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98. It's Never Too Late For Healing and Growth- with Cheryl Grey Bostrom
79 Plays3 years ago
For most of her life, Pacific Northwest naturalist, photographer, poet and award-winning author Cheryl Grey Bostrom has lived in the rural and wild lands that infuse her writing. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including the American Scientific Affiliation’s God and Nature Magazine, for which she’s a regular photo essayist. A member of the Redbud Writers Guild, she has authored two non-fiction books. Sugar Birds is her first novel.
In this episode we talk about her own grief journey and how her fictional characters and story line have glimpses of her life as well.
She’d love to connect with you at https://cherylbostrom.com
Order your signed/personalized copy of Sugar Birds HERE: https://www.villagebooks.com/book/9781647420680
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching:
https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Navigating Grief's Emotions
00:00:01
Speaker
You know, when you have grief that's couched with anger or self-loathing or abandonment or whatever, all these other emotions are around it. And finally, you know, as I've gotten older, I've been able to just kiss those birds and let them fly off and know that I'm beloved. But I still have this, I will always have this grief that things weren't
00:00:28
Speaker
what they would have been if the world weren't so broken or if these things hadn't happened. And now I would say it's clean grief to where I'm able to love those who hurt me deeply. That doesn't mean I want relationship with them because that even wouldn't be a loving thing, I don't believe.
Introduction of Podcast and Guest
00:00:55
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.
00:01:19
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.
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm so excited to be chatting today with Cheryl Gray Bostrom. And Cheryl is an author, a photographer, as well as a poet. And today we will be talking about her book, Sugar Birds and Her Life Story. Sugar Birds was the winner of the 2021 American Fiction Awards in literary fiction, general fiction, and cross-genre fiction categories, and finalist in religious fiction.
Exploring 'Sugar Birds' Themes
00:02:06
Speaker
silver medalists in 2021 reader's favorite awards in inspirational fiction, as well as fiction finalists in the upcoming 2022 Christianity Today Book Awards. And if you guys think that I did that all in one take, you are wrong. Cheryl and I know the truth. Welcome, Cheryl.
00:02:34
Speaker
Thank you. So good to see you. So good to see you again. We chatted prior to this interview and we could not stop talking when we met, you know, a week prior to recording this. And so we're excited to be sitting here
00:02:52
Speaker
seeing each other's radiant faces. And you are in Washington State.
Cheryl's Influences and Early Life
00:02:58
Speaker
So let's hear a little bit about your life, where you live and your upbringing. And then we'll go into this book. And people may not realize how much
00:03:14
Speaker
they will be inspired even by this fictional book in their own grief story. So we're going to dive into that in just a little bit, but tell us then, where are you located and family, all that kind of jazz. Okay. Well, I live in far Northwest Washington state within about a stone's throw of the Canadian border and a short
00:03:38
Speaker
oh, 20 minute drive from the coast. And I was raised in Washington on the Olympic Peninsula in some pretty wild with pretty wild country surrounding us. And so my love of nature, which shows up in all my work. I come by that pretty naturally. I'm the eldest of five and I was raised in a very difficult home with a lot of trauma and
00:04:04
Speaker
And yet from the age of 10, I always wanted to write a novel, avoided it because I was doing a lot of other forms of writing and helping other people with their books taught.
Journey to Fiction Writing
00:04:16
Speaker
But I guess in intrinsically, I knew that writing fiction would be the greatest place to tell truth.
00:04:26
Speaker
And I just, it wasn't the right time. So when I reached the age of 60, I started learning that craft and yeah. And this book emerged out of a, actually out of a writing group when I, when I wrote a sketch about a girl and a fire and I had little, little inkling that my personal story would emerge so much out of this in this book and in a couple of the characters in particular.
