Grieving in Color Episode #1:

[cheerful music starts]

[00:00:04] Welcome to Grieving in Color, a podcast that explores the various ways we navigate our experiences with grief and loss and a place where we find courage to intentionally heal in our daily lives. I'm your host, Dr. Chinasa Elue, a professor, speaker, and grief coach. And I'm inviting you to join me on this journey, embracing our grief and the full spectrum of our emotions, a palette of feelings that colors our lives even in the face of loss. Each episode, we dive into real stories of healing and growth, as we also feature guests who have found strength in sorrow, love in loss and joy even in their darkest times. Grieving in color is about acknowledging the pain, the loss, and the grief. But it is also about finding hope, love and joy again. Whether you are currently on your grief journey or supporting someone who is, this is a space for you. We are here to remind you that you are not alone, and it's okay to grieve in your own color.

[cheerful music ends]

Hey, good people. Welcome to the very first episode of Grieving in Color. Y'all, I cannot believe we're here. This is absolutely something I have wanted to do for some time. So I am so grateful to have you here. I have been really thinking deeply about what to share with you all, and I realize that in order for me to serve you in the manner in which I want to serve you, I have to first do so by sharing my own story. And so it took me a while to get here, y'all. But I am finally at a place where I know that I am ready to share my story, even though it's very deep and personal to me, because I recognize that for a lot of us, especially these past couple of years, you may be navigating grief and loss of all kinds. And so I hope that in sharing my own experience, perhaps that you may find some comfort, or this may be a starting point for you as you're gaining some understanding around how to deal with your own grief.

Again, I recognize that grief does not look the same for every person, and so I want to acknowledge that fully here. But I am finally ready to share. And so I hope that in sharing my own experience, that you may find some comfort or perhaps if you're starting to gain some understanding on how to navigate your own personal grief, whether it's through the loss of a loved one or other, that perhaps my story may resonate with you and help support you in your healing journey as well. So it all started on May 25th, 2019. That is the day that my world catastrophically changed forever. It was the day that I lost my mom to cancer, and it was an experience that absolutely rocked my entire world. And so, if you've ever been in a place where you've lost a parent, perhaps you can probably resonate with this or attest to this, that losing particularly a parent changes you in ways that you really can't articulate.

And to be frank, I really don't have words to put verbiage to how deeply her absence has impacted me since that date. I felt like a piece of my identity, a piece of who I am. A slice of my own history was taken from me on that date. And if you understand the magnitude of who my mom was to me, she was my rock. She was my beacon of hope and strength, especially as I was navigating being a new mom and navigating being a wife and all the things that I have been doing over the past couple of years. And so when she passed away, I felt like I lost a very, very deep part of who I was. And to be honest, her illness was something that took us all by storm. I can recall very intimately when we found out that she was diagnosed with cancer.

I was one month pregnant with my second child. And I remember just that Mother's Day, a month before her diagnosis, talking with her and sharing with her the news that we were expecting again. And she was over the moon and so excited. A few weeks later, a few short weeks later she wasn't feeling too well and ended up going to the hospital for what we thought would be a routine checkup. And that's when we found out the devastating news that she has stage four cancer. And I cannot begin to even tell you how he made sense of that diagnosis. It really did not make sense, to be honest. And I think for us and when I mean us, my siblings and my family, and extended family, when we learned that she was ill and that they had given her six months to live, I was floored.

I was absolutely floored because I could not, for the life of me understand how someone who was so full of life, someone who I had planned for her to see my children [00:05:00] and my children's children, was now at a place where they had limited her life expectancy to months, six short months. And here I was carrying life. And to be honest, when I look at my daughter every day, now, she's an absolute miracle because I did not think I would last in that pregnancy. I was floored. I really was. And so I remember, once we found out that she was ill having to begin to deal with all of the emotions, all the experiences that I thought she would be here for, that they were telling me that she would no longer be alive to see. And so that experience in and of itself was one that I could not put language to because it wasn't an experience I even expected to see unfold in my own personal life.

