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67. Grief Has Taught Me To Slow Down- With Olivia
78 Plays4 years ago
Olivia shares her grief journey after the death of both her parents. Her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when Olivia was only 15. She was on remission for a few years and then it came back again when Olivia was living out of the country for college. She would travel back and forth from Munich to Rome, to take care of her mom when she was sick. Her mom died of cancer a few years after her diagnosis, that same year her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor the same year and died 2 years later.
Olivia’s parents were divorced, so the only person that truly had experienced the same losses as she had, was her brother. Olivia saw early on how different everyone grieves, even within the same family. She went to therapy in order have the support she needed, and to hear that what she was feeling was normal. She started her Instagram account @thebiggrief shortly after her dad died as a way to process her grief by sharing poems that she has written to express her grief.
Contact Olivia : https://www.instagram.com/thebiggrief/
Grief Postcards https://www.etsy.com/de/shop/TheBigGriefPrints
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching: http://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Grief and Openness
00:00:01
Speaker
If I can give one piece of advice is to just ask. Just be open about it. In the end, everything that you say is wrong when you're talking about grief. You never really get it right, but at least you're trying. And grieving people see that there is someone that is really trying hard to be there, even if it's hard to open up when you're in so much pain.
Podcast Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:58
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
00:01:19
Speaker
Thank you so much for tuning in. Today, I have the honor of chatting with Olivia Yaniquetti. Olivia is all the way in Germany. This is my first European conversation, Olivia. I'm so excited. We had to figure out the time zone difference here on this one. Welcome to the podcast, Olivia. Thank you, Kendra. Thank you for having me.
00:01:48
Speaker
I'm grateful that you're here. And how I found out about you was on Instagram of following one of the other guests I've had on the podcast, Patricia. I saw you come up in one of her interviews that she does live on her Instagram account.
00:02:07
Speaker
And that's one of the ways that I found out. And I had already been following the big grief, which is that correct? The big grief is what your Instagram account is called. And so anyway, I'm like, oh, I would love to have you on if you want to share your journey, your grief journey here. So let's find out a little bit about you. So let's do a little quick Q&A kind
Olivia's Background and Move to Munich
00:02:30
Speaker
of here. So you live in what part of Germany? I live in Munich, though it's the south of Germany.
00:02:36
Speaker
Okay. And you've lived there, your life, you were born and raised in Munich? Um, no. So actually I was born in Rome. So I'm a native Italian and I was raised and I lived there for 18 years until I decided that I wanted to study or do something with my life. So I moved to Germany because my mom was from Austria and I learned German thanks to her. So that was, um,
00:03:04
Speaker
One of the reasons why I decided to move to Munich also because it's a very nice city. So I decided to study here and then I found a job and I decided to stay. So your upbringing was in Rome. So really it was just only now as in your furthering of your studies that you went to, to Munich.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So are you, so you're, when you left Italy, did you, um, your parents were still living then Italy when you moved? Yeah. Yeah. They were actually in my whole family who lived in Rome.
00:03:41
Speaker
OK, so everybody was like, OK, wonderful. Now, what do you do then? Now, have you've already gone to school? Now, what do you do for work? We were going to talk about this right before we started recording, and I'm like, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. Let's record first. Because a lot of times, guests don't know that some people that are listening sometimes don't know that I'm just meeting the guests really for the first time. We said, like, as I'm talking on the podcast. So I'm learning about you with the audience. So yeah, when do you work? When do you work?
00:04:11
Speaker
Um, so I actually study and I work, I do both. Um, I, um, did my undergrad in American studies at the university here in Munich, but I work as a project manager at a big company that sells brakes and systems for trains, um, on a word light scale.
Beginning of Olivia's Grief Journey
00:04:30
Speaker
Um, but I decided to go back to school after my parents died. So this is my first semester.
00:04:38
Speaker
of my graduate program in American society and culture. Okay. And then that is exactly what we're going to talk about today is the, um, your grief journey after the death of your, your parents are, are you the only child or you're an only child or do you have other siblings? I have an older brother. He lives in Rome, but so yeah, I'm not alone.
00:05:00
Speaker
you have him. Okay, so tell us what were the circumstances of your parents passing? And was it at the same time or? Well, I always begin with telling my mom's story because she's been sick since I was, I guess, 15, roughly. And she had breast cancer. And so the very first memory that I have with cancer is
00:05:29
Speaker
connected are connected to my mom. So that's why I tell her a story first. I remember that she, she has always been through a lot of therapy and chemo stuff that I would not understand just because I was too young. Yeah, just had a hard time even dealing with that. But that's really all I remember her losing her hair, or just dealing with some nausea and
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, just the size effect of cancer treatment. So, yeah, she was sick since I was a little teenager. But then she went into remission, I guess, when I was 19 or something like this. And it really got worse. And that was the first time that I actually started to understand what it means to be
00:06:29
Speaker
to have cancer and to have a parent that might die because of it. So eventually, when I was still studying in Munich, her health started to decline. So I needed to travel back and forth between Germany and Italy to be able to be there. What's the time? Would you go by train, by land or by airplane?
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, it was 2017. So what is it four years ago, four or five years ago?
Balancing Life During Mother's Illness
00:07:05
Speaker
Um, but I would just travel by everything that I could find. So, um, lanes or by coach or, um, I drove back to Rome once. What's the distance? What's the distance driving? Oh, it's 10 hours driving. So it's a lot.
