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25. What's The Learning? - With Bevin Mugford
71 Plays5 years ago
Bevin Mugford shares the very painful loss of her son Spencer, who was an avid fisherman and was lost at sea. She shares the details of this process of finding out he was missing and how the family coped with the news.
She used the skills she had learned in her career, as a Head of Sales and in charge of Personal and Professional Development in the clothing company Peach, for her own grieving and mourning process. Reflecting on "what's the learning?" in her own grieving experience was one of the many tools that she has implemented in her journey.
Her own experience has been something that has also helped her educate her coworkers and sales team, as well as family and friends, as to how to talk and approach people who are grieving.
Contact Bevin: https://www.instagram.com/bevin.mugford/
Contact Kendra: www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
Music: www.oneplanetmusic.com
Production: Carlos Andres Londono
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Transcript
Lessons from Hardship
00:00:01
Speaker
It taught me how to get quiet, to look internally, to ask myself in moments, this was a moment of hardship, but what's the learning? What can I learn here? And as I was training myself on how to do that holistically,
00:00:28
Speaker
who knew what a gift that would be in helping me to navigate a trauma of losing my child.
Podcast Introduction & Purpose
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:46
Speaker
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.
00:01:02
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.
00:01:24
Speaker
Hello to all our listeners today. Thank you so much for choosing to listen to this podcast today because you had a choice to listen to something else and something called you to listen to this today. So thank you first off for doing that. And I want to introduce you to our guest today.
Guest Introduction: Bevin Mugfort
00:01:44
Speaker
I have the honor of interviewing and having her share her story for you all and for myself as well.
00:01:52
Speaker
of having Bevin Mugfort with us today. Hello, Bevin. Hi, Kendra. And I'll share a little bit about Bevin with you all. So Bevin and I do not know each other. She actually is a friend of a friend or has worked with a friend and that's how it was, referral. Referral of her sport.
00:02:11
Speaker
That
Bevin's Grief Journey Begins
00:02:12
Speaker
is the world and the industry that we're in. A lot of it is also like that, the industry you're in, I'm in. It's all about word of mouth referral and so forth too. So that's how we came to know each other and her story was shared with me and I'm like, oh my goodness, she definitely should be on this podcast.
00:02:29
Speaker
So a little bit about Bevan is she's a mom of four. She is the head of sales and the face and voice for personal and professional development at Peach, which is a clothing company with amazing work and play and lifestyle type of clothing company. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun. And that's actually how my friend knows you. So that's a thank you shout out to Laura Cohen here if she's listening. Thank you for connecting us.
00:02:57
Speaker
I am so grateful that you accepted to share your story. I know it's not always easy, but I know that you're also aware of the value that there is of sharing, not only for others to listen to your journey, but because it is also part of your own
00:03:17
Speaker
healing process in that sharing. That's right. Thank you so much for hopping on. Tell us a little bit more about you and your family dynamics, and then we'll go from
Breaking the Silence on Death
00:03:29
Speaker
there. Sure, sure. Thank you, first of all. Thank you for inviting me on. I think a good place to start is that
00:03:38
Speaker
When I learned in the earliest days after losing my son that I had the ability to speak about death and the process of walking what I call a lost journey, I realized that it was not only something that I could do, but actually I should do. And I almost felt duty bound to start sharing so that we can break the silence around death and teach people
00:04:06
Speaker
how to talk about the process, but also in that talking to really support and comfort those who are walking that journey who often feel alone and isolated. So it is my greatest honor and privilege to do just that right here with you today. So thank you.
00:04:23
Speaker
Thank you and thank you for coming. So you already touched on the fact that it was your son who passed away. He is, so you're a mother of four. So tell us a little bit about the ages of your
Family Dynamics & Career Transition
00:04:35
Speaker
kids. Sure, sure. So I started my family very young and had my children kind of boom, boom, boom. So I had all of my four children before I was the age of- Boom, boom, boom. That's only three. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm not a good counter. How's that?
00:04:52
Speaker
And I had them all before the age of 26 in a row, and so I had my daughter first, and then my son, my daughter's Aubrey, and then I had my son Spencer 21 months later, and then I had my son Grayson 20 months later after that, and then I had my son Duncan
00:05:13
Speaker
took a little extra time. He was three years after Grayson and so it was a one girl, three boy household and it was busy, loud, messy and lots of food was consumed.
00:05:29
Speaker
Oh my God. Now, were you working in the times that there were little? Were you also in the... I mean, not this particular company because this is a newer company, but were you in the workforce at that time? I am so excited to say that I've actually lived two lives as a mother. I would stay at home for 10 years. So when the kids were little and they were in the
00:05:52
Speaker
diapers and crawling around and nursing stage I was home with them and then Once Duncan turned three and I was able to put him into full-day preschool That's when I actually went to work full-time So I have been both I have been a stay-at-home mom and a full-time working mom after that and yeah
00:06:14
Speaker
Now what did you did you go to before you started your family had you gone like gotten any degrees or any type of work experience prior to being a seven-year-old? I got my degree I got my four-year degree my undergraduates actually in psychology and uh and then when I was very very good for very good for you to now use
00:06:34
Speaker
It is. It is. Who knew? Who knew you'd be using it now? Yeah. But what I found when I went to work is that when it was time to go to work, so many people said, oh, are you going back to work? Like, how are you reentering the workforce? And I looked at them and I said, what do you mean going back to work? I've never been to work. I'm starting at 30 is when I started actually building a resume. And so it's one of those things where
00:06:59
Speaker
you're 30 years old and you're looking to get a job and the marketplace doesn't look too kindly upon this big gap between your collegiate career and no work. And so I really did look to enter a career that had low barriers to entry that once I got in, I knew through my
00:07:19
Speaker
sweat and effort and drive and passion that I would be able to be successful. So obviously the world of sales called me. That is the place where the barrier to get in is lower and then you succeed by just driving it. And so I jumped into the world of sales.
