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Lessons from Five Years of Grief
0 Playsin 11 hours
In this deeply heartfelt episode, recorded on the sister’s mom’s 5-year heavenly anniversary.
Join the sisters as they talk through the raw emotions, the healing process, and the ways grief has reshaped their life. Lulu shares 5 Lessons she has learned from grief thus far that are super impactful for any listener.
This episode is a tribute to love, loss, and the strength it takes to keep moving forward. Grab your favorite drink, get cozy, and let’s sit with it all together.
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Transcript
Introduction & Emotional Reunion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Girl I Slept in My Makeup podcast by three sisters who are at three different life stages and have three different perspectives. They're excited to learn and grow alongside of you. This is a space full of love and acceptance.
00:00:12
Speaker
No judgment because let's face it, sleeping in your makeup is more than a podcast title. It's a reminder that we all mess up. So give yourself and others lots of grace. Please welcome my three little sisters, Lauren, Megan, and Kristen.
00:00:32
Speaker
Hey sisters. Hey. Happy to see y'all today. sam Love your faces. I love y'all's faces too.
Reflections on Mother's Passing
00:00:40
Speaker
but I feel like mine looks all puffy from crying today.
00:00:43
Speaker
ah Listeners, today is October 9th is the day that we're recording this, which happens to be the five-year anniversary since our mom passed. And so it's always a special day for us. We like to celebrate all the days. I know her birthday is a special day for all of us too, but today we like to just celebrate it too in all of our different ways. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yes. I just can't believe it's been five years. Like, I don't know how to find honestly the words or like the deep ache of pain that comes with thinking like she's been gone that long. and Yeah. Like it feels like it's been so long, but then it's also feels like it's been so short at the same time.
00:01:23
Speaker
like right now It feels like it just happened yesterday, but then it's like, feel like I haven't gotten to talk to her or seen her in so long. Yeah. like we've accepted this reality that feels sad.
00:01:35
Speaker
You know what i mean?
Children's Spiritual Sensitivity
00:01:36
Speaker
Yeah. I think it's so crazy. i don't know if this is actually what's happening, but I think I've told y'all Kinder will be like, Like I showed him a picture of mom and he was like, Nana.
00:01:47
Speaker
It shocked me because I haven't really like give, showed him a lot of pictures of her and been like Nana, Nana, you know? And like, I swear he'll randomly just say Nana, but he also calls bananas Nana. So I'm like, where the setting we're in there's no reason for him to be saying banana, you know? So like we'll be in his room and he'll just look up in the corner and go Nana.
00:02:07
Speaker
i like to think that like he feels her spirit or something, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Brings me a lot of comfort. And it's like he knows Jesus. It's crazy how kids, they know Jesus. like I showed him.
00:02:19
Speaker
I've never been like, this is Jesus. you know And I literally showed him a picture of Jesus. And he goes, Jesus. its like Really? Yeah. like I had said Jesus, but I never showed him a picture of Jesus and said Jesus.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah. and But i I was like, Kinder, let's worship. So one morning I was like, let's worship
Lessons from Grief
00:02:38
Speaker
together. And he was like, yeah. Yeah. And he raised his hand. We're going Jesus, you know, and then i showed him a picture of Jesus and he goes, Jesus, it like shocked me. i was like, oh my God, you know, Jesus.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah. That's so cool. I remember when Kai was just about that age and there was a couple experiences like that when, yeah when I was rocking him in his room and Y'all might remember this, but above on the wall, I had these six black and white printouts of the time that he was in the NICU.