And so, as we navigated my mom's illness with her, I am a big believer of faith. And that's what carried me through on this journey. So I remember when we were walking with my mom through her cancer treatments, thinking to myself, would she be alive to even see my daughter? And thankfully, she lived beyond the six month life expectancy. In fact, she lived 11 months and had an opportunity to meet my daughter, sing to her, take many pictures with her and my kids, make many memories as much as she could. And then she passed away on May 25th, 2019.

And on that date, when she passed away, it seemed like a dream, honestly. It seemed like I was having an out of body experience watching her transition from this side of heaven to the next. And I knew from that point forward that my life would never be the same. And so when I began to talk about what it means to grieve in color, it means that I'm acknowledging the fact here that grief has a strange way of coloring the way that we look at the world. And for me my grief journey has not been a particular one shade or emotion. It's been a mix of different things. There are days where I'm sad because I know that she's missing all of the key milestones that I knew she prayed to see. There are days where I don't remember her recipes, and there are days where I don't remember the very things that she would tell me to do, how many minutes to keep the stove going while I was mixing all of the ingredients.

There are days that I would have a rough day coming back from work, and my mom was always the first person I would call when I hit this 285 traffic here in Atlanta. And she would say, hey, sis, what's the t? She was my girl. My mom was my girl, okay. And so just to know that I would not have her to talk to on these long commutes home was something that I was not prepared for. There was a longing, there was a deep, deep void in life as I began to by force reimagine my life without my mother. And so it's a journey that for many, many years that I have tried to place language to. And this year marked her fourth year of departure for us. And it's still been very hard, but there's also, in this same vein, been a lot of healing and a lot of growth at the same time.

And so, as I've launched this podcast, I really want to give language to something that we oftentimes do not talk about. Because to be honest, when we talk about death and dying in society, people don't want to talk about it. It's seen as a taboo topic. And oftentimes, you know when it comes to talking about the loss of your loved one, people want to act like they didn't exist. Or perhaps they're afraid to say the wrong thing. And so they don't bring their name up around you, or they don't ask how are you coping? Instead, they just make comments about everyday things. How's the weather? How are your kids doing? But there was a deep, deep desire inside of me to still honor her and talk about her. And I didn't have many spaces where that was normalized. And so, starting this podcast is a way for me to normalize conversations around death and dying, and particularly around grief and the grief of the loved ones that we have or are no longer with us in our lives.

So, as I begin to think about how I've been able to navigate my own grief I want to offer some coping strategies that I've been able to leverage. Now, this is just a disclaimer. It doesn't mean that I'm a one-stop shop with all solutions, but I think it's helpful to think about ways that I've been able to navigate my own loss in a very, very painful season and hopes of it being able to support someone else who may be in need of some support or strategies themselves. And so I'll mention here that having a spiritual practice has been absolutely a game changer for me. My faith has carried me through my entire grief journey. I identify as a Christian. And so [00:10:00] as a believer, I think one of the biggest things that was hard for me when I lost my mom was just having a solid prayer life.

I really, really struggled to pray. It wasn't that I didn't believe in God anymore. For me, it was really that I was just so hurt that she was gone. And I knew that in my heart that she was in a better place, I felt so sad. I felt so debilitated in that moment. I just felt like I had lost my absolute best friend. And so I did not know how to even open up my mouth. I did not know how to sing. I did not know how to worship. I did not know how to do anything because I was in a lot of pain. And I think in that space, that one thing that carried me through was being able to just turn on worship music, even when I did not have the words to fully articulate what I was going through and let the music wash over me, like it was a healing bomb.

And so, as I began to listen to music, I felt my spirits lifting. And over time, I began to regain my strength again and my encouragement again to start to pray. And I began to journal again and really narrow down on the different emotions that I was navigating. I was angry that she was gone. I was angry that she left so early. I was angry that I would no longer have memories with her. I was so sad that I would no longer hear her voice every day. It was all of the things that you can imagine when you lose someone who's so deeply ingrained in your day-to-day. And so, having that spiritual practice gave me a place where I could just be my absolute self and just be, I didn't have to put on for anyone. I didn't feel like I had to be a particular type of way.