00:07:24
Speaker
But and you were in college at that time in I was you were in college and here you are going back and forth While she was going through her second round basically and not second second round or battle with With cancer like when it when it came back Yeah, I was also working because I needed to just afford my living which was extra hard in me because I needed to
00:07:54
Speaker
be here and have my life, but also I wanted to be in Rome to be next to my mom. So it was a really not just emotionally tough time, but also just just on my own. Yeah, strange. Generally, I wasn't really able to explore because I was in my 20s. So, you know, normally young teenagers or 20 years old people just start to
00:08:23
Speaker
find out who they are in their 20s. But I didn't have that. So I really, I don't miss it, but it was hard on me because I just thought that my life would be different. So I decided that I wanted to be there. So I traveled, as I said before, back and forth. But I'm still very grateful that I was able to do that.
00:08:55
Speaker
The what you were saying of the aspect of grieving also to some extent a little bit the fact that you were missing out quote unquote on what the life of a 20 something year old would be.
00:09:11
Speaker
But at the same time, knowing that your priority was being with your mom, right? So it's like you missed a chunk of maybe the experiences that some of the 20-year-olds would be having around you. But at the same time, I'm sure you gained a lot of maturity and responsibility and all these other virtues that you gained along the way because you were confronted with a situation that was
00:09:41
Speaker
not something you should be dealing with at 20 when you're just starting college. Yeah. Oh, boy. So how long was her second then round? So 2017 is when you were saying that you're doing this traveling. How long was, and when it came back, did it come back again as breast cancer or did it come already stage four as a different way, as in a different form of cancer at that time? Yeah.
00:10:10
Speaker
I don't really remember the exact date, but I think it came back, as I said, when I was 18, 19, and then it gradually started getting worse. So what I remember is a call that I got from my stepdad saying that she had a seizure and while they were hiking and a helicopter had to take her to the next hospital and that they found out
00:10:39
Speaker
through screening that it was going, it was just basically spread all over. So we have to get ready for that. And that was 2016. So it wasn't just like you get that information from your doctor that you have a terminal illness and then you have like two weeks to go. It was really, in my case, what was it, like a year?
00:11:07
Speaker
It was a gradual process of dying.
00:11:18
Speaker
And anything that is too hard to share, you don't have to necessarily either. You don't have to go into it. It's still very recent and the space is completely for you as well as for the listeners, Olivia. So feel free to either not share so much or share and use it as a way of
00:11:42
Speaker
having the emotions of grief come out. However, you want to use the space, feel free to do so. It can be hard to kind of backtrack into all the details, so we don't necessarily have to, you know, go into too many details. Yeah, thank you. But I still feel that I struggled with it a lot, of course, because of all the pictures in my head and just
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, the trauma of losing a parent. And as hard as it is, I still think that talking about it helps me a lot. So I'm very thankful every time that I get the chance to do so and share something about my mom. So thank you.
00:12:25
Speaker
Okay, good because that's how I feel too. It's so funny that you say that because it's the same how I feel like when I talk and a lot of times people that are around us don't necessarily know and they feel like if they bring up the conversation, it's like, oh, maybe I shouldn't ask her how her sister died or maybe I shouldn't ask her how her mom died, you know, because if I do, then what if her emotions come out like maybe, but at the same time, it's like we are like,
00:12:49
Speaker
sometimes like just wanting so badly to keep their memory alive and share about them and to not have those opportunities in which people ask us about them feels like we are not serving them, you know, serving them or, you know, right. So so, yeah, good. I'm glad that that it's it's serving you to be able to to share her story and and your story, of course, here, too.
00:13:16
Speaker
Thank you. So what then, what year?
Experiencing Mother's Passing
00:13:19
Speaker
So then 2017, so 2016 was when it came back. So did she pass away then in 2017? Yeah. No, 15th of July. Yeah. 15th of July of 2017. Yeah.
00:13:34
Speaker
Okay. And then how did you find out? Were you in Munich at that moment or were you already back again in Rome during that time? I was there actually when she passed. I talked to my boss at work and I graduated in May of that year. So I was done with uni work at least and I had a little bit more time to focus on my mom and my boss.
00:14:03
Speaker
gave me the opportunity to work my hours ahead so that I was able to say like work 15 hours a day and then have 10 days straight off from work that I would use to go back home and be there for my mom. So that's how I was able to be there. And I remember my brother was thinking he was working somewhere and he
00:14:33
Speaker
caught the last plane because he, of course, he knew that it was going to happen, but his plane had a delay or something. So he didn't make it in time to see my mom. And I still remember that very, very vividly. Do you feel like it was there, did he feel like he was missing out on not being able to be there in that moment that she transitioned? Yeah, sure. I mean, he, my brother always struggled to
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, just be there in general. You really didn't want to see my mom suffering like that. So we would always find a way to leave our apartment because that's where we were taking care of my mom. But I still think that the last moment is very crucial to you as a person, as a surviving person to get away to say goodbye. And I really felt that when my brother
00:15:33
Speaker
came home, he opened the door and saw my mom and started crying. And the only thing that he said was, at least now I know that it's over, that she's not suffering. But it was still very hard on him that he was not able to just tell her how much she loved her, maybe.
00:15:54
Speaker
And for you being that was your dad then there as was your dad there or no. No. OK, so we'll we'll jump. OK, well, we'll we'll hold on. We'll put pause on that on that. Yeah, I think I think I just have to explain briefly that my parents were divorced. So and they did so when I was three. So my mom had another partner and so did my dad.
