Take off the Mask with CasieCasem

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Welcome to take off the mask with Casey Kasem. Today we are diving into a conversation that is as heavy as it is necessary

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: grief, and how it intertwines with depression.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Loss sometimes changes us.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: and the weight of it is so profound that it pulls us into a place we never expected to be

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: today. I have with me my dear friend Lauren.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: who's been walking through the unimaginable

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: grief and the loss of her daughter, Edie

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Lauren. Thank you so much for being here today, and for allowing us into your heart.

Fire Tablet: Thanks for having me, Casey. I appreciate you asking genuinely.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I am so happy that you're here, Buddy. It is so great to see you.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I have known Lauren for longer than I haven't.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That's actually really cool to say, I've gotten to see you in so many different

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: places in life since we were kids to high school growing up. I've kept in touch with you over social media. I've watched you grow a beautiful family, get married, have a husband that I've watched you love over Facebook and

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: got to see a glimpse inside of your beautiful life.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I just want to take a moment and say that there is no right way to grieve, and there is no perfect way to talk about it.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: This is a safe space for you, Lauren, and for anyone listening who might be navigating loss in their own way.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely. Thank you.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Before we get into the depths of grieving and healing.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Who was Edie?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Can you tell us about her?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What would you say? Is the joy that she brought to your life. Of course she was your daughter, and I'm sure that was a

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: beautiful, beautiful relationship that you got to have being a mom. But what made Edie Edie?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What about the little things that made her uniquely her.

Fire Tablet: I don't think of little things so much as one big thing. So when you sent me the notes so we could kind of navigate what we may or may not talk about. I made one note, and it's wild, and I circled it. That was the only note I made to describe Edie, and I'm thankful that for whatever reason I think early on like when I lost her.

Fire Tablet: I did go through a little bit of the guilt of, you know, I should have been more patient with her. I should have been this, and I should have been that. But in general I'm a pretty self-aware person. So I've been very able to be honest with myself about what she was. And wild was it like, you know, I've had a couple of people since

Fire Tablet: are lost like they'll see me in the grocery store with my boys, and they'll be like, didn't you want a girl, or whatever? And I just kind of can. Instead of letting that hurt or overtake, I can just kind of snicker and be like.

Fire Tablet: Okay, I got my girl, and there was no guarantee that she was going to be dainty or prim or proper because she was wild.

Fire Tablet: so I have 2 boys. So my my kids were every 2 and a half years. So I have, and they are all like just the birth, order, psychology in a nutshell. So I have my super dutiful plays by the rules firstborn, and I have my kind of crazy, aloof second born, who's so sweet? I don't understand a thing about him, but he's so sweet, and then it was her, and

Fire Tablet: she she threw me on my butt like she just she

Fire Tablet: acted like it was her job to disagree with me, I mean, that was her existence, and she was, I mean. She was hilarious and fun, and

Fire Tablet: very, very both my firstborn and my thirdborn. So my oldest, and Edie were all very, very vocal. So that was, that was kind of one of the harder parts of the loss is that she was always talking, and so immediately I could hear

Fire Tablet: like. Even when she wasn't there, I could still hear her arguments like I could hear her like I would say something, and I'd already defensively be like preparing my like explanation, or like my I told because I told you so, or whatever, because I could already anticipate the argument, the the kickback that I was getting from her. And so

Fire Tablet: I don't hear that anymore, and that's hard. But yes, she was a Spitfire, I jokingly said, because Edie's story kind of began when I was pregnant with her. We got a heart diagnosis, and

Fire Tablet: don't mistake that to think that she was like an invalid child, because we forgot all the time she was remotely sick because she was just a bulldozer. But but I jokingly said, like you all prayed the word fighter way too hard, like everyone that prayed for her, wanted her to be a fighter, and, like I was the one that got to live with the fighter, and anyway, so she was. She was just a lot, and she was

Fire Tablet: precious. But she was a lot just wild, that's the word.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, man, I love that so much! That's incredible!

Fire Tablet: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I? Oh, man, that's so good. I hope that somebody says that about me one day.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: So you you got a diagnosis when you were pregnant.

Fire Tablet: I did so. I don't recommend going to appointments alone ever, even if you think that they're mundane and routine, because that's what it was, and I sat there alone and found out that one of the ventricles in her heart did not form. So

Fire Tablet: we were so fortunate, though I mean, like literally, just medicine in general is just wild. What they're able to do. I mean, they literally, we went to appointments where we basically were just told again and again by cardiologists. This is what your months after she's born look like, and they were that to a T. So we knew, like what she

Fire Tablet: she was a hypoplast. So that's what you call like the the non-forming of the ventricle. She did not have her left

Fire Tablet: ventricle, and so she was what's called an Hlhs baby or hypoplastic left heart syndrome and

Fire Tablet: so there was never a question of like. If her 1st surgery goes well, there won't be a second. It was never that. So there's like 3 conjunctive surgeries. And so we always knew this arc that was going to be our next few years, and she was just. She was textbook. She just I mean, you know, you like

Fire Tablet: someone comes to, you know, you take your kids to just their like routine appointments, and they're like weighing them. And you, like all of a sudden, feel like you're taking a hog to the fair. And it's like, yes, this is my prize hog, and she was that like she was just doing so so well in her heart journey. And they, you know, the doctors would come, and they'd always kind of just almost shake their head like she's doing great like. I don't know what to tell you other than she's just doing great.

Fire Tablet: And so I think that's why it was very, very easy for us to just not treat her sickly, because she wasn't. She was just rough and tumble, and you know, doing all the things that kids should be doing. But on top of that, though we yes, we had lived this this journey of just a village of people covering her in prayer and thoughts. And that was just a really really cool thing to be a part of.

Fire Tablet: You know just how people that didn't know your children took ownership of your child by, you know, just watching her story. And but yes, we we knew

Fire Tablet: just very much what, what the progression of our life was going to look like for a while.

Fire Tablet: or we thought.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, well, that was actually gonna lead me into my next

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: wonder was so. So you thought so this is

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: with with her being textbook, and I apologize. Lauren, I'm trying to be very sensitive about this, but this is beautiful conversation opening

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: that we can like. I'd love to go into what happened. I'd love to go into

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: respectfully, you know. Was this something that she.

Fire Tablet: Not a lot of people ask. And it's funny. It's there's something very, very therapeutic to talking about it, because.

Fire Tablet: you know, my husband are 2 of the only people that know this. And so and it's not. I'm kind of an open book kind of person. And so it's almost like one of those things that it's like you don't want to creep people out like. Do you want to hear how my daughter died? And when you know.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yep.

Fire Tablet: But

Fire Tablet: but I think I think it's an important thing to share, though, because it's just. It's very much a part of you know, I think people assume, you know. Oh, they had a they had a sickly child like Casey. My daughter passed on a Wednesday morning and Tuesday night she was chasing her brothers at flag football practice, and made me put flags on her hips like I mean there was. There was no indication whatsoever.

Fire Tablet: And so so yes, I mean, she had had 2 very, very, very scheduled surgeries. She was slated to have a 3.rd The 3rd one basically was like, which is really cool. It was going to be

Fire Tablet: her not long after she turned 3, probably, and the basis for when that one was going to happen was her surgeon like that was his sweet spot, like I like the size of the child at this time, and then also like

Fire Tablet: that, they're not going to be old enough to kind of fight back. I mean, it's just a really cool thing. Surgeons have a craft, and for him, 3 years old was the sweet spot of when he wants to perform this surgery for another surgeon. It may have been 8 or 9, or whatever, so I thought that was really cool to just hear that he has a skill and he has a preference. And he's experienced. Obviously he's touching my child. So that was really comforting to hear that he had a comfort zone with when he wanted to do that surgery.

Fire Tablet: We had done her 3.rd Her birthday was in December. We had done her 3rd birthday party in November, knowing that we were probably about from December to spring, going to kind of shelter in place to keep us all, well knowing she was going to need surgery, and they wouldn't do it if she was sick, so we didn't want any of us during cold and flu season to get cold and flu.

Fire Tablet: So her birthday party we did in late November. Her birthday was early December.