00:04:52
Speaker
and it wasn't planned, but it came. It just birthed, it birthed, it birthed as you were writing. That is amazing because you said something about that fiction was the, repeat that part that you said again, writing fiction was the best way to tell, you said something that your true story. Yeah, fiction, and I'd watched other people do this because they're, but fiction is,
00:05:21
Speaker
probably the best way to tell truth. You know, you're making a story, but you can incorporate elements of truth and elements of one's perception with a freedom that, at least for me, who's pretty private. I wouldn't do in a memoir, I don't think. I wouldn't put some of that stuff out there because, you know, our griefs and our stories as a whole are these
00:05:49
Speaker
are like precious birds that we hold in our hands. And we need to treasure them. We need to nurture them when they're wounded. We need to kiss them and help them fly. And fiction was a beautiful way for me to do that. That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
00:06:11
Speaker
It's true because you can go deep into places in a fiction right into storylines and go deep into the emotions and feelings and create situations in which these
00:06:26
Speaker
feelings and emotions are brought up that is sharing that truth of not only the character, but then also then the author, even though the circumstances around what they're experiencing may be different than yours, the emotions are.
00:06:42
Speaker
that may be the same. Yeah, it's kind of like editing a picture, you know, you can, you can enhance certain areas, and you can diminish other areas to make the point or the statement or to bring across the theme of a photograph, and you can do the same, same in your writing. But, you know, when I talk about being private, I, you know, I, during times in my life, I've kept a lot of journals, but I always toss them, I always burn them, because I
00:07:07
Speaker
I really am not, you know, I'm keenly aware of my own mortality. And oftentimes some of those entries are written out of times of greatest angst or greatest grief or greatest sorrow. And they aren't the whole picture, you know, the joy that emerges from that. I often don't write about, you know, except in a story like this one.
00:07:34
Speaker
I don't even write journals anymore because I don't want those to be discovered as only part of the story. Does that
Redemption through Faith
00:07:44
Speaker
make sense? I mean, it's absolutely, absolutely. You know, and as you're saying that it's like the journals are the
00:07:51
Speaker
What would be and this is what would be the other side of a quantum in my Spanish here. And this is the opposite of, for example, how in Facebook or Instagram, people are putting these slices of life that are like what you want the world to see. Your journals would be like the other face of that. It would be like this, right? So.
00:08:13
Speaker
that it that just kind of you know brought yeah a lot of different thoughts to mind and also like you're saying it's saying one part of the story saying the moment how you felt in that moment not necessarily sometimes a resolution of that emotion either right because you might not write in your journal like how it was that you resolved that you know whatever instance of what you were living through
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's all raw material. And I'm a Christ follower and my personal relationship with God is really what saved my life. And as he showed himself to me, as he revealed himself through the natural world, which is what I try to incorporate many layers of the natural world and what I write about. But there's nothing, I absolutely believe that there's nothing that happens to us
00:09:08
Speaker
that can't be redeemed and that can't be healed and that can't lead to a profound experience of joy beyond what really makes any sense or of gratitude or of just meaning.
00:09:24
Speaker
And so in the story, do you want me to talk about that? Yeah, if you want to talk about the story and the characters or we can go into the backstory, where would you like to start? About what was the inspiration about writing the story and in your life that kind of catapulted this creation and birthed it or the characters? Where would you like to start?
Dual Narrative in 'Sugar Birds'
00:09:49
Speaker
I think I'll give a little bit about the story because then when we talk about
00:09:54
Speaker
My backstory listeners will be able to tie the two together. Perfect. And so this is a story, it's a dual narrative and there are two young characters. One girl is 10 and her name is Aggie and she has a mom who's suffering from mental illness, which is increasing her mom's manic depressive and
00:10:20
Speaker
She's losing her mom. She can't connect to her anymore. Her mom's angry. She's just, and she's heartbroken and angry about this. And she doesn't know what to do with it. She's 10 years old. So her dad, who's an arborist and worked at the, they have an heirloom seed company and he was part of the Alaska Forest Service before they moved back to Washington. It's set in Northwest Washington state, right where we live. Teaches her to sketch the nests of wild birds.
00:10:50
Speaker
to help her cope with her sadness. And then he talks to her about the healing that's present in the natural world and teaches her about the character of God that she can see in nature. And so she's reluctant at first, but she does start climbing trees to very, very great heights to watch these eggs hatch and to sketch these birds when she comes home.
00:11:18
Speaker
One day when her mom forbids her to climb through a series of circumstances, she lights a terrible fire. It burns her house down. She watches that house burn down from this tree house, and she watches her parents' bodies carried out. So she thinks she's killed her parents. And so here's this little 10-year-old girl who has her worldview changed in an instant.
