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1. My Own Grief and Gratitude Journey
110 Plays5 years ago
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.
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.
Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch with me www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
(The music that I used was created by my brother Daniel Badi Rinaldi https://www.rinaldisound.net/)
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:27
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.
Redefining Grief
00:00:50
Speaker
Hi there and welcome to the first episode of Grief, Gratitude and the Gray in Between. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I thought I'd start off this first episode by sharing a little bit about why it is I picked the topic of grief for a podcast.
00:01:13
Speaker
So let me just first start off by saying, but I looked up the definition of grief and I just want to share what I found. So I, this is what I found. Grief means intense sorrow. You feel it if something terribly sad happens. Comes from the Latin word gravare, which means heavy.
00:01:42
Speaker
Now this definition came from vocabulary.com. Now I have to disagree with a part of this definition where it says that it's something terribly sad that happens.
00:01:56
Speaker
Now, why I say that is because I believe that people can experience grief and happy life changing moments as well, like getting married, becoming a parent, moving, changing jobs, etc.
Joy and Grief in Life Changes
00:02:10
Speaker
I believe that grief occurs when there is a big change.
00:02:17
Speaker
change in our life, a change in maybe even the idea or expectation of what we even thought our life would look like, and it doesn't meet our reality. Now, as an example of how happy moments can still be grief, I'm just gonna share for example that of marriage.
00:02:42
Speaker
So a marriage brings two people together and two lives that now suddenly merge and it changes.
00:02:51
Speaker
a lot, a lot changes when there's a marriage because now there are things that each party has to leave behind at times in order for this union to occur. For example, maybe somebody has to leave the previous home that they used to live with. They might have lived with their parents and siblings and or even sometimes even moving to another city or country because you've gotten married.
00:03:18
Speaker
Some of the other things that change are also the family dynamics, as well as your friendships.
00:03:26
Speaker
Now, just because you're feeling sad or grief because of what has changed doesn't mean that you can't feel joy of what your present looks like, as well as what the idea of the future holds. So I can say that getting married for me and becoming a mom brought immense amounts of joy, but they also brought grief.
00:03:55
Speaker
So there was a different identity that was born, and part of my old identity was gone. I really, really struggled for many years with that, especially after becoming a mom.
Identity Struggles Post-Motherhood
00:04:10
Speaker
And I...
00:04:13
Speaker
I was just struggling to find the little bits of me that I had left behind and I really didn't know how to be able to merge them into this new part of my life and my identity as a mom. And I finally found that probably when my kids were about
00:04:34
Speaker
three and four that I was able to finally kind of weave that in and bring it into that identity as a mom and bring those parts of me.
00:04:47
Speaker
So I've explained a little bit about my interpretation with grief in happy moments that can happen in happy moments. And now I want to talk a little bit about the grief that comes when someone dies and my own experience with death and grief. And you'll actually hear a little more into some of those stories as I interview even some of my family members as well.
Faith and Grieving Process
00:05:15
Speaker
through the different podcasts, but I want to just share the reason that I am so passionate about creating this podcast is because I have personally experienced grief in both these happy moments and also, of course, in these life changing moments that happen to be the death of a loved one.
00:05:38
Speaker
And I think it's important that I share a little bit about my beliefs about death because they do play a huge part in how it is that I and even my family members dealt with the process of grief. And I think that as I've coached people in their own grieving process, one of the things that I've realized is that
00:06:07
Speaker
Sometimes how we grew up and what we grew up believing about death make a huge part in our process of grieving because there are times in which the ideas that we grew up with may not match the current ideas we have about grief.
00:06:32
Speaker
And sometimes they do. So anyhow, just again, I wanted to share a little bit about that. So I grew up believing that death was not the end of life, but rather a transition. So this is coming from the Baha'i faith, which is in the core of my beliefs. And here's a quote of the Baha'i writings, which I really love. It says the following. This is a quote by Abdul Baha.
00:07:02
Speaker
To consider that after death of the body, the spirit perishes. Is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken. Though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage and the spirit is like the bird.
00:07:31
Speaker
If the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue to exist. Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased.
00:07:50
Speaker
I just love that imagery and growing up believing that really made a huge part in how I was able to deal with death later to come.
Exploring Diverse Beliefs on Grief
00:08:06
Speaker
Again, I just want to just share that these are just my, my beliefs but I will be, I will be interviewing people with so many different backgrounds and beliefs, and I value all of those beliefs and I know that you as listeners will be able to identify
00:08:24
Speaker
with different journeys differently and you might be able to listen to some perspectives that you might have never thought that you could actually incorporate into your own beliefs as well. So just be open-minded as you listen in the future podcasts and the interviews
00:08:43
Speaker
to all these stories and maybe some of these things can bring you a sense of comfort and also just that idea of knowing that somebody else has gone through similar trials that you have gone through or are going through in your life and that they're still able to live their lives in a rich, meaningful way.
00:09:08
Speaker
So I've had many experiences with death and grief in my life and I could go into detail on to how each and every one of them had a tremendous effect in my life, but I'm going to be brief and just really just tell you a couple and the and again, I'll go into depth into these in later podcasts, but
Personal Losses and Impact
00:09:35
Speaker
When I was 21 years old, 1996, my sister passed away in a car accident. She was 18 years old. Now, just the year prior to that, December 20th, 1995, there had been a major airplane, a very, very tragic airplane accident in Cali, Colombia, which is the city that I grew up in.