Fire Tablet: Was kind of we called it the theme. I had asked her what she'd wanted a theme to be, I mean, she had gone through a million things. She wanted a monster theme birthday party. She probably wanted a Cheeto theme birthday party, I mean, like just 2 year old random stuff, or whatever. But we finally landed. She had said she wanted a heart party, and

Fire Tablet: I said, We're going to do a heart party, baby. I said that because obviously she didn't know, but because we had not started to talk to her about it, but it was kind of our last hoorah before what was going to be her 3rd surgery, and so we had her little heart. Birthday party. That was the theme I had had her. These little wooden

Fire Tablet: hearts. I ordered them, and she colored them in crayons, and we kind of hung them on an ornament tree at her party, and everyone took one with them, and that was kind of the party favor. But with the request like please, you know. Remember to pray for our girl. She has the surgery coming up, and we have no reason to believe it's not going to go as great as her other ones have. But you know you've been with us this far, like you know. Please just take your little ornament and think of us and

Fire Tablet: think of her, and you know, just lift her up. And so we did. We had it. It was such a full day, it was such a. She felt so old that day all of a sudden, because it was just like she understood this sense of, whereas she was kind of a stinker. She kind of knew she needed to be the hostess that day, and so she was just sweet, and she circulated and

Fire Tablet: talked to everybody, and it was just such a good day. I will tell you this. This is a weird little detail that I remember.

Fire Tablet: and we'll never forget. I accidentally bought her a 2 candle

Fire Tablet: instead of a 3 candle, because in my mind she was 2, not 3, and so she blew out a 2 candle, and she never turned 3 and like, that's just a weird, hard thing. I don't know why, like little things, you get stuck in your head, you know.

Fire Tablet: But anyway, so she ended up passing 2 days before her actual birthday. So we had her birthday party like the last week of November, right before Thanksgiving, and then. Yeah. So her birthday was December 9.th She passed on December 7.th

Fire Tablet: I don't know what to tell you what happened. We don't know

Fire Tablet: we it was a Wednesday morning like I said we had been at a flag football practice Tuesday night.

Fire Tablet: We typically eat like old people like 4, 35 o'clock, but that we ate after practice. That night we ate spaghetti, and then the next morning, Wednesday morning, she had thrown up in her bed, and I thought we ate like late last night, and we ate heavy like, that's all because she was fine. I put her in the bath.

Fire Tablet: and then she's in the bath, and she's just acting like she wants to get out of the bath like just acting a little like just kind of fussy, and it's like she's nauseous, and she doesn't know how to articulate it. She's about to throw up again. So I put her in front of the you know the toilet right there, and

Fire Tablet: she sits down, which in and of itself was like something's wrong. She just didn't ever stop, and she sits next to me, and she just lays on me, and she's just lethargic like just strangely lethargic and I call Josh my husband. And I said.

Fire Tablet: Do me a favor head home like and I'm not. I'm not.

Fire Tablet: I'm not a reactor to be honest, but like she, it was just so out of the ordinary for her to be.

Fire Tablet: You know she she wouldn't sleep without kicking and screaming. I mean, it was just she was active.

Fire Tablet: and so I

Fire Tablet: try like kind of step. One with a heart baby is. You try to get their their oxygen level, their set their oxat and you are are

Fire Tablet: pulse. Ox would not register her oxygen level. And so I just I laid here on our couch holding her, you know, kind of enjoying it like, because I never really got to do that because she was just a spunky 2 year old that was never sitting, and

Fire Tablet: my husband got home. We still couldn't get the oxygen level, and he's like? Is she milking something like is she getting, we thought, is she getting a cold? Is she getting the flu like? And she's just like liking the snuggles, and you know we'll take them when we can get them, and we're just so we talk about it. And we're like, listen, she's going to make an idiot out of us. We'll go pay a hospital copay. But I'm not comfortable not having her oxygen level.

Fire Tablet: So we're just gonna take her for that reason alone, kind of just to find out what her saturation is. And

Fire Tablet: I mean, by the time we got there she was just that much more loopy and lethargic and

Fire Tablet: We laughed. We were walking her into the hospital, and my husband was holding her, and

Fire Tablet: she kind of sat up and just grabbed his face, and we were like, is she being silly, or is she like, I mean, we were just? We were so.

Fire Tablet: and just had no idea what to think about it. And then

Fire Tablet: I mean, because of her condition, they pretty immediately got us into a triage room in the er and

Fire Tablet: I laid in the bed with her, and

Fire Tablet: I mean her. Her oxygen was extremely low when they got it, but

Fire Tablet: you know they were just in all of the kind of fact finding

Fire Tablet: stages in the beginning, and at some point she's laying on me.

Fire Tablet: And I just I looked at my husband and I said, what is going on like

Fire Tablet: like, what is happening right now? And he, you know, he just kind of was like Lauren. Don't worry. And

Fire Tablet: I mean we probably hadn't. I don't know the time of it, but I mean I know.

Fire Tablet: So this was on a Wednesday. On Monday my husband had taken off work, and we had Christmas shopped all day, and I remember thinking on Wednesday.

Fire Tablet: you know, like we had almost had these like kind of 2 mirroring days of like my husband being home on a weekday where he wouldn't have ordinarily been.

Fire Tablet: But the Wednesday was so much shorter than the Monday, and we came home without our daughter.

Fire Tablet: So really, all in all, we were maybe at the hospital for probably less than 2 h, and

Fire Tablet: she was gone like she. Just. I'm laying in the hospital bed with her.

Fire Tablet: and I just yelled at 1 point because I just felt her fading on me. I felt her body just becoming limp, and I just yelled, Somebody do something! They kicked me out of the bed, and then they took her to another room, and we followed.

Fire Tablet: and we she began to code, and we just watched them.

Fire Tablet: try to resuscitate her for probably 20 min.

Fire Tablet: and then them very gently and very kindly explained to us that they were doing more harm than good at that point.

Fire Tablet: and then we were just saying goodbye. At that moment.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Wow!

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What was?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Could you walk me through that.

Fire Tablet: There's not.

Fire Tablet: There's not a lot to walk through. It was

Fire Tablet: the fastest, slowest moments of my life.

Fire Tablet: I remember.

Fire Tablet: So my husband.

Fire Tablet: and he was so ashamed of this, but I'm sure so many parents can imagine doing the exact same thing. My husband was on the floor pretty much passed out

Fire Tablet: And so a nurse helped him into a bed that was also in the room.

Fire Tablet: and then she was I mean, I look over. He's shirtless, I mean, they're trying everything to kind of keep him awake.

Fire Tablet: So I I went over to the bed

Fire Tablet: where they were working on her.

Fire Tablet: I started to sing, you know. I thought maybe if she heard me sing

Fire Tablet: I'm worried.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What are you singing?

Fire Tablet: I was probably singing into the garden.

Fire Tablet: It's an old hymn. I've always sung my kids at bedtime.

Fire Tablet: We had someone sing it at her service.

Fire Tablet: I sang, probably saying, you are my sunshine.

Fire Tablet: I prayed, and praying, I shouted.

Fire Tablet: You know, to the Lord. Over and over again, I said. Just show them what you can do.

Fire Tablet: And I

Fire Tablet: I felt the need. Almost. I remember I remember saying

Fire Tablet: her name is Edie. We call her Edie girl like

Fire Tablet: not as though I ever doubted that she was getting the care she needed.

Fire Tablet: But it's like I I just wanted them to know, like she's not just a body. She's eating.

Fire Tablet: Nurses were crying.

Fire Tablet: they were, you know, taking turns with the compressions and things, and then some of them weren't wanting to stop, and others were making them. Because, you know, I'm sure there's protocol. With that they don't go a certain

Fire Tablet: time because they had to have been exhausted.

Fire Tablet: And then eventually, you know, just, the doctor said, like we just we have to stop and

Fire Tablet: I didn't argue, or so. I never felt like.

Fire Tablet: I never felt like I needed to tell anyone what to do differently.

Fire Tablet: There were times after I lost her that I almost felt like.

Fire Tablet: Was it my passivity? That was it my passivity that either that lost her?

Fire Tablet: But I was very quickly able to

Fire Tablet: to stop that that line of thought, and I'm thankful for that. I'm very, very thankful.