00:11:43
Speaker
and believes that she's hated and that she's going to jail and that no one will love her ever again. And her, you know, she's wild with grief, wild with guilt and sorrow. And so she runs, she goes to the only place that she believes she can find solace and she goes and hides in the woods. And so for a month, people are looking for this little girl
00:12:08
Speaker
And because of her skills of everything that her dad has taught her about survival, about climbing, she is able, even dogs, she's able to evade these searchers for a long time. And yet I realized in writing her, and I had written it before I even realized it, but that she is running from
00:12:37
Speaker
the love that would bring her home. And her grief and her guilt are so profound and she becomes so shame-based that she hides from those who are desperately searching for her, wanting to love her, believing that they only want to condemn her. And so that's the crux of her story and then of her emerging from that story.
00:13:02
Speaker
And then the opposing narrative is the 16-year-old girl named Celia, whose dad has tricked her into coming up to stay at her grandmother's in Northwest Washington. And her grandmother's a bird biologist. And Celia likes working with her on rehabilitating these birds. But she's still furious at her dad for leaving her. Her dad has brought her up there because she's gotten involved with this girl who's nothing but trouble.
00:13:30
Speaker
And her mom has also abandoned the family. So this girl has a lot of angst and a lot of anger. And she arrives right at the time the search for Aggie starts. So she joins this search team where she meets a guy who's really bad for her. And she also meets this kid on the spectrum named Burnaby, who teaches her a lot about life.
00:13:51
Speaker
So that's the story in a nutshell, that the grandmother's a big player, the two young men are these two girls. And even though they're young characters, it's an adult novel because it's dealing with themes of the heart and themes of tragedy and places where we've failed as parents, failed as adults, failed as children. And yet what happens out of that? How is that ever redeemed? How do we ever find joy out of things that seem too horrible to be redeemed?
00:14:20
Speaker
So that's the story. Yes. And I haven't read it. And now I'm curious as to how it is they find joy after all this and how these two stories, because I'm assuming, like you said, it's a dual story. So at some point, somewhere in the middle, is it that then Celia starts with the search? Is it kind of like you don't know that these two stories are going to be connected?
00:14:44
Speaker
Is that the type of book it is? Or does she start them? Yeah, she joins the search pretty early in the book. Okay. I don't want there to be any spoilers, but it's really, yeah, it's about this, you know, this, this coming together. And yeah, that's wonderful.
Nature's Role in Writing
00:14:59
Speaker
Now you see, now I have to, I have to read it because I need to know the ending.
00:15:05
Speaker
And not just the ending. I need to know what occurred to take them to the ending. You mentioned these words earlier on and also when we were speaking the other day, were the words resilience and redemption. And you said that part that nothing really happens in our
00:15:24
Speaker
that there can't be that redemption from. So let's go into then a little bit about your life and how then your backstory turned out to be the inspiration to your writing. Sure. Well, as the eldest of five, my mom divorced when I was about five.
00:15:56
Speaker
She, I guess the best way to say is that we were really, we were raised in a lot of chaos and a lot of trauma. And there wasn't, although we had grandparents who loved us very much and we spent a lot of time with them, came from a generation where people weren't talking about stuff.
00:16:18
Speaker
And, and so we were pretty much left to our own devices I'd say we were feral kids, you know, so we would, we would head into the woods, head, you know, in the, on the Olympic Peninsula our town sat right in the foothills, right at the foot of the Olympic Mountains and on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
00:16:39
Speaker
And whenever we, yeah, whenever things got crazy, we would head out in the woods. And particularly my sister and I would climb trees, sometimes by ourselves, sometimes together, but we would climb to the ridiculous heights that Aggie climbs to in this story. Now, Aggie's able to move between trees pretty nimbly. We didn't do that, but we did move between trees, so I know that it's possible.
00:17:09
Speaker
And we took risks that probably were taken just out of sheer, I don't know, sorrow, abandonment, recklessness that's born from feeling that you're unloved. When we feel unloved, we can be reckless with these precious lives we have.