00:03:11
Speaker
And one of them, he was in his little incubator bed thing. Yeah. Anyways, we I rocked him every night before bed. And so his face was... facing those pictures. And he pointed up and he said that he was, I think a little bit older than kinder. Like he was, he could talk, you know, pretty well by this point. And he said something along the lines of that he remembered, he said, Oh, Jesus was there with me. I remember there, Jesus was with me or said something like that. I can't remember exactly now. I, I wrote it somewhere in my journal and a journal, wherever that may be. But I was just, it was kind of like what you're saying, where it just stops you and your steps. and you like so feel light yeah Yeah. You know, Jesus.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like the toddler babies, like they do have some sort of spiritual sense that we don't have. as a adult. Yeah. Or I think we just, as life goes on, we either block it or we tend to ignore it.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah. Well, this morning we woke up to a leak in our house. And so it kind of stopped me, you know, it, it kind of a preset my day for me, which was totally fine. My husband, Chris had to be out of the house all day today. So he was like, I'm so sorry, I'm leaving you with this. But so this morning since the worker, well, they're still here, but I just decided it was a good excuse to sit down and just be still with God for a bit. And then that usually leads to me journaling is kind of how I process things.
00:04:42
Speaker
So i already told you guys, but I wrote out just kind of, I didn't even intend for it to be five things that I've learned over the past five years, but As I was writing, it just turned into five. So i was like, well, I'll just stop there because that's, you you know, and since it's been five years. But so I thought that we could share those with our listeners.
00:05:04
Speaker
That sounds amazing. so I'll read what I wrote out this morning and We can add to it or however we want to go with it. But listeners, I hope that something in here brings you comfort no matter where you are or if you've experienced deep loss.
00:05:21
Speaker
And if you haven't, unfortunately, it's in the cards for all of us. So if you have love in your life, then you will experience grief at some point in time.
Grief, Grace, and Faith
00:05:31
Speaker
Okay. Five years without mom.
00:05:33
Speaker
Time doesn't make it softer. It changes the texture of the ache. The days of the pain literally taking my breath away or preventing my body to take a full breath are much fewer.
00:05:45
Speaker
The brain fog clears. Well, unless you're approaching 45 like me, and that's a whole other type of brain fog. Five things I've learned these past five years. Number one, grief doesn't end. It evolves.
00:05:59
Speaker
I won't get over losing mom. I've learned and I'm still learning to live with losing her. The pain softens, but the love stays just as strong.
00:06:10
Speaker
So there's no getting over loss and thank God for experiencing that type of love. Number two, grace and then more grace. Most people in our culture don't know how to stand in the space of deep loss.
00:06:26
Speaker
So grace is essential for others and for myself. And I didn't write this out here, but I'll just share in case people can relate to this. You know, you're not alone is there's just a lot of awkward. And I know you guys would say the same just with, with ourselves and with others. And like I said, people just get really uncomfortable with the subject.
00:06:49
Speaker
Not only the awkwardness, but another part of it is sadly and unfortunately, i had seen this in my spouse's family with some loss and with friends and stuff like that. But I never really, for some reason, thought it would happen in our family.
00:07:05
Speaker
And it did. But death and grief can also just bring out some ugliness and sides to people that you would never in a million years imagine. And it can be just really shocking and unexpected and uncomfortable.
00:07:22
Speaker
And so that was just a whole other part. to grief that I know we experienced in so many do that was kind of unexpected because up until the loss with mom, like I said, I had seen it in other people's lives, but for me personally, other than losing a best friend from college, anyways, it was just something that was unexpected. So even more reason to just have grace for yourself and others.
00:07:50
Speaker
Number three, grief strips us down to what's real. It clarifies priorities, faith, and relationships. We stop wasting time on things that don't matter.
00:08:01
Speaker
For me, i already had a strong faith and deep trust in God, but mom's death took that to another level. It forced me to spend more time with him not because I was trying to be spiritual or trying to check off it you know checklist of quiet time with him, but because it honestly felt like my only lifeline. Most other areas in my life for, I would say, probably the first two years after mom died were overlooked and for sure not thriving.
00:08:30
Speaker
But i felt like I could not make it through a day unless I started it out sitting with him. I didn't have fancy prayers. I simply fell into him and his arms.
00:08:42
Speaker
crying, listening, sometimes just sitting in silence with only Jesus's name able to come to my mind and out of my breath. But that space with God became where my strength was rebuilt.
00:08:54
Speaker
My relationship with him got deeper in a raw, real way, not because I wanted to be strong, but because I had no choice but to lean fully on him. God's tender love and care for every single one of us is so overwhelming.