Fire Tablet: I don't feel like I've had a lot of

Fire Tablet: unhealthy thought patterns in that way, you know, even just

Fire Tablet: even just watching people work on her.

Fire Tablet: It it was a blessing, like, you know, to see them so upset when she passed it.

Fire Tablet: It was a comfort, in a weird way, you know, to just know that

Fire Tablet: I mean just I would say to anyone that was encountering anyone going through deep grief like just

Fire Tablet: telling someone you are so so sorry is never a bad idea like not telling them.

Fire Tablet: You know, this reminds me of the time, this, this, this, this, this like, I'm so sorry this has happened to you, is never a bad thing. It's never a bad place to start. And and those women, those nurses, and that doctor. They were genuinely so sorry for us and

Fire Tablet: after after she passed.

Fire Tablet: You know I just. I told my husband, I said. I know there's gonna be a lot of things

Fire Tablet: that are so hard to navigate.

Fire Tablet: But this 1st step I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can leave her here.

Fire Tablet: And I'm so thankful for him, you know

Fire Tablet: he, you know, he just said. But, Lauren, we have to, and he said.

Fire Tablet: because we were in the room alone at this point he said.

Fire Tablet: Let's not put her down. Let's hand her to somebody

Fire Tablet: And so we got a nurse, and we said.

Fire Tablet: You know we're prepared to leave, but we're not prepared to leave her by herself, and so.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And.

Fire Tablet: We handed her.

Fire Tablet: We handed her to a nurse.

Fire Tablet: and it just almost felt like like everything about her in that moment felt like she genuinely felt like it was an honor to take her.

Fire Tablet: And that was a blessing it was. I know it's weird, but it was

Fire Tablet: Hi!

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I understand that, like i i i do a I feel that what was the

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: after you gave Edie to the nurse, and you left the room.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What does that look like going home? The car ride the 1st night.

Fire Tablet: Yeah,

Fire Tablet: So we got in the car.

Fire Tablet: you know, just walking to the car. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, and you're just like, how dare you? How dare you shine? Sun?

Fire Tablet: you know, and even just the walking

Fire Tablet: down the hallways or or no, I mean. I guess we didn't do much of that. But just walking

Fire Tablet: back to the parking garage, you know, there's hundreds of people there that are there for routine that are there for work and routine appointments, and this and that, and you just want to scream like, do you have any idea what just happened to me.

Fire Tablet: And so we get in the car and

Fire Tablet: I got back in the back seat like I had ridden to the hospital with her.

Fire Tablet: I laid my head in her car seat.

Fire Tablet: I don't remember how much we talked or didn't.

Fire Tablet: I do remember, you know, just little

Fire Tablet: kind of revelations coming to mind, for whatever reason. And I'm thankful they did, and just saying them to Josh, but

Fire Tablet: I think the only one of the only ones. I remember saying to him on the way home.

Fire Tablet: I just said, I don't want her room closed up like I just. I know that there are people who would want that. And so it was just important for me

Fire Tablet: to tell him. And so he knew. You know, in case he felt differently, too. You know. I wanted to respect that. But you know, I said.

Fire Tablet: people will be in our home. Kids can play in her room. Our kids can play in her room like I don't want her room closed.

Fire Tablet: I didn't want a tomb in my house, you know.

Fire Tablet: And so

Fire Tablet: we got home. No, we didn't get home. We my boys, were with my mom, who lives about a mile away from me.

Fire Tablet: and we had to stop on the way home and tell them

Fire Tablet: You know we had to tell my mom before we told them. I can remember my mom meeting us in her garage

Fire Tablet: and her just being like looking at us like, why are you here and us just

Fire Tablet: shaking our head and having nothing to say, and her just

Fire Tablet: absolutely losing it as you can imagine, and

Fire Tablet: than her having to kind of collect herself back together. Because we, you know, told her like we have to go inside and we have to talk to these boys.

Fire Tablet: So we did at that point, so they would have been 5 and 7, our boys.

Fire Tablet: So my oldest is Elliot, the middle is Henry.

Fire Tablet: You know. I sit them down, and I tell them together.

Fire Tablet: The 7 year old. He immediately starts crying.

Fire Tablet: and then the 5 year old kind of giggled at the fact that the 7 year old was crying like, I mean, it was just, he said, basically a toddler himself, you know. It was just an awkward moment for him, and he didn't understand. And

Fire Tablet: and then, you know, watching a child laugh at that is just a

Fire Tablet: awkward, awkward feeling. And then, you know, you're just constantly having to, just through every moment like that. Just remind yourself of the reality of the situation like this is a small child that doesn't understand. And then, ironically.

Fire Tablet: the reverse has kind of been the case since.

Fire Tablet: You know, my, my older one is

Fire Tablet: far less sad than my younger one, and I think I think my younger son struggles

Fire Tablet: as much with the not remembering.

Fire Tablet: like I think he feels robbed memories.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Now.

Fire Tablet: You know. My, my older one, you know he's a firstborn. He's just. He's very black and white. He's very and it's funny, because when I told them.

Fire Tablet: when I you know, I told them

Fire Tablet: that Edie had passed, and you know.

Fire Tablet: you know I instantly felt like I had denied them something, because we never in a million years thought we weren't coming home with her worst case scenario. We thought we might be admitted

Fire Tablet: but like I took their sister, and I didn't come home with her and so

Fire Tablet: you know, whereas we got to sit and hold her as long as we wanted. I mean not. But you know we we got time and things like that like.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: They saw a crazy little girl leave their house, and then had to take our word for it that she was really never coming home.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: And so anyway, we

Fire Tablet: I told them, you know, right. As I told them, I said, Listen.

Fire Tablet: you know your your little bodies are not going to be like mommy and daddy, like our body is going to remind us pretty constantly that we're sad. But your bodies are still going to want to play. And that's okay, you know, or whatever. And then

Fire Tablet: I can remember them doing it and me being like you freaks. I didn't mean it like, why are you not sad all the time like me, like

Fire Tablet: I was having a mature moment. I didn't mean it, though, like. Come on like. Let's all wail all the time, please.

Fire Tablet: but that's definitely an element I've had to navigate. I you know I've hidden my sadness from them because I don't think that they're built to be sad, like we are all the time. But then I wonder why they're not sad, and I've hidden my sadness from them, you know. So I've definitely

Fire Tablet: gotten, you know, like, grief is not something you want to learn how to do. But it's something you have to learn how to do if you if you want to do it healthily. And

Fire Tablet: so, you know, I've learned to just talk to them about, you know. Some days I'll be like

Fire Tablet: guys. Listen like, if I was short with you earlier. I'm sorry, like some days I feel a lot sadder than others, you know, and just talking to them about that, or you know, just stopping trying to just put on brave face all the time, because, like they're at the point, too, that their bodies are about to start throwing a whole lot of emotions their way that they don't understand, and like, I have every opportunity to show them that there are good and bad ways to cope with that. And so.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, that's

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: absolutely right, and that it is okay to grieve, no matter how long it's been, no matter how long it's been forever.

Fire Tablet: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That is a great segue to my next question.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What has grief looked like for you? Do you allow yourself that time to

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: like you mentioned hiding your grief. So what does that look like.

Fire Tablet: I, you know I think every bad thing probably

Fire Tablet: heightens every element of your personality as it is.

Fire Tablet: I'm not good at asking for help. And so I think that that was something

Fire Tablet: I had to get good at, because I found out very, very early.

Fire Tablet: that it wasn't just my grief.

Fire Tablet: It it's my grief in a different way. It's my grief in a way that

Fire Tablet: only I know, and only I can know, and it's only mine to bear

Fire Tablet: But it's a lot of other people's grief, too, and they find

Fire Tablet: a lot of solace in being able to help me. And so, you know, whereas, you know.

Fire Tablet: ask that friend that literally has said a hundred times she would love to have my boys over with her, boys.

Fire Tablet: Let her do it, you know. Let me have an afternoon where I get to lay down and stare at a wall like my body feels like it wants to do all the time, you know and so letting them do that.

Fire Tablet: letting you know people there's so much backstory to to kind of. Why, I genuinely felt.