I could just literally sit there and cry and listen to the words of the songs that I was playing and be encouraged in real time. And so over time, I found myself getting more and more encouraged. And I'll say this,as I kind of transition to the next strategy, that a big piece of me being able to navigate my own journey with loss has been acknowledging my feelings, right? I know sometimes we fear the F word, we fear talking about feelings but the thing here is that grief isn't linear. And so one thing I wasn't going to do was win an Oscar or an Academy Award for pretending to be okay. I acknowledged my feelings in real time. And so I remember going back to work, and it was about two months since she had passed. And I remember going in there, and I ran into some colleagues, and they asked me how I was doing, and I told them that I was struggling.

I told them that I was emotionally in a lot of pain, and that I just did not know how things were going to unfold as I started to immerse myself back into my work. And it was a good faith effort that I did that because they understood where I was and they met me where I was. And I know that may not be the context for everyone, but I found that on most days where I felt sad or I felt alone, that I had to just be honest with myself and say, hey, this is not a good day for you. And it's okay, but tomorrow's a new day. Tomorrow's another day to get better. And I don't mean get better in a sense of pathologizing or saying I needed medicine, because honestly, on any given day grief could take me out to be honest.

But I think acknowledging that I am putting one foot in front of the next, and that I am making a deliberate choice each day to get up and to acknowledge that yes, she is not here, but I know my mom and I know that I'm carrying her essence with me every day. Allow me the opportunity to be frank with myself, with my emotional state, and just say, it's okay to be angry. It's okay to cry. It's okay to feel numb. It's okay to laugh. It's okay to experience joy again. It doesn't mean that I've forgotten her. And I just recognize that all of the different emotions were unique to my own personal grieving process and that it was okay.

So I want to talk about the next strategy, which is the importance of seeking support. So I say this as the oldest to four children. And if you know anything about being the oldest, if you know, you know being a mother, being a wife being a professional in the workplace, carrying all of these different roles. So used to taking care of everyone and everything, but not really taking care of myself in a lot of ways, right? And so when I lost my mom I found myself battling debilitating anxiety. And that was a byproduct of something I did not expect. I did not expect to deal with anxiety at that level. And so it was to the point where something had to give unless it was going to be me. And so I began to sit around with my family members and think about, okay, I need some help. I'm really, really struggling here. I don't even know how to move forward.

And so we put in place a strategy to kind of help me navigate this current context with grief. And so a big piece of that for me was incorporating some type of physical activity. Also, getting in touch with a therapist, [00:15:00] because I definitely needed someone who understood grief on a much more molecular level who could help me make sense of all of my emotions. And then I recognize that in that context as well, that I needed to be surrounded by friends and family who would give me the space to really process my emotions and who had space for that as well. Because I'm not here for dumping things on people if they don't have the capacity. But I knew that when people asked me how I was, I genuinely told them, are you ready to hear the truth?

And a lot of them honestly were, and I shared with them how I was navigating my own grief and loss. I shared with them how I missed my mom desperately. I shared with them how I just don't know how to make sense of the day-to-day. And in a lot of ways they were there for me. They were rooting for me, they root for me. I had friends who would swing by the house just to drop off some food. They would be like, Chito, come outside. We got you. I left something on the porch for you. I would have friends who would take me out to a game just to get me out the house and get me outside of my head. I had friends who would stop by just to hold the kids so I can get a quick nap in.

Because I had a newborn at the time when my mom passed away. And I realized the importance of having that community around you when you are walking through such a really, really hard season. And so I think seeking support and even accepting the support is huge because again, I'm so used to caring for others, and I know that in that context, I don't necessarily like to take when help is extended. But in this season where I recognize that I am not a superwoman, I do not need to put on this cape and this mask, and I can lay it down, I laid it down and I leaned into the love and the support and the care that was presented to me. And if there's anyone here who's navigating their own grief, I want to encourage you to do the same as well.