00:16:20
Speaker
Um, and yeah, and my dad knew that my mom was going to die. So he visited her, um, several times, but it was still very hard on him as well. Okay. So thank you for clarifying. Yeah. Okay. So then they were each, or yeah, they were not, he was not in that particular dynamic. Now, curious then, how was the support then that you received at that? So you're, when your mom passed away,
00:16:47
Speaker
from your dad being that it was not his current. He was grieving her differently, right, than you guys as kids. Did you feel still that support from him in that moment? Emotionally? Not really.
00:17:03
Speaker
Okay, to be honest. Yeah, no, no, it's not that no, that's that, you know, absolutely. I'm just always curious with those kind of dynamics because it's like how even though this was had been her his wife, you know, his wife, it had been a long time since they'd been separated. Yeah. So divorce. So so it does make a difference on how somebody else gives and then that that dynamic.
00:17:29
Speaker
So it was only really you and your brother that were sharing that similar experience in that moment. Yeah. And also I have to say that I always thought when somebody dies, then the family gets together or there's still something that because you've lost a person, you just care for each other more. At least that's what I thought.
00:17:57
Speaker
But I learned that everybody has a different way of grieving. Not everybody wants to talk about it as I do, for example. So there were times where I really felt that grief was just tearing our family apart instead of bringing us together.
00:18:16
Speaker
So you were even grieving, to some extent, in this process, the way in which you all grieved, to some extent, because it was different than the idea. It was different than the idea that you had even made in your mind of what was even going to happen. Was it that the fact that you and your brother had shared a common experience that maybe, were any of your grandparents, were your moms, any of her parents or siblings alive still in that moment? Yeah.
00:18:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. My grandma was there as well. Yeah. Yeah. So like your grandma, everybody, right? So you're like thinking, wow, like we're all going to be there supporting each other and this bond and this common yet not necessarily was it that way because of the different ways in which you all agreed.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So is that part of the reason that you created that space on Instagram to share about it was to have that commonality with somebody, with others, um, to be able to express your grief?
Instagram as Grief Expression
00:19:16
Speaker
Um, maybe partly, but, um, but I actually opened my Instagram account after my dad died. Okay. So let's go into that. Let's go into that, uh, circumstances a little bit too, but yeah. So you opened it after and what was that? When was that?
00:19:31
Speaker
That was in June 2019. So two years later after my mom died. And what were the circumstances of his death? Well, my dad was diagnosed with brain tumor the same year that my mom died. She died in July of 2017 and my dad was diagnosed in October. And so, and at first I didn't know and they
00:20:00
Speaker
My dad didn't want to tell me and he, yeah, he, I don't know how he did it, but he succeeded in not letting me know that he was sick. He actually knew it. I would think already when my mom died that there was something wrong with him because he was having some light seizures during the day and he wasn't able to,
00:20:30
Speaker
He didn't know what was going on, but he just felt that there might be something wrong. So, and I later discovered that he went to do a checkup at the hospital, and then they told him that he had a brain tumor, and it was actually the stage four of one of the most aggressive ones. So, yeah, I found out when they had to, how do you say that in English?
00:20:59
Speaker
to, um, where he had to undergo surgery because of, because of that. By the way, the fact your English is flawless. The fact that you speak, then you speak German, Italian, English, and what else do you speak more? Um, yeah, I speak Spanish and French.
00:21:26
Speaker
But you're Italian as well, right? I have an Italian background. My grandfather was Italian, so I don't speak no parlo Italian. None, would it be none parlo? None or no.
00:21:39
Speaker
No, no, no. Yeah, no, I my grandfather never spoke Italian to my dad. Yeah, it was that type of generation in which when, yeah, they were here in the States, it was the assimilating to, you know, trying to fit into the culture. And my grandmother was American. So but I grew up and I was born and raised in Colombia. My mom is Colombian. My mom was. So I'm Spanish is my first language.
00:22:10
Speaker
in English as well. They both technically are both would be my first English would be because that was what my dad would speak to us and Spanish would. So you know a lot of languages. That's amazing. So if you ever can't think of a word in English, tell it to me in Spanish and then we'll get it in English. I do not speak German. I only know Einsweitra. I did go to Waldorf school when I was little.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, Waldorf Method School. So some of the songs I had like my class, you read, did you ever do Waldorf School? Yeah. Or do you know Waldorf? Okay. Yeah. So read me, I had my class of you read me. I think that's what it's called, my class. And I knew like Einsweitrei and that's about it. That's crazy.
00:22:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh, okay, so sorry listeners, you're having to hear all our little conversations, my side conversations, but that's the thing with this. This podcast is more than just talking about the grief, it's other things that also we have in common in life. Okay, so when he had his procedure then, that's when you found out that it was already the stage
00:23:21
Speaker
for. And that was still within that same year of your mom's passing that he had his first procedure after his diagnosis. And so his illness then was two years then of him dealing with this tumor. So then did you do again the back and forth at that point as well?
00:23:51
Speaker
So the total in your process of living in Munich and going to Germany and going to Rome in this process from your mom to was a total like about three years of you going back and forth between the two countries.
00:24:09
Speaker
Okay, so tell us about that dynamic a little bit, and then we'll go into how you even ... Here you are wrapping your head about grieving your mom's loss. What word do you like to say, by the way? I know you've said when your dad died, so are you comfortable with the word death, or you prefer passing? Yes, sure. Sure. Okay.
00:24:32
Speaker
works for you. I just want to respect whatever works for you because I always try to ask that to the guests because some words are triggers. When I was present from my mom's passing, we call it transition. We could know she had transitioned. I don't know if that was your experience. It was such a clear
00:25:01
Speaker
Reality and understanding of the reality of who we are or what we are that is more than the body because it was very clear in that moment when she died that she was no longer there.