Fire Tablet: you know, in in my worldview is a Christian worldview. So that's obviously the lens through which I I genuine. But I genuinely believe, like just I saw the Lord's provision, and just how

Fire Tablet: just kind of the arc of our lives, even before we lost her. But

Fire Tablet: You know my husband and I

Fire Tablet: just the growth and maturity we had reached before we had lost her like you. Had it happened

Fire Tablet: 5 years earlier.

Fire Tablet: I genuinely would have felt more at home staying with her body in the hospital than coming home with him, you know. I mean he just so so just the growth we saw before, and how it paved the way to how we would handle it together versus apart and

Fire Tablet: how we had already just opened so many more lines of communication than we ever had in our marriage, so that you know

Fire Tablet: you know, I know we'll we'll probably talk about it more just the actual depression aspect, but I mean, like I had struggled with depression before, you know, just postpartum and just depression in general, I always had

Fire Tablet: But in the other instances in our marriage, you know. I think my husband thought that, ignoring my depression almost like gave me dignity, you know, like it was like, if we don't talk about it, then it won't embarrass her or something. And then, you know, just

Fire Tablet: all of the the progress we had made before Edie passed just paved the way to him, knowing that's not the case like I need to check on her. I need to talk to her. We need to talk this out. We need to talk about what her her preferences are about, you know people and what we're doing or what we're needing to say no to and things like that. And so

Fire Tablet: so you know how it has actually looked. I don't. I don't know that I could say. You know.

Fire Tablet: expectations is a strong word, because I think we've all let our mind creep to the dark places. We shouldn't. Of what if this was my reality, or you've just, you know you've let yourself there because of empathy, from reading something of something happening to someone else. But I don't think anyone.

Fire Tablet: and I don't think they should truly puts their mind in the place of having lost a child until it happens. And so.

Fire Tablet: you know, I think when it's your reality, though you just

Fire Tablet: you come home from the hospital, and you look in at 2 boys in the face, and you see, like

Fire Tablet: stopping is not an option, you know, and and I had 2 boys at home, and I hate to think that if I didn't have 2 boys at home, would I have thought that my husband wasn't worth getting out of bed for what I would have felt would I have felt that I wasn't worth getting out of bed, for, you know. And so, you know, having

Fire Tablet: having other children.

Fire Tablet: obviously was a blessing. But I don't think if you find yourself in a situation of grief and you're single.

Fire Tablet: it doesn't mean that you are less worth getting out of bed, for, like health is just worth it, you know. I mean, like doing doing the next thing that you think you can't do is worth it.

Fire Tablet: And that's what grief has ultimately been. It's just been, you know, I call them.

Fire Tablet: you know I there's, I've said from nearly immediately anyone that tried to talk to me about it. It always felt like it was like, you know, I know it's not the same thing as you, or it's, you know we haven't gone through what you have, but and it's like there's no disclaimer necessary like we do not compare griefs like my grief is real to me. Your grief is real to you, and it needs to be dealt with either way, like whether we don't.

Fire Tablet: It doesn't need to be on a spectrum. It doesn't need to be on a scale. It needs to be handled. It needs to be lived. It needs to be, you know, worked through. And so, you know, obviously, I don't think that there's any need in comparing griefs, but it is.

Fire Tablet: you know. I think it's both

Fire Tablet: healthy, but just also realistic to acknowledge that different types of losses are going to yield different needs and struggles. And and so mine was a sudden loss. And I know you know that, like you know, someone, someone feeling ripped from your life is a little different than watching someone decline. I don't envy someone that has watched someone wither away. But

Fire Tablet: there is an element like, you know. I've had grandparents that I've just watched in pain, and it's like there was an element with them of

Fire Tablet: like when they finally passed there was that little bit of relief for them. And so with sudden loss, I think

Fire Tablet: the things I didn't like. I mean, you just asking me about what happened like

Fire Tablet: I mean, literally, you don't understand.

Fire Tablet: And really it's only yours to understand. But that person that has had sudden loss has had

Fire Tablet: endless landmines to walk around and to navigate every second of every day, because it's just like like I said. I mean, I literally the 1st several things that I said out loud after I lost her. I could hear her arguing with me, you know, it's like you, you know, and it's just like so obviously that sudden sudden loss. It's a little harder to believe early on it. Being a child.

Fire Tablet: you realize very, very quickly it's real because

Fire Tablet: you're right. Your entire job description changes. You know I am.

Fire Tablet: I can remember a lot of times I would leave things right outside her bedroom door when she was napping or sleeping. A clean pair of socks, you know her shoes, whatever, and it was just meant to be put away when she got up next.

Fire Tablet: I couldn't put those things away for days, because it was like when I did. There were. There were no more pending tasks for her, you know.

Fire Tablet: and somebody came over, and because I had said, You know, kids are welcome in her room. They can play. I think her daughters had played in the room. She cleaned up after them, and she put those things away.

Fire Tablet: I'm glad she did, because I don't know when I would have you know. And there's just so many things like that.

Fire Tablet: I still haven't touched a room. I don't know when I will. I'm thankful I didn't make it a mausoleum, you know, because that would just add another element of. When is the right time to do this?

Fire Tablet: I didn't take her car seat out of my car for probably a year.

Fire Tablet: I let other kids ride in it, you know, that were size appropriate. It wasn't like. Don't you touch that, you know. It wasn't that it wasn't.

Fire Tablet: It wasn't like all things, Ed, or off limits, but it was just like

Fire Tablet: I can't bring myself to do it. And

Fire Tablet: you know Josh would just tell me

Fire Tablet: there's going to be a time. We have to take it out because it's a need, and then we're just not going to put it back in. And he was right. But it took me 2 times. We we took it out one time to take a bunch of boys with us somewhere, and I was like, maybe next time, and I put that stupid car seat back in my car.

Fire Tablet: And then the next time I did it, you know.

Fire Tablet: none of that's right or wrong, but it's something that you didn't expect to have to navigate, that you have to navigate something new every single day. Every single moment, you know it's now

Fire Tablet: it's you know the struggles are kind of the opposite, like I don't

Fire Tablet: I don't remember what it was like for her to be in the rhythm of our house.

Fire Tablet: and I'm losing that more and more.

Fire Tablet: You know.

Fire Tablet: It's of no consequence that I don't remember that it doesn't make me less of a mom. It doesn't make me, you know. It doesn't change anything about.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hmm.

Fire Tablet: What she was to us, but it hurts, you know.

Fire Tablet: I remember the 1st time

Fire Tablet: she would go to bed, probably an hour hour and a half before my boys.

Fire Tablet: and we would always stay up and watch something together, or play something together, or read something together in the living room.

Fire Tablet: and then, when the boys would have to go back to their room from the living room, they would pass her room. So when we would tell them all right. Go get back in bed. I'd always say quiet feet.

Fire Tablet: quiet feet like don't. All the way back to your room, past her room, and

Fire Tablet: I said quiet feet once after she was gone, and I, you know, just lost it.

Fire Tablet: There's no need for quiet feet anymore, you know.

Fire Tablet: but it only happened once, and I never said it again. And then, you know, just recounting that now, like I don't remember them meeting quietly, you know. So

Fire Tablet: just things like that are really tough. But

Fire Tablet: grief has also surprised me, though, and just

Fire Tablet: the way people surround you, I mean I cannot, I cannot. I would be remiss not to just talk about just the way we have been held.

Fire Tablet: I mean, just Casey, the way people have. Just. We didn't cook for 2 months after she died.

Fire Tablet: you're a mom, you know, that that's like the most embarrassing thing to admit that is, will derail you like totally derail you like? What's for dinner?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Would you.

Fire Tablet: I didn't have to think about that for 2 months.

Fire Tablet: One year after she passed someone I have never met before sent our family a hundred dollar eating out gift card

Fire Tablet: like I don't know them like

Fire Tablet: Eating out is something that is difficult for our family to do. I mean 2025. I imagine it's difficult for everyone to do. But I mean, like.

Fire Tablet: how incredible is that, and just so many things. I mean, I'm looking at

Fire Tablet: a like Valentine's garland that my friend made. It's like these felt hearts with pictures of us and her

Fire Tablet: for, like the 1st Valentine's day after she passed, or maybe the second, and

Fire Tablet: I'm not a cutesy holiday person, or whatever, and it's like my friend was able to anticipate that all of the milestones are now going to be hard, whether you're a Valentine's person or not. And she was right, and it's something

Fire Tablet: that my boys like, you know just, and probably that she couldn't have even anticipated that I'm not going to have the energy to make these things as fun for my children as I should. And so we have this sweet little thing to decorate our house. With that they love looking at and and just I mean, I could tell you just a million ways that people have just

Fire Tablet: held us

Fire Tablet: And anyway, I feel like you haven't talked in 30 min.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I am soaking up this. I'm soaking it up.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I am.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I really love home much. I'm learning and getting to have just a glimpse.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: One thing that I you actually opened a whole lot of conversations for me.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: One of my next questions was, gonna be, you know, have you had moments where you felt like you wouldn't be able to survive this.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I would love to go back to what you were talking about, as far as

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: the boys and having to get up for them. You know I am no means trying to relate to this at all, but

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: you are familiar with my story, and my grandma, after she lost my mom.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I watched her never be able to get out of bed again.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: never! And all of my aunts, even to this day, you know my grandma's been passed away 5 years.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: and they're still very

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: saddened by. They feel like they lost so much from their lives because she wasn't able to carry on for them.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And so I think that

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: man there's such a part like there's a there's a part of me

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: where I understand. Like I Nope, Nope, I I never! I never want to understand how you feel. I

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I can understand it, but I never want to experience it. I never want to experience that

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: so I can understand how my grandma was that way, and I can also see and understand that sadness that my aunts feel because they take it. So

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I'm gonna say they take it so personally like they weren't worth her continuing to live for.

Fire Tablet: Why wasn't worth living for.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yep, why wasn't I worth living for? And it it's so. It's so twofold, because it's not that they weren't worth living for. It's that that grief that she had was so great that she didn't understand how to navigate it.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And so she felt like not living anymore.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Is there anything that you have that you could share or speak on that.

Fire Tablet: There has like.

Fire Tablet: I don't know that there has ever been a time where I thought, I won't survive this. There's been a time where I haven't wanted to.

Fire Tablet: I mean, I've I've whispered the words, Jesus come more than once, more than probably more than 50 times.

Fire Tablet: I think the shortcut that I use.

Fire Tablet: My voice didn't ask for this.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: You know.

Fire Tablet: They didn't ask for this, but there's a whole lot to teach them through this.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: No.

Fire Tablet: And again, you know, and you never want to judge how someone else grieves.

Fire Tablet: You don't, but I think

Fire Tablet: I think we do, and I think we live in a world that you're not allowed to tell anyone anything hard.

Fire Tablet: I don't think we're good for that, like I don't think you know.

Fire Tablet: like Casey. Some days I just had to make my bed, you know the stupid like Commencement speech that, like I had to make my bed like.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Good.

Fire Tablet: Because if I.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Real, though.

Fire Tablet: Stay in it.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: And that was how my body responded to grief. I could have slept 20 HA day.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: But I wouldn't let myself.

Fire Tablet: They didn't ask for this. I homeschool my boys. I should have said that so. Not only was their mental health. It felt like under my

Fire Tablet: under my umbrella of care, but their education also falls to me, which is terrifying, so you know. But

Fire Tablet: you know. It was very easy to doubt that I was capable of doing that

Fire Tablet: after she passed, but I also got to tell myself that that same thing that makes me feel totally inadequate, and makes me feel

Fire Tablet: like a chicken with my head cut off most days is the same thing that afforded them spending every single day with their sister of her life.

Fire Tablet: you know so honestly like for me, and just

Fire Tablet: like with depression in the past, like I call them mental shortcuts like I need them like I need quick reminders.

Fire Tablet: That put me back to the perspective that I know that I want, not the one that comes naturally, not the one that

Fire Tablet: it's the one that I know that the best version of myself wants for the best version of myself, yeah, you know.

Fire Tablet: and so I had another friend tell me the same. Her. Her mom's younger brother passed very young.

Fire Tablet: and and they, you know, almost kind of did a reverse thing. The parents like then kind of poured their life into making the loss purposeful that they got so caught up in counseling other people that they kind of neglected their home life, and so the daughter was like left to her own devices while they went and counseled the rest of the world. And so

Fire Tablet: no, I mean I I feel very, very blessed in that like

Fire Tablet: like, I've just recently gone back to work this year. But I was also not working. You know I I'm not so ignorant as to know. Think that

Fire Tablet: every you know, had this happened at every chapter of my life could I not be working? But it did give me space, you know, just a very, very nurturing space to process at a snail's pace? You know what feels like a snail's pace. But

Fire Tablet: But then to just you know.

Fire Tablet: I don't know. I just. You know you say that there's no right way to grieve, and that's true. But there are wrong ways, you know. There are really unhealthy things

Fire Tablet: that anyone who's going through grief can tell you. It would be very, very, very, very, very easy to succumb to.

Fire Tablet: So my thing is that like, find your find, your mental shortcuts that just like get you back

Fire Tablet: But then also try to make space, for

Fire Tablet: you know very, very short stints of giving in to that thing that your body wants to do. Like, you know, sleep all day long, or whatever. I haven't done it yet, because

Fire Tablet: the nature of it is, I have to plan it if I'm going to do it. But I've told my husband, I said at some point. I need a hotel night like I need to go literally stay somewhere and where I am nothing to anyone, and maybe stare at a wall for 24 h, or maybe write, or maybe

Fire Tablet: go sit on a park bench next to a 90 year, old man, and have a cute banter. I don't know. I don't know, but I need. You know I need that at some point, and he's like Lauren do it, and I'm like, but I have to plan it, and nothing is more overwhelming. In the midst of you know everything like I said everything about your personality is exasperated with grief, and so I'm not a great planner as it is, and now it just feels like a dark cloud, knowing if I have to plan anything so

Fire Tablet: but I will do it at some point.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, yeah, it's so funny. You I completely relate to that. I understand, like the want to want to do that. But then, whenever you're able to do that. You don't want to. It's like, but I don't need it right. This second, like I like, I want it like that's my ideal is to just go and lay on a park bench for like 3 days, and have the world just continue to revolve without me, and then I'll just come right back like hit pause, but like, I don't want to do it right this very second.

Fire Tablet: But it's also like the time that you have the mental capacity to plan. It is not the time you need it. It's the time that you are like spiraling, or like wanting to be in beetle position, that it's like, oh, did I not plan this vacation 2 months ago? But I, you know, anticipating this moment and no, it's you know, and that's not reality, and it's not feasible. But but you know, I think one of my things, I would say, too, is just.

Fire Tablet: My husband would tell me to go and to do those things, but that's not always the case, like, you know, there was times in our relationship where he would have thought like, that's just silly, because because we hadn't taken the time to kind of understand each other's needs, and so

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I just want to say, too like.

Fire Tablet: Nurture your relationships in such a way that they may have to weather more one day than they are right now. Because, like, I said, there's you know there's been times I

Fire Tablet: I have been able to see so many times like if I had had to come home with the old versions of ourselves, life would be very, very different and much darker.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Let's go back to earlier. When we started talking, you had a glimpse of depression.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That you've experienced it, and now we have grief. In addition to your already experienced depression.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: grief, and depression can often intertwine, and making it really hard to separate one from the other.

Fire Tablet: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Grief is that deep ache, of of course, missing Edie, and everything that came with having Edie and and just life

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: sometimes can lose all of its color, just with grief, with depression. It is

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: a similar shade of losing color, but definitely not the same.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Do you feel like from that moment on those lines have been blurred between depression and grief like, are you finding a hard time to differentiate them? And how are you able to navigate that.

Fire Tablet: So I think, having dealt with depression in the past, helps and really.

Fire Tablet: how much they need to be differentiated between is like, you know, only for the purpose of like I just want to do what's best, you know I want to do what's healthy, but I don't. I don't know that I totally understand where the lines are. If there are lines, or if it's, you know, a Venn diagram with a lot of overlap, or you know what but I so I

Fire Tablet: have. My primary doctor is a good friend, and it was about 6 months after I think I lost Edie that I told him I wanted to come off of depression medication, and he was like.

Fire Tablet: I'm sorry what?

Fire Tablet: And it was just. It was like a thing of like, you know I had been. I had been on it for probably I don't know maybe 3 or 4 or 5 years at that point, and I just told him. I said.

Fire Tablet: I at this point, just need to know what baseline looks for me like. I know it's a new normal. I know it's

Fire Tablet: and I did, and I have.

Fire Tablet: and I am obviously very, very sad.

Fire Tablet: But I am not

Fire Tablet: dysfunctionally sad, and that's the difference to me. When I struggled with depression. I can remember

Fire Tablet: my kids going to bed.

Fire Tablet: me literally fighting the urge to go wake them up because I missed them so badly. And then the next morning, hearing them wake up and my body hurting physically

Fire Tablet: because I didn't feel up to the task of being a mom

Fire Tablet: and just me just being like, how do you reconcile that like I miss them so badly? I can't see straight when I'm not with them, and then when I'm with them. I don't feel capable of being with them. That was depression for me, that was, it was very physical. It was very.

Fire Tablet: you know. I literally felt like my shoulders were tethered to my ears half the time. I mean just the stress that lived right here. Muscle spasms. I had awful migraines, and I know not. Not. Everyone has, like the same physical manifestations, obviously, but

Fire Tablet: but just the overwhelm in a very physical way. I can remember I really

Fire Tablet: started struggling the most probably 6 months after my second was born, and I can remember if I dropped like a baby blanket like, you know, he was a newborn. Obviously, if I dropped something on the ground I would feel physical pain like. So there were a lot of Ocd elements. With that I literally felt like we were just infested like a baby's blanket should not touch the ground like that is disgusting like you might as well burn it like I mean, I just remember feeling

Fire Tablet: just irrational thoughts and

Fire Tablet: and then eventually to the point that I thought my family would be better off without me, and

Fire Tablet: that was very, very fleeting and very short, and not luckily anything I lived in for a long time, but I can admit that

Fire Tablet: very true.

Fire Tablet: And so you know, like I said, I think

Fire Tablet: I've just really been able to see like just how.

Fire Tablet: if had this happened in a different time in my life I'd be in a much darker place.

Fire Tablet: But then, also, just how I'm better able to ask for things. How?

Fire Tablet: you know, I think when you know your struggles, you don't have to start over every time. It's like, I know that I'm prone to darkness in this way. I know I'm prone to this in this way. Let me not set myself up for failure in that department. Let me ask for this. Let me not go here mentally, I mean, I literally.

Fire Tablet: I will tell myself no like I will get in a line of thought, and I will audibly say out loud, No.

Fire Tablet: Nope, like we're not doing that.

Fire Tablet: I grew up thinking like I mean, you would hear things like, well, you can't help the way you think, or that is not true. That is not true, and and not attempting to take control of your thought. Life

Fire Tablet: is suicide. I mean, if you're someone that's prone

Fire Tablet: to the overtaking by your thoughts, and so like, I said, like.

Fire Tablet: had this happened at a different point in my life, our conversation would look very, very different. But I'm thankful for those perspectives. I'm thankful. I hope I can share them, you know. That's the other thing, too. I think the more you realize there are a lot of other people on the planet. You realize that life doesn't begin and end with this thing that's happened to you. It's you know, it's yours. It's

Fire Tablet: gonna it's the hardest thing that's ever going to happen to you hopefully. And but it's not.

Fire Tablet: It's not the only thing you know. I can remember.

Fire Tablet: I can remember during her heart surgeries being in the surgery waiting room at Wolfson's downtown Jacksonville, looking at the Interstate, at

Fire Tablet: tens of thousands of people driving by and just thinking.

Fire Tablet: are any of those people looking up and thinking, gosh, there's a lot of weary people in that hospital, and it's like you felt like they didn't. But I do. Every time I'm on the fuller warn. I look up at that hospital, and I say a prayer for weary people waiting in that waiting room, not knowing, you know, having having had to surrender

Fire Tablet: their child to someone that they have to admit is better able to help them than they are, you know. And so I think

Fire Tablet: you know, thinking, just remembering how how many people out there there are thinking that. But then also, you know I because I'm naturally an empath like not

Fire Tablet: also admitting to yourself I can't take on. The rest of the world's hurt right now, either, like just knowing yourself in that way, too, but I know those are conflicting, but I don't even remember the question.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: No, that's okay. No, it's a self narrative. You hit the nail right on the head. There you absolutely can change. And it is very important to change the way that you think sometimes that you gotta restart it. You have to rewire it. I have to rewire my own brain so many times on so many different things.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: My marriage, my parenting, my Ocd, my depression, you know, like it's a it's a rewiring. It's a self narrative that if you continue to tell yourself that you're not good enough, you continue to tell yourself that this is unsurvivable. You're going to believe that you're going to believe what you tell yourself.

Fire Tablet: Yeah, I I heard a speaker one time say that they trained themselves to every time they were thinking, what if

Fire Tablet: to change it to what now, and

Fire Tablet: I'm not great at it, but I've given it a good go like, and it's like every time I find myself comparing myself to one the Instagram version of someone else. I don't have Instagram, that's a lot. But, like, you know, I'm every time I find myself comparing

Fire Tablet: the ugliness of me to the filtered version of someone else, or, you know, only seeing their vacation photos, not their, you know, 1 million other moments that were really hard to get there, or whatever

Fire Tablet: you know from the times I've thought, what if my husband was different? What you know? And it's like No, what now like, what can I do

Fire Tablet: to make a step forward where I'm at right now? And that that's 1 like I said. Those little shortcuts that have made such a difference to me. Putting myself back to the perspective. I know I actually want to have.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah. Has that been?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Have you seen a difference in doing that?

Fire Tablet: Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said, it's not, you know. It was not like an overnight thing I just

Fire Tablet: progressively feel like it becomes more and more natural, but absolutely.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That's awesome. I'm gonna have to try it. What now? I love that.

Fire Tablet: Hmm.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Love, that.

Fire Tablet: I am going to switch gears.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And go into a little bit of a more sensitive question.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And I'm just gonna read what we wrote. And it's what I wrote and it's

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I know, for me losing a parent changed my world.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: But I recognize that losing a child is something that shatters the very foundation of what life is supposed to be.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: It's not the natural order of things, you know. I did have an abrupt loss. I did not have to watch

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: a long suffering, and we both know my story. I was

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: one year old, so I don't remember a life before her. I only know the life after her

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: and in addition to that, that was my parent.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That's how it was supposed to be

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: you as a parent losing a child. That's not the natural order of things.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I can only imagine how it must feel. I never want

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: to relate to you in that manner. I love you so much. You carry a candle

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I don't want to touch.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: So how must it feel like living in that type of reality that shouldn't exist like

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I'm sure it feels like it's a nightmare that you just

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: absolutely have a hard time accepting. That's real. I know it's it's been time.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And now

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I believe that you understand that. You know Edie's physical body is not just gonna walk through that door one day. You have accepted that this is life.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: But how have you felt

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: that, and and that type of disconnection with this can't be real. And now this is my new reality.

Fire Tablet: Yeah, I think you probably feel some of the similarity, too, though, and having lost your mom so young that it's you feel robbed of getting to know them, you know she was, too. So it's like I knew she was wild. I knew she was spunky. I knew she was a fighter I knew.

Fire Tablet: but it's you know I'm I'm getting to the ages with my boys. They're 8 and 10. Now that it's like I'm starting to get preferences. I'm starting to get personalities. I'm starting to understand what makes them. Them.

Fire Tablet: We hadn't broached that. Really, you know, Toddler is about survival. It's just like I knew what I needed to do with her to get by. I didn't know, you know, so there's just a lot of I work with the youth in my church.

Fire Tablet: So I watch these like teenage girls, and I'm like, if she had been like that I would have been okay. Or if Lord help me! If we had ever had that problem, I don't know that I would have, you know, hung, but I've gone to many a dance recital for these girls, and I'm like, you know, I see the super graceful one. And then I see the girl that it's just like she enjoys it, and that's what's important, and it's like which one would she have been, and

Fire Tablet: would I have even known the difference, you know, like, would I have just seen her through rose colored glasses like we tend to do, and

Fire Tablet: she had just like

Fire Tablet: ratty hair like it was always like sticky and stuck to her face, and she'd rub snot and rub her hair. And it's funny I literally can just see her like her hands, probably sweaty, just pushing her hair away, and I think all the time when I see a little girl that's, you know, 5, 6, or whatever, with a long ponytail, I think. Would her nasty hair have ever grown, and

Fire Tablet: if it had, she was on her own, because I didn't know how to fix it. And you know. So

Fire Tablet: you know, there's a lot of.

Fire Tablet: but that's kind of one of those thought process processes that

Fire Tablet: I I try to stop myself from

Fire Tablet: where it's not helpful, like I think I'll get to a point where it's a sweet thought to think. What would she be doing right now?

Fire Tablet: but right.

Fire Tablet: and I'm I might be getting there. There's times that I let myself go there. But but if that thought is just crippling, what what could have been? What if you know we just talked about. I just think.

Fire Tablet: what did I have? You know? I I have videos. There's a lot of people that you know. You don't have nearly as many videos of your mom as I do of my daughter in 2 years, because just technology.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: Yeah. And it's like I have. And it's funny, because nothing's ever enough. I can't tell you how I mean. For months after she passed.

Fire Tablet: I craved new pictures I wanted. It was a weird thing I wanted to see pictures of her I had never seen before. It's like I wanted to see her in the background of somebody else's

Fire Tablet: picture at a party like I wanted to see what she was doing candidly, that

Fire Tablet: I probably wasn't present enough for in the moment, or what I mean, just weird things like that. But

Fire Tablet: But just again, just trying to shortcut myself back to

Fire Tablet: this is what we did have.

Fire Tablet: This is what I've gotten to see through this all I mean, just

Fire Tablet: the world can be pretty gross. So just to get to see the remarkable things in people that I've gotten to see because of this.

Fire Tablet: You know so many people have said

Fire Tablet: I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what to say to you or whatever, and I'm like, thanks for trying, anyway, like, you know, like just watching people literally have the internal struggle of thinking. What they have to say is not enough, but then doing it anyway, like, that's a really cool thing to get to witness, and I get to witness that a lot.

Fire Tablet: And so, you know, I don't know that it's necessarily

Fire Tablet: shaped the way I view the world differently. I think I've

Fire Tablet: I think it's made me celebrate other people more. I'm kind of tired of.

Fire Tablet: you know, waiting for funerals for us to tell each other like how we feel about each other, or like the things that we think are really remarkable about each other.

Fire Tablet: You know, I think a lot of people have said things to me and my husband about the way they admire us that they wouldn't have if we hadn't have lost our daughter and don't get me wrong. It's comforting, it is balm to our souls. But it is, but it's like

Fire Tablet: there's a lot of struggle apart from loss, you know, like life is hard.

Fire Tablet: Encourage. People say things to people. You know. Let them know what they're doing. Well,

Fire Tablet: so and like I said, like, I think it makes me kind of celebrate other people's kids a little more like, I think. Sometimes

Fire Tablet: people almost treat me in a way that it's like they feel guilty for their children surviving.

Fire Tablet: you know, and you know, in a weird way, and so just reminding people like your child is worth celebrating as much alive as mine is gone, you know, and like

Fire Tablet: just, we all need to just use the time. We have to just honor people

Fire Tablet: in living as much as dying, you know. And so I think that's kind of

Fire Tablet: probably a way that I'm a lot less filtered, too.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, that's beautiful.

Fire Tablet: I think that might be how my worldview has changed. I think I might just be a little. It's like what can hurt me now a little. Yeah, I find myself a little less filtered. I think it's very much worth mentioning. I didn't talk about it earlier about the way that grief has surprised me. I think if you have not gone through deep grief.

Fire Tablet: you would be extremely surprised to realize how it affects you mentally.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: The mental fog, Casey, I mean, like.

Fire Tablet: I say to my husband all the time I would love. I wouldn't know what I was looking at, but I would love to see an MRI of my brain before and after losing her. I mean, it's getting better. But

Fire Tablet: I

Fire Tablet: I am the type of my husband used to call me. He's like, well, I married a detective, and he would say it in the worst way, because, like I just, I notice everything, and

Fire Tablet: I won't remember half of what I probably said today when we're done like I, my mind has been through trauma. I mean, just so that's what it is, and.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That's exactly.

Fire Tablet: Got it.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Awesome. Yep.

Fire Tablet: It.

Fire Tablet: It changes your capabilities, not just your not just your, you know. Obviously your fatigue, your this, your that, like your capabilities. I do not feel like I have the

Fire Tablet: brain power that I used to. I don't have the bandwidth. And so like that's like a very

Fire Tablet: practical like rehabilitation type thing that I didn't anticipate needing to do. But like

Fire Tablet: like I will probably have to introduce, like Sudoku into my life earlier than I expected, or what I mean. I literally do not recall things that I would have ordinarily

Fire Tablet: like by a long shot, and so, you know I will. But I've humbled myself to literally, you know. Ask people, listen. I know we had a conversation, and you told me this like, would you please remind me like because I care. It's not the care that has gone away. It's the ability. And so it's like, you know, telling it's humbling to have to tell someone. Okay. You told me a very sad thing happening in your life, and I'm now having to have you repeat it.

Fire Tablet: but I care enough to have you repeat it. So saying, like you told me about your cousin's illness, will you please remind me exactly what you said? I mean, like, you know, just having to humble myself in that way because the like that is so real. That is one thing. I wish I could scream on the mountains like I'm not as rude as I seem like. I am just not as capable as I was, and that's just a hard, hard truth that I've had to come to terms with.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Wow! So that was definitely a

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: incredible. So it you in a test. Not only does it change your view on the world, it changes your physical capabilities.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely absolutely you know. I literally.

Fire Tablet: you know, can. I was the type of person that it was like, you know, my husband would get so mad because he'd be like, I didn't say that I'm like, yes, you did, and your hair looked really funny when you said it. You know, I mean, like, I remembered the details. You know, it's like you. You were facing that way because the sun was hitting this side of your face. And he's like, Okay, psycho. I give up, like, you know, like I was detail oriented. And now it's like to not even be able to remember the gist of a conversation I had, much less having it. It's a little scary. It feels like

Fire Tablet: you know, like now, anyone seeing this is like, well, I'll second. Guess you ever like watching my child or something. But and it's not that it's not like

Fire Tablet: It's not necessarily.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Like an energy loss. It's almost like you've lost a spunk.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: It's almost like you've lost a spark.

Fire Tablet: I've lost a will, I can tell you that. You know. I mean, it's like, but there is like

Fire Tablet: there's a physical heaviness to it. I mean, it's literally they call it a brain fog, because that's what it feels like. It feels like your head is in a cloud, and it feels hazy, and it feels

Fire Tablet: humbling, for sure. But but it is very, very real, and I think that's a part of grief that people don't

Fire Tablet: anticipate or even talk about, really like I had never heard that and so like, it's literally something

Fire Tablet: like

Fire Tablet: an advice I give to people that are not like, write more down than you think like. That's my advice. Like to someone that's losing someone. Write more down than you think, because I will be. You know I will have a conversation, and I'll literally in that moment think, okay, well, there's no way. I'd forget this, because such and such and such and such.

Fire Tablet: And I mean, it's not a day later, and it's just that was not me before. And so it's just so hard to believe every time every time that it's gonna happen. And every time it does. And

Fire Tablet: you know, it's weird what stays very, very imprinted and what doesn't. But it's still it's just not worth not showing yourself the grace of writing it down, asking, you know, I mean, just ask for forgiveness if you feel the need to, but ask, and

Fire Tablet: you know, just realize that you will be working with a new normal like in that way. And anyway.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Well, do you mind if I ask you, how is how is your husband? How is that like? Are you 2 exhibiting 2 different grief Styles. I would imagine you're 2 totally different people. But you know, would you mind going into that that maybe there is 2 different grief styles that you're seeing, or how do you 2 even navigate it together?

Fire Tablet: Absolutely

Fire Tablet: So, by the grace of God, we are very different, you know, that used to feel like a curse, but in this process. It has felt like such a blessing. I mean just

Fire Tablet: my husband's ability to compartmentalize where I don't have that, you know, like

Fire Tablet: it has been survival for us like him, just being able to make decisions early on, or knowing his own mind more than me

Fire Tablet: about certain things that you can't get around like early on

Fire Tablet: You know my husband knew right away, for whatever reason.

Fire Tablet: that he wanted her cremated, because, he said, I'm not going to be able to look at a tiny casket.

Fire Tablet: I don't know to this day, I mean, if I had felt, I think I like, if I had felt very different, he would have respected that. But

Fire Tablet: I don't know how I felt about that, and maybe it preserved me from an image that I wouldn't be able to get out of my head, you know, and and he said, I just want to scatter her ashes in her yard where he played where she played, you know, or whatever. And so it's like that in that moment was important to him, whereas I'm usually more opinionated then yes, we will yield to something that's important to you, but I was just thankful

Fire Tablet: it was really really important to me to donate her organs if we were able.

Fire Tablet: That's always been important to me for me, and I just think.

Fire Tablet: you know we. Our personal belief is that a carcass is a carcass when it's a carcass, you know, or whatever. So I didn't believe that her body held value apart from not to me anymore, apart from what it could potentially do for other people. And I didn't want to hold on to that. And so but something you don't think about when you're just like, Okay, I'm checking a box. I'm confident this is what I want.

Fire Tablet: That process is an interview that you get a phone call hours after your loved one died, because they need to know the condition of their organs. So

Fire Tablet: that is not a call I could have taken, whereas my husband sat on that call for me, you know, and so it's like, whereas I probably at some point in our marriage, would have resented the fact that he's so much less sensitive than I am. We've just been able to see time and time again.

Fire Tablet: How much it has served us at this time.

Fire Tablet: we're in. We're in a grief share class right now, which probably seems about 2 years too late. But we just it was never anything we were opposed to. It was just nothing. We got around to kind of thing. We we kind of went back, probably too soon, into just serving in the normal capacities that we were

Fire Tablet: But just because of the way people had surrounded us and loved us. It kind of felt just a very natural thing to do. But anyway, so we're we're in a grief share class right now. And there is this page that you open to. That's 2 pages full of like grief symptoms, so to speak, and it's probably 200 check boxes, or whatever.

Fire Tablet: I think there's maybe 5 or 6 that I did not check, of having experienced, and his has maybe 5 or 6 checked.

Fire Tablet: And it's just it felt like such a like yin and yang moment like.

Fire Tablet: Thank you for the way that we complement each other, because it's just like.

Fire Tablet: whereas that could look like. And there's been times where it's like you're. I'm envious of how he can

Fire Tablet: compartmentalize. He has told me he's entirely envious of how I am he's. I wish I could be as sad as you. You know he's like it hurts to not be able to be that sad

Fire Tablet: And granted not to say that we've both done it perfectly like, I think you know, the conversation has had to be had like. Are you not sad because there are these things that need to be done? Or are you not sad because you're drowning out with things that aren't important to you, I mean. And I think that that's not healthy. But no, he's, you know he's doing

Fire Tablet: well. It's a weird question you never know how to answer that you're like. I think I'm doing great at this, like, you know, or whatever, and I think but more than anything, we are doing very well in that we there's nothing that's off limits for us to talk about and

Fire Tablet: to do together. There's nothing I feel like I couldn't ask him like

Fire Tablet: like, literally. Sometimes I will say, like I think they call it like body doubling, or whatever like.

Fire Tablet: I I can't go to the grocery store alone today, like I feel so like, I know it needs to be done. We need to eat this week, like we should probably feed our children at least once a day. I cannot go to the grocery store, and he will just ride with me if we have it in our schedule for that to do, whereas.

Fire Tablet: like he could easily look at that and be like, get over it, be an adult. But that's just not where we're at, like we are. I'm so thankful that we are just sensitive to

Fire Tablet: to just the things that

Fire Tablet: we need to be sensitive to with each other and and so no, he's he's doing great, he is.

Fire Tablet: He is a rock. He is you know. I he has but the same for for brain fog, though, like even as even as much as he seems.

Fire Tablet: I don't mean seems that's not a good way to express it, but the way that he is able to compartmentalize and just be like. And he's told me. He's like Lauren. I just don't think about it like he's like I let myself think about it when I let myself think about it, and I don't when I don't, and it's like, Oh, good for you, man, that's not an option.

Fire Tablet: It is, and it isn't. I mean, there's times, but I think mine has a lot more like mine does not have airtight like airtight seals like.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: There's so much more to it, though, Lauren, like. There's so much more, though to it, and I don't want you to not credit yourself, and I don't want it to see like you were.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Edie's mom, like moms and dads, I believe.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: are genetically dispositioned to have different dynamics.

Fire Tablet: Yes.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: You know, like

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: you, you carried her, you birthed her, you grew her all the things, and it is okay.

Fire Tablet: Sorry.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: Yeah, no, but it, anyway. I mean, he just he definitely

Fire Tablet: like, I said just that. That ability to kind of compartmentalize. I think some people think it's like a

Fire Tablet: like. It's not reality. And it it is. It's it's it's just

Fire Tablet: it's like I said I didn't work when we lost her like his work was extremely generous in, just like we don't want to see you back for a little bit, but that had to end and and so you know, for him to just be able

Fire Tablet: to continue. And I, you know, and I can't imagine that extra burden of

Fire Tablet: you know, feeling like, I want to feel appropriately sad. But there's the level of

Fire Tablet: provision for our family was different for him. I mean that dynamic was different, in that he was the breadwinner, and he was, you know, so so the pressure to keep it on the rails more than I had, you know, and

Fire Tablet: he's a railroader that was fun. Anyway. But yeah, so just it's, I'm thankful

Fire Tablet: that I have totally been able to celebrate our differences through this like and not resent them even a little bit.

Fire Tablet: You know, and like, I said, like different stage of our marriage. Different conversation, probably. But

Fire Tablet: But the the game changer of just being like

Fire Tablet: able to absolutely communicate at all like me, saying to him, like, I need you to put your phone down and hold me for a minute like you know, like, and him not take that, you know. 10 years ago may have been like, what do you mean like and like like it wasn't a cost of his character. It's not like I just that's what I need from you right now and then. You know him just being like, okay, absolutely. Thank you for letting me know exactly what you need and

Fire Tablet: So no, I mean. And then just him, you know, I said, like my will is what I notice is

Fire Tablet: has just waned like, and my ability to experience joy is not is very much, not natural yet

Fire Tablet: I'm hopeful, but it's not so like, you know, just

Fire Tablet: I feel like we step it up at different times, or whatever I mean. Sometimes sometimes grief looks like sadness, but sometimes it just looks like edginess. And so knowing when they're edgy, it's like, Hey, boys, come, play, catch with me, or whatever, and or the boys and I do something different, or whatever. And

Fire Tablet: And so for me, holidays so weird because I'm not like a big milestone person. I'm not.

Fire Tablet: I'm not the type of person that looks at the calendar waiting for a date to roll around like that. I'm gonna you know, memorialize on that date. I'm not a date person. But

Fire Tablet: the muscle memory of grief is very real, and so like just feeling, you know.

Fire Tablet: at Christmas, instead of feeling present with my voice for what this Christmas is. I feel what that 1st Christmas was, you know, 3 weeks after she passed. And so you know, just things like that. And it's just or just whether you're thinking of a previous Christmas, or it's just hard to will yourself to be happy still and so just

Fire Tablet: being able to kind of lift each other up in those moments when it's like he knows that

Fire Tablet: I want Christmas to be special. And then I'm having trouble making that happen. And so he

Fire Tablet: is, you know, just he helps, you know, we usually do this on Christmas. Let's do this, you know. I mean, just like keeping those things.

Fire Tablet: just kind of stepping up to help make things feel special, you know, stuff like that. So.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, that really plays on y'all's relationship. Because, like you touched on for just just a second there, a different time, a different marriage, a different reaction. You know, there's so many people that go through shared child loss, and there is

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: contempt. There is like resentment.

Fire Tablