We’re back with another IRL #TakeAways. The in-between audio-only podcast where Angie and special guests reflect on episode responses, takeaways, and highlights.
On this week’s #TakeAways Angie and Executive producer Brittany go in-depth about the lessons learned from the interview Loren Ridinger and chat with holistic wellness and grief expert Yvette Davila. A few years ago Angie's longtime friend Yvette, mother of 2, lost her only son due to a sudden cardiac arrest. A few years later she has found a new purpose through her holistic wellness sanctuary 'Eve of Wellness' in New Jersey. Listen to the conversation as she describes the journey of mourning her son and shares the best tools to live with grief. Yvette emphasizes the importance of showing up for friends in grief, even uninvited, and the idea that grief is measured by the depth of love rather than the type of loss.
For more info visit Yvette's website here: https://www.eveofwellness.com/single-project
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Potting Potty. Hello, everybody, are you starting it or I'm
starting it? It's starting Britney. Why don't you start the
podcast today?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
That feels like a lot of pressure. Maybe on the
next one.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You know, sometimes opportunity presents itself in life and you
have to be ready to jump in. You can't say no,
thank you for the opportunity. Maybe next time. But fine,
we're here. This is an IRL takeaway. We are slowly
getting back into the groove here at IRL Podcasts. It
is me Angie Martinez, your host. It is Brittany our
(00:36):
executive producer. And yeah, we just kind of slowly have
been getting back into the groove. Shout out to our
first back, which is Lauren Rdinger, who just put out
a book called Scrambled or Sunnyside Up about her journey
through grief and back and well not really because if
you let her tell it, there there's no back from grief.
Grief is like forever, which kind of is sad but
(00:58):
also kind of I don't know, freeing, I'm sure to
somebody who's in the middle of grief, like, it doesn't
go away, but you learn to live with it, right,
And she operates at a high level, even at some
of the lowest points in her life. So that was
our first episode back. But yeah, there's a lot going
on in the world, lots of up and downs. Everybody
I know is either I don't know, stressed out or worried,
(01:22):
or there's just all kinds of crazy things going on
in the world. We're all just trying to survive and
trying to stay as positive and joyful and all all
those things. So I think IRL is gonna be really
important now, not just for you guys, but for me too,
because we all need it. I enjoy these conversations. I
actually had a moment during this conversation with Lauren that
really resonated with me when she asked me how I
(01:46):
felt a scale of one to ten and was I
was unprepared to answer, but I did.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And what about you? What about you?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
When you ask yourself, you have to ask yourself the
same question.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
You were going to ask me.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
No, I'm asking you it again. I'm not letting you
off the hook.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I'm uncertain about the I feel it, very uncertain about
the world, my place in it. Am I doing what
I'm supposed to be doing. I'm normally really confident in
what I'm doing. And I don't know right now if
I've figured out what the pivot is for me right now,
if I think it's normal. I think I operated a
(02:23):
seven and I have days that I'm like, I did
great mood. I'm in eight, nines, even tens. Is you
know that's like the best times of life, like you know,
we save it for that. But I operate mostly out
of seven. I think, so being at a five is
not comfortable.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
But I think part of it is that you got
to separate the two a little bit. You got to
separate the two a little bit and to put the
ANGI personal aside. You your family life, your home life,
what makes you happy there at home is a different
number than where you are in your professional mind and
where you're going.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, that moment, I don't know it really res a.
I literally was thinking about this for days after the
podcast and still today, I don't know. My real life
and my work kind of blend together. So it kind
of like I only have one number because I think
I don't separate work and personal. I mean, I do
have a personal life that I don't always put public
(03:17):
and I and I do have a family and I'm
a mom and all those things, but my happy number
is kind of all wrapped up in all of it.
And I love the idea of separating your personal life
number versus your career and work and purpose number. I
don't know, so that was important for me to hear
that day because I am happy in my in my
(03:39):
home and my family and my real life. But yeah,
work in the world has been just kind of.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
What's the benefits though, of separating the.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Two because you can check in with yourself better because
if you if you say, if you just have one number,
then it's like, oh, I'm at a five, and then
your just things are not good. Whereas you could say
to myself, I could say to myself, actually personally, I'm
like an eight, but in like in like my work
mode because of and it's and it's combined a little
(04:08):
bit with the world and culture and all of that,
I'm at a four. Then I could say to myself, Okay,
what is it about that? Let me fix that, and
I don't have to carry it into my personal feelings.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, it helps you. It's like looking at the cup,
what is it? Half full? Is half full instead of
half empty? Type?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But also it's like you could monitor it, like wait
a minute, you could just check in a little more
clearly with yourself, like she was saying, like, if you
monitor it this week from next week, if my personal
number has dropped and my work number has significantly increased,
I could I can look at that and say, Okay,
what happened there, what worked, what didn't work?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And if something is bringing me down, whether it's personally
or a career or work wise, I could be mindful
of that.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
I get scared about splitting up those numbers though, because
I feel like work distracts you so much. So like
if I'm saying, oh, I'm a ten at work, it's
like giving you an excuse to be distracted, no feeling.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, that was one of the points too, is you
can't ignore the other thing. You have to be honest
about it. You can't because you can't dive into work
and ignore how you feel emotionally or personally or anything.
You can, but at least be aware I'm diving into
work because I can't deal with that right now, not blindly.
Like you still got to come back to your three
or your zero or your one, and you still got
(05:33):
to give it the time some time, But you don't
have to be lost or buried in that zero or one.
You can still get up and do something for yourself,
whether it's work or whatever. Your thing is working out
something that distracts you from being in a bad place.
And sometimes I don't know. I think it's a fine line.
(05:54):
I think if something makes you get up, great. I
know we get afraid to be like a workaholic and
not deal with your true things. But as long as
you are in fact dealing with your true things, I
don't think there's anything wrong with letting your letting your
work pull you out of a dark place. And if
you're in a dark place, I'm trying to get out
(06:15):
of there by any means necessary, if it means I
got to be a workaholic, if it means I gotta
go do charity work. And when we say work, sometimes
people don't have a job like it could be charity work.