00:25:20
Speaker
So that her soul, like it was like in my beliefs at least, like we knew that her soul had transitioned. Like we knew the soul had no relation to the body in that moment. I'm not sure if that was your situation being there in your mom's, when your mom passed away, when your mom died. Did you feel that way? Like a very clear distinction of that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's even weirder to me because I,
00:25:48
Speaker
before then I just knew dying from the movie and you just see that it happens and it's just all at once. It's one second and then you're gone. But in my mom's case, I just saw that it's a process. It's not just you turn off the switch and then that's it. But there is a whole process that your body and maybe your soul as well go through while or to get to that point that you can leave
00:26:19
Speaker
And that was really something new to me and also something that really traumatized me to see all those changes. Stages. Yeah, those stages and what cancer does to you because that's something very unique about dying of cancer. So I had to get used to it, but when
00:26:46
Speaker
When my dad got very sick as well, I already knew what those stages were. So I was able to
00:26:54
Speaker
understand better at least what was going on. You say something that is so true. It's just because of how it is, the type of illness, because my mom also died of cancer. So it is very probably different than of course a sudden death or any other thing. You are seeing the deterioration of the organs as they start kind of shutting down and just that process of it. So it is definitely very different.
00:27:23
Speaker
than maybe something else. So I've only witnessed the death in front of me of cancer, nothing else. So I do not have any point of comparison of any other type of it. And I guess in your case too, you have your mom's
00:27:40
Speaker
passing, which was of cancer, and then your dad, too. So it was similar. So what were, in that moment, let's talk about a little bit, and then we'll kind of go into your dad's passing. In the moment of your mom's passing, what were some of your mom's death? What were some of the belief systems you had or tools? You mentioned, of course, experiencing that trauma. What were some of the things that really kept you going and
00:28:10
Speaker
And just, you know, moving one step at a time and forward in your life, carrying this heavy grief.
Therapy and Coping Mechanisms
00:28:20
Speaker
Um, I don't think I had any. I, I just, um, that was my first rawest experience with such a death. So I was, I was really there trying to grapple what was going on. Just, um,
00:28:39
Speaker
not just for myself, but what was going on within my family as well. And there's just as grievers know, it's not just about yourself, but grief changes everything basically around you. So what I did was I relied on my dad because I thought he's the next one that I'm the closest to. So I'm going to ask him what I should do or do.
00:29:08
Speaker
Yeah, just get some advice on how to live on, right? So my dad said that it might be better for me if I would just go back to Munich and go back to work. Just get it off your mind. Just be with other people. Go out. Try to not think about it. So I did.
00:29:37
Speaker
I went back to work, and I did so for six months. I just immersed myself into my job, but I just couldn't do it. It didn't work for me. It worked for some people, but I was really exhausted. I felt such an exhaustion that is really out of this world.
00:30:03
Speaker
And I started crying. I cried all the time. I had a lot of physical symptoms as well. So nausea, wasn't able to sleep, all of that. But I wasn't able to say what was going on. I didn't even know that there was a term that would describe it. Like, what is grief? It's hard to describe it in one word, right? So I really struggled with that because I think in
00:30:33
Speaker
my culture, we always have a name for something. We have a name for cancer, we have a name for everything, basically all the feelings, but not for what really grief means to you personally. So what I decided then was to go to therapy because I just thought this, how I feel right now is going to
00:31:00
Speaker
make me go insane like I really thought I was going to lose my mind because of it was it was just such a physical pain not only physical but also of course I was grieving so my soul was hurting and I didn't I lost the ability to to look at life look at how life could go on for me so
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I realized I really need help. That is very wise, especially at your age, because how old were you at that time? You were young still. Yeah, when my mom died, I was 23.
00:31:42
Speaker
And yeah, when my dad passed away, it was like 25. Yeah. So here at 23 then, was it within that same year that you decided to go to therapy when your mom is in that same year? Okay. So that's amazing that you did. And the fact that you knew you needed help
00:32:01
Speaker
That is huge and very mature of you to do that because a lot of times two people have such a stigma. I don't know how it is in Germany or in Europe. Sometimes there's stigma around therapy or things like that, going to a psychiatrist. In the US, it's not as much. I know in my culture in Colombia, there was more of that stigma. What is it there? How is the stigma there about seeking for that type of help? It's the same. Yeah.
00:32:31
Speaker
Um, I remember my dad himself kept asking, um, what's wrong with me? Why am I still not feeling like I felt before? Or, um, he would just say, yeah, you just, you have to keep, keep going. Just keep going. What's wrong? Just yeah. And that was really, it was hard for me because I needed some validation or at least I needed to feel that.
00:32:59
Speaker
I was not crazy that it was just normal, just normal to feel that way. And I didn't have that. So I think I decided to seek therapy because I wanted to have that. I wanted to talk about it to someone and hear the words, it's okay and it's normal. You're normal. You're not insane. You're not going, or maybe you are going to lose your mind, but it's all okay.
00:33:32
Speaker
That is so important, what you just said. I'm sure you didn't have any peers around you that had experienced something like this. Did you have any friends at all? Because you're so young, had any of your friends experienced any type of death or trauma in their lives at that point? No, no. That's very isolating. Yeah, very isolating.
00:33:56
Speaker
So tell us then, so you started to go to therapy and then what shifted then for you then? And you went through therapy throughout the time your dad was sick as well? Okay. So tell us a little bit, what shifted with you with going to therapy and then the understanding of what was going on with your emotions and so forth. And how did that help you? Well, I think the most important thing that I experienced was that I just
00:34:26
Speaker
was able to cry my heart out, just sit there and cry and that there was someone there who was able to bear that pain with me. Because I was so young and as you said before, none of my friends had ever experienced such a loss. Nobody would even have the capacity or the willingness maybe to just be there and open up to such a tragic
00:34:56
Speaker
lost and such a way of dealing with grief. And my way was crying. So people were feeling uncomfortable around me. So I really experienced that just through therapy, there is someone that is able to listen and that those are just normal reactions to grief.
00:35:26
Speaker
And so that's how I started to have more confidence in my grief, if I can say so, or just find my way to express it and then also learn some tools how to deal with it on an everyday basis. Because a lot of the times I was just feeling overwhelmed by all of those feelings and my physical symptoms as well.
00:35:55
Speaker
But I learned how to deal with it and how to help myself when I needed it the most. What were some of those physical symptoms that grief was showing up in your body? Well, oh my gosh, I had so many. Well, I can't eat any kind of dairy since my mom died.
00:36:21
Speaker
Then I had an ear infection. I had an eye infection. Basically, I'm a walking infection. It happens. So to this day, I have that. And I had, later this year, I had a very bad cough that everybody was thinking I had the virus. But I've been coughing for at least seven months straight. And it was so bad that I went to,
00:36:50
Speaker
all kinds of doctors here, but nobody could find anything. And that's very frustrating as well because you are in physical pain but nobody is able to find the cause of it.
00:37:06
Speaker
And those are just examples. Yeah. No, no, no, no. I'm the one interrupting. Please. This is your space. I'm the one that ends up interrupting. And then I'm like, Oh, sometimes I'm like, Oh, why did I interrupt the person? And then why did I talk so long in that part? Because this is your story, not mine. This is not my story. I'm just like,
00:37:27
Speaker
In that aspect of not finding what is wrong or the solution, because you know, at least you have a feeling that is associated with an expression of your grief,
00:37:42
Speaker
ask your therapist or have you looked into other type of intuitive type of people that see health differently than just the traditional medicine as well to see how they can help you kind of move that grief out of your system? Yeah, I did and I tried so many things, but ultimately I just ended up
00:38:12
Speaker
starting a new therapy, so I have two therapists. When one is not enough, again, the second one. You know what, though? It's fine. You had two deaths. You had two deaths. You can have two therapists. Oh, yeah. I never thought about it that way. Absolutely.
00:38:37
Speaker
It's fine because I just try to find ways to survive. So I don't feel bad about having two or three or whatever. Whatever you need. Yeah, absolutely. Gather your army, gather it. Yeah, I was always so afraid of asking for help and then to realize even that I needed to get help. Even if I did
00:39:06
Speaker
And it was my idea to look for therapy. I still struggled so much to really open up about what was going on and how I felt about it because I still learned that whatever happens to you, you just feel it on your own. And that's one big thing that grief taught me about myself that I really, I'm very open
00:39:34
Speaker
but I still struggle to really, to really open up. Yeah, I think that makes a difference. So you're open in general in your life, but you right now, so that's something you've known in grief, but yet you're still struggling to be completely open and transparent with your emotions about grief. Okay.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Creative Outlets and Support Systems
00:39:58
Speaker
So then is it by writing then poems, which is one of the things you do in your thoughts in your Instagram account, is that one of the ways that you are tapping into that openness of sharing your emotions about grief? Yeah. And my Instagram started with me just posting images and writing something about how I was feeling or what I experienced. And then
00:40:25
Speaker
I don't know how it happened, but I just transitioned into writing poems. And I think that's the nice thing about being creative, that you're able to just change how you express your grief according to how you're feeling. But yeah, writing really has helped me a lot to put my thoughts into words and then put it out there for other people to see that they're not alone in this.
00:40:56
Speaker
And you are not and the fact that also you get the feedback of knowing that you're not alone either. Yeah, exactly. Coming back to you and sharing Wow, yeah, like I can relate to that and knowing that Oh, okay, somebody else feels that way. It's like,
00:41:11
Speaker
Again, being that you couldn't find that necessarily in your family, you grieved the same way in terms of being able to share those emotions, to be able to find a community of people that have similarities in how it is they express their grief has been part of your grief journey as well, of your own tools. That's wonderful. Would you be okay of reading
00:41:37
Speaker
Maybe one of your Poems. Yeah, sure Because I was gonna like I was gonna if not I would pull it up and read but I think it would come Beautiful listening from you and did you write poetry before by the way? Yeah. Yeah, I I've actually have always been writing poems since I was yeah a little kid I think but But I just just
00:42:07
Speaker
I like to explore. I don't have much knowledge on how to, how to do it, how to structure it. I just go for it. I don't either. I would write poems and songs when I was a kid. I don't know. Is it like a, what is it? An eight, whatever. I don't know. I'm like, no, this doesn't matter. This doesn't go with that.
00:42:34
Speaker
But you're not able to say why, you just feel it, right? You just feel it. Yeah, you just go like, oh, it doesn't have to fit into anything. Because anyway, who makes, you know, the parameters that have been set as to what it is that has to be, you know, what a poem is, are still just parameters of a person that thought that this is what it is.
00:42:55
Speaker
It's constantly, you just even said creativity, expression of creativity is constantly evolving as to how it is you feel about your grief. Well, the same thing goes with in general, the creative process, what the standards are of what art is or what music is, what poetry is. It's constantly changing because it's creative. Yeah, that's true.
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah. So no, no, let's, let's just, it's a poem that it's a poem. We don't know what the metric system of it, but it's a poem. Um, I picked one that I wrote last week and it goes like this. People die and everything they've touched. They'll still for a moment, maybe for years. And sometimes we were this time and change just because we still hope they'll come back one day just because we never wanted them to leave.