00:09:09
Speaker
He cares in the most intimate way. And I didn't write this either, but that's truly my prayer just for everyone listening and everyone that I ever encounter in my life. I pray that you get to know Jesus in just the most intimate way and to truly study and learn and receive his character and who he is and the beauty that comes from that and the security and the purpose and the peace And I think you just are able to feel the whole point more intimately.
00:09:43
Speaker
Okay. Moving on to number four, faith doesn't erase pain. It redeems it. We can wrestle with God and still trust him. We can question and still believe both can exist in the same breath. I loved God deeply and still felt shattered.
00:09:59
Speaker
I prayed and still cried myself to sleep. Trust isn't about feeling okay. It's about choosing to believe God is still who he says he is, even when our hearts cannot make sense of it.
00:10:11
Speaker
That's what redemption looks like. It's God taking the pieces of our pain and slowly, quietly shaping them into something beautiful, not by erasing what happened, but by using it to deepen our compassion, our purpose, and our dependence on
Mother's Legacy & Conversations on Wishes
00:10:26
Speaker
him.
00:10:26
Speaker
And lastly, number five, Love is the only thing death cannot touch. Every memory, every laugh, every piece of wisdom mom gave us, it's still alive in us.
00:10:38
Speaker
That's her legacy, living and breathing through our lives. And I say that not just for us, but for everyone that mom encountered and She touched so many people's lives. I think everyone who knew the real Jill would agree that you just walked away from her presence, either knowing Jesus a little bit more, knowing yourself a little bit bit more, feeling loved, simply feeling seen.
00:11:02
Speaker
i think that that is just such a cool thing that those little crumbs that she left here, It's not just in the four of us, her children, but she touched so many and her legacy lives on through all of us.
00:11:15
Speaker
So just like our mom posted in and an Instagram post, I think this is when I was living in China and she gave me a birthday shout out, but in the caption, she said, and I quote, there is no time or distance in love. And then she went on to tell me that she carries me in her heart every moment and everywhere she goes for eternity.
00:11:34
Speaker
And to that, I say right back at you, mom, we hold your love secret in our hearts. And today we celebrate being five years closer to seeing you again. Love it. So sweet.
00:11:45
Speaker
So good. I know this is annoying, but I'm like, I need you to type all of that up for me. Yeah. Well, I wrote it out. I know, but I can't save it. You know what I mean? I need it tight. Okay.
00:11:57
Speaker
Okay. yeah Add to your to-do list. That's beautiful. yeah It's hard to like what you were saying with just dealing with different scenarios that came up from grief that we weren't expecting. It's just always a bummer to see sides of people you didn't know existed. And I think that's something i didn't know a lot about before grief. Yeah, just...
00:12:19
Speaker
I think the whole idea of why we talk about our grief is we felt we didn't understand it at all when we experienced it. And we just share so that maybe it'll help somebody else. I don't know, be a little more prepared. i don't think you can really prepare for someone you're close with dying, but think just understanding it a little bit more would have been helpful.
00:12:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In that sense too, just learning like there's conversations you realize, Oh, you probably should have had. with your loved one, just fully understanding their wishes and what they wanted, you know, so. And even too, some of my girlfriends were asking, you know, what questions can we ask our parents while we still have them?
00:13:01
Speaker
and I thought that was a really good question to ponder, even just little things, you know, maybe about their health, you know, their, what blood type are they? or and about maybe your health as a baby or a child, just things
Connecting Through Grief
00:13:14
Speaker
that, and it's hard to know what those are until you don't have them anymore. And so I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but I think that would be a real, and maybe it exists out there, but I think that's a, would be a helpful tool to have as your parents are aging or even if they're not, because just like our mom, it could happen tomorrow unexpectedly.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah. It's interesting too. I feel like God always puts me in positions with people who need to hear about my grief sometimes. For instance, our next door neighbor just lost his life partner. She passed away from cancer and I was leaving to go to the gym and I just saw him and he just had this look on his face.
00:13:54
Speaker
Oh my gosh, wait, sorry. I'm about to cry again. And I could just tell he was like really hurting. And I just felt, I was like, Hey, like how are you doing? and he was like, I'm not doing good.