Whatever the thing is that you bury yourself in to
feel better or to like you know, take yourself out
of that dark place, I say yes. I say yes
(06:36):
to that.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
On that note of doing whatever you need to do
to take yourself out of that dark place. I spoke
to later in this episode, you mentioned your friend, yes, Yvette,
who lost her son. Yeah, and she is now in
her new life, the owner of a holistic wellness center
(07:01):
called Evil Wellness, and a grief expert.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And keep in mind, everybody, my friend e Vet, we've
been friends from decades, right, A couple of years ago,
she lost her son. I think it's four years now, right,
so that's still pretty recent for that type of trauma.
She lost her twenty six year old son, who is
was her She was a single mom for many, many years,
so she raised in by herself. We used to work together,
and like everything she did was for her son. She's
(07:27):
one of those moms. So I'm just trying to paint
the picture of how how devastating this moment was for
her and for her family, and she found the way out,
and her way out was to I mean, she did
a lot of healing things, and we'll share some of
her story, but another way out was, like now that
she's on somewhat on the other side of this, is
(07:47):
to help other people through their grief. She decided to
be a grief counselor and she has her est what
the hell is that word? Bard name?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That's an esthetician license.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
See, that's why you could be a good host. She
has that license. So she's created this place where she
does facials and she does reiki and all these this
wellness exercises, and she does grief counseling. So that's who
I was referring to in my conversation with Lauren. Did
we play the clip of when I was referring to her?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
We can play it now.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
My very good friend, he Vett, lost her son at
he was twenty six years old. He died unexpected unexpectedly
from a cardiac arrest. It's just a couple of years
ago too, not that long ago. It's heartbreaking, heartbreaking. But
she still checks when they say how many children do
you have? Because she also has a daughter. She still
writes two children. I have two children. I would write
(08:39):
the same thing. She still has two children. She says
he's he transitioned. That's what she says. He's transitioned. He
is no longer here in physical form, but she still
has him.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
She's still And that's beautiful that she says that, and
that I would write that too.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Lauren talks about not wanting to check the box widow,
and I said, she still checks married, and Yvette, who
lost her son and she also has a living daughter,
still checks two children when filling out forms. And Brittany
actually spoke to Yvette about this episode and she had
(09:20):
some thoughts too.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Right, yes, So instead of even though Yvette says that
she's a mother of two her daughter at the time,
when people ask her if she has a sibling, her
daughter actually says that she's an only child. And this
is how Yvet explained it.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
It's funny because my daughter doesn't like to talk about
her brother in that way. So for instance, where I
say I have two children, my daughter will say she's
the only child. And I asked her, why do you
do that? And she said to me, Mom, don't want
(10:02):
I don't welcome anyone's unwarranted sympathy. So to explain that
I lost my brother when I was eleven years old,
I would have to explain my relationship with him, what happened.
And it's not that I don't want to talk about him.
(10:26):
It hurts to but it just hurts because he's gone.
I don't want to have to get all the oohs
and the ohs and the looks and the sympathy. And
I'm so sorry, And that is what I don't know
how to react to. Right with that respect, the fact
that she's able to understand, to like just articulate what
is difficult in her grief journey versus what she's willing to,
(10:50):
you know, to deal with in her grief journey. And
I have to give her grace and I have to
give her space to deal with it the way that
she wants to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I know she's such a good mom. She's a good mom,
she's a great grief great grief counselor she's a great friend.
She's a great mom. I shouldn't say she's a good mom.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
And yeah, I'm really fascinated by that though, because like
when Lauren said, you know, we don't we shun young kids,
like no, don't go to the funeral or pop hoop
is is not here right now, Like there's so many
imaginative things that we say to hide kids from that,
but you're just prolonging the pain.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Why not let them? And Laurence says similar said in
the interview with Lauren London, she has similar feelings about
it too, because she was like.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
You gotta crossed. Yeah, she's what did she say about Cross.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
That that Cross like saw her, saw her sad, saw
her crime she could tell that they knew their mom
was sad.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You can't. There's no way that. Yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah. Wow, you know being a mom is real.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, because you gotta deal with your own stuff and
you gotta deal with the stuff of your children and
still somehow protect your children while you're trying to survive yourself.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Shout out to all the moms out there.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Word love on your mom and appreciate your mond.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
By the way, can we play the clip when we're
talking about motherhood because this is one of my favorite
moments of the episode. Right, Lauren says, there's things that
you don't they don't tell you about being a mother.
Number one, you don't get another, you don't get to
sleep well at night because you're always worried about your kid.
That is so true. And number two here I'm gonna
(12:40):
play her second one, which I think is a super
interesting take on motherhood.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Nobody tells you from the time your child's born you
will never have a peaceful night sleep. Ever, as long
as you have children, it is the most beautiful love yet.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Torment tormenting and sometimes unrewarding, and that's been a hard
lesson for me in my life, one of the hardest.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
It's not a two way relationship. It's not.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's not, and nobody wants to say that it's not
a two way. Yes we get fulfillment from our kids.
Yes we our kids love us, they would do anything
for us.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
But yet they don't.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Realize that the sacrifices we make as parents along the
way and it's not their job to fill hours. So
for the rest of your life, if you go through
your life knowing that it's only your job to fill
up their cup and you don't expect anything in return,
it will be the most beautiful relationship ever.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yo. I felt that so deeply, and a lot of
people did too, because the comments on it were very
strong and what I liked about some of the comments
shout out to Tahiri I saw to hear me in
the comments. She said she was like, Wow, I'm not
a mom, but this made me think about how my
mother might feel in a different way. I never thought
about this from my mother's perspective in this way, like
(13:58):
she must feel like you know what I mean. She
just never thought about her mom that way. I love
that that you didn't have to be a mother to
understand that you could be a daughter or a son
and realize it's hard for your mom. Yeah, your mom
sacrifices for you, puts your you in front of her
all the time.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
Forever, forever, doesn't matter if your my mom would be like,
I don't care if you're seventy years old.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
You're still gonna be my baby.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, that's what it is, and it's and it's it's
amazing and it's beautiful. And we always hear about oh,
it's so great to be a mom, but we don't
Nobody really talks about the disappointment when you realize, oh, shoot,
this is like kind of one way. And it don't
mean your kids don't love you.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Your kids love Yeah, of course kids love you.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Of course they adore you, and hopefully when you get
old and you need somebody to take care of you,
they'll take care of you.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Fingers cross.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But it's still different. It's still a different type of
love that a parent to a child. It is not
a two way street in that way.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I don't think there's anything more selfless.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Because you're you're not a mother, no, no, but had
you ever think what about that thought? Ever?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
No, No, nobody sits you down AND's like, hey, by
the way, you might never hear thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It's no, I don't think that's the message. You will.
