Navigating Motherhood after Loss with Liz Quinn

In this deeply moving episode Nina is joined by Liz Quinn — grief advocate, and host of the Healing Hearts Podcast. Liz opens up about her personal journey through layered loss, including the death of her daughter Alivia, and both of her parents. With tenderness and clarity, she shares what it means to grieve as a mother, how guilt and love can coexist, and how the relationship with a child in spirit continues to evolve.

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The conversation also explores the experience of pregnancy after loss, the secondary grief felt by surviving children, and the often unseen labor of tending to grief while parenting. Liz also shares her journey through anticipatory and ambiguous grief as she lost her mother to Alzheimer’s and dementia, followed by the death of her father to esophageal cancer.

Nina and Liz offer insights into how one's healing journey can evolve into a purpose-driven mission, and emphasize the importance of storytelling and community in the grief process. This episode is a poignant reminder that grief is not something to fix — it’s something to honor, carry, and live with love.

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Takeaways:

• You don't necessarily feel like a mother when you don't have a child physically.
• The love for a child begins the moment you know they are yours.
• Grief is a journey that shapes who you are.
• Honoring lost children is a vital part of healing.
• It's okay to not want to hold a baby after loss.
• You either know or you just do it when it comes to having more children.
• Building a relationship with a child in spirit takes time.
• There is no right or wrong way to navigate grief.
• Sometimes, mothers know best when it comes to healing traditions.
• Support groups can be both helpful and challenging.
• Siblings can experience grief for a sibling they never met.
• The loss of a child reshapes family dynamics and identities.
• Transforming grief into purpose can lead to personal growth.
• Shared stories can initiate healing for both the storyteller and the listener.
• Grief is a lifelong journey that evolves over time.
• Life after loss can still be beautiful despite its challenges.

Connect with Liz Quinn:

• @healing_hearts_podcast
• Healing Hearts Podcast

Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

• IG: @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
• 1:1 Grief Support

Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Chapters

• 0:00 Preview & Intro song
• 1:00 A 'perfect' pregnancy
• 6:00 It was time to meet our daughter
• 11:28 Letting her go
• 14:03 Searching for answers
• 16:02 Building a Relationship with a Child in Spirit
• 23:32 Navigating Grief and Pregnancy After Loss
• 29:09 Grieving a sibling you never met
• 30:43 Losing both parents
• 41:00 Transforming Grief into Purpose
• 45:50 Honoring Bereaved Mothers and Shared Stories

Transcript

you don't necessarily feel like a mother when you don't have a child physically. It takes you understanding that you did give birth. You had a child. And I mean that even in that like, yes, I had my daughter and I physically gave birth to her, but I've also had two miscarriages. And you loved those babies the minute you knew they were yours. That's the thing you have to understand is that they were yours.

no matter what. How you want to share them is up to you. I wanted to make sure that Olivia was part of our family because she made me a mother. She made my husband a father. She made us a family.

You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the grief and life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. How do we carry the weight of love and loss and still find ways to offer light to others? Joining me today is Liz Quinn, a compassionate voice in the grief space, creator of the healing hearts podcast.

a grief writer, and a fellow member of the Get Griefy Collective. On her platforms, she shares stories of loss and healing from the passing of her first born daughter, Olivia, in 2008, to the loss of both of her parents in 2018 and 2020, as well as that of her guests' stories of loss and resilience to make space for connection, healing, and truth as we all navigate grief.

These moments of loss have deeply shaped the person who she is today and her work reminds others that they are not alone in grief. Liz, I am so grateful for this conversation with you today and I'd like to give you a warm welcome to the Grief in Life podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Nina. And what a beautiful introduction. Coming from someone who writes them as well, it's just very different to be on this end. And so thank you so much for the warm welcome and for the beautiful introduction and everything.

It's an absolute honor to have you, my friend. And I know exactly what you mean. The feeling is a little different when you're on the interview side of the conversation. Your story is very powerful. It's obviously, you know, bittersweet with all of the grief that comes with it, but you've been such a beautiful voice in the space and a place of comfort and a soft place to land for other bereaved mothers and people who have lost their parents as well in this community. So start with the loss of Olivia and how that shaped grief for you at that time.

Yeah. So losing Olivia, definitely a big shock to motherhood. And it was one of those that I lost Olivia shortly after she was born. I had a, I don't want to say a perfect pregnancy, like that picture perfect pregnancy, but it was as perfect as you can imagine, you know, no real complications. did have dustational diabetes, which is just something that you can develop.

in pregnancy, just means you have to watch your, what you're eating and things like that. and I did really well with that. So I didn't have to progress to anything else. my pregnancy with Olivia was also a surprise. my husband and I had only been married for about three months. he was still in college. I had just graduated. so I was working as a substitute teacher, to help kind of like support him while he went to school.