There is hope and support in community. There is something so sacred with realizing you don't have to do this thing alone. And so for me, that was a much needed revelation that I tapped into as I move forward. I'll say, to be honest with you a key thing that I wasn't aware of when I experienced the loss of my mom was going through this thing that I called the year of first. And so what I mean by that is that the year of first is the first year after you lose the loss of someone close and near to you where you are hitting all these milestones, and they are no longer there. So for me the year of first encompassed my son's third birthday, which was about a week after she passed away. And my mom was big on birthday celebrations.

She would buy all the gifts and spoil her grandkids rotten. And so I knew that that would be the first year that she would not be able to celebrate my son. I knew that that was going to be hard for him because even in his little mind, he was so used to seeing her and being around her and her love, that it was something that I was contending with. How do I break this news to my son? How do I support him, even in his small tender age, with the understanding that grandma's no longer here. And so that year of first honestly, was a year where I was not prepared for it to be frank. You know, every holiday, every birthday, every milestone was always colored with grief. Because I knew that I can no longer share those moments with my mom.

I recall very vividly, even the first Christmas without my mom, we knew that it was going to be hard. Just to be frank, it was just going to be hard. It was going to suck. And we knew that. And so my siblings and I understood the assignment and said, hey, we got to be together for real this year. And we made it a point to do a destination Christmas away. And so we were together, we rented a beach home in Florida, and went down there together. And it was helpful to step outside of our norm, which would've been to be at mom's house, and to wake up in the morning with her and be in the kitchen cooking and setting the stage for what would be an eventful celebration that day. But we knew that we needed to step outside of that.

And so we got away. But even in getting away, we were still cooking and celebrating and singing. And although we were together there were still moments where we found ourselves just covered in tears because we just desperately wish she was there. And so, if I could offer any strategy to someone, it would be just be mindful of that year of first. And when these milestones hit, whether it's the first time you have to look past the date of your loved one's birthday or the anniversary of their passing. Find something meaningful to do that could honor their memory. Find things to do that can give you the space you need to really attend to your emotions and what that may look like for the day.

[00:20:00] Find ways to really honor that loved one's memory, but also find ways to just make sure you take care of yourself. And if you find that you need to do as little as possible. Because I know for me a lot of times, especially around milestones, whether it's the birth or the anniversary for passing, I literally do not go to work. I'm off email. I'm offline. Do whatever you need to do so that you can make it through these milestone moments so that you can find ways to cope and heal that are meaningful to you. I don't have to pretend for anyone. So when these milestones hit, I'm gone. I'm gone. I'm attending to myself, I'm taking care of myself, my needs, and I'm honoring mommy in the way that I know she would want me to honor her. And so, do what you need to do in that context. I truly believe that self-care and community care go hand in hand. You know, grief can be exhausting.

Okay? Like it literally can take you out. I mean, there were days where I was lethargic. I was just sluggish, depressed, sad, emotionally and physically drained. There were days I forgot to eat. I couldn't even exercise. Like I had no energy or no bandwidth to even begin to think about those things. And that's where community stepped up to really care for us and shower us with love and care. And so, tap into what you need, tap into community. Let people know that, hey, I'm struggling. Hey, could you partner with me and be a workout buddy? I really want to get my exercise back up. Because I think for me personally as I'm thinking through how I've leveraged both self-care and community care over time I recognized that my community was rooting for me, but I also recognized that that self-care piece was something that I didn't want to fall to the wayside.