By the way, you should hear thank you, and you
should remind your kids to say things right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But it's the point words job.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's not their job to fill your cup. To me means,
you know, if I'm sad about the day, or I
need somebody to come hug me, or I need some luck,
that's the child's job. Or if I'm trying to figure
out something about life, it's not for your kid to
come in and help you figure out your life. Your
(15:38):
kid is supposed to be figuring out their life and
their future. It's not supposed to go the other way.
It's not that they can't. Sure they can. You cake
a show up for you in many great ways, but
it really is not their overall responsibility. Where as a parent,
your child is your overall, every single day responsibility.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I saw somebody in the comments on when we posted
it to TikTok.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
They were like, if you did a good job. They
were like, as a daughter, if you did a good
job as a parent, then your kid will feel then
that that feeling won't be there.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, that's spoken as a child, not as a parent.
That's how kids think they'll be like, but what do
you mean, I love my mother, I do my mother,
I would do anything, I would do anything for my mother. Yeah, okay,
and I'm sure you do, but like not every day
and not you don't wake up every day and wonder
if your mother is okay? You do not wake up
every day and wonder is my mom okay today? What
(16:29):
does she need? Is she gonna be a what if
she does that? Is that gonna be bad for her?
Is that you don't wake up with the same type
of feeling that a mother has for their child.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That's a dark truth.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
It is very true. And I know it's not easy
for everybody to understand unless you're a mother and you're like, damn,
that's real.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
That's kind of like the old idiom of like when
you do something mess up to your parents, you're like,
don't worry, You're gonna pay for this when you have kids,
to have a thing for sure, for sure, you're not
gonna know. You're not gonna know this feeling, this worrying until.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You have some of your own.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's really terrible, it's really god awful.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well how that you when it comes.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But that's why Mom's like we appreciate. Like last night,
we had a little moment last night. I don't know.
I was just in the room with the kids. They
came home and we were like having like a little
family moment and laughing in the room and kid and
I was like, Oh, this is what makes me happy.
Like my kids like making jokes and we're in the
room and we're talking about our day and blah blah blah.
Like as a mother, it's like even that, it's like
(17:25):
that makes me so happy. And that's all the kids
have to do. Could you imagine if that's all the
mother had to do is like show up and keep
key with your kid for a little bit. No, that's
not all we have to do. We have a different
type of responsibility for our children. Anyway, I could go on,
I could do a whole episode about this. Let me
tell you, Because I got a son, I got a
stepson who was like my son, and I got a
(17:47):
lot of god children that I like to pour into
when I can.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
Yeah, I'm gonna stick to a pet.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Maybe it sounds gonna get you a pet.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, that sounds we're promisic.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeahlationship. By the way, a pet relationship is kind of like,
uh yeah, it's it is their job to fill your cup.
That's the whole pet jet. A pet's a whole job.
So you better get you a pet. That's so funny,
get you a pet? All right? What else are our
takeaways from this episode?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Forever being changed by grief in the way that Lauren
said that she feels like her best self is behind her, and.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
That also made me sad and it irritated the hell
out of her. Yes, See, Lauren is very like she
just wrote a book. Anytime somebody writes a book, they
are very in touch with their There's certain parts of
their life they're very in touch with because they had
to write it, They've read it, they've spoken about it,
so they're comfortable saying, oh, yes, I experienced grief this way,
she's comfortable having certain types of conversations. I don't know
(18:51):
if in that moment she was comfortable talking about where
her future lies well she in terms of her happiness,
it seemed like she was.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
I think she thought she did all the work needed
on that specific part she was like absolutely in her
soul of hearts, like.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
She really believes that the best, her best is behind her.
She can't even imagine something in front of her, whereas
me as from the outside, I can't imagine that for her.
I think she had this extraordinary life and this extraordinary love.
But I don't know. I believe in God. I believe
in like you just don't know. Like she could do
something else, anything could happen. She could find another love,
(19:29):
which I know she probably has not wrapped her brain
around that that could be a possibility. Maybe even you
just don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
The possibilities are endlessen.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I mean you have you have to have that. That's
that bit a thing in you that feels like the
hope of that brightness is in the future. I have
it for her.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Iyven had something a word of advice to her.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Oh, let's hear that about this. Let's hear that.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
If I were to give if I had the opportunity
to give Lauren advice, I would ask her why would
she close her heart off to love, not that she's
in the pursuit of love, and not that there is
a replacement for her husband, Like love is such a
(20:26):
such an expansive emotion.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
That to close the heart off.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
The heart chakra is the center of your energetic being.
It is the chakra that is the bridge between the
lower chakras, is your existence here on earth, and then
your upper chakras, which is what connects you the source.
And why would you close the bridge?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, Lauren, you got to open your chakra, your love chakra.
We all got to keep our love chakras open out here.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
But the point that was talking about was that that
that is the bridge to other feeling, other emotions in
their fullest capacity.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And if in your core you shut down a part
of that, you might not be experiencing other areas of
happiness in your life to the fullest.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
Because you are so certain that that you're not going
to get back to that level again.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Does it seem out of reach? It's like kind of
like you can't feel the deepest It's kind of like you.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Can't feel the deepest parts of love if you have
it experienced a deep breakup.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, So now that she knows this grief, love might
hit her a different type.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Of way exactly, and that actually might be fucking scary
that way.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, because there's all types of emotions that will come
with that. You probably feel guilty about that, and you know,
but you got to be open to life, open to life,
and open to love.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
If that says something interesting about that, people would come
up to her and be like, you know, because I
only lost a parent or I only lost a you know,
a friend, and they look at a vent and like,
but you lost a child, I can't imagine. And her
perspective on that was No, grief is not measured that way.
It's only measured how much you love a person.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
My grief losing a child, people are like, oh, I
only lost a parent. I can't you know, I can't
understand what it was like. It must have been horrible
to lose your son, your child, right or even spouse
to child. No, you can't measure grief in that way.
(22:38):
You can only measure grief by measuring the love. That's it.
And so pain is pain and we all experience it.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
So as long as you loved whoever that person was
you lost, Like, that's how large your grief is. It's
not one is larger, the loss is larger than the other.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's taste the case.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I know people who've lost their parents and they've been fine.