And it was just one of those, man. And I knew, I knew the minute I was walking into the Walgreens to buy a pregnancy test, I was pregnant. I didn't need the test for, took the test. And I just, I mean, I just knew. I was that regular at the time and just, I just knew. So it definitely terrified us at first because we were 23, just married, husband still in school.

We have that intuition.

barely making ends meet because that's just what we are. I'm living in an apartment and as scared as we were, we were also very excited. You know, from that very first heartbeat that you hear at like that eight to 12 week range, we just knew she was meant to be ours. And so started the planning stages of, okay, we do have an extra bedroom in that apartment. What theme do we want to do?

you know, how we have to keep it cheap because, well, we don't have the money to, you know, do all the things. So we went with the Winnie the Pooh theme because I was a big Winnie the Pooh fan in high school and had a bunch of already figurines and such. And it's actually very popular. So it was easy to find hand-me-downs and things like that at garage sales or consignment sales, which is where we did majority of our nursery shopping.

And like I said, pregnancy went relatively well. My best friend was an OB nurse. So she kind of gave me the ins and outs of what to expect and not expect when it came to pregnancy or feeling nervous about things. And I didn't have any reason to feel nervous because I hadn't known anyone that had experienced a loss. So that naiveness that you have in pregnancy, if you haven't experienced a loss, you have it and it's beautiful.

And so, because everything went relatively well, Olivia was born July 23rd, 2008. I went in for my 40 week appointment July 22nd, and I was like two centimeter, like I was barely laboring, but I was laboring enough that the nurse, my doctor was like, go home and walk, just walk, walk, walk, and I'll check back with you in the evening.

I was done being pregnant at that point. It was in the middle of summer. It was hot. So she knew that I was ready to meet this girl. It was time to meet our daughter. I did exactly what she told us and we walked. My husband was prepping for a big final. He was in summer school at the time and he was finishing up his final so that he could be done with school just in time for baby to be born. So I remember him.

studying and taking notes of how far apart my contractions are. I remember their notes being like, okay, this is seven minutes. And then I remember I was taking the long walk. And when she called to check in, she was like, okay, come in, let's see where you are. At that point I was at four centimeters, so much to face and things. And she's like, let's walk the halls of the hospital. It was like six o'clock PM. And so I walked the halls of the hospital and around 10 PM on the evening of the 22nd, I was admitted.

labor began and they broke my water. didn't have an epidural. I didn't have any pain meds. I a lot of back labor. And so they would give me these heating pads to put on my back, but I have a high tolerance for heat and they were never hot enough. So always like within 10 minutes the nurse had to bring me another one. And so I labored through the night. For the most part, everything went well up until I was time to push about six o'clock in the morning.

The doctors was like, it's time to push, you know, and between there, it was just finding ways that you're comfortable, you know, broke my water, putting the monitors. There was nothing exciting that happened between the time I was admitted, the time I push.

There were no like, signs, nothing concerning. It was just very uneventful.

Yeah, very normal, laboring pregnancy, birth and things like that. Even my best friend who's an OB nurse there with me said the same thing. You know, there was no reasons to be concerned. And so I came to push. I pushed for about two and a half hours. In that staging of pushing, there her heart rate did go down, but that's very common.

because she's now going down through the birth canal. It's going to be harder to get the heart rate, you know, all of the things. So there was nothing that showed any concern, you know. It wasn't until like she was born. So she had a hard time coming out, so they did have to use the vacuum a little bit, but nothing else, again, nothing to be concerned until she was, until I, for my final push, she came out with a slight heartbeat, but was not breathing.

Bye.

So she didn't cry. I don't know all of the details. My husband has a better vision of how fast everything went. Where we went from having maybe three or four people in the room to having 20. Like a lot of people because this was a really unexpected thing to happen.

Do you understand in that moment what was happening?

Yes and no. I knew that...happening.

I knew something was wrong because obviously she wasn't crying. She wasn't coming onto me. My husband's face was definitely pale. My best friend was just trying to comfort me, but at the same time, she was terrified. I still had a to deliver. We delivered at a teaching hospital. So one of the OB residents delivered my presenter while my OB doctor went with my

daughter. My best friend stayed with me as my husband Nathan went with Olivia. Wherever Olivia had to go, my husband went with her and I had my best friend with me to help me through what was coming up. I don't remember it, but I do have a picture. I'm pretty sure my mom, probably my best friend took it. Before she left our room, there was a picture of her like all hooked up to our tubes and me literally crying and like reaching for her.