00:07:37
Speaker
Well, you know, what you just said, the fact that those 10 years from graduating, you know, in the raising, that you could not put in your resume, that you were, what is it? All the jobs that we have. I have nursed a baby while potty training a two-year-old. Have you?
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, I know how to multitask. I know how to do this, this, this, this, excellent skills at that whole organizing. I've seen some of those videos that they kind of say like the job descriptions, like if we were to put like an actual job description to every little asset that it is to be a, you know, a homemaker or whatever they, I don't know what the right terminology is, but home manager. I don't know.
00:08:21
Speaker
We'd be very expensive to hire, that's for sure. Oh, yes, absolutely. That would imagine each of those skills to somebody. So you did that. You came into the workforce then at 30 sales and then the kids. So yeah, so you've kind of, yeah, you've done it all. You've done it all. So then take us a little bit now, a little bit about your background.
00:08:45
Speaker
Do you want to talk a little bit too about the ... No, no. Actually, let's talk about then your son, Spencer, who we're going to talk about today. Sure.
Losing Spencer: The Story
00:08:56
Speaker
First off, how long ago did he pass away? He passed away. Do you like which words, by the way, which choice of words do you prefer? You're bringing up such an important topic right off the top. I could talk a lot about this.
00:09:08
Speaker
I will tell you that for the longest time, I could not say my son had died. The word dead died. It was so harsh on my ears and it was just...
00:09:22
Speaker
It was hard to come out of my mouth and I didn't like hearing it. And so for the longest time I said my son was lost. And that was very truthful because the way that we lost Spencer was he was lost at sea.
00:09:39
Speaker
So his cause of death was drowning, but he was lost at sea for 13 days. And so in the earliest days of losing him, that's how we explained it. Spencer is lost. He's lost because he actually was. And then when his body was recovered and he was found, I found that I could not transition myself from saying lost to dead.
00:10:08
Speaker
So I still struggle with it today, even saying my son is dead makes my chest and my throat close and my eyes water. It's a very hard phrase to say, but I'm learning how to say it because it is the truth and learning how to speak even the hard truths is a part of this journey.
00:10:29
Speaker
And it is part of the healing. Now, how long ago was he lost Etsy? This was two years ago. So we live in the Northeast. So we're in the state of Connecticut. And it was Memorial Day weekend two years ago. And sometimes summer comes early in the North. And sometimes it comes late two years ago. The summer was late in coming. And that Memorial Day weekend was
00:10:56
Speaker
really the first warm weather that we had and it had gone from pretty yucky spring dreary weather to just a gorgeous gorgeous day and I do think that's what called Spencer and his friend to go out on the water that day and they took a boat out on the Long Island Sound at night
00:11:16
Speaker
And it's actually, let me pause for a moment. It's helpful to know this is that Spencer was a skilled fisherman. He was actually a commercial fisherman and had a license for operating boats. He was not a novice on the waterway. He had grown up in his early years in South Florida. Basically, kids in South Florida learn how to walk, learn how to swim, learn how to drive a boat in the water. Or maybe he learned something.
00:11:44
Speaker
swim first or maybe even swim first. Spencer was completely on his own before he was two years old and so this was a child that was raised in and around water with a tremendous respect for the power of
00:12:00
Speaker
the ocean and the river and you don't do things without thoughtfulness and without respect or your life is at risk. And so he spent all of his time- He was 20, right? He was 20 years old and he and his friend went out that night and had all the skill and all the experience to have a successful outing and things went awry.
00:12:29
Speaker
And we don't know, and you can tell me how much you want me to share here. We don't totally know what happened. Yeah, it's totally up to you. It's totally up to you, the details, how much you want to share. I think that the aspect of knowing that these things happen, the fact that it was not just like this kid that just, that's why I wanted to also share the age. It's not just like this 10-year-old that just hopped on a boat and went in the middle.
00:12:53
Speaker
an adult with the skill set, with the respect towards the ocean, with the knowledge, and this happens. So how much longer did you guys know that he had been? When were you expecting him back? When did we know he was missing? Yes.
00:13:16
Speaker
There were so many things that happened that day. This was May 27th, and so I had spoken to him the night before, and he had told me that he was going out fishing that night, which was very common. Spencer would go out at night fishing. He was with a friend that he said, I'm out fishing with him. And so I spoke to him maybe at 7 o'clock that night, and the next day, and I had said to him, make sure you don't stay out all night long, because this is something that
00:13:45
Speaker
This is something that tomorrow is a very important day for you that your brother is graduating from high school. And so he said, mom, I'm not going to stay all night. I promise I'll be back in plenty of time. I'll be there on time. So the next morning I was getting ready for my son's graduation. And I thought, you know, let me just check on Spencer. Let me make sure he's up.
00:14:11
Speaker
And when I called him, my call went directly into voicemail. And that was a little bit of a warning sign, but I thought, oh, he must have gone out last night late. He forgot to plug his phone in. He didn't charge it. His phone's his alarm. He's probably not going to get up now because he doesn't have an alarm to go off. So he went to the graduation and he didn't show up. And at that point as a mother, when you're expecting your son to show up and you think it's because he has been, you know,
00:14:41
Speaker
He didn't plug in his phone, right? Then you're making all these stories. How could you not? How could you not? We went back to the house to have the celebratory brunch and I called him a few more times and I'm still going straight to voicemail.
00:14:57
Speaker
even if he didn't have his alarm, now it's noon. And Spencer is a kid that could sleep forever if he didn't get woken up. I was like, but now it's noon. If he hasn't gotten up on his own now, now I'm starting to get nervous. So I looked at my husband and I said, I think we need to go down there. And so he lived down in Groton, Connecticut. We live up
00:15:16
Speaker
in the center of the state. And so we got- What's the drive? It's about an hour, an hour and 10 minutes. And we were driving down and sort of making the small talk. And in my head, you're sort of saying to yourself, oh, am I overreacting? Am I being an overreacting mom? I'm probably just overreacting and I'm not an overreactor. And so I had this like, but why are you overreacting? Because you don't really, there's something- And then a dialogue. Yes. Yes.