They're like, it's the circle of life. They had a
full life. I'm so grateful. I mean, they're sad and
they grieve. But I know people who've lost their parents
as adults, whose parents were older, and they just never
they just never come back from it. It really hits
certain people differently, like they grieve in a way that
(23:19):
like even as adults, that they don't really they don't
really ever get over it. So you're right, I guess
it is. It's just a measure of love. Maybe also preparation.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Also, but community.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
That's the other part of this episode that I really
want to highlight is like you're not going through these
It can feel like you're going through it alone, but
there's so many hidden soldiers and warriors that come to
your aid. With Lauren, she talks about how her daughter
Amber set up that schedule for you and her other
friends to come and just babysit her and watching her
(23:55):
any Vet tells a great story here about how you
were there for her.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
She goes, yeah, blah blah blah blah, this is this.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Is gonna make me cry.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I don't I'm not.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I think she's told this to you before.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
I think that the best way to show up for
someone that is in the middle of a grief journey
is this is gonna sound crazy, but you show up
uninvited when someone is in the think of their grief.
If you ask them how are you doing? They don't
(24:30):
know how to answer that question right That shit might
piste them off. Where How the fuck do you think
I'm you know what I'm saying, Like like, honestly, if
you ask them what do you need? What can I
do for you? They have zero capacity to answer that question.
Zero Like your brain is in full trauma mode. You
(24:51):
do not know how to think about what you need.
You can't even give yourself what you need. So when
I say you show up uninvited, unannounced, it's like, I'm here.
If you just need me to sit here in silence
with you, That's what I'm gonna do, Angie. The night
(25:15):
that my son died, I went straight from there from
the hospital to my brand new house. I just had
this house completely renovated. I had a table, my table
that I had in storage. I had like a kitchen
table with six chairs, and I had two beds, the
(25:38):
one in my room the one in my daughter's room.
That's all I had in that house. I had nothing else,
and so my son's godmother dropped me at the house
and I went straight to bed right and at two
o'clock in the morning, my husband was driving back from
Vermont with my daughter and I hear the car pull
(25:58):
into the driveway and I go downstairs. By the way,
I didn't even have clothes, so I had on the
T shirt that I went to bed with my panties.
That's how I came downstairs. I come down and who's
sitting at my table but Angie, And I was just like,
what are you doing here? Oh my god? Like I
didn't even know that my friends did a changing of
(26:23):
the guard and we're there, uninvited, unannounced, watching over me.
So that's how you show up for someone in grief
because they do not have the capacity to tell you
what they need to explain how they're feeling. Like that
capacity doesn't exist. They're in the throes of a traumatic loss.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Toya, that was gonna make me cry. Well, I supposed
to cry during takeaway episodes. That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh easy, Oh, you're such a good friend, Angie. That's
how you do it.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I mean, what else can you do? Oh, there's like
nothing you could do. It wasn't just me. There was like,
you know, before her son died, it wasn't He didn't
die instantly. You know, he was in the hospital for
a few days. They were trying to you know, so
we had hope for a couple of days. So me
and some of my other friends were showing up and
while we had been around the house and we were
there with her or whatever. So I don't want to
(27:21):
get into the whole long story of it, but like
it just we can go right too.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
You do what you can as a friend, you do
what you can.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
You did I don't. I'm not like an expert.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I don't know why we are not. We never say, but.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
That's what I just whenever I don't know how to
support somebody, I do believe, and I always hear Lauren
London's echo of like just hold space for people, Like
it really sounds like so basic, but that's it. You
just have to be there, even if you just listen,
even if you just making some eggs for them in
the morning, even if you know you're just sitting at
(27:55):
their table. She wasn't lying. She came out down with
her pants and I was like, oh, oh. I was like, hi, Evy.
She's like, what are you doing here. I was like,
I'm just just here if you need me, taking up space,
taking up space. The thought of her being her house
that night by herself, because like she said, her husband
was in Vermont, her kid was there, she was coming
(28:16):
home from the hospital alone, and she she doesn't remember
this because she was probably so deep in her grief.
When she came in she saw me there. Wow, she
did see me, but I think she was so in
a fog that she didn't remember that I was there.
And I was like, she was like, I'm so tired.
I was like, Okay, go to sleep. And then she
went upstairs and then I just stayed.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
So when she came back down, she didn't either she
didn't see me or she didn't remember that moment. But yeah,
I just stayed. I was just at the kitchen table,
I don't know, waiting waiting for her husband to come
home over the middle of the night. I didn't want
her to wake up and be in the house by herself.
And so yeah, that it taught me a lot too
about how to show up for somebody because I didn't
(28:58):
have the answers I didn't have like a you know,
people you think you're supposed to show up with flowers,
so you're supposed to show up with you I didn't
have nothing. I was like, you know, I just sat
there and I didn't have no answers. I didn't have
no amazing thing to say. I didn't There's nothing you
could say. Somebody just comes home from the hospital from
losing their child. What do you There's zero you can
say to make anything worse. And it's funny because a
(29:19):
friend of ours I remember that time, and another friend
of ours had had just had a baby, and that
friend was always so worried about being and triggering Yvet.
She's like, I don't want I'm afraid, you know, I
don't say too much about the baby because I don't
want her to be sad about I was like, baby,
(29:39):
there is nothing you can say to Evet that could
make her more sad. What makes her more sad is
you not being around. Let her see your baby, give
let her see your joy. That's not gonna make her
more sad and be like, oh my god, wears my baby.
She's already at the bottom. And and then she wind
up did it. And Vet's great with other people's kids
(30:00):
and she doesn't carry that.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
And the beautiful thing about Yvette is like there wasn't
any anger in her grief, you know what I mean,
She's able to kind of like I'm sure she probably
had moments of it, but she really tapped into the
love of it early, like she really figured that part
about which is why she'll be or is an amazing
(30:24):
grief counselor because she can help people see that, you know,
the love that flows through grief. She's really really great
at that. And by the way, we should let people
know where her wellness spot is. It is in New
Jersey if you're in the New Jersey area. I believe
she does like online treatments as well. Yes, it's an
Eve of wellness yep.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Evenwellness dot Com will link it in the description for
Eve for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I hope this info helps because it's not easy for anyone,
whether you're in it or outside of it. I hope,
I hope somebody takes something away from this episode. I
took a lot, first of all, I took a lot
away from Yvet over a long period of time, and
I've definitely taken a lot away from Lauren and her experience.
And by the way, when we put the link in
the bio, let's also put a link for Lauren's new book.
(31:08):
Sonny Or scrambled her sunny side up. And we thank
her for the episode, and we thank you guys for listening,
and we'll be back soon with a new episode. I
think you're gonna really really luck. That's all I can said,
but now have a great day. Bye, And Brittany's hosting
the next episode.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
My God,
Potting Potty. Hello, everybody, are you starting it or I'm
starting it? It's starting Britney. Why don't you start the
podcast today?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
That feels like a lot of pressure. Maybe on the
next one.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You know, sometimes opportunity presents itself in life and you
have to be ready to jump in. You can't say no,
thank you for the opportunity. Maybe next time. But fine,
we're here. This is an IRL takeaway. We are slowly
getting back into the groove here at IRL Podcasts. It
is me Angie Martinez, your host. It is Brittany our
(00:36):
executive producer. And yeah, we just kind of slowly have
been getting back into the groove. Shout out to our
first back, which is Lauren Rdinger, who just put out
a book called Scrambled or Sunnyside Up about her journey
through grief and back and well not really because if
you let her tell it, there there's no back from grief.
Grief is like forever, which kind of is sad but
(00:58):
also kind of I don't know, freeing, I'm sure to
somebody who's in the middle of grief, like, it doesn't
go away, but you learn to live with it, right,
And she operates at a high level, even at some
of the lowest points in her life. So that was
our first episode back. But yeah, there's a lot going
on in the world, lots of up and downs. Everybody
I know is either I don't know, stressed out or worried,
(01:22):
or there's just all kinds of crazy things going on
in the world. We're all just trying to survive and
trying to stay as positive and joyful and all all
those things. So I think IRL is gonna be really
important now, not just for you guys, but for me too,
because we all need it. I enjoy these conversations. I
actually had a moment during this conversation with Lauren that
really resonated with me when she asked me how I
(01:46):
felt a scale of one to ten and was I
was unprepared to answer, but I did.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And what about you? What about you?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
When you ask yourself, you have to ask yourself the
same question.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
You were going to ask me.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
No, I'm asking you it again. I'm not letting you
off the hook.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I'm uncertain about the I feel it, very uncertain about
the world, my place in it. Am I doing what
I'm supposed to be doing. I'm normally really confident in
what I'm doing. And I don't know right now if
I've figured out what the pivot is for me right now,
if I think it's normal. I think I operated a
(02:23):
seven and I have days that I'm like, I did
great mood. I'm in eight, nines, even tens. Is you
know that's like the best times of life, like you know,
we save it for that. But I operate mostly out
of seven. I think, so being at a five is
not comfortable.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
But I think part of it is that you got
to separate the two a little bit. You got to
separate the two a little bit and to put the
ANGI personal aside. You your family life, your home life,
what makes you happy there at home is a different
number than where you are in your professional mind and
where you're going.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, that moment, I don't know it really res a.
I literally was thinking about this for days after the
podcast and still today, I don't know. My real life
and my work kind of blend together. So it kind
of like I only have one number because I think
I don't separate work and personal. I mean, I do
have a personal life that I don't always put public
(03:17):
and I and I do have a family and I'm
a mom and all those things, but my happy number
is kind of all wrapped up in all of it.
And I love the idea of separating your personal life
number versus your career and work and purpose number. I
don't know, so that was important for me to hear
that day because I am happy in my in my
(03:39):
home and my family and my real life. But yeah,
work in the world has been just kind of.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
What's the benefits though, of separating the.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Two because you can check in with yourself better because
if you if you say, if you just have one number,
then it's like, oh, I'm at a five, and then
your just things are not good. Whereas you could say
to myself, I could say to myself, actually personally, I'm
like an eight, but in like in like my work
mode because of and it's and it's combined a little
(04:08):
bit with the world and culture and all of that,
I'm at a four. Then I could say to myself, Okay,
what is it about that? Let me fix that, and
I don't have to carry it into my personal feelings.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, it helps you. It's like looking at the cup,
what is it? Half full? Is half full instead of
half empty? Type?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But also it's like you could monitor it, like wait
a minute, you could just check in a little more
clearly with yourself, like she was saying, like, if you
monitor it this week from next week, if my personal
number has dropped and my work number has significantly increased,
I could I can look at that and say, Okay,
what happened there, what worked, what didn't work?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And if something is bringing me down, whether it's personally
or a career or work wise, I could be mindful
of that.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
I get scared about splitting up those numbers though, because
I feel like work distracts you so much. So like
if I'm saying, oh, I'm a ten at work, it's
like giving you an excuse to be distracted, no feeling.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, that was one of the points too, is you
can't ignore the other thing. You have to be honest
about it. You can't because you can't dive into work
and ignore how you feel emotionally or personally or anything.
You can, but at least be aware I'm diving into
work because I can't deal with that right now, not blindly.
Like you still got to come back to your three
or your zero or your one, and you still got
(05:33):
to give it the time some time, But you don't
have to be lost or buried in that zero or one.
You can still get up and do something for yourself,
whether it's work or whatever. Your thing is working out
something that distracts you from being in a bad place.
And sometimes I don't know. I think it's a fine line.
(05:54):
I think if something makes you get up, great. I
know we get afraid to be like a workaholic and
not deal with your true things. But as long as
you are in fact dealing with your true things, I
don't think there's anything wrong with letting your letting your
work pull you out of a dark place. And if
you're in a dark place, I'm trying to get out
(06:15):
of there by any means necessary, if it means I
got to be a workaholic, if it means I gotta
go do charity work. And when we say work, sometimes
people don't have a job like it could be charity work.
Whatever the thing is that you bury yourself in to
feel better or to like you know, take yourself out
of that dark place, I say yes. I say yes
(06:36):
to that.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
On that note of doing whatever you need to do
to take yourself out of that dark place. I spoke
to later in this episode, you mentioned your friend, yes, Yvette,
who lost her son. Yeah, and she is now in
her new life, the owner of a holistic wellness center
(07:01):
called Evil Wellness, and a grief expert.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And keep in mind, everybody, my friend e Vet, we've
been friends from decades, right, A couple of years ago,
she lost her son. I think it's four years now, right,
so that's still pretty recent for that type of trauma.