I'm grateful for the picture, but it definitely depicts a very of what's going on. I'm stuck here and now she has to go. And it was probably several hours later that my husband came back and gave me a little bit of a rundown of that. She's on tubes. She was born with a slight heartbeat, but not breathing. The neuro, there's a name for it. The doctor came down and

said lots of really big words. And then in reality it was just, we're going to give her 24 hours and see what happens because a lot of things can change in 24 hours for infants. They're very resilient. And unfortunately that just was not the case for our sweet Olivia. She lived on breathing tubes for about 34 hours in the NICU where we were able to

love her and hold her and care for her and family came and went to see her. We have some amazing memories just in those moments. As hard as they are, I'm incredibly grateful for them. In the moment, I definitely just remember feeling sad, what happened. And later, I definitely remember feeling, what did I do wrong?

You know, because I'm her mom, I'm supposed to protect her at all costs. And there's nothing I could have done to protect her in this moment. her breathing tube eventually went into her esophagus. And we were then at that point given the opportunity to either re-intubate or let her go. And the only reason to re-intubate was to let my sister, who was still flying from Charleston, South Carolina, to see her alive.

This in a sense we felt was Olivia telling us it was time to say goodbye. They had done everything. We were now just holding on to barely any hope. so she at about six o'clock that evening, she of the 24th, we re-took the tubes out and my husband and I held her. And at 6.08 PM, my

My daughter died in my husband's arms. She lived on her own, breathing on her own for eight minutes.

Thank you so much for sharing and I'm so sorry that is just I'm sure it doesn't get any easier to say it and I could almost like relive those moments with you or just imagine them with you and I'm so sorry for anybody listening or watching who has experienced this type of loss because there truly are no words and one thing that stood out to me is that you said You were at the time. It was your first child. You were young. It was unexpected. You had no idea that there were these

possibilities that this was an actual possibility. So what a heart crushing reality. And also even to this day, a lot of mothers, especially young women are not aware of the statistics and they're not aware of the chances of something going wrong. And I learned later on in my life that it's actually higher than we may realize. And a lot of women are left to face this reality. Like you said, initially have that sense of guilt.

And that sense of what did I do wrong? Was there something wrong with me? Was there something wrong with anything we did along the way? But there really wasn't anything. No, I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, there really wasn't. mean, given the way she passed, we did have an autopsy done. The conclusion that the medical examiner came down to was that it could have been group B strep. Group B strep is a natural organism that lives in that area of women and you get tested for it around 36 weeks when you're pregnant. And if you're positive and you're going to have a baby, you get penicillin. I had tested positive. I remember giving

It went in early, like I had, there's no real reason for it to be group B strep other than that that's just what all the signs pointed to in an autopsy. So we will never really know if that's true or not true. I have gone on to have three beautiful rainbow babies. And when I got pregnant with my daughter, Zoe, who is now 14, we took a lot of precautions that we didn't take obviously was Olivia. And one of them was making sure that I got tested for group B strep every six weeks.

just because of what the medical examiner said. And every time I would get tested, I'd test positive. So my doctor draw the conclusion that I have a higher concentration of that organism inside of my body, that we could do a lot of testing and could have done all kinds of experiments to find out how much penicillin I would need. I didn't need to know. I needed to bring home a baby healthy.

that is all that mattered. So I could have been this really cool science experiment, but that's probably a good indication that if I was ever to give birth vaginally again, if I ever would want to, which I don't, that's a whole nother traumatic situation. But it was good to know that maybe, maybe that was a reason. And not that I needed one, because with a reason or without a reason, it doesn't bring her back. You know, it doesn't change the fact that I'm her mother.

doesn't change the fact that I have to mother a child, not you.