00:14:04
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, he didn't know about my story or mom. And I was like, look, I just, but we'd only met each other one other time, by the way, like we don't know each other, but I was like, I think I'm just meant to tell you my story and how I've dealt with grief. And he, we ended up talking like for over an hour and I was like so late to my class anyway, not that that matters.
00:14:26
Speaker
But I was like, isn't it interesting how I feel God always puts us in places right where we're meant to be, you know, and I was just glad that I could, I don't know, be a bit of comfort for him in that moment.
00:14:37
Speaker
And you never know when or how that's going to happen. Yeah, there is. I think there is something special when you can tell immediately and talking with somebody if they have experienced something.
00:14:51
Speaker
Deep loss too. It's almost an unspoken feeling that you can get. it And when somebody else has, whether it doesn't have to be a parent, but any type of grief or deep loss, it's, you just kind of get each other, you know, and yeah really don't even have to say the words. It's just seeing each other and that light.
00:15:12
Speaker
And I think too, just Kristen, like you said, how asking the question, how are you? Yeah. Is, is really special and powerful, honestly, anybody, like it not even in grief, but just in life. It's like people want to be seen and and loved. And that's just a question that you can ask, but actually like sit and mean it and take an hour when you don't have an hour to listen to the response, you know?
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah. I think so much in life, we just get so busy and it's like, Hey, how are you? And just in passing. And it's kind of silly. I know. Yeah. And i learned so much. Like he went, he graduated SMU the same year dad did like he, him and or his ah significant other met at Glen Eagles. Like it just, I'm like, Oh, I should have, you know, why didn't I do this sooner? so it doesn't have to take grief to ask those questions like you said, Lauren.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yes. And I feel like too, this is a whole nother topic when we can't tackle this today, but I've been thinking about this a lot is grief in the workplace. It's really difficult
Balancing Grief and Work
00:16:17
Speaker
when you work for somewhere that's like corporate, basically,
00:16:21
Speaker
I don't know. I feel bad, but you know how the world moves on. It's even crazier in a work environment. And it's not that people don't care. Like I know they care, but it's, it has to be separate. Like your work comes first, you know, and it's just really hard.
00:16:36
Speaker
i don't know how to tackle that, but I feel like it's, something that I'm sure so many other people have dealt with out there. And I know I've dealt with it. it took me like a long time, to really be more focused at work after mom died. And I go in and out of issues, but I guess it's like anything in your personal life. It's hard to separate it from work and you kind of have to, and it just, yeah, it sucks.
Conclusion & Farewell
00:17:00
Speaker
If I'm being totally honest, it's really, really hard to do. Yeah. Well, yeah, because nothing else feels that like it matters, you know. Yeah, like all the little spreadsheets and the little things, like it all just seems so silly. I'm like, ugh, but we're going to die one day. Like, does this matter?
00:17:16
Speaker
yeah Which I know, like it matters, but just not, i don't know, it's really hard. Yeah. It's a tough one. Well, we love you guys. Yes. ah Hopefully some of it or any of it brings some kind of comfort to someone out there.
00:17:30
Speaker
so Agreed. Yes. You sisters grateful for y'all to grieve with too. I know. Love y'all too. Okay. Well, I can say a prayer. Okay.
00:17:41
Speaker
Jesus, thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for just meeting us where we're at in our grief. And i know God that you hold the brokenhearted so close. So as we are so brokenhearted, especially today, just give us an overwhelming peace and help us to continue to just spread um your joy and also just the legacy of our mom just how she made people feel seen and loved and help you know us do that.
00:18:13
Speaker
You through us do that. That makes sense. Thank you, Jesus. We just love you so much in Jesus name. Amen. and All right. Well, see y'all next time. Bye. Thank you for listening to another week of Girl I Slept In My Makeup.
00:18:28
Speaker
If you like us, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to learn more about us or get in touch with us, go to our website, girlisleptinmymakeup.com, where you'll also find links to our Instagram and Facebook.
00:18:42
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. And yeah, make it a great week. God bless.