She lost her twenty six year old son, who is
was her She was a single mom for many, many years,
so she raised in by herself. We used to work together,
and like everything she did was for her son. She's
(07:27):
one of those moms. So I'm just trying to paint
the picture of how how devastating this moment was for
her and for her family, and she found the way out,
and her way out was to I mean, she did
a lot of healing things, and we'll share some of
her story, but another way out was, like now that
she's on somewhat on the other side of this, is
(07:47):
to help other people through their grief. She decided to
be a grief counselor and she has her est what
the hell is that word? Bard name?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That's an esthetician license.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
See, that's why you could be a good host. She
has that license. So she's created this place where she
does facials and she does reiki and all these this
wellness exercises, and she does grief counseling. So that's who
I was referring to in my conversation with Lauren. Did
we play the clip of when I was referring to her?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
We can play it now.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
My very good friend, he Vett, lost her son at
he was twenty six years old. He died unexpected unexpectedly
from a cardiac arrest. It's just a couple of years
ago too, not that long ago. It's heartbreaking, heartbreaking. But
she still checks when they say how many children do
you have? Because she also has a daughter. She still
writes two children. I have two children. I would write
(08:39):
the same thing. She still has two children. She says
he's he transitioned. That's what she says. He's transitioned. He
is no longer here in physical form, but she still
has him.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
She's still And that's beautiful that she says that, and
that I would write that too.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Lauren talks about not wanting to check the box widow,
and I said, she still checks married, and Yvette, who
lost her son and she also has a living daughter,
still checks two children when filling out forms. And Brittany
actually spoke to Yvette about this episode and she had
(09:20):
some thoughts too.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Right, yes, So instead of even though Yvette says that
she's a mother of two her daughter at the time,
when people ask her if she has a sibling, her
daughter actually says that she's an only child. And this
is how Yvet explained it.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
It's funny because my daughter doesn't like to talk about
her brother in that way. So for instance, where I
say I have two children, my daughter will say she's
the only child. And I asked her, why do you
do that? And she said to me, Mom, don't want
(10:02):
I don't welcome anyone's unwarranted sympathy. So to explain that
I lost my brother when I was eleven years old,
I would have to explain my relationship with him, what happened.
And it's not that I don't want to talk about him.
(10:26):
It hurts to but it just hurts because he's gone.
I don't want to have to get all the oohs
and the ohs and the looks and the sympathy. And
I'm so sorry, And that is what I don't know
how to react to. Right with that respect, the fact
that she's able to understand, to like just articulate what
is difficult in her grief journey versus what she's willing to,
(10:50):
you know, to deal with in her grief journey. And
I have to give her grace and I have to
give her space to deal with it the way that
she wants to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I know she's such a good mom. She's a good mom,
she's a great grief great grief counselor she's a great friend.
She's a great mom. I shouldn't say she's a good mom.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
And yeah, I'm really fascinated by that though, because like
when Lauren said, you know, we don't we shun young kids,
like no, don't go to the funeral or pop hoop
is is not here right now, Like there's so many
imaginative things that we say to hide kids from that,
but you're just prolonging the pain.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Why not let them? And Laurence says similar said in
the interview with Lauren London, she has similar feelings about
it too, because she was like.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
You gotta crossed. Yeah, she's what did she say about Cross.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
That that Cross like saw her, saw her sad, saw
her crime she could tell that they knew their mom
was sad.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You can't. There's no way that. Yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah. Wow, you know being a mom is real.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, because you gotta deal with your own stuff and
you gotta deal with the stuff of your children and
still somehow protect your children while you're trying to survive yourself.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Shout out to all the moms out there.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Word love on your mom and appreciate your mond.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
By the way, can we play the clip when we're
talking about motherhood because this is one of my favorite
moments of the episode. Right, Lauren says, there's things that
you don't they don't tell you about being a mother.
Number one, you don't get another, you don't get to
sleep well at night because you're always worried about your kid.
That is so true. And number two here I'm gonna
(12:40):
play her second one, which I think is a super
interesting take on motherhood.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Nobody tells you from the time your child's born you
will never have a peaceful night sleep. Ever, as long
as you have children, it is the most beautiful love yet.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Torment tormenting and sometimes unrewarding, and that's been a hard
lesson for me in my life, one of the hardest.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
It's not a two way relationship. It's not.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's not, and nobody wants to say that it's not
a two way. Yes we get fulfillment from our kids.
Yes we our kids love us, they would do anything
for us.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
But yet they don't.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Realize that the sacrifices we make as parents along the
way and it's not their job to fill hours. So
for the rest of your life, if you go through
your life knowing that it's only your job to fill
up their cup and you don't expect anything in return,
it will be the most beautiful relationship ever.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yo. I felt that so deeply, and a lot of
people did too, because the comments on it were very
strong and what I liked about some of the comments
shout out to Tahiri I saw to hear me in
the comments. She said she was like, Wow, I'm not
a mom, but this made me think about how my
mother might feel in a different way. I never thought
about this from my mother's perspective in this way, like
(13:58):
she must feel like you know what I mean. She
just never thought about her mom that way. I love
that that you didn't have to be a mother to
understand that you could be a daughter or a son
and realize it's hard for your mom. Yeah, your mom
sacrifices for you, puts your you in front of her
all the time.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
Forever, forever, doesn't matter if your my mom would be like,
I don't care if you're seventy years old.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
You're still gonna be my baby.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, that's what it is, and it's and it's it's
amazing and it's beautiful. And we always hear about oh,
it's so great to be a mom, but we don't
Nobody really talks about the disappointment when you realize, oh, shoot,
this is like kind of one way. And it don't
mean your kids don't love you.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Your kids love Yeah, of course kids love you.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Of course they adore you, and hopefully when you get
old and you need somebody to take care of you,
they'll take care of you.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Fingers cross.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But it's still different. It's still a different type of
love that a parent to a child. It is not
a two way street in that way.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I don't think there's anything more selfless.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Because you're you're not a mother, no, no, but had
you ever think what about that thought? Ever?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
No, No, nobody sits you down AND's like, hey, by
the way, you might never hear thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It's no, I don't think that's the message. You will.
By the way, you should hear thank you, and you
should remind your kids to say things right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But it's the point words job.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's not their job to fill your cup. To me means,
you know, if I'm sad about the day, or I
need somebody to come hug me, or I need some luck,
that's the child's job. Or if I'm trying to figure
out something about life, it's not for your kid to
come in and help you figure out your life. Your
(15:38):
kid is supposed to be figuring out their life and
their future. It's not supposed to go the other way.