Yeah. So did you understand that intuitively the whole being a mother to somebody heaven side to beautiful Olivia, or was that something that you had to build a relationship with her in spirit? did, how does that?

for you. definitely had to build because you don't necessarily feel like a mother when you don't have a child physically. It takes time. takes, honestly, it takes you.

understanding that you did give birth. You had a child. And I mean that even in that like, yes, I had my daughter and I physically gave birth to her, but I've also had two miscarriages. And that same loss, like you're still a mother because you loved those babies the minute you knew they were yours. And I think that's the thing you have to understand is that they were yours.

no matter what. And so once you start to realize, okay, they are mine, how you want to share them is up to you. I wanted to make sure that Olivia was part of our family because she made me a mother. She made my husband a father. She made us a family. And it was definitely not an easy road. Like you have your ups and your downs. And one of my very first moments of

Denying Olivia as my child was, I don't remember the exact moment, but I do remember being asked if I had any children. It was probably shortly after losing Olivia within at least the first year, but I'm going to say probably within the first three or four months because by Christmas we were already starting to honor her and have her presence. So within those three to four months, I was asked if I had any children and I said no. And I immediately went to my car and cried.

I will never forget that moment. can still feel the heaviness of it had on my heart that like, how could I have denied Olivia? She is part of me. And so I knew from that moment on, I would never ever deny who she was. She was my daughter. I will always, when people ask me, how many children do you have, there's variations of how I answer it because it all kind of depends on who you're talking to. I think that happens in any type of loss, how you're going to answer.

if both of my parents passed or I'm just going to be like, well, they're not here. Like there's just different ways of answering that. And so sometimes I'll answer it. I have three here, one in heaven. Sometimes they'll just say I have four. And if they decide to ask more questions, then I'll give them the actual answer. But sometimes it's just as easy as, I have four because sometimes they don't need any more details.

I have so much compassion for that version of you because it is mental gymnastics, especially those first few times when you have to answer the question, you're not even sure what to say. And I've spoken with some grievers who say, I said I didn't have my person, whoever that was to them, because I didn't have the capacity to talk about it. Like my throat was closing up, my body was shaking. So was easier to say, no, I don't have this person. But that moment when you utter,

those words out loud can be soul crushing. So I have so much compassion for you. It also sounds like it gave you that feedback to say, no, I'm never doing that again. She is very much a part of our lives.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't start honoring her and really embracing her into our family until probably that Christmas. I mean, we always did something, but not as much out loud as I do now. That first Christmas.

What was it that?

Honestly, sometimes moms know best. So my mom, Olivia's grandmother, who is no longer with us now, but she was a wonderful grandmother even to her lost baby. Because at Christmas, obviously, I didn't want to celebrate. I was supposed to have a five month old baby bouncing around making the holiday that much more enjoyable. Babies bring so much joy to the holidays. And that's what I was supposed to be experiencing. That's what my parents were supposed to be experiencing.

I was supposed to be able to see them as grandparents. I'd grown up seeing them as grandparents. My brother and sister are 10 and seven years older than I. I saw them be grandparents to my brother and sister's kids and they were wonderful. So I was very excited for them to be grandparents to my children and to have that ripped from them and myself. It was just, I had nothing to do with Christmas. Like I didn't intend to.

up a Christmas tree. didn't intend to do anything. Nathan and I already said we weren't really going to buy Christmas gifts for each other. We would buy them for our family because that's the thing you should do. We were with my mom visiting and she was setting up Christmas stuff because that's her thing and she loved it. Growing up, she had a six-foot tree she called her teddy bear tree. And so it was decorated with all kinds of teddy bears and white lights and really pretty garland. And it was always really pretty and it was always really in the kitchen and just a little

focal point. And at one point, I think we went to St. Vinny's, which is a consignment store. And she was like, you should put up a tree. And I'm like, mom, I already told you, I'm not celebrating Christmas this year. I will celebrate with you and we will do the things we usually do. But in my own apartment, in my own house, I'm just not there. And she's like, okay, you know, I understand. But when we were leaving, we lived about an hour and a half away from my parents when we had Olivia. And when we were getting ready to leave, because we went there probably to do laundry.

My mom had put her six foot tree and all of the things minus the teddy bears into the back of our car. And she's like, just in case, just in case. And I'm like, fine, I'll humor you because you're my mother and I love you, but it's not happening. And it sat in the car for probably two weeks. It just sat in the back of the car because there was no reason for it to come in the house. I was not making a tree. And I don't know what came over me.

one afternoon, I decided that maybe a tree could be okay. Maybe just a tree would be okay. I went to the car and I set up my mom's little six-foot tree with her white lights and her crystal garland. I looked at it and I was like, it needs ornaments. So Nathan, my husband and I went to all of the stores and bought all of the ornaments that were angels or whites or butterflies that reminded me of Olivia and we decorated our very first Olivia angel tree.

And we have had the inversion of that tree for the last 16 years.

a tradition that we do with her siblings today. it is one of those stories that gives me so much joy because it is honoring my daughter, but it's also remembering that my mom just sometimes knew more than I did. And it's so special now that she's not here.