00:15:45
Speaker
So I remember we pulled into Groton and we got off the highway and we were about to turn onto his street and I had this moment right before I was driving, right before I turned down the street where I said, but what if his car's not in the driveway? What does that mean? And I turned and as soon as I rounded the corner I saw his car wasn't in the driveway and my heart fell into my stomach and I knew something was really wrong.
00:16:10
Speaker
So at that point, I thought the last I knew is he was fishing with his buddy. I knew some of his fishing haunts down in Groton. So we just started driving to the places where I knew he would fish from. And he drove a bright red car. So his car was really obvious. So he pulled into all the parking lots looking for his car. Nope, no car, no car, no car. We even drove into Rhode Island looking for some of the places where he went. No car, no car. And that's when
00:16:37
Speaker
My husband and I looked at each other and we said, is this when parents call the police? Is this when you report your child missing? Because I don't know. What do we do now? And you even ask yourself the silly questions like, wait, don't you have to wait 24 hours before you report someone missing? All the things you never think you have to consider for yourself, it's only something that's on TV. It's actually a conversation that you're having, and it's real.
00:17:06
Speaker
And we did, we ended up calling the police, and this is now, we're probably at, what, three-ish, three-thirty, something like that in the afternoon.
00:17:19
Speaker
Now a system starts to take over and the system is wonderful and frustrating at the same time. The frustrating part is the system. You have to jump hoops. You have to go through different hoops. They have to redo what you just did. They knew the last place that he was was fishing, so they have to go check all of the haunts in the public parks where kids take off from fishing. They wouldn't take our word for it that his car wasn't there.
00:17:49
Speaker
My husband had this moment of saying, I wonder if Spencer put something up on social media last night that would let us know where he went.
The Search for Spencer
00:17:59
Speaker
So he looked on Instagram. The kid doesn't use Facebook. We looked on Instagram. There's nothing there. And then that's when I thought, I wonder if he put something on Snapchat. And I didn't have Snapchat. So we reached out to my son, Grayson, the next one online. And I said, can you check Spencer's Snapchat and see if he posted something last night?
00:18:19
Speaker
Gray was on the line with us live and he said, oh, actually he did. And he took screenshots and sent to us that Spencer had posted three pictures and they were three pictures, one of him paddling a boat, one of a lit up coastline at night, and one of his friend inside of some sort of structure, which we couldn't tell what it was, but with a cement background.
00:18:46
Speaker
So we had all these clues, but we didn't know what it was. But we knew one thing for sure, and that was they had gone out on the water. They hadn't stayed on land to fish. They had gone out on water to fish or to be boating. And so as soon as we got those and sent them to the police, that's then when you can start to get the Coast Guard involved.
00:19:10
Speaker
At this point, because you asked Grace and then to take a look at the Snapchat, the fact that you guys left the house on his graduation day to go check in on him, the kids knew that there was something not okay going on. Yes. I think they were very much in a state of denial though. Let me just quickly help you get information because we just need to find Spencer. I don't think any of them at that point thought that it was
00:19:38
Speaker
It was really bad other than probably my daughter who has just a tremendous sense about things. And she was the one that said, mom, I need to post on Facebook that Spencer is missing. And I need to post on Instagram that Spencer is missing. And when she told me that, it became so real.
00:20:01
Speaker
because I said, you know, when you put that out there in the world that my son is missing, now the world knows. And there's this really weird moment of like, I don't want the world to know my son is missing. This is a private family matter. I don't want everyone knowing my business. And that's when my daughter Aubrey said, mom, Spencer is missing. You need everyone to help us. It's not about a privacy thing anymore. It's about finding him.
00:20:29
Speaker
And it was really hard for me to acknowledge that truth that she was speaking and she was right. She was right. I just got like, I always document my chills. I'm stopping the second because I got chills when you were saying that and her, her words and the everything that you were just saying just right now of realizing that in that moment you had to really let go of the,
00:20:59
Speaker
ego component, right? In that aspect of the, what would they say? Like, how do you report? Because there's that, you know, in order to really get down to the, you know, to get the solution. And that is something that I think a lot of times we struggle with. I had a conversation with somebody, for example, regarding suicide. I think I mentioned this to you in our first interview.
00:21:23
Speaker
And that sometimes we just don't talk about it because it's like there's that shame associated with it. And so even here, the fact of like, oh my gosh, putting something that my son is missing, one is basically saying that it's a fact and that is already scary in itself, right?
00:21:45
Speaker
It's kind of like the aspect of saying died. You know what I mean? It's again there, right? Oh, gosh, I can't. 100% the same night. I got emotional there. Wow. So then at that point then, so then 13 hours. So they go, they send the coast card, 13 hours later is when they- No, 13 days. Oh, days, 13 days. 13 days. Not hours. Yeah. Yeah. What did you all do in that time? That is the, I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine.
00:22:15
Speaker
I say to you that waiting is the worst torture and it is and the first two days were filled with again those moments of this happens on TV but to find out where the kids took off from they brought out a dog and the dog scented the area found the kids sent and found their point of departure from land
00:22:45
Speaker
Once they had the point of departure from land, then the Coast Guard nose starts to build a grid. And at some point, and one of the things they do say to people is that when you were in a moment of trauma, memory is fuzzy and not always reliable. But there was something on the order of nine, 10 different agencies that then took to water and air to do the search.
00:23:11
Speaker
And by the time they started the search, it was right as the sun was setting. And the beautiful day that had happened the day before had turned back into a nasty, raw spring day of, oh, night at this point, of blustery, gusty winds and rain.