It's not that they can't. Sure they can. You cake
a show up for you in many great ways, but
it really is not their overall responsibility. Where as a parent,
your child is your overall, every single day responsibility.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I saw somebody in the comments on when we posted
it to TikTok.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
They were like, if you did a good job. They
were like, as a daughter, if you did a good
job as a parent, then your kid will feel then
that that feeling won't be there.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, that's spoken as a child, not as a parent.
That's how kids think they'll be like, but what do
you mean, I love my mother, I do my mother,
I would do anything, I would do anything for my mother. Yeah, okay,
and I'm sure you do, but like not every day
and not you don't wake up every day and wonder
if your mother is okay? You do not wake up
every day and wonder is my mom okay today? What
(16:29):
does she need? Is she gonna be a what if
she does that? Is that gonna be bad for her?
Is that you don't wake up with the same type
of feeling that a mother has for their child.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That's a dark truth.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
It is very true. And I know it's not easy
for everybody to understand unless you're a mother and you're like, damn,
that's real.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
That's kind of like the old idiom of like when
you do something mess up to your parents, you're like,
don't worry, You're gonna pay for this when you have kids,
to have a thing for sure, for sure, you're not
gonna know. You're not gonna know this feeling, this worrying until.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You have some of your own.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's really terrible, it's really god awful.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well how that you when it comes.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But that's why Mom's like we appreciate. Like last night,
we had a little moment last night. I don't know.
I was just in the room with the kids. They
came home and we were like having like a little
family moment and laughing in the room and kid and
I was like, Oh, this is what makes me happy.
Like my kids like making jokes and we're in the
room and we're talking about our day and blah blah blah.
Like as a mother, it's like even that, it's like
(17:25):
that makes me so happy. And that's all the kids
have to do. Could you imagine if that's all the
mother had to do is like show up and keep
key with your kid for a little bit. No, that's
not all we have to do. We have a different
type of responsibility for our children. Anyway, I could go on,
I could do a whole episode about this. Let me
tell you, Because I got a son, I got a
stepson who was like my son, and I got a
(17:47):
lot of god children that I like to pour into
when I can.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
Yeah, I'm gonna stick to a pet.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Maybe it sounds gonna get you a pet.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, that sounds we're promisic.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeahlationship. By the way, a pet relationship is kind of like,
uh yeah, it's it is their job to fill your cup.
That's the whole pet jet. A pet's a whole job.
So you better get you a pet. That's so funny,
get you a pet? All right? What else are our
takeaways from this episode?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Forever being changed by grief in the way that Lauren
said that she feels like her best self is behind her, and.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
That also made me sad and it irritated the hell
out of her. Yes, See, Lauren is very like she
just wrote a book. Anytime somebody writes a book, they
are very in touch with their There's certain parts of
their life they're very in touch with because they had
to write it, They've read it, they've spoken about it,
so they're comfortable saying, oh, yes, I experienced grief this way,
she's comfortable having certain types of conversations. I don't know
(18:51):
if in that moment she was comfortable talking about where
her future lies well she in terms of her happiness,
it seemed like she was.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
I think she thought she did all the work needed
on that specific part she was like absolutely in her
soul of hearts, like.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
She really believes that the best, her best is behind her.
She can't even imagine something in front of her, whereas
me as from the outside, I can't imagine that for her.
I think she had this extraordinary life and this extraordinary love.
But I don't know. I believe in God. I believe
in like you just don't know. Like she could do
something else, anything could happen. She could find another love,
(19:29):
which I know she probably has not wrapped her brain
around that that could be a possibility. Maybe even you
just don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
The possibilities are endlessen.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I mean you have you have to have that. That's
that bit a thing in you that feels like the
hope of that brightness is in the future. I have
it for her.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Iyven had something a word of advice to her.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Oh, let's hear that about this. Let's hear that.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
If I were to give if I had the opportunity
to give Lauren advice, I would ask her why would
she close her heart off to love, not that she's
in the pursuit of love, and not that there is
a replacement for her husband, Like love is such a
(20:26):
such an expansive emotion.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
That to close the heart off.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
The heart chakra is the center of your energetic being.
It is the chakra that is the bridge between the
lower chakras, is your existence here on earth, and then
your upper chakras, which is what connects you the source.
And why would you close the bridge?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, Lauren, you got to open your chakra, your love chakra.
We all got to keep our love chakras open out here.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
But the point that was talking about was that that
that is the bridge to other feeling, other emotions in
their fullest capacity.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And if in your core you shut down a part
of that, you might not be experiencing other areas of
happiness in your life to the fullest.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
Because you are so certain that that you're not going
to get back to that level again.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Does it seem out of reach? It's like kind of
like you can't feel the deepest It's kind of like you.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Can't feel the deepest parts of love if you have
it experienced a deep breakup.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, So now that she knows this grief, love might
hit her a different type.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Of way exactly, and that actually might be fucking scary
that way.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, because there's all types of emotions that will come
with that. You probably feel guilty about that, and you know,
but you got to be open to life, open to life,
and open to love.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
If that says something interesting about that, people would come
up to her and be like, you know, because I
only lost a parent or I only lost a you know,
a friend, and they look at a vent and like,
but you lost a child, I can't imagine. And her
perspective on that was No, grief is not measured that way.
It's only measured how much you love a person.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
My grief losing a child, people are like, oh, I
only lost a parent. I can't you know, I can't
understand what it was like. It must have been horrible
to lose your son, your child, right or even spouse
to child. No, you can't measure grief in that way.
(22:38):
You can only measure grief by measuring the love. That's it.
And so pain is pain and we all experience it.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
So as long as you loved whoever that person was
you lost, Like, that's how large your grief is. It's
not one is larger, the loss is larger than the other.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's taste the case.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I know people who've lost their parents and they've been fine.