00:17:35
Speaker
In the story, Aggie climbs, because she has a father beneath her. And I, I have since learned and in my faith walk to that when we have a father undergirding us and loving us and treasuring us, we can climb to great heights.
00:17:55
Speaker
And so there are a couple of dads, both Celia's and Aggie's dads disappear for a while in this story. And when they do, these girls' lives change and they make different kinds of choices. And I can say that hugely about my own life. I didn't have the presence of a father and I had a mother who was mentally ill. And the relationships that we have drive us and compel us into
00:18:25
Speaker
behaviors or choices that we may think have no possibility of redemption, but they do, you know, they do. And so in the story, what happens to these girls and what happens at the end could never have happened if they hadn't suffered. It could never have happened if they hadn't, if, egg in particular, if she hadn't gone through what she did, if what happened
00:18:54
Speaker
hadn't occurred, the outcome would never have transpired. And those are things beyond us. We can't imagine them. To me, they speak of a loving God who's caring for us. And we can think that we're forgotten or that we're abandoned. But a lot of that has to do with our perception of time. I know most of my life I've been pretty impatient. And if something hasn't happened in my time frame, then I
00:19:20
Speaker
I tend to think it's not gonna happen or that I've been forgotten because I did have a lot of abandonment issues, you know, and they're probably all still marching around there unless I remind them of what I know now, you know, but yeah, yeah, lost my train of thought. I think it's beautiful. No, no, no, it was perfect.
Healing and Forgiveness Journey
00:19:40
Speaker
You said exactly what I was asking is to share a little bit of your own story. Thank you.
00:19:47
Speaker
Cheryl, the title, Sugar Birds, can you share why the title or would that be a spoiler? You know, I think it's a spoiler because you're pretty well into the book before you find out what Sugar Birds are. OK. But suffice it to say that it's something that applies to all of us and has nothing to do with feathers. OK. OK. Just wondering, because I'm like, you know, there was some aspect of that.
00:20:14
Speaker
Now, how did your interaction as a photographer, as a nature photographer, that relationship of you as a nature photographer play a role in your writing?
00:20:30
Speaker
How do you think that that that I mean, I can I right now I'm making I could probably answer that in my own storyline, but of what I think it could have, you know, influenced, but how did that influence your writing? Oh, you have good questions.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, it has a lot to do with the way I think. I'm not a linear thinker at all, to the extent that when I was in school myself and I would be asked to write an outline, I'd write it after I'd written the piece. And as a high school English teacher for many years, I would ask kids to outline, but
00:21:10
Speaker
There were others who thought like I did and I was totally okay with them putting together, you know, unless they were just all over the place and I'd say, come on, try to get some rails around this so that you even know the direction you're going in. But I think more like a camera lens coming into focus.
00:21:27
Speaker
And so when I'm, and I'm outside every day with my camera and we live in country that's so breathtakingly beautiful that you just, you almost can't just not be out there absorbing it in every season. And yet when I'm out there with my camera and I have a frame around a scene, I realized that I'm looking at life right there, right now in this frame that is this window of time that I've been given.
00:21:54
Speaker
So you can capture a photograph, you can capture a photograph that speaks to you and says, it can say different things and is interpreted through the eye of the frame that you put around it. And lots of times I'll take these pictures and as I look at them afterwards, the pictures will talk to me and even tell me what I was seeing or why I even framed it. And that's the same thing, of course, that happens in the story and in trying to recollect
00:22:26
Speaker
the Northwest and nature in that story has a lot to do with me looking into that frame, seeing how nature becomes a character itself in our own lives. And yeah, that's probably it. And then just the detail. I pay a lot of attention to detail. I like to think of myself as a noticer. I've been told that.
00:22:49
Speaker
And listening to how you described just that moment, even in a picture, it was just so moving because I don't know, I just got moved of just like, I love observing nature and I love taking pictures of sunsets and things like that. And because you kind of want to capture.