00:23:36
Speaker
It was so cold contrasting and contrasting of the emotions It's like it just set the mood like exactly of what was going on in your own lives that the environment was reflecting the environment was reflecting and the Coast Guard continued its search and by the end of the second day the Coast Guard called us in with the family of his friend as well and
00:24:05
Speaker
sat us down and started telling us about they pulled out the map and showed the grid that the helicopters were flying and that the and that the vessels on the sound were tracing and they showed us the currents and all this and all these different vehicles they were using and I can remember listening to the Coast Guard chief who was I can't remember his title but who was who was leading the conversation and
00:24:29
Speaker
I can remember this feeling rising up in me. I was like, why are you telling me what you're doing? Just keep doing it. My son is lost. Why are you wasting this time telling me about all the vehicles and the grids? I don't care. I just want you back out there looking for him. And then there was another one of those moments of reckoning where I thought, oh my God,
00:24:55
Speaker
He's giving me the evidence for why they're calling off the search. He's building the case that they have done all they can do. He's going to tell me they're calling off the search. And that's what they were doing. And that's what they did at the end of the second day. So. Two days that they searched, so then. Two days. And we went home. And then, so then.
00:25:22
Speaker
And we didn't know if he was ever going to be recovered. You have to just start planning. You have to plan a memorial. You can't plan a funeral. You don't have a body to bury, but you have to plan a memorial. And you have to move forward because part of the case that they build for you is that with the boat gone and no sign of the kids, they were in the water.
00:25:45
Speaker
hypothermia, how long someone can survive in a bottle, in the water without a vessel. And they really basically showed to us there was no way, the temperature of the water was nay, too cold to survive. And so you go forward and plan a memorial. And the day before his memorial was to take place, our
00:26:08
Speaker
are my husband's phone rang. So it was a Friday afternoon, the phone rang. And the phone rang with the number of, Spencer was a commercial fisherman, so rang with the phone number of his captain, so the captain of the boat that he worked on. And the captain said, I wanted you to hear it from me first. I just heard a call over the shared airways that the commercial fishermen use and the sound, there's a shared channel.
00:26:38
Speaker
that one of the commercial boats out fishing right now just discovered the body of a young male. And I think it might be Spencer.
00:26:47
Speaker
So we actually found out from his captain that his body had been found. About an hour later, the Coast Guard did call us and confirm that they had found the body of a male that they believed was Spencer. But positive identification would have to be made before it could be confirmed to be him. So he was found the day before his memorial and
00:27:14
Speaker
Did you end up then switching? Well, we did a memorial. Yeah, we did a memorial. When a body is lost under traumatic circumstances, you have to go through the entire process of the medical examiner's investigation. It was going to take a while. And that we knew that was going to take a while. So we were able to actually bury him about seven, eight days later. This is where memory fails me.
00:27:40
Speaker
We were able to do a grave site service for him and actually lay his body to rest once the medical examiner was finished with her investigation Wow And one thing that I think is important to share Kendra just to honor the front he was with Her body was never found So Spencer was recovered and his friend was never never found
00:28:03
Speaker
do you know how the family how did they do a memorial but then they never were able to have a burial that I don't know I didn't know her family well obviously as we were all together during the Coast Guard search and the investigation we spent
00:28:20
Speaker
hours together. But after that was concluded, we have not been in contact. I know that they conducted some of their own private family searches and sort of gathered up community to continue a search for her. And I do not know if they ended up doing a memorial. And obviously, there's a tremendous amount of pain there.
00:28:48
Speaker
One of the questions that someone asked me in the very early days, and I'm grateful that people were brave enough to ask me the questions, was once he was found, someone said, does it feel better now that you found him? That is a brave question. Yeah, it's a brave question. And I had to pause and stop and think, and I had to say, you know, there's a part of me that is devastated that he was found.
00:29:15
Speaker
because there's a part of me that said, if anyone could have survived, if anyone could have made it to land and figured out a way to get himself and his friend there, it was Spencer. So that teeny little infinitesimal hope that he had made it somewhere and we just hadn't found him yet, that light went out and that was devastating. But on the far side, I don't have to wonder what happened.
00:29:42
Speaker
I don't have that hole that needs to be filled by some sort of, I don't, it's not closure, it's just, it's the knowing to be filled. And that did bring some measure of peace. And so in the end, I had to say, I am grateful.
00:30:02
Speaker
that we were able to find him, his body and, and bury his body. But the finality of it was like a whole nother death from, from the first day that we lost him. From when the first, yeah. Cause when the first day you still, so for those 13 days before they find him, you still have that little bit of hope. Even if you're having a memorial, there's still that little bit of hope that's there. And then yes, it's again, reliving it once again, then when they find him.
00:30:32
Speaker
Now what, because this has just been two years, it's still like for me even just talking to you and hearing your voice and your perspective and I've read some of your posts and just the way that you speak just feels like your journey has been so much longer.
Reflections & Coping Mechanisms
00:30:49
Speaker
But I'm thinking that there's been just either you definitely lived a lot of other types of grief before in your life or some other aspects of it in different forms.
00:31:02
Speaker
of different changes or transitions in your life that led you to have some kind of tools or equipment to be able to deal with this. So do you want to talk a little bit about that? Like what have been those tools that you had and what are the tools that you've had to learn to develop to help you on this journey of grief? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. If I go back a little way to actually the founding of the company that I'm part of the founding team on,
00:31:32
Speaker
It's actually part of my story of being able to navigate this grief journey. We made a commitment in the creation of the company, Peach, to commit early time energy and resources to building a culture that's based upon the tenets of positive psychology. And positive psychology, if I put it in super simple terms, is about
00:31:58
Speaker
discovering how to live into well-being, you can substitute different words for well-being. You could say, tap my passion, discover my purpose, live a life of meaning. All of those words really fit into what positive psychologists are helping us to do to live into that space, and they do it by teaching us.