They're like, it's the circle of life. They had a
full life. I'm so grateful. I mean, they're sad and
they grieve. But I know people who've lost their parents
as adults, whose parents were older, and they just never
they just never come back from it. It really hits
certain people differently, like they grieve in a way that
(23:19):
like even as adults, that they don't really they don't
really ever get over it. So you're right, I guess
it is. It's just a measure of love. Maybe also preparation.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Also, but community.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
That's the other part of this episode that I really
want to highlight is like you're not going through these
It can feel like you're going through it alone, but
there's so many hidden soldiers and warriors that come to
your aid. With Lauren, she talks about how her daughter
Amber set up that schedule for you and her other
friends to come and just babysit her and watching her
(23:55):
any Vet tells a great story here about how you
were there for her.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
She goes, yeah, blah blah blah blah, this is this.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Is gonna make me cry.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I don't I'm not.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I think she's told this to you before.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
I think that the best way to show up for
someone that is in the middle of a grief journey
is this is gonna sound crazy, but you show up
uninvited when someone is in the think of their grief.
If you ask them how are you doing? They don't
(24:30):
know how to answer that question right That shit might
piste them off. Where How the fuck do you think
I'm you know what I'm saying, Like like, honestly, if
you ask them what do you need? What can I
do for you? They have zero capacity to answer that question.
Zero Like your brain is in full trauma mode. You
(24:51):
do not know how to think about what you need.
You can't even give yourself what you need. So when
I say you show up uninvited, unannounced, it's like, I'm here.
If you just need me to sit here in silence
with you, That's what I'm gonna do, Angie. The night
(25:15):
that my son died, I went straight from there from
the hospital to my brand new house. I just had
this house completely renovated. I had a table, my table
that I had in storage. I had like a kitchen
table with six chairs, and I had two beds, the
(25:38):
one in my room the one in my daughter's room.
That's all I had in that house. I had nothing else,
and so my son's godmother dropped me at the house
and I went straight to bed right and at two
o'clock in the morning, my husband was driving back from
Vermont with my daughter and I hear the car pull
(25:58):
into the driveway and I go downstairs. By the way,
I didn't even have clothes, so I had on the
T shirt that I went to bed with my panties.
That's how I came downstairs. I come down and who's
sitting at my table but Angie, And I was just like,
what are you doing here? Oh my god? Like I
didn't even know that my friends did a changing of
(26:23):
the guard and we're there, uninvited, unannounced, watching over me.
So that's how you show up for someone in grief
because they do not have the capacity to tell you
what they need to explain how they're feeling. Like that
capacity doesn't exist. They're in the throes of a traumatic loss.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Toya, that was gonna make me cry. Well, I supposed
to cry during takeaway episodes. That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh easy, Oh, you're such a good friend, Angie. That's
how you do it.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I mean, what else can you do? Oh, there's like
nothing you could do. It wasn't just me. There was like,
you know, before her son died, it wasn't He didn't
die instantly. You know, he was in the hospital for
a few days. They were trying to you know, so
we had hope for a couple of days. So me
and some of my other friends were showing up and
while we had been around the house and we were
there with her or whatever. So I don't want to
(27:21):
get into the whole long story of it, but like
it just we can go right too.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
You do what you can as a friend, you do
what you can.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
You did I don't. I'm not like an expert.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I don't know why we are not. We never say, but.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
That's what I just whenever I don't know how to
support somebody, I do believe, and I always hear Lauren
London's echo of like just hold space for people, Like
it really sounds like so basic, but that's it. You
just have to be there, even if you just listen,
even if you just making some eggs for them in
the morning, even if you know you're just sitting at
(27:55):
their table. She wasn't lying. She came out down with
her pants and I was like, oh, oh. I was like, hi, Evy.
She's like, what are you doing here. I was like,
I'm just just here if you need me, taking up space,
taking up space. The thought of her being her house
that night by herself, because like she said, her husband
was in Vermont, her kid was there, she was coming
(28:16):
home from the hospital alone, and she she doesn't remember
this because she was probably so deep in her grief.
When she came in she saw me there. Wow, she
did see me, but I think she was so in
a fog that she didn't remember that I was there.
And I was like, she was like, I'm so tired.
I was like, Okay, go to sleep. And then she
went upstairs and then I just stayed.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
So when she came back down, she didn't either she
didn't see me or she didn't remember that moment. But yeah,
I just stayed. I was just at the kitchen table,
I don't know, waiting waiting for her husband to come
home over the middle of the night. I didn't want
her to wake up and be in the house by herself.
And so yeah, that it taught me a lot too
about how to show up for somebody because I didn't
(28:58):
have the answers I didn't have like a you know,
people you think you're supposed to show up with flowers,
so you're supposed to show up with you I didn't
have nothing. I was like, you know, I just sat
there and I didn't have no answers. I didn't have
no amazing thing to say. I didn't There's nothing you
could say. Somebody just comes home from the hospital from
losing their child. What do you There's zero you can
say to make anything worse. And it's funny because a
(29:19):
friend of ours I remember that time, and another friend
of ours had had just had a baby, and that
friend was always so worried about being and triggering Yvet.
She's like, I don't want I'm afraid, you know, I
don't say too much about the baby because I don't
want her to be sad about I was like, baby,
(29:39):
there is nothing you can say to Evet that could
make her more sad. What makes her more sad is
you not being around. Let her see your baby, give
let her see your joy. That's not gonna make her
more sad and be like, oh my god, wears my baby.
She's already at the bottom. And and then she wind
up did it. And Vet's great with other people's kids
(30:00):
and she doesn't carry that.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
And the beautiful thing about Yvette is like there wasn't
any anger in her grief, you know what I mean,
She's able to kind of like I'm sure she probably
had moments of it, but she really tapped into the
love of it early, like she really figured that part
about which is why she'll be or is an amazing
(30:24):
grief counselor because she can help people see that, you know,
the love that flows through grief. She's really really great
at that. And by the way, we should let people
know where her wellness spot is. It is in New
Jersey if you're in the New Jersey area. I believe
she does like online treatments as well. Yes, it's an
Eve of wellness yep.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Evenwellness dot Com will link it in the description for
Eve for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I hope this info helps because it's not easy for anyone,
whether you're in it or outside of it. I hope,
I hope somebody takes something away from this episode. I
took a lot, first of all, I took a lot
away from Yvet over a long period of time, and
I've definitely taken a lot away from Lauren and her experience.
And by the way, when we put the link in
the bio, let's also put a link for Lauren's new book.
(31:08):
Sonny Or scrambled her sunny side up. And we thank
her for the episode, and we thank you guys for listening,
and we'll be back soon with a new episode. I
think you're gonna really really luck. That's all I can said,
but now have a great day. Bye, And Brittany's hosting
the next episode.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
My God,
Host
Angie Martinez
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