's body has stopped functioning. In lots of ways, so did ours. - Sherita Thomas, 'Wh...

I love how interconnected things can become and how our huge world can suddenly feel really small. Two weeks ago now, I interviewed Cassie, Ella's mom. You may remember that Ella died from an extremely rare tumor. Although she was 23 years old at the time of her illness and death, her tumor acted very much like a pediatric rhabdoid tumor so she was treated by a pediatric team in her home city of P...

Experiencing the death of a close loved one changes people. I became a changed person after mom mom died of cancer when I was in college. I changed again probably even more dramatically after my son, Andy, was killed in our car accident. When today's guest, Crystal, lost her sister to suicide 3 years ago, Crystal's life was forever changed. Crystal had a young family including a 3 year old daughte...

A few years ago now, Cassie's daughter, Ella, wrote a piece on the meaning of beauty. In the final sentence of the piece, Ella wrote, "The only thing that means anything at all is excruciating beauty if only you can find it." For people who follow me on social media, they will recognize that I have grown to appreciate that phrase and even apply it to my life. Every guest certainly teaches me somet...

As a self-proclaimed data and analytics guy, Ben discovered a disturbing fact shortly after his infant son, Jackson, died. He learned that nearly 50,000 children between the ages of 0 and 20 die each year in the United States alone. That means that each year, 100,000 parents have to live through this horrific nightmare. This does not even include any step-parents or other family members who are su...

When Nick and Martha's young daughter, Everly, was brought to the emergency room from daycare, they were told, "Your daughter is very sick." Martha remembers thinking, "No, she's not. She's totally healthy." Shortly after that conversation, the parents were brought into the room were they were unsuccessfully trying to resuscitate Everly. Nick and Martha were hit with the reality that their previou...

I have to admit that before I lost Andy and started this podcast, I did not think much about the importance of caring for grieving people. You might have thought that this would have been a big focus that I had as a physician having lost my own mom when I was in college, but it truly was not. When my mother was dying, the medical team really did not do a great job supporting her or us, but at the...

"I'm sorry, Katie, but I can't find a heartbeat." These are the words that changed Katie's life forever. After an easy pregnancy, today's guest went into labor on her due date, never expecting that anything could be wrong. She and her husband had just heard baby Poppy's strong heartbeat a few days before. Now, she was dead? How was that even possible? A stillbirth? In this time of modern medicine,...

Empowered.   When I was about halfway through today's interview with Braeden's Mom, Tiffany, the word that came to my mind was 'empowered.' I remember thinking to myself, this is an unusual word to describe a bereaved mom, but in Tiffany's case, that word just fits perfectly. Her life certainly felt broken after losing her only son, Braedon, but it was not destroyed. She was determined that her li...

Sometimes, it feels like the world is really big and at other times, it feels really small. When I first spoke with today's guest, Jen, the world actually felt quite tiny. She is from my home state of Iowa and lives in the town where I went to college, beautiful Decorah, Iowa. She graduated a year ahead of me and we even have two mutual friends - Sarah a friend from high school, and Meredith, one...

From early in Betty and Kyle's relationship, they had a basic plan for their life together. For years, that plan worked without a hitch. They got married, finished their education, and then started their wonderful little family. When their first child, baby Ella, was born, life continued to feel perfect. They documented every little milestone, watching her grow, begin to walk and even say a few wo...

Today's guest, Rachel, has had a long relationship with grief starting in her teens when her dad died in a car accident. Over the years, she was there for the deaths of several other loved ones. She had even witnessed family members who lost children. She saw those who 'grieved well' and those who did not. I think that if you had asked her before Easter weekend 2019, if there was really anything t...

When I realized that Andy's 18th birthday was going to fall on a Thursday, and thus be a podcast release day, I knew that the episode would have to be devoted completely to Andy. I planned to arrange this amazing episode with recordings from all of the people who loved him. I wanted it to be absolutely perfect. As the day came closer, however, I found that I could not do it. The pain was just too...

When Monica's daughter, Zoey, suddenly died on her 5th birthday on a trip to Disney World, she did not know how she could go on. How could she continue to be a good mother to her other daughter, a wife to her husband? As a physician, how could Monica continue to care for her patients? I feel so drawn to Monica today, because I, too, struggled with those same thoughts. I would find myself wondering...

In the days after Andy died, someone from my office quickly arranged for each member of our family to start seeing a counselor. Eric and I were given an appointment together and it was, in a word, weird. We sat there on a loveseat in the office while the therapist crouched in front of us by our feet for the entire hour.  I don't remember anything anyone said, but I do remember looking at her think...

When applying to medical school, potential students are required to write a personal statement to accompany the application. I remember specifically what I wrote in my statement because I was in the pain of grief. I wrote that I was applying to medical school to become a doctor both because of, and in spite of, my parents' battles with cancer and my mom's recent death. You see, without the cancer,...