00:32:20
Speaker
how to shut down the itty bitty shitty committee inside our heads. And that's not a technical term. That's a Bevin each term. Yeah, no, no. I've heard that. I've heard that term called like the drunken monkey. There you go. Exactly. I just like to call it the shitty committee inside your head. So to teach you how to stop thinking that, gosh, I'm going to live the good life once I fix this thing about myself that really stinks.
00:32:46
Speaker
And instead, it teaches us how to focus on discovering what we are really great at, what strengths we were born with, what our unique strengths fingerprint is, and it teaches us how to focus and train there. And that's how we live into well-being, discover purpose.
00:33:02
Speaker
And and create meaning for ourselves and and those around us. I like to say it's how we bring the best version of ourselves to world so I started this work in internal space because interestingly of a professional opportunity to start a company and Thank God for that because it taught me how to get quiet to look internally to discover patterns and
00:33:31
Speaker
and look for learning. And so repeat those again, repeat, repeat those again. Hold on. I have to grab a piece of paper because I'm just going to, yeah, go ahead. Say those again. It taught me how to get quiet, to look internally, to ask myself in moments, this was a moment of hardship, but what's the learning? What can I learn here?
00:34:01
Speaker
And as I was training myself on how to do that holistically, who knew what a gift that would be in helping me to navigate a trauma of losing my child.
00:34:20
Speaker
Side story for me, this is helpful to understanding how important getting quiet is. I'm a salesperson. I'm talking to you in a very calm, even tone. But my regular state of being is this, I'm on, I've got zest, I've got passion, I've got drive, I've got, you know, that's who I am.
00:34:43
Speaker
No different modality in between and what strength training taught me how to do is to develop a new modality and and so when I lost my child one of the first things that happens is I
00:35:01
Speaker
You're nev-, for me, my never-ending energy source, for anyone else who maybe doesn't have quite as much energy as I have, but your energy is immediately sapped. It is gone. It is gone. Physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual energy, non-existent.
00:35:19
Speaker
And had I not had strength. It blocks. Oh, it blocks everything. Because it's blocking, yeah. I'm listening to the Untathered Soul book, and it talks about when you're blocking those flows of energy, exactly about the emotional part. Yes. And how you're like, how could you be in bed? But then the moment that's something, let's say,
00:35:42
Speaker
something that's, I don't know, exciting that fuels your soul again. Suddenly all of a sudden you have the energy to run a marathon in that moment, even though you've been just brought... Okay, so sorry, that was my side. No, it's a great part of the story. You're drained emotionally, physically, spiritually, in every single way.
00:36:05
Speaker
And for someone like me that's super high energy, it is so disorienting. And had I not started this internal strengths training before I lost Spencer, I think that disorientation would have kept me in bed because I just wouldn't have known what to do. But because of the strengths training that I had started, I'd learned, I had started to train myself on how to get quiet. So then when I had no energy and it was definitely quiet,
00:36:34
Speaker
I wasn't completely without tools to try to figure out how to get through. And the tool that I leaned on heavily during this time is that strength of curiosity where I just started to ask myself, what am I supposed to be learning right now? What am I supposed to be figuring out for myself so that then I can go teach others? Because, yes, I am a salesperson and
00:37:00
Speaker
What I do is I train, so I train salespeople. So my brain is very wired to want to, once I learn something, teach others the same. And I thought to myself, well, this process of dying, death, sorrow, grief, trauma,
00:37:16
Speaker
there's something that can be learned and taught here too you can teach people about this also and in teaching others you know when you teach someone else you teach yourself at the same time absolutely absolutely so i just started to look for patterns i started to look for learnings and um and then i started to uh to write about it and it and it kind of just unfolded organically i started to
00:37:42
Speaker
right on my Facebook page, the questions that people have asked me. Yeah. Tell us because you mentioned a little bit when we spoke about, is it Saturday meditation? Saturday meditation. Meditations that you call your Saturday posts. That's right. And you chose to pick a day to write. We were talking about this that you didn't want it to necessarily be that it was consuming your whole feed.
00:38:05
Speaker
but that it was kind of focused on a certain day so people could still get those answers that maybe they had in their head, you would basically just lay them out there in your post. So share a little bit about
Sharing Grief Through Writing
00:38:19
Speaker
that. So at the highest level, it was really important for me as I started to document the process of a lost journey, teach
00:38:30
Speaker
It was really important for me to show that someone who has lived through the deepest trauma can still have joy, can still have relationships, can still have a full and rich life.
00:38:48
Speaker
And so as I started to write about my last journey, I realized very quickly, I can't have every post be about death. Like who wants to log in and look at that? That's just- Well, mine end up being that, because in my podcast one, mine end up being all about- Not always, but- But we're telling a holistic story of our lives and we're with you as well. Correct. And so I wanted to make sure that I was being truthful about my experience. And part of my experience is,
00:39:16
Speaker
How do we still give ourselves permission to feel joy? And so my weekday posts are about sales training tips. They're about my job. They're about the fun things we get to do, running a fashion company. They're behind the scenes of wearing clothes and doing trainings. It is what a traditional feed might be. And then every Saturday, I reserve that time. It is sacred.
00:39:44
Speaker
to write about my lost journey. And I made a commitment in the earliest days to myself, I didn't publicly declare it until recently, that I would answer or talk about, answer any question or talk about the entire process of grief, not just the things I wanted to write about, but everything, even the most uncomfortable things.
00:40:08
Speaker
And so last week, sorry, the week prior, I wrote probably one of my hardest Saturday meditations. And it was because, again, somebody was brave enough to ask me the question. Thank God for my brave people in my life. Are these friends or just? Not all of them come in as DMs or PMs. Some of them are friends. Some of them are people who work in our sales community that I've never met before, but they are part of our sales community.