It sounds really special and thank you for sharing that piece of your heart with us, because that sounds like a continuation from your mother's tradition to Olivia to now your family and for years to come, maybe they will take that with them in the future as well. Thank you for your vulnerability. I know this is not easy to recount, but it's beautiful to share as well. So what would you say to a bereaved mother who has experienced loss and who is thinking

What to do next? Do I continue to grow my family? And is in that in-between stage of not knowing what to do, what would you say to that person?

It's a very delicate situation to be in. And I think when you feel ready, you will be ready. Obviously, right after losing Olivia, we were not ready by any means. So there was a friend of mine that was pregnant right around the same time I was. She actually had her daughter three days after I had Olivia. I knew pretty early that I wasn't ready to have babies in my life, partly because of that experience. You just know.

There's no right or wrong way to decide when you're ready to have a baby after a loss. You either know or you just do it. I wish I could say there's this like, beautiful moment and you just have it all figured out. You don't. Even when you think you know, it's still harder than hell. The Olivia being a surprise and it's general, our plan of when we were gonna have kids, everything went out the window. We originally talked about

waiting because we were going to wait until Nathan graduated and to even start having a family. You know, and then Olivia came and left and at the plan was then, okay, well, we'll just stick to the original plan. After you graduate, we'll continue our family. That changed real quick. a year after losing Olivia, our lives was like, we want a family and we want a baby because when we're supposed, we feel like we're supposed to have one.

And for me to know it was time was I was at a wedding and one of my really good friends was getting married and she had already had a baby and she was wanting to dance with her husband and she tossed me a baby. She was like, can you hold him? And I'm like, I haven't held him. Sure. And holding him was the indication of I want one of these.

I love that. It's almost like that moment putting up the Christmas tree. Even though it sat there for two weeks, there was just that moment of, know what, maybe we do put up just the tree and then maybe we do put ornaments on it. It's just that moment that kind of comes. Yeah.

It was just like a full circle. Like I hadn't held really held a baby that I wanted to. I had been forced to hold babies because that's what you think you should be doing is supporting friends. So that friend that had a baby, she would have me hold her baby. And I was like, well, she's my friend. I'm supposed to hold her baby. I learned real quickly. No, I know you're not supposed to do anything. You don't want to hold a baby. Don't hold a baby.

Don't want to go to a baby shower? Don't go to a baby shower. Those things are okay. You're not taught any of that. You just kind of have to navigate it and figure it out on your own. At least I did. I think it's a lot more said now that it's okay to say, I don't want to do this because, you know, this is where I am in my process. But holding that little boy for the first time and being okay holding a baby was kind of an indication of like, okay, we could do this.

You know, we got pregnant. I wanted everything in my power not to be pregnant at the same time that I was with Olivia. Did not go that way. My daughter is pretty much born two years later. Zoe's birthday is in July, just at the beginning of July instead of at the end. I wanted everything to be completely different, which I don't know if is normal or not. Of course, I'm grateful that she is who she is and, you know, all the things. But in that, when I first started it,

trying to get pregnant. It was triggering. I'm due in July. Okay.

How did you ground yourself throughout that process?

Journaling, I did a lot of journaling for the first five years after Olivia's passing was just journaling. A lot of journaling. Therapy support group was probably one of the major things that got us through even pregnancy after loss. As hard as going to a support group pregnant and talking about loss because they're wonderful and I will always advocate for them. They're also very hard because you learn

other ways babies can die.

Yeah, like this dichotomy where the more you learn, the more you feel seen and less alone. And at the same time, you're horrified that this happens to people. These other horrible things can actually happen.

Yeah, I had heard of Stillborn. I had heard of Miscarriage. I have heard of all the different ways, but I had not experienced them the way I did meeting people in support group. And when you're pregnant after a loss and still want to be able to mourn your daughter, it's hard. But it was one of the first places that I went to and I was known as Olivia's mom.

I was not Liz even after Zoe was born. I wasn't Zoe's mom. I was just Olivia's mom. Now with my kids in school, I am Zoe's mom, Logan's mom, Grayson's mom. I'm never just known as Olivia's mom. And so it's really kind of cool when you step into that space or you meet a mom that only remembers you as Olivia's mom.

That is really beautiful. And you mentioned Olivia's siblings. How has their relationship with Olivia been shaped over the years?

That is one thing I did not expect. You spend so much time on your own grief that you kind of forget that they're gonna have it too. I didn't think about them experiencing grief because they didn't know who she was. It's not why would they grieve, it was just more of like, yeah, she is their sibling because we've done that. We have created her in our family. Our picture is hung up on her walls. We talk about her.

Olivia Tree we've done every year. They've known nothing else. So she is their older sister. And I will say that that was probably one of the hardest parts was realizing they have grief over a sibling they don't know. Very unexpected. It was not on my grief radar at all.

grief radar. like that. I love that. Thank you for sharing that I have met other mothers who say was not expecting that my kid would actually have a relationship with their sibling whom they have never met. It just speaks to the bonds that we have with our loved ones, whether it be your child in that case, and in their case, their sibling, it goes beyond the physical loss of our person and our loved one. And it is possible to have continued bonds and have those relationships.

It doesn't have to look any way other than what you make of it. In your case with Olivia's tree and all the ways we get to carry their love light forward. I also want to touch on the loss of your parents because that's another type of grief that is really life altering and perhaps start with their names.

So my parents' name are Ed and Colleen Fox. They were amazing. Definitely had their ups and downs as all parents do, but ultimately they did the best they could. And I feel like that's the generation that they come from. They just did the best they could. My mom was diagnosed with dementia in 2016 and then eventually it turned into Alzheimer's. She deteriorated rather quickly.

Considering dementia and Alzheimer's can take like tens of years and hers was probably within four or five. And my dad became her primary caregiver at that point. My sister and my brother lived out of state. I lived out of state. It was just my dad and my mom being empty nesters and enjoying life. My mom had gone through a lot of back problems. So she wasn't working. My dad was working and she was home. And that's kind of where the start of

recognizing that she was repeating herself. She blank stared for a while. So my dad knew something was wrong, took her to get her diagnosed, which was a fight in itself because they're like, she's just getting old. Yeah, it's just getting old, but there's more. And my dad became her primary caregiver. He still worked and kept taking care of her. Eventually he couldn't take care of her physically at his house anymore.

so he had to put her into a nursing home near the house. He went every day, twice a day. I know he ate dinner with them. He was very well known within the nursing home, not just to my mom, but to other people and the nurses and everyone just loved him. And because he spent so much time being a caregiver and taking care of my mom, his own health took a backburn. My dad had been experiencing a cough for...

probably several months, if not longer, for a while. But eventually he realized that he needed to go to the doctor. He was a vet, so he went to VA and lo and behold, this persistent little cough actually was one of the first signs of a suffering general cancer. He was diagnosed with stage four cancer.

Unfortunately, it's partly because of his smoking and his drinking. Like those are very, very big indicators of the type of cancer he had. He had been smoke-free for over 10 years at that point, but he was determined to beat it. He was like, this is not taking me down. And so he went through all of the chemo and all of the things. I gave birth to my last son, Logan, on the very first day of his chemo treatment.

December 27th, 2017.

How did you get through that?

Honestly, my dad just being who he was, he was like, I'm just doing chemo. It's no big deal. Like, you know, like you're having a baby. Have a baby and I'll do chemo and we'll be fine. And that's happening. Yeah, that's like, we'll talk later. Like, that's just who he was. And that's how he I mean, that's how he powered through chemo and all of the things. And he did really well, surprisingly well with chemo.

Unfortunately, he experienced what they call the delayed reaction to chemo. So he finished his chemo, I believe in May of 2017 and he was still working. Like he was a stock boy at a grocery store. He was doing all the things. He was still checking in on my mom as much as he could. And it got to be like June.

middle of June, he started to slow down and started saying that I'm gonna take a break from work. And so we were concerned, but my dad was one of those that didn't give us the full information because he's prideful. He didn't want to admit defeat in any way. I lived in Pittsburgh at the time and my parents live in Wisconsin. We were scheduled to go back to Wisconsin in July of 2017 to see my dad and their family. When we walked into my...

parents' house at the time. My dad was in bed and sleeping, which is very unlike him. And it was just not a good situation. was very, you could just tell that he'd been sleeping probably 20 hours at a time. You know, like it was just, he was skin and bones. He was just not okay. Should not be in this house by himself.

He had PET scan or something to see how things were going. And they'd found bumps on his kidney. So they wanted to biopsy it. In the middle of the biopsy, his lung collapsed. So he had to immediately be admitted into the hospital and be watched for that. And in that part of that, we were then in the talks of palliative care. No one knew for sure.

how much time he had or not had. He was still in decent spirits, but he definitely could feel his body going out on him, even though he wasn't ready to go. And so we were talking with Pelletive Care and I had to return to Pittsburgh. I couldn't stay and take care of him. So we decided to place him in the same nursing home as my mom. I didn't think he was gonna beat cancer, but I definitely thought he had a while.

Like it was not gonna be quick, but this was the next best thing. He'd be with mom. He could be with other people that knew him. A week later, we received the phone call that he'd pretty much deteriorated over a day and passed away.

I'm so sorry. And at this point, your mother was still here. Like she went after him.

She was still here. She was in the nursing home.

Was she aware at that point of what was happening or?

Her time span of really her long term memory was totally intact. Her short term memory was probably maybe 20 minutes. So she knew my dad, she knew who he was and he was the love of her life and all the things. But much more than that, no. So my dad passed, we had his funeral. Two years later, my mom passed.

away. Same month, which is funny because they were born in the same month.

Wow. So it all happens. Yeah. Yeah. I could relate in the sense that my brother was born September 10th and he passed the 11th. So usually the months when you have somebody's birthday and their passing and all these other things, carries layers.

Their birthday is not in the same month, but they were born in March, but they and they both died in August so it's like a correlation that like they were only they were a year and ten days apart and then they died to they died two years and 20 some days apart and My mom's death was a more more expected obviously because she had Alzheimer's They gave us as much of a timeline as they could

to tell us like when to be there. My brother lived the closest. He lived about five hours away. So we made arrangements to come probably within like the next five days. My brother being close decided to drive up early. And when he got there, he immediately called me and my sister and said, you guys should come. We immediately went to the nursing home and saw my mom. Now, remind you, we're in the middle of COVID. It's August, 2020. We are allowed to go in, but we had to wear a mask. We're not supposed to touch you.

But as hard as losing my mom was, it was a beautiful moment. Like it was a moment for me and my sister to share our love, our heart, how much she meant to us. We shared memories. We had one moment where we were like, we just want to hug you. And me and my sister were like, we're just going to do it. We hugged her. And at that point, my mom could not move very much. And she jerked her arm. So it was kind of like she was hugging back.

Almost like for acknowledgement of that.

My mom also always, she had really long arms. She always called them her monkey arms. And because she had long monkey arms, she gave the best hugs. And so it was a beautiful moment to feel like she was trying to hug us back because that was what she did. She was one of the best huggers we knew. We intended to come back the next morning to see her. And we received a phone call that morning that she had passed in the night.

My brother, unfortunately, didn't get quite the experience my sister and I did, but he did get to see her. And I think that is ultimately what she needed to say goodbye. She needed all of her kids to know that she loved us.

Yeah, hear you. Well, I'm sorry for your losses and thank you for sharing those moments of bittersweetness. It's painful, it's messy. And yet getting through those moments is something so personal, how we each do it, how it happens, the opportunities to say goodbye and not having those opportunities to say goodbye. And it all shapes us as humans in everything that follows because each loss is different. I would imagine that with Olivia, it's also the loss of dream of

seeing all the pictures of your kids growing up and imagining her where she should have been. And also, you know, your parents, everything that they miss out on and also how you navigate life and you show up in the world after that. thank you for being so open about your beautiful story, even the painful parts. know it's going to help many and you already helped many with your podcast. do want to give some time to talking about the Healing Hearts podcast.

and the way that you support bereaved mothers and other people in grief. How did your grief evolve into the work that you're doing today?

So the loss of my mom really put perspective for myself. I always say the loss of my mom was my hardest loss. And my husband will say, after I lost my dad, I went more into a spiral than I did with my mom. My husband says that my mom is what showed me that I needed to do more. I needed to do something else than sit in my pain. I sat in the pain with my dad. With my mom, I picked myself up.

and started to find layers and pieces of myself again. I didn't see it until he gave me that perspective because my mom and I were best friends. We were so close. I always assumed her loss was devastating and it was, but differently. After I lost my mom, I then started to realize that I wanted my health to be better. Both of my parents, you know, were deteriorating because of some type of health issue. My dad,

with his cancer and my mom being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I can't say for sure if I'm going to or not to have it, you know, but I do know that, you know, as medicine and life has improved, there are things I can do to better myself. And one of those was taking control of my health. And in that moment, it was really just something to take control of because in grief, nothing is controllable. So I could focus on making sure my water was good.

that I got exercise, that I was eating healthy. So that's what I did at very beginning. My grief journey turned into my health journey. I was able to lose 100 pounds and by focusing on my health and by focusing on myself, I started to realize that I could do more in this space as well. It took me a solid year to do the podcast because