And so I was very intentional about finding ways to plug in pockets to take care of myself. And so even now, it's almost five years later, I still am very deliberate about my self-care regimen. I work out three to four times a week as a result of just making sure that I put forth the best effort to deal with all of the emotions that are still here. Because y'all, even though time passes, that doesn't mean after the one year mark, okay, I'm healed from grief and I'm back to normal. No, every day that passes my mom is on my mind. A day does not go by where I don't think of her, right? So I think finding ways to regularly take care of yourself, get plenty of sleep in, engage in hobbies and activities that you love and enjoy are necessary.

And then I think as I'm rounding out my list of strategies here, I'll just mention this last one, and it's really is find ways to honor your loved one. The most painful thing to me is to feel like mommy was forgotten. I just have to put it out there. That for me has been the thing that has just driven me up the wall the most is that once that loved one is buried and you are resuming your normal day-to-day activities, I found that everyone else is moving forward. But I was stuck. I just did not know how to move forward. And I didn't want to resent people around me because they weren't having a shared human experience and walking through such a tough loss. But I recognized that in order for me to move forward, I had to find ways to honor her even in the small things.

And so I ended up doing little things like I have a framed picture of her on my desk where I look up and I say, good morning, beautiful. Every morning before I get to work. I have time with my kids where I'm looking through pictures and I'm sharing with them, hey, this is grandma, this is what she loved to do. I'm sharing with them videos of them dancing when they were little kids that infants and toddlers at the time. I am being intentional about honoring her, even with starting this podcast. This is a way to honor my mom because her memory means so much more to me than I can ever articulate. And so I think if you're in this place where you are worried about forgetting or others forgetting her memory, find ways to honor her that are meaningful and intentional for you.

No one may understand when you hop on social media or the gram and you're posting a picture to say, hey, thinking of you today, mommy. No one's going to understand when you put a little blog post up to talk about what you're walking through in real time as you're navigating grief. And to be honest, you don't have to do it for anyone but you. But find ways to pour out your emotions. Find ways to release your thoughts, whether publicly or privately. Find ways to make sure you're honoring yourself, but also honoring your loved one in that process. I just want to highlight again. Look, there's no right or wrong way to grieve. There really is legit no timeline. I am four plus years removed. And again, a day does not go by where things are not on top of mind about my mom. Everyone's grief journey is unique.

[00:25:00] I realize that sometimes people will try to shame you and say, you still there? Yes, boo. I'm still here. Okay. I'm still feeling the same way. My mom meant so much to me, and I know that although she's no longer here with me, she loved deeply, and I have the right to grieve her just as deep as well.

So I am excited you all, as I have shared with you my story of grieving my mom and how I have walked through the various shades of my grief, and I'm still walking in this journey, y'all. Some of these shades are darker. Some of them are lighter than others, but each one is a testament to the love I have for her and the memories that we shared, and the tremendous, tremendous impact that she has had on my life.

All right, so good people. In the next coming episodes, we're going to dive deeper into some of these coping strategies. I have some amazing experts that are going to join me this first season, y'all to share their own stories of navigating grief. And I mean grief of all kinds, because I share with you the grief of my mom. But there's all types of loss that we walk through that really lead us to a place where we are experiencing grief. What I mean by grief is honestly the emotions and the feelings that we have after losing someone or something that is a significant value to us. And so my hope is that this space is for you to also walk alongside of me as we explore our grief and all of the colors that come together.

All right, good people. Until next time, thank you for sharing this time with me and for being part of this journey. Remember, it's okay to grieve in your own color. Until next time, please take care and see you soon.

[cheerful music starts]

Thank you for choosing to spend time with me on this episode of Grieving in Color. If today's episode has resonated with you, or if you know someone who might benefit from our conversation, please share this episode with them. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts, your stories, and the ways I can support you as you navigate your own grief. You can reach out to me on my website at www.drchinasaelue.com or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram @drchinasaelue. Your participation, your feedback, and your story helps us keep this conversation going and reaches those who need it the most. Remember, there's no right way to grieve. There's only your way, and every shade of your grief is valid.

This episode of Grieving in Color is produced by Crys & Tiana.

[cheerful music ends]