00:40:38
Speaker
And the question came in asking me if I had to identify Spencer's body. And I thought, wow, all right, I'm going to take this one on. I'm going to tell you about identifying my son's body. And other posts that I've written about are, how do you avoid saying, how are you? I mean, that's the question that everyone on a brief journey gets in the earliest days. And it is the worst question that you can face.
00:41:07
Speaker
So I can teach, I can share in that post, I could teach someone who wants to say, how are you? Different words to say. And I can also teach the person who's in a lost journey who receives the question, how are you? How to respond so that you don't have to answer that question head on. You actually have other ways that you can respond to it. So I have
00:41:28
Speaker
practical advice, how to, of a lost journey. And then I have very, very personal parts of a lost journey, packing up my son's room, reading letters that people wrote to me. I've shared excerpts of letters about Spencer. I have one thing that I think is really important for people to know who are listening, who have not been on a lost journey, but may be supporting others on a lost journey.
00:41:57
Speaker
I have learned by talking to parents who have buried their children that one of the deepest held fears in their bodies is that their child will be forgotten.
00:42:08
Speaker
the world will forget who their child is. And so some of my posts are just telling you about Spencer for two reasons. One, I don't want the world to forget who he was. He was incredible. He was a power lifter. He was a commercial fisherman. And in his free time when he fished, he was a catch and release fisherman just to take pictures of the beauty of God's bounty of the sea. I mean, he just was just a super cool, neat kid.
00:42:38
Speaker
super passionate and and I want the world to know who he was because I don't want them to forget and then I want parents who have lost their children to know that they have permission to share about their child too and I want people to know that you can ask not only can you need to ask
00:42:58
Speaker
the parent on a lost journey to talk about their child because they want to, they need to, it's part of their lost journey and you need to be brave enough my friends supporting us on the lost journey, brave enough to sit and listen and bear witness.
00:43:14
Speaker
It's what you're saying is just so important because I want to facilitate a group, you know, a grief group. And one of the things in general in my journey of either talking to people that have grieved or in these kinds of things is that question of the people just contact you maybe the first week or so. And then sometimes people stop because they don't know and they don't know what to say sometimes either and how to be
00:43:42
Speaker
supportive. And what you shared about your post, not only the right thing to say, but also the right way to receive it, that as a person that is going through the journey of grief, to be somebody that really has a lot of grace and that is forgiving to the people that also come into their space with the things that are not really the right things.
00:44:08
Speaker
And maybe with tactfulness, maybe tell them, thank you so much for asking. I appreciate it. I'm going to just share this with you just so you know that just that question of the how are you is just really tough to answer for somebody that's just lost. I know that your intentions are totally
00:44:26
Speaker
pure and I really appreciate it so it may be rephrasing it of like you know how are you feeling today or I don't know which actually tell me some of the things that you shared of what of some of those words that I mean we could go look for your post too but just say a few of those phrases. I think one of the simplest ways to respond if
00:44:45
Speaker
if you receive the how are you question and you don't wanna go deeply but you need to say something, I say you can look right at the person and you can say to them, I'm so glad to see you. Because that's true.
00:45:01
Speaker
You don't need to answer that you were in the shower wailing that morning. You don't need to say that you saw a picture and fell to your knees. You don't need to. You can if you want to. But if you don't have the energy or the desire to, then the most truthful, authentic thing you can say in that moment is, I'm so glad to see you. And that lets you move into the conversation after that.
00:45:26
Speaker
Unless it is in that space of wanting to be able to have somebody listen to your... Yeah, that's right. You have to decide in that moment how deep you want to go into your own grief sharing.
00:45:40
Speaker
And now what about like the type of phrases that for you, for example, when somebody would ask you, what were some of those phrases that you thought, wow, that is actually a good question that they're asking me of wanting to know how I'm feeling, but in a different way. So what were some of those that you noticed in this journey?
00:45:59
Speaker
Well, it's one that I actually did sort of teach people to do a little shift on. So there's a wonderful book that is out there written by Sheryl Sandberg. I'm sure you're familiar with it.
00:46:12
Speaker
It's option B and in that book after losing her husband. She talks about the how are you question being so hard and She encouraged people to say instead of how are you to say? How are you today? And yes that or the second?
00:46:29
Speaker
I actually have not read that book. I just wrote it. Oh, it's a wonderful book. I encourage you to pick it up. It's a wonderful book. And so she said, that helps to narrow it. And I remember reading that and thinking to myself, that is helpful. It does narrow it. But it didn't totally work for me still, because how are you today is still asking me to make an assessment of self. Where am I in my grief journey? That may not be what the person intends in that question, but that's what you hear when you're on a lost journey. Like, how are you coping today?
00:46:58
Speaker
And so I've encouraged people to deduce one more shift and say, how is today? So no more is it about me, but it's just about this inanimate object of today. And for some reason for me, that's easier to answer. And I can usually say things like today's a really busy day. You know, we launched a product collection and we filmed three videos and I'm tired and ready for a glass of wine in bed. Or if I feel comfortable, I could say today's a hard day.
00:47:28
Speaker
Today is a day I thought was Spencer a lot and I'm going to be honest with you, it is a hard day.
00:47:34
Speaker
And that's, for me, a more comfortable way of doing a check-in with someone on my loss journey than feeling like someone's asking about me holistically. That's harder for me. You know, it also, there is something about that question, even though it still could be a good, not good type of answer, there could be that. But when you have to specify the how is today, and like you said, you could be like, well,
00:48:01
Speaker
today, like you said, the area of your business. If I want to talk about my business, I could go there with my answer. If I wanted to go about my feelings. Well, just like you said, if you say the, how are you? You do have to say, how are your emotions? How are you? It's not necessarily the day itself. I could go like, how is today? I could start talking about, well, the kids start at school. I could completely go into that busy thing of life if I really don't want to address my feelings in that moment.