00:43:49
Speaker
just because hope is less destructive than the realization that they're gone. At least hope gives you something to look out for, a dream not yet consumed instead of devastating truth. That's it. I have chills. So hope is what you hold on to the most.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah. What are some of the things you hopeful? Yeah. What are the things you hope for in life? What are some of these aspects of hope? How does it reflect in your life? Well, most of all, I just feel for some reason, even if I've seen that they died and I've seen how they've died, so I know that they're gone, I just still believe somewhere, somehow that
00:44:41
Speaker
If I do everything right, if I'm just good enough, then they will come back. So it's this weird thing. I don't know what my brain is doing, but it's this weird thing that even if you see something, so, you know, it's real, you still wish to, yeah, just change it or to turn back time somehow.
00:45:11
Speaker
So that's what I've been struggling the most, I think, to just understand that it happened is real and that I cannot change it, that I'm helpless in the face of death. I'm right. You're helpless yet at the same time.
00:45:36
Speaker
There are things you can do in terms of the grief. You're helpless in the face of death in terms of, that's inevitable. I can't say that. Inevitable. It is always so hard.
00:45:53
Speaker
Every time there's certain words in English that based on how it is like where you put that and I mean and I grew up with both again I'm saying there's still like this thing of like inevitable like those that have like never like I'm like wait, why can't I say because I'm Okay, whatever I won't make this be an English lesson but um so things that are in net of a
00:46:24
Speaker
Oh, goodness gracious. Okay. Things that we cannot change. So death is something that is there. There's no, I'm trying to use another word because I can't pronounce it. So things that are, it's something we can't change is fate, right? It's part of our life.
00:46:42
Speaker
Just like we're born, we're going to die. We are helpless in that aspect that that is a reality that we all face in life. Yet at the same time, we do have some aspect of control into how we navigate that reality. Yeah.
00:47:03
Speaker
meaning how, like in your case, either holding on to hope, seeking tools of therapy, being able to talk it out, talking about your emotions, writing poetry, writing. So those are the things we have control and how maybe we choose to express how we feel about death of loved ones.
00:47:28
Speaker
So gathering as many tools as we can into this toolbox, you know, and I think we need an arsenal of it, a lot of different tools because we never know which tool may help a certain part of our grief.
00:47:44
Speaker
journey. Like you just said, you have two therapists and that's the tools you needed too. And that's absolutely understandable. You know, you have poems, you have Instagram. What other aspects, what other tools do you have? How about you, we mentioned then friends of course don't relate necessarily to your grief, but do you have some friends that are there for you or have been there for you during this process?
00:48:13
Speaker
in general or do you feel that some of that also shifted? I do have one very good friend who has always been there and I feel that she has learned a lot from my grief journey as well as to how to be a friend or just to be there for me because of course that changed our relationship as well.
00:48:41
Speaker
Um, but, but we made it. So, and we're still here, but, but I did lose a lot of people, a lot of friends, um, when my parents died, because they were just not comfortable with, um, just me grieving. Nobody would know what to do with me. So, um, that's. Hmm.
00:49:04
Speaker
No, no, no. I'm thinking about what you just said, that discover that people feel, you know what it is. I think sometimes I had this conversation yesterday about something else actually completely. It was actually about how we're prejudiced in general about others and how in general that prejudice comes is from the
00:49:24
Speaker
When you don't necessarily want to talk to somebody that maybe thinks differently or looks differently because it may to some extent bring up something in you or truth within you of something that you have to face yourself. So it's that fear that blocks us sometimes into really getting to know somebody. So prejudice is based out of fear. So I feel that in grief,
00:49:52
Speaker
The fact that some people are uncomfortable or don't want to be around somebody that's experienced it is because it's a reality that's there in front of them of that aspect of mortality, either of themselves or their loved ones around them that they're not willing yet to see.
00:50:14
Speaker
So maybe that distancing has not, a lot of times I think in a great majority of times has nothing to do with you at all. That just has to do with the person not being okay to be open to that reality of their own mortality or the mortality of those around them. What do you think? Yeah, for sure. But I still, but it still makes me mad that
00:50:43
Speaker
that people were, yeah, just people that you've loved as friends or even relationships just decide to go silent for that reason, that they're not making the effort to inform themselves about it or... Yes. Because I mean, as a bystander, of course, it's hard to witness somebody crying his heart out because of
00:51:13
Speaker
what they've been through, but you're not going it through yourself. So I'm always, it makes me so mad that it makes me want to scream at them in their face like, don't you have no decency? I think it's also our, we have to learn more about grief just because even this year with the virus, we've learned so,
00:51:43
Speaker
so much about what it means to grieve on a worldwide scale, right? So what is it that holds us back to just Google or to just ask that friend, I want to be there for you. I'm feeling very uncomfortable because it really sucks to go through something like this, but I want to be there. What can I do for you?
00:52:09
Speaker
Oh, whoa, what you just said is just amazing. You just gave the listeners, as a listener, if you have not experienced death yourself and you do not know what to do to support somebody around you that's grieving, what Olivia just said is key. Really say, like, it sucks. I have no clue what to do, but I want to be there. What do I do?
00:52:35
Speaker
Admit that you do not know what to do and that it is you're uncomfortable about it, but at least say something. That is so true, Olivia. If your friends would have just stepped up, maybe they will. Maybe they'll listen to this podcast and now they'll know what to do. Just to be there. Because you may not need necessarily each one of them to be there to hear you cry. You may need one of them to be there.