I'm human like everyone else and self-doubt and all of the things telling you who are you to do anything like this. What do you have to share with the world? You have to tame that. You have to say, no. If I help one person, then I've done my job. so Healing Hearts Podcast was created out of just that, that idea of if I can help one person.

that is all that matters. And in that process of finding health, I listened to, you know, grief podcasts and I read books and things like that. And your podcast is one of the very first podcasts that I listened to and was one of those first like, well, maybe I can. We just wrapped up season two of Healing Hearts podcast. Season three interviewing has started and I think I'm just starting to get the rhythm and starting to get the growth. You know, that first year,

of starting something, it's all new to you too. And so you're kind of figuring it out. I think I'm finally getting my footing. I use the space to let people share their stories. I say your story matters and it deserves to be heard if you want to share it because everyone has a story and that story matters. But if you don't want to share it, you don't have to, but.

I love the idea that there is a platform, there is a space for you to share it if you want it. So often a lot of my guests do use their pain or their grief to do something amazing with, but I've had a few that just wanted to share their story. So they just shared their story. They didn't have this, you know, they took their loss and their pain and created a podcast or created a magazine or stationery. They just wanted someone else to know I've been there.

And that's powerful in itself.

Truly, and thank you for embracing that calling because it feels like a calling to share these stories. It's not easy, especially when so many touch us so personally and where we can really feel the pain. We don't know the reality. We're not the other person, but we could feel how difficult that moment in their life was and how they had to navigate forward. And so I see that in you as well. see your resilience. see what you've done with your grief. Like you said it.

I have to go back and rewatch what your exact words, because you said it so beautifully about how you harnessed, you leaned into your grief to become the person that you are today and to hold space for other people so beautifully and so powerfully and so meaningfully. think that's such a beautiful thing to do. And also you don't have to. And I know that you have some things coming up for Bereave Mother's Day here in May. This episode's going to be released just before.

So anything that you care to share in terms of what you have coming up.

Airing for Healing Hearts podcast is honoring bereaved mothers by having a special podcast panel of lost moms varying when they had their loss, varying with the station, all the things. mean, miscarriage, we still birth, we have infant loss. have 16 years, 8 years, 35 years since their loss.

We'll have an open discussion answering these questions. And because we're all at different stages, because we've all had different experience with loss, it will be a beautiful conversation on how each of us lived after loss of a child. I'm really excited about it. It's just a beautiful conversation that I would have loved to be able to have when I had first lost.

Olivia. And so that's what I think about when I create things is just like, would I want?

Thank you for the beautiful space you've created. I'm sure it's going to help many. And for those who may or may not know, May 4th, I believe, is Breve Mother's Day. And then we have Mother's Day this year on May 11th. Something to keep in mind, we want to acknowledge everybody that's gone through this, all the losses and all the lives that are remembered and carried forth in what we do. I love that you mixed.

different types of losses and different times because the general consensus that grief is something we get over and with time things get easier. And so when you hear somebody who's perhaps 20, 30 years down the line saying, no, I still carry it with me. That's just the nature of grief because it's that other side of love that we get to carry with us. It creates a different sense of awareness, a different perspective. It softens something within of not being so hard on ourselves as to how we navigate forward.

So thank you for that. Where can people find information about your podcast and this event?

any place that you listen to podcasts, all the normal ones like Apple and Spotify. And then you can find me at Instagram at healing underscore hearts underscore podcast, where I share all of the event information and more information on the podcast and just in general things that might be helpful. I try to be as honest and raw about it right now. You know, so yeah.

You do a beautiful job of that. And of course, it'll be linked in the show notes. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you would like to include in this conversation to consider it complete?

I think the biggest thing to share is that shared stories are beginning of healing. They're the start of those. The first time you share your story is like a first step into healing from whatever you're going through. And that's part of why I love podcasting is because of that shared experience and what it can bring to someone.

and even myself included, listening to the stories that I've listened to over the last year have healed parts of me that I wasn't expecting. And I'm sure you can attest to that too. that like the amounts, like I started this as to help others and little did I know how much it helps me and how much it grounds me and reminds me and gives me grateful and joy and that.

anything I ever hear or say I never take for granted.

That is beautiful and that's so true. We heal as we help others. And it's a full circle thing that just keeps helping us, helping them and on and on and on we go. Thank you for all you're doing. And as a final question, what would Liz today say to Liz after Olivia's passing?

that's a good question.

Just keep going. Life's beautiful. It's messy. It's hard. But it's worth it.

Thank you so much, Liz. It's been an absolute honor.

Thank you again so much.

That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight, or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.