00:48:29
Speaker
It gives them more degrees of freedom on how they respond. That is a really good shift in how to say. Now, what are the things you started already talking a little bit about the gratitude component that you already started to use pretty much early on in even just getting yourself out of bed pretty much because of the feeling like, okay, there is a reason
00:48:53
Speaker
There is a learning in this, right? And be quiet, look for, well, you see, I can't understand my own reading, my own writing. Look for what, you see, look internally, look internally and ask myself what lesson, that part. So you started already asking that.
00:49:13
Speaker
pretty early on so you could already see the gratitude or the growth or the reason component of what you were going through early on. It's super interesting. Before I lost Spencer, we
00:49:34
Speaker
See, I still even say lost before we lost. It's okay. That's why I asked her at the beginning. What do you want? Because again, we don't all feel ready and nobody has to push somebody else to say something that they're not ready to embrace yet. I didn't raise my mom's phone number from my phone till I think two years after she had died. Spencer's still in my favorites. He can't take it off.
00:50:00
Speaker
So you see the same. I couldn't either until the, I butt dialed by accident, you know, like the phone call. And then when that person called me back, the new owner that, yeah, and seeing the name of it in my car, mommy, you know, mommy calling that, then I was like, for me was that sign I, after I said, Oh, sorry, I just dialed the wrong number. And after I hung up with that person, I said, I get it, mommy, I get it. I know it's time. And so that was the day I felt called to delete it.
00:50:30
Speaker
But for everybody, it's different. So it may not be that way for somebody else. It may be something else that they're still attached to or that have a little bit more of a trouble kind of releasing from. And even it could just be that use of those particular words of what
00:50:52
Speaker
what they choose to use in that so it's okay so continue so when when when you lost Spencer when we came home the Coast Guard was still running its search so it was between day one and day two and I got in bed that night and I turned off the lights and as you can imagine sleep did not come and I sat there and my brain was was turning and
00:51:18
Speaker
Even though as I shared with you, you hold on to that 1% hope for your child, there's the other side of you that says to you, he's gone. He's gone, Bevin, he's already gone. And so I sat up in bed and I thought, I have to do something. I can't just sit here and stare in the darkness. So I turned my light back on and I pulled out my,
00:51:47
Speaker
At the time, I called it my notebook. I didn't even call it a journal. Really, about two months before Spencer had died, I can say that, I had started a gratitude journal, gratitude notebook, where I was just beginning a practice of looking back at my day, finding one thing I was grateful for, and just writing it down, not even in complete sentences.
00:52:09
Speaker
So I pulled that notebook out and I flipped all the way to the back. I didn't want to put an entry in sequence. It needed its own space. So I literally flipped to the last page and I dated the top. To be the first, to be the first. You basically starting it as if you were from the Middle East, like a different time. Exactly, exactly. And I put the date at the top. Another beginning, another beginning. I put the time. And I just started writing.
00:52:38
Speaker
Gratitudes for Spencer. What was I grateful for that I had a chance to have this child for 20 years? And they just flowed. I don't know how long I wrote, probably
00:52:52
Speaker
10 minutes, and I filled the page, and I flipped to the other side, and I filled the page, and they were all different things, like teaching me about fish, to just being an incredible big brother who was so brave, taught his brothers so much, to being so strong, just silly things, but also meaningful things to me.
00:53:18
Speaker
I just needed to do something in that moment to create. It's not about trying to find the answer. It's not about trying to give his death meaning. That's different. But it was about trying to create meaning in that moment. And for me, going to a place of gratitude was like my own
00:53:49
Speaker
life support in that moment. It was like the, you know, throwing out the life ring for me into the water that I could hold on to. And that is a practice that I've continued through till today, religiously. Now I do call it a gratitude journal. And it is simply looking back at the day
00:54:13
Speaker
and finding one thing that I am grateful for. And sometimes it's that my kitchen is clean. I mean, it's not particularly groundbreaking. Yeah, gratitude doesn't have to be huge things all the time. Yeah. And sometimes it's a gratitude that Sally had the bravery to ask me.
00:54:35
Speaker
about my lost journey and then I was able to write about it. Gratitude showed up right away in the middle of trauma. That's the thing. It makes you just so much more grateful and empathetic to the world because you're just so much in tune to everybody else's pain. I'm sure that in the industry that you're in,
00:55:01
Speaker
It just is also such an eye-opener because you're able to relate to other people now in their life. Actually, share a little bit before you came back to work because that was something that you shared in our pre-interview.
Returning to Work & Community Support
00:55:15
Speaker
Share a little bit about that of what it is because people are probably like, oh my gosh, she's coming back. What are we going to say? Exactly. How is that? My role at my company internally is very much
00:55:30
Speaker
public for our internal community and then externally facing to the world of our clients. It's also very public. Before COVID, I was on the road and before we lost Spencer also during this time, I was on the road two to four days every single week traveling across the country to give trainings, to deliver workshops, seminars, conferences, keynotes.
00:55:55
Speaker
So my life was very, very public. And that all came to a screeching halt after we lost Spencer. And I was on bereavement leave for about 12 weeks. And when I came back, I was actually 13 in the end. And when I came back,
00:56:16
Speaker
I came back to deliver our internal leadership conference where we would have the top of our leadership and sales into Boston where our home office is. To something big right away. Yes, to their annual conference. Something big right away. That's right. That's right. And so there were two things that I had to do. One was I needed to come back into my office with our internal team. And then I had to come back very publicly with our sales team.
00:56:46
Speaker
And Janet, my CEO, before I came back to the office, she said, you know, Bevin, you're coming into the office in a few days. Is there anything you would like me to say or is it anything that you would like to say to prepare the home office to receive you? And I said, wow, it's a really good question. I said, hold on. I've been doing a lot of thinking and asking what the learning is. Give me a minute. I think I do have something to say.