00:10:03
Speaker
And basically almost everybody, but maybe three or so people on that plane died. And it so happened that about eight people that were in that plane were people that I knew. And three of them happened to be actually very good friends of mine that had actually graduated with me from high school just the year before.
00:10:28
Speaker
Now, the reason I mention this is because a lot of times when we see people experience some kind of hardship and we see them maybe navigate it in a way that seems so... How do I say this?
00:10:53
Speaker
in a way that seems so easy. I don't want to say that in like easy, but let's say easier than maybe we would have imagined us going through it. We may not know really how many other tests and trials and processes of growth
00:11:10
Speaker
they had gone through before they experienced that particular incident. So that's the reason I'm kind of sharing just that I again, my friends had passed away in 1995. My sister, December 1995.
00:11:27
Speaker
And my sister passed away December 17, 1996, and her burial was on December 20, 1996, so just exactly a year after the death of my friends. And December 20 also happens to be my dad's birthday.
00:11:48
Speaker
And I share that because that's a topic that I'll probably talk about in later episodes. Hopefully I get to interview my dad and share a little bit about what that meant even for him to have buried his daughter on his birthday.
00:12:09
Speaker
I also didn't mention that that same 1996 in January of 1996 my grandmother in Colombia passed away. So just a month after my friends died and I was living in the States. So I was not able to attend my friends burials or my grandmother's burial either.
00:12:31
Speaker
So that played a part in my way of maybe really having some type of closure because I didn't attend their funerals. And actually till this day, I have actually not attended their gravesites. I haven't never been to their gravesites in Colombia either.
00:12:49
Speaker
So, anyhow, I just thought I'd share that because those are very, very big moments in my life that really have been the catalyst of me being so passionate about this topic of grief.
00:13:10
Speaker
and about sharing my story with other people and then listening to people's stories and how they've been able to go through grief and what are the things in their life that have brought them hope in those processes.
00:13:29
Speaker
So the other huge thing in my life that also happened and which is a more recent one is that on November 7th, 2016, my mom passed away from pancreatic cancer. So that was basically almost 20 years after my sister's passing.
00:13:56
Speaker
And that same year that my mom passed away at the beginning of the year, my aunt and a cousin had died as well. Also in Colombia and my mom was here in the States. So again, those other two funerals that I was not able to attend.
00:14:13
Speaker
And on the same year that my mom passed and these were my mom's sister and her nephew. So all that in a year. And again, there's been way more things, but I,
00:14:29
Speaker
I again just want to share this, not for for anybody to feel pity, but rather to really understand why it is I'm so passionate about grief and helping others in the process, because I have lived it myself.
Cultural Background and Passion for Grief Work
00:14:49
Speaker
So just a little bit about me is that I, as you heard here a little bit about Columbia, I was born and raised in Columbia, Cali, Columbia, South America. That's where I was raised. My dad's from California. My dad is
00:15:07
Speaker
I'm American to whatever that may be, but from immigrant, a father from Italy, and a mother who was born and raised in the countryside of Illinois, Arcola in Illinois, I believe it's mainly corn fields.
00:15:27
Speaker
But my dad grew up in California and he moved to South America in his late 20s and met my mom. And my mom is from Colombia and they got married and had four children. So I'm the eldest of four. My sister's Arana, who is the one I mentioned that passed away in 1996.
00:15:53
Speaker
She was two years younger than me. And then there's my sister, Catherine, who was born seven years after my sister, Zirana. And then our brother, Danny, who was born four years after Catherine.
00:16:11
Speaker
So that is a little bit of the family dynamic. And as you now know, my mom has now passed and so has my sister. So now it's my dad, my sister, Catherine, and my brother, Danny, and myself. And then all of us are married. My dad actually remarried as well.
00:16:32
Speaker
And so that's just a little just of my upbringing now at the current moment I am in Dallas I as I mentioned I'm married my husband's name is Carlos and I have two kids.
00:16:47
Speaker
Matteo and Mila. And to be honest, I don't even know if our lives would look like, I don't think any of my siblings lives would look like what they look like now had we not gone through all the different tests and trials that we went through and that experience of grief. And there are so many, many things that we're so grateful for.
00:17:14
Speaker
And of course, especially for our families. And I don't believe any of us would have met the spouses we're married to had we not become the people we are through the growth we went through in our life experiences.
Growth and Gratitude Through Grief
00:17:32
Speaker
So that is just a little bit and I hope to share a little more about my life in the future. But I am again so excited to interview people in these podcasts and have you listen to these incredible journeys and stories. And again, feel like you are walking alongside others that have gone through what you've gone through.
00:17:59
Speaker
and that you can see the light at the end of that tunnel. You know, sometimes when we're in the middle of a storm, we don't realize that there will be a rainbow once it is settled. And I know from
00:18:18
Speaker
Again, years of having lived it myself and from now a few years of working alongside others that have grieved and also volunteering as a grief facilitator, that there are a lot of things that happened.
00:18:36
Speaker
happen in your moment of grieving that brings so much gratitude. So again, welcome to grief, gratitude, and the gray in between.
Conclusion and Invitation to Listeners
00:18:50
Speaker
And I can't wait for you to experience this ride with me. Thank you again.
00:19:00
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.
00:19:28
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.