00:53:04
Speaker
to make you laugh and another one to take you out shopping and another one to, you know? Just be human. I don't know why we think that we have to have all the answers to something and that if we don't have those answers, we are failing at something. It's normal to not understand something, to just not know.
00:53:32
Speaker
But it really makes a difference if you are at least willing to open your heart to that kind of suffering and to just be humble enough to learn from it. So I really had a problem with that, that people just didn't even want to try. So if I can give one piece of advice is to just ask, just be open about it.
00:54:03
Speaker
In the end, everything that you say is wrong, right? When you're talking about grief, like you never really get it right. But at least you're trying. And if grieving people see that there is someone that is really trying hard to be there, even if it's hard to open up when you're in so much pain, eventually they will. So don't make it the grieving person thing to have to come back at you
00:54:32
Speaker
text you, ask for help because they're not, they don't have the energy. They have to invest everything that they have in trying to survive. So don't ask them or don't, how do you say that? Don't make it be their thing that's on top of everything else.
00:54:57
Speaker
That's even a great tip, even for myself, what you just said, because I sometimes do end up leaving it on the other person's table. I do reach out and I say, just know I'm here. Just tell me what it is you need. I'm here. But I do end up allowing that space.
00:55:15
Speaker
at times, because as you even said, sometimes in everybody's journey is very different, right? And the overwhelm, and especially when it's a death that somebody's just had, there's so much business, I always call it business. There's always a lot of business and stuff around the aspect of death, meaning burial planning, funeral, this, that, and then the home of the people that, you know, by chance it's a parent, then you sometimes have to deal with things that have to do with
00:55:42
Speaker
the home, selling the home or the things and so forth that you want to sometimes allow that space, right? But what you said too is true that the energy that sometimes we are using as grieving, as grievers per se, is
00:56:01
Speaker
in that, that we don't sometimes have enough energy to even just reach out to somebody to let them know we need them. So thank you for expressing it that way because it makes me be more proactive as a friend to be sure I reach out more specifically to the people that are grieving around me.
00:56:26
Speaker
Thank you. What other things would you say are some of the biggest learnings that you've had? You mentioned that you learned that grief taught you to
00:56:41
Speaker
be open in life, right? That's one of the, what other things has grief or going through this experience taught you either about yourself or about the world around you or life in general?
Life Lessons from Grief
00:56:57
Speaker
Well, about myself, I think the biggest lesson was that I needed to slow down because I learned that
00:57:07
Speaker
I need to keep going. I need to look for the next opportunity to just develop my personality further, do this, do that, be successful in life. But then when grief happens, when you lose someone like this, you start realizing what's really important. And to me, that was really to sit down and have a conversation with myself
00:57:35
Speaker
and have it every day actually to just ask what do I need really? Am I forcing myself to do stuff that I don't want to do just because I have to function? Or can I maybe take a break and just listen to my feelings? Because I think that in the early stages of grief, you really focus on that
00:58:02
Speaker
on what you're feeling. There is nothing else. But then eventually, the everyday life comes back. And you have to pay your bills. You have to go back to work. Maybe you have kids, so you have to take care of everybody else. So maybe you forget yourself in that process. And I don't have kids. But I still work, and I still have a life.
00:58:32
Speaker
I don't want to, I don't want to forget about myself. And grief always takes me back. Anytime I just, I just push myself too much, then it really drags me back to my seat. And I have that conversation again, where I ask, I ask permission. I ask myself to
00:58:59
Speaker
to just grieve, to just feel my feelings and just leave the stuff that I wanted to do for that day somewhere else and just focus on myself. Yeah. So grief grounds you. Yeah.
00:59:15
Speaker
grief grounds you, grief brings you back into the reality of the who you are, what you are, aside from all the busyness, because it kind of brings you back to the essence of who you are. Would that be the right way?
00:59:33
Speaker
It's so true. It's so true. I'm like thinking of it as like in my own life, it does resonate with me. I had never thought of it that way that it just kind of just connects me again with my reality, with my essence. There's a humbling component of it too, right? Like this. Yeah. I forgot what I was going to say.
01:00:05
Speaker
But I think that's what scares me the most about grief, or not about grief, but just about life, that it keeps going. And I never, after my parents died, I didn't want to go on. I always thought time has to stand still. I have to do everything that I can to keep remembering them. And that means that
01:00:33
Speaker
for me, life cannot go on. Because if I do go on, then I forget about them. And that's really something that scares me to this day. But listening to myself really gives me the opportunity to realize that grief is not going anywhere. And so my parents are not going anywhere. That even if I do work, even if I do go on, if you
01:01:03
Speaker
want to say, so they are never gone. Because they live, they, yeah, in some way they live on within you. And even if that's not enough, that's what we have to get used to when you lose someone. You just answered your own question of the hope.
01:01:23
Speaker
As you mentioned, you just answered your own hope right there of the fact that you're hoping that they'd come back and you just answered it. You just answered it. You just answered it a little bit with you all the time because that grief is there constantly with you. They haven't gone anywhere. Yeah. I don't know why that fear
01:01:50
Speaker
of losing, of constantly losing, even if you have already lost.
01:01:55
Speaker
um come from it's because it's so painful it's so painful still it's still painful it doesn't mean that because we've gone through it it doesn't mean that we're like oh my gosh let me go through it again it's like it's like okay it's kind of like
01:02:22
Speaker
a little bit it would be a little bit it's kind of like going a really scary roller coaster ride and there is a part of us maybe that we're masochists and we're like let me go on it again and feel that thrill you know but if you fell off of the roller coaster you wouldn't want to go back out in there right but
01:02:40
Speaker
But in that case, yeah, it's true. It's like regardless of whether we realize like, yes, I actually am stronger than I thought I was. And I survived this really traumatic and horrible experience of having both my parents die within a period of two years.