00:57:16
Speaker
And that actually was the beginning of me writing about the lost journey because Janet asked that question. So people asking questions is just so powerful. So that's why if anybody wants to heal, just hop on the podcast. I'll ask questions too. Exactly. So I started writing and actually titled the one page or the white paper, if you will, that I titled it at the top, you know, how to five steps for helping your friend through grief. I mean, it was a really cheesy title at the top. I mean, who knew what I was doing at that stage.
00:57:44
Speaker
But I wrote down five things for them to be able to receive me. So I talked about, instead of how are you, what they could say instead. I talked to them about how touch can have an emotional reaction, but don't be afraid to hug me. People are afraid to hug because they think they made you cry. Oh, you did not make me cry, my friend. The tears were always there, always there under the surface. You're not reminding me that I lost my son, I know.
00:58:13
Speaker
So don't be afraid to hug me. You didn't make me cry. And we talked about how talking and saying Spencer's name and sharing stories of Spencer is the greatest gift that you could give. And so that's how I sort of prepared our home office to receive me.
00:58:33
Speaker
And then in preparation for our sales community to receive me actually held a series of 19 different one on one call, not one on one, sorry, small group calls with with groups of one to eight leaders on the call.
00:58:48
Speaker
to take them through that basic concept again and to let them know that I'm still bevin', I'm still zesty, I still have energy and I do now have a lost journey that will be forever a part of my life. So hug me, talk to me, know that I'll cry, don't be afraid. And we talked a lot about bearing witness because one of the things that
00:59:13
Speaker
We, particularly in our culture, I have seen other cultures do this better than the American culture, the United States culture, and that is learning how to sit by someone's side.
00:59:26
Speaker
And just bear witness. Be, just be, just be there. Yeah. That's even if it's just like being on the other side of a phone, just there, even if it's silent, I just thinking of like, um, right. Just yeah, just to just try to fix it. I know. Yep. Don't try to fix it. Don't try to fill the space with conversation. Just be with me and be okay with the silence by my side. That's very witness. And that does help a lost traveler.
00:59:56
Speaker
to be comforted and it is a part of the healing process. The ripple effect that by you having this experience, by you sharing that with the sales team as well as the people inside, then that ripple effect that goes on to the people that they're around. That's right. Because now it's like anytime any of their friends or
01:00:18
Speaker
people in their own team have, you know, a loss or, you know, a death or something, another big grief, you know, encounter a loss of a job, a lot, any other type of thing that can happen. They now have also these tools to use in that and to be there and to be, and to just be, and to just be one of the greatest
01:00:43
Speaker
I say it's Spencer's living legacy and it's one of the greatest gifts that someone can give to me is When I receive a note from someone I know or don't know and it says to me Bevan I want you to know that because I read your post about fill in the blank one of the Saturday meditation posts
01:01:04
Speaker
when my best friend's son died in a car accident two weeks ago, I knew how to be there for her. And I wouldn't have if I hadn't read that. That's a gift. And that's why I write.
01:01:23
Speaker
It's the aspect of putting yourself in a vulnerable situation, knowing that not only is it going to help your healing, but also, and again, healing. When we talk about healing and grief, again, it doesn't mean there's nothing to fix, we were saying, right? It's just the aspect of knowing how to live your life with this wound that's always going to be there.
01:01:46
Speaker
The fact of you sharing that then creates these kind of ripples and it's just so comforting because then you do know, okay, okay, there is a reason of why I had to post. That's right. And even though I felt uncomfortable, that one person that had that positive experience of being able to support their friend, that was worth it. It was worth my vulnerability and my uncomfortableness in order to help that.
01:02:12
Speaker
That is just so much. And right now too, for you to be on this podcast and sharing your story and the listeners that are now hearing this, just know that not everybody, by the way, and this is one thing too that I say, not everybody has to share their grief story in the same way. Um, not everybody has to write a blog. Not everybody has to be on a podcast. Everybody has their own way in which their story can impact somebody else. And it could be even, you know,
01:02:40
Speaker
I don't know, planting a garden in honor of somebody. Everybody has their own journey of their grief. That's exactly right. Yeah, just respecting that. Yeah, not everybody's journey is the same, and how you express it is not the same.
01:02:55
Speaker
So thank you again. Anything else you wanted to share? I know, do you want to say any, I'm going to put your contact in the notes, but if you want to just quickly say how they can find you if they're already, if they are driving and don't want to scroll down right now and find the link as they're listening to the podcast.
01:03:11
Speaker
Well, one of the things I like to say is as a child, I hated my first name because it was so unusual. And now as an adult, I'm very grateful for it. There are very many Bevins in the world. So that is B as in boy. I always have to say that Bevin. So you can actually find me on Instagram. Bevin Mugford is simple.
01:03:31
Speaker
That's how you can find me, Facebook as well. And what I say to people is you can search for a Saturday meditation and they are there every Saturday. Very rarely do I miss Saturday. That's usually only if I'm on the road on a conference and that's pretty rare these days where we're sheltering in place.
01:03:50
Speaker
Please don't be shy about sending a private message even if we don't know one another. There are no questions out of bounds and by you asking me the question, you help me to look for the learning and when I discover it and share it out, you're helping others as well.
01:04:08
Speaker
I do encourage the personal contact and questions so we can learn together. And like I say, break the silence that surrounds death because it is the guarantee that we have in life. We will face death of someone that we love or supporting someone that we love as they face the death of their loved one.
01:04:29
Speaker
With that, we'd like to end. Thank you so much again, Bevin. That's just beautiful takeaways that you shared today. Thank you. Thank you, Kendra. Thank you to Spencer also for allowing us to share his story as well.
01:04:49
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
01:05:14
Speaker
who may need to hear this, please do so. 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.