00:23:06
Speaker
capture that moment so you know I don't I'm not a photographer but uh but you you said just it's just how you said it of just capturing that moment in time and that also the emotion in which you are in as a photographer in that moment too plays a part
00:23:26
Speaker
in how you compose it. I don't know it was just so poetic how you describe that. It just moved me because you know when something that really inspires me a lot in life is when I meet people that are living
00:23:43
Speaker
to their potential and to what they were created to do. It just touches my soul. And so when you were describing that and seeing you visualize that, it just was moving. It moved me. So thank you for sharing that. Oh, thanks, Kendra. One thing that's interesting, though, even about photography is it's my goal, my ongoing goal, to be able to live in the present
00:24:13
Speaker
And I think when a person has had a lot of grief or trauma, you either tend to live in the past or you tend to race into the future, race toward the happiest next thing that you can or race, race. And I've done so much of that in my life that it's been a long, slow learned intentional discipline to try to be in the moment. And I'm not very good at it.
00:24:39
Speaker
Um, even when I look at these pictures afterwards and I go, Oh my goodness, look at this scene. And I remember feeling it when I was there in it, but it's almost like it has more power in the recollection. And I don't want it to be that I want it to
00:24:59
Speaker
remind me of having that same intensity of experience when I was in it. And that's coming. It comes sometimes. It comes more than it used to. But to know that right now is enough and that I am beloved in this moment and there's giftedness all around me in it. I don't need to live like Aggie did where I'm believing that nobody could ever love me again.
00:25:27
Speaker
because that was my early message. And so sometimes grief, this is gonna sound like a leap because I'm jumping from the photography into this, but sometimes grief takes a long time to get clean. When you have grief that's couched with anger or self-loathing or
00:25:57
Speaker
abandonment or whatever, all these other emotions are around it. And finally, you know, as I've gotten older, I've been able to just kiss those birds and let them fly off and know that I'm beloved. But I still have this, I will always have this grief that things weren't what they would have been if the world weren't so broken, or if these things hadn't happened. And
00:26:25
Speaker
And now I would say it's clean grief to where I'm able to love those who hurt me deeply. That doesn't mean I want relationship with them because that even wouldn't be a loving thing, I don't believe, but that I can love deeply and I can still grieve what happened and what never happened, what happened, what never happened and what could have been.
00:26:53
Speaker
I had never heard it put that way of the other types of emotions, because grief is so complex, but the fact of how you describe that as, you know, grief kind of being accompanied with these other things, other baggage.
00:27:11
Speaker
And then not allowing the person to truly grieve because they're kind of having all these other things around it. That when you release those things and just carry just the grief itself is just different than when you're carrying it with the resentment, with the anger, you know, anger with all these other emotions. So thank you for. Yes. Sorry to interrupt. Another thing about that is that
00:27:42
Speaker
I think that we cling to things like anger, I did, cling to the anger or the resentments because it gave me a false illusion that I could change the other person or that I could control the outcome because if I was angry, then, you know, anger bears fruit, right? Or, you know, it's like you can do something about this pain,
00:28:13
Speaker
heartbreaking pain of, of loss, like you can do something about it. And so I even think about Kubler Ross's, you know, steps and the way we rotate through grief or whatever, you know, anchors a component in that, but there's tremendous freedom in letting go of control of all that stuff, you know, and to, and, and, and also control is an attempt, at least for me, I can't say this for everybody, but for me, it was an attempt to keep myself safe.
00:28:41
Speaker
because I was in some very, you know, unsafe situations when I was little. And as you do that, you know, and the more you acknowledge it, the more you can get free.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yes, yes, yeah. So true. It gives you a false sense of control. Like you talked about control. These other emotions give you a false sense of control. Like you can actually control the outcome when really there's nothing to try to control or fix or anything like that with grief. Now, let's talk about your growing up and having this
00:29:25
Speaker
experience in your life of your life not being the picture perfect quote unquote idea of what life would have looked like and how did your life kind of transform into you kind of coming
00:29:42
Speaker
to terms like you said of you know things happen really for us not to us component of life so when did that realization that everything that had happened just like with Aggie and her story that had she not gone through what she goes through in the book the outcome of the story would you know her life would have not been the same when did that uh-huh kind of moment happen within you or was it just so
00:30:10
Speaker
gradual, that hard to pinpoint. You know how when you're 30, you think, oh, I get this now. And when you're 40, you say, oh, I didn't get that at all. Now I get it. Then when you're 50, the same thing, I think it's incremental. And the biggest thing for me was
00:30:41
Speaker
No, I'll back up even further. When I was little, I can realize in retrospect, I didn't realize at the time that it was God reaching for me, but there were times when I was so inconsolable and so, I mean, things were just so dark that I can just see times and places where people who I later learned loved him
00:31:04
Speaker
reached out to me and took me in either through mentorship of some kind or having me spend the summer at their house or just so many things. I mean, even as a junior high kid, I can remember walking by this church on the way home from school. I had about a mile walk and I didn't know anything about that church, but I was young. I was an 11 year old, seventh grader, 16 year old senior.
00:31:35
Speaker
just walking in that church and just sitting in there. And for that moment, before I headed back into the firestorm at home, experiencing comfort and love, but it wasn't until I was 19 and in college that I met God in a way that was so personal to me and found out his deep love for me. And even then, it's like taming of
00:32:04
Speaker
taming a wild cat, you don't just say, oh, you love me, he's not great. I'm just gonna be just fine now. You just keep moving and keep growing and then gradually circumstances compound to where you realize more and more the truths about love, about forgiveness,
00:32:31
Speaker
arrow about all those things. And that was really a random answer. No, no, no, no, no, it wasn't. It wasn't, it wasn't random. I it made sense because you, you basically went, you shared really of God and the presence of God being really your comfort in this process of your, of your life and that kind of being your
00:32:58
Speaker
Oh, your cornerstone, your anchor in your life, right? In your teens when you discovered his love for you. Yeah. And what's so amazing about my walk with Christ is that it wasn't just head knowledge of me deciding that I'm going to subscribe to this ideology and that if I
00:33:27
Speaker
believe these things, then these things will help me in my decision making. When I made a commitment to him, I became indwelt by the Holy Spirit and I had this guide and this comfort inside of me that I can't even describe his peace. I can't begin to describe it, but it was nothing born of me or nothing born of me deciding that I was gonna feel just fine. It was him saying,
00:33:57
Speaker
I'm here. I'm going to love you. We're going to get through this. And this is not all there is. It's going to be okay. And I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know how much time it would take, you know, and like I said, I lost my, you know, I lost myself a number of times because I'm impatient and I would, and because I was familiar with abandonment, you know, or familiar with that, and I would
00:34:23
Speaker
I would assign all those human failings to this God that I love. And then there he'd be again. He'd say, no, I didn't leave you. I didn't leave you. I'm here. And yeah. That's beautiful. Now that you talked about love and abandonment, how did then that translate into now the family that you've had?
00:34:46
Speaker
that you have and being able to now be married.
Family Life and Personal Growth
00:34:50
Speaker
How many years have you been married? I've been with you. 45 years. So you see the amount of transformation that had to occur for you to be able to have this solid relationship of 45 years, right? Because fear of abandonment is something that sometimes makes people then be the one to leave.
00:35:11
Speaker
right before they're left. So that's a lot of growth, Cheryl. So I commend you for, oh my gosh. I mean, imagine how much growth and the fact that you're, so tell us about your life and your children and your grandmother and all this beautiful present, your present. Tell us about your present. Well, you know, that 45 year really says a lot about my husband.
00:35:38
Speaker
It's more about him than it does about you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he's given me, he's given me a, you know, a lot of room to be who I am. And he is just steadfast and loving and wonderful. And he's also very interesting. Remember, I am a runner by nature, you know, if, if I can run to the next best thing, you know, I mean, that was my early, early pattern because, because, you know, I'm, I'd rather,
00:36:09
Speaker
I mean, some people are fighters, some people fly, you know, the whole fight or flight thing, but I would escape if I felt like I was gonna be harmed. And so when I met him, was a sophomore, this is a fun story. I was a sophomore in college and he asked me out once and I turned him down.
00:36:35
Speaker
Junior year in college, we went out for about six weeks and without getting into all the details in it, I broke it off and he just vanished. He wasn't going to grovel. That's what he says. Then a year later, he had just gotten into veterinary school and a friend who knew how he had felt about me, one of his roommates,
00:37:02
Speaker
called and asked me just to make a congratulatory sign for him for this party. And so I took the sign of this party, went with my roommate. It was a big surprise party for him for getting into vet college. And he and I ended up talking until three in the morning. And I just thought, oh my gosh, what was I thinking to break up with this guy? This guy is amazing. And we were engaged four months later.
00:37:30
Speaker
And so, but one of the things that made me fall in love with him, I mean, it's just one of many things, but he talked about how he tried to make a Robin's nest when he was a kid, you know, he tried to sculpt it, you know, and I'm just a bird lover and a nature lover and he shared a lot, you know, he shared a lot of that same stuff, you know, and he would do these pen and sketches of a bird's nest.
00:37:58
Speaker
And, and, you know, so many things. Okay. So, so many things. So he captured me, he captured my mind and he captured my heart. And he was so, so steady and I'd never known anyone steady. And I've chafed against that at times because, you know, because of my innate flight or whatever, but gradually, gradually he's brought me home and it's wonderful. So we have two kids.
00:38:28
Speaker
Both are married to wonderful, wonderful spouses and they each have two kids, boy and a girl, and they're on opposite coasts, so we're on planes a lot, but I'm just grateful beyond words.
00:38:44
Speaker
those kids actually survived. But they're great kids and very, very solid, beautiful people, and I'm thankful. But that's God's work. That's not because I am such a great mother because I'm not.
00:39:03
Speaker
We're all learning, right? And we're just here to birth them and kind of give them that space to grow into who they're going to be. But that man, it takes a lot to be detached also from the outcome of how our children turn out.
00:39:22
Speaker
that one. Good luck. Yeah, so hard. Yeah. Cheryl, I wanted you to share the story of when you took your daughter to get horseback riding lessons because I think that I don't know, I really like that because it says a lot about
00:39:40
Speaker
the woman you became and kind of trying things out. So would you would you mind sharing that? Oh, that okay. So when I was when I was a kid, my grandmother would take me down to this ranch just below their place and where I would ride horses and always loved horses never had had one on my own. And so
00:40:01
Speaker
years later, you know, we're living on a country acreage, I'm married to a veterinarian, our daughter's five, and this friend, and this friend tells, tells us he's actually, he's actually a farmer that my husband does work for, he tells us about this pony that he knows about, that this little girl wants to sell, she's outgrown, outgrown this pony.
00:40:21
Speaker
So he takes me down, we bring this little Shetland back. And Shetlands are notorious, notorious for being crafty. You know, they'll rub you off trees, they'll take you off. And this pony did rub our son off of her back out in our orchard. But I brought this pony home for our daughter. And the same farmer said, well, you know, there's a shortlisted Canadian
00:40:47
Speaker
You know, Olympic rider a mile from our house and she gives lessons and you know you might want to get her oriented and take her over there.
00:40:57
Speaker
So I did. So I took her. So I took the pony and whose name was Ladybug, by the way, cute and and took our daughter over there and she had a lot of fun. But then I soon realized that. Yeah, this was also for me. And so I got a horse and then rode dressage for many years after that. But as an outgrowth of that, I thought once again how. We need to give ourselves permission to find
00:41:27
Speaker
These joys and not just live them out through other people and and I don't know really what that has to do with all of this, but Yeah, it was it was a it was like
00:41:41
Speaker
a recapture of something that I had longed for in my own childhood, which was a lot of fun. Is that what you were asking? Yes, yes, yes. No, I love it because a lot of times we think, we were talking about this when you and I were chatting the other time that we think, oh, I've already learned what I've had to learn. And so taking on even new passions as adults and things like that, and the fact that you competed
00:42:06
Speaker
as well as an equestrian, you know, I think that that is just so beautiful, and so inspiring. So that's why I wanted you to share that story. Yeah, just knowing there's, you can always keep learning new stuff, you can always keep learning new things and growth is never finished. You know, another thing that you and I talked about too, which has a lot to do with
Embrace of Lifelong Learning and Presence
00:42:29
Speaker
our pasts and our present and our futures is that
00:42:33
Speaker
Even brain science has changed, you know, when I was raising my kids, they, they told us that a kid's personality was formed by the age of five and that, you know, parents you're on, you know, you're on till especially till age five, because if you don't give them what they need, they're going to have this huge deficit their whole lives. And I, my friends and I have talked about this and we just thought that was just
00:42:56
Speaker
Horrible it was horrible for for moms to be hearing that stuff because you know what we know we're hardly out of our, you know, out of our teens or 20s and and
00:43:06
Speaker
whenever we have kids and this is new to us and we're going to do the best we can, but come on. We're going to mess up. I know I messed up a lot. Everybody messes up. We can't give our kids everything that they need, but I had a therapist when I was working through a lot of my stuff in my 30s, I had a therapist say to me, Cheryl, show yourself some grace here. There's a lot of
00:43:35
Speaker
problematic parenting that's healed later in life, you know, and it's never, it's never too late for healing and for growth. And you know, when you're coming from the basement, you're starting from a different place than somebody who starts on the top floor and they're parenting. And let's say I don't want to get back to what we were talking all about, but the brain science now, you know, brain science has changed to show that even well into our
00:44:03
Speaker
Well, until we die that we're still forming new neurons. We're still developing new neural connections. Our brains are always changing and growing and that, you know, things like nutrition, which is a choice, you know, things like exercise, which is a choice can make huge differences that, you know, some of these health issues where people say, well, you know, I've got this genetic predisposition to whatever. Lots of times it's a genetic
00:44:28
Speaker
or it's a familial dietary pattern, which can be changed. Yes, epigenetics. That's why now they're talking about epigenetics too, like changing the whole way in which we're supposed to go just by our lifestyle and our thoughts. And the concept too of just how much influence there is and our emotions influence our outcome as well. That spirituality as well, I feel has a huge,
00:44:57
Speaker
um impact as well and huge I mean so it's like we're a whole being right so well and even these crazy screens you know with my work I'm on this screen an awful lot and you know it has to be a real intentional disconnect for periods of time just to engage you know flesh and bone you know touch the earth go outside barefoot you know to be connected with the natural world and not
00:45:27
Speaker
Yes, no, that is that is so true. Okay, now, as we wrap up, is there anything specific that you want to share that I have not asked about whether in any regards to either? Well, your book will talk a little bit more about how people can get it. But is there anything I did not ask?
00:45:49
Speaker
But anything you didn't ask, I don't know, you're pretty good. I know you're really good. Or something that you're like, oh, that I don't want you to like, when we hang up for you to be like, man, I didn't say this part, I really wanted to say, and we're probably going to do that. I know I do that myself, but like, man, I didn't ask for this. So is there something that you'd like to share with the listeners that I have not
00:46:10
Speaker
I'll think of it in the shower when I'm feeding the dogs. But yeah, but I guess that for anybody who's in a place of dark grief, that I already said this, but just be patient. You aren't alone in it if you choose to seek the help of God, he's there, you know, he's as near as a whisper. And
00:46:38
Speaker
And that in the story, I'd love to hear your thoughts about the story and you can reach me at CherylBostrom.com. And yeah, I'd love to get in. Wonderful. Perfect. Is that the best place to find Sugar Birds is on your website or where would be other places?
00:46:55
Speaker
I have links to buy. If you want a personalized or signed copy, I've got a link on my website and other links where you can get it. There's also an audiobook read by the award-winning Jane Entwistle. She's got like four pages of books on Audible, but you can find it anywhere.
00:47:14
Speaker
I love audibles because I love listening while I'm walking my dog, so I might get the audible version. That will be when I will be listening. People see me crying while I'm walking my dog. They'll be like, what's going on?
00:47:32
Speaker
Oh my gosh, Cheryl, it's been such an honor to have you and again, to be able to chat with you and connect with you in this way. Thank you so much for taking time of sharing your story, of sharing Aggie and Celia's story. And there was the other fourth character, it was Bernabe and the other one, Cabot. So these four characters that the listeners will get to find out more about in the book.
00:48:01
Speaker
So make sure to read Sugar Birds. And there's a way of being able to reach you with any thoughts that they have on the website that could reach you. Okay, so when you read it, reach Cheryl and share with her what touched you the most of her book. So thank you so much again. Thanks, Kendra. Thank you.
00:48:27
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.
00:48:56
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.