01:03:00
Speaker
It's not like, oh, let's see, what's next? What's next? Let me see. You goody, goody, goody, goody. Bring it to me. No. It's not that we wish that upon ourselves or upon others at all. It's just the fact that we already know that if it were to come and it will come, because again,
01:03:18
Speaker
life is about these realities that we are a little more prepared because we've already gone through it again. And we know that, wait a minute, I survived that. I can survive anything else that comes my way as well. But it's not like we're looking forward to it. I'm definitely not. I'm definitely not. But also, I think that part of why I'm so afraid of letting that go is because I
01:03:48
Speaker
I just associate so much of my parents to their last moments, their last year. So that's why I think if I let go of that, then where are my parents? Where do they go? If you let go of, you mean that memory of their actual? Yeah, of how traumatic that was. And I think that that's a very important thing in therapy that you learn
01:04:15
Speaker
to connect to your parents on a different way just by remembering the good things that you've been through 20 years before they died. And then eventually you realize that they're not gone if you let go of that trauma that you have. But it's a long road. It's not that you just go there once and then you're done. I think I'll keep doing it for the rest of my life.
01:04:41
Speaker
Well, yeah, if not, you'll gather, again, some of those tools and then learn how to navigate it. You know, like once you gather, once you get what you need and then you can kind of, it's cyclical, right? So you might need therapy at this moment, then you might be good with whatever you've kind of learned and you kind of use those tools and maybe something else comes up later on, then you go again.
01:05:03
Speaker
I went to a therapist once and she was like, my goal is to not have lifelong patients. My goal is for my patients to just be with me for a period of time. That's my goal. I don't want them to be dependent.
01:05:23
Speaker
on me. Because that's how she felt her job was done, that she had given her patients enough resources to work through whatever they were working through in that moment.
01:05:40
Speaker
And then later on coming back if something else kind of reoccurs. But that was her goal as a therapist at least. So yours is still very recent. So you're still navigating through that. So of course you right now feel like this is my life boat kind of. This is what I need right now. And that's absolutely true.
01:06:02
Speaker
for now, right? It doesn't necessarily mean it's your truth tomorrow or a year from now, it could change. Our truth and our necessities change. Wow. I've learned so much from you today, Olivia. Thank you, Kendra. So much from you. Thank you so much.
01:06:21
Speaker
I really have and I appreciate you taking the time after your workday to come and chat here and share this journey and teach me as well as the listeners these different perspectives and I am grateful now.
01:06:41
Speaker
Tell the listeners, and I'll put it in the show notes, how they can get in touch with you. Is it you're on Instagram? What's the best way? And again, I'll link it down below. Well, I mainly use my Instagram. I do have an email as well, but I am more comfortable with sharing my Instagram. It's the big grief.
01:07:04
Speaker
Yeah. A big grief. If you want to read all these poems and your thoughts about grief and sometimes these Instagram lives that you might do or sharing your story with others. Was Patricia the first time that you shared it? Yeah, that was my first live. Your first live ever on Instagram was an interview. Imagine about your grief was your first live. Is this your first podcast?
01:07:34
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Yeah. It is your first podcast. Well, you did amazing. Thank you. Thank you. And I said the big grief on Instagram. Yeah. But, but I also wanted to say that, um, I put a lot of stuff out there with all my writing, but, um, but my DMS are always open. If people want to share, um, to talk about the ones that they've lost. Um, it's important to just, at least to me, to just be there and listen.
01:08:03
Speaker
Um, give something back to people. Yes. And then you have a way, is it true? Uh, you also have like, is it like affirmation or ways in which, let me see. Cause I thought I saw a link on your, on your account. Isn't there a way of also purchasing your cards? I forgot about that. Yeah. Um, I also, um, I.
01:08:29
Speaker
Um, so I make postcards out of my posts because I thought that that's a very nice and authentic way to just connect with greeting people in your everyday life, which is something that we lack, um, me myself as well. Um, cause I just write on my Instagram, but then I am not really able to talk about it in person to somebody that I might know. Cause I still feel that kind of weird, uncomfortable feeling.
01:08:58
Speaker
So I created my postcards to just do that. And there is a link. You're right, Kendra, there is a link in my
01:09:08
Speaker
In your Instagram, yeah. In your link tree, you can link, yeah, to find the Etsy shop. And if by chance somebody doesn't have Instagram, then you can find it. It's called postcard when the ones you love die. You can search it that way, I guess, on Etsy, or the big grief prints, actually. The big grief prints on Etsy. If by chance you don't have Instagram, you can go there and find these postcards for,
01:09:36
Speaker
for your beautiful words and poems, and it's a way of you being able to share with somebody else your thoughts. Thank you. Is there anything else that you wanted to share that I might have not asked? And I know we didn't go too much into detail after dad's passing, but I hope that you could probably come back.
01:09:56
Speaker
You could come back. Yeah, I would come back. Let's do it that way. And we could talk more about all these different things and all your learnings. Because again, grief is a journey. There's not a start point or an end point at all. We can always have a conversation about it. One last thing that I wanted to say is just to thank you for the opportunity to talk about it and for inviting me to my first podcast.
01:10:26
Speaker
I'm so grateful that you accepted and I am again very grateful for the insights that you brought to to mine to me at least in this conversation so thank you Olivia. Thank you.
01:10:47
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
01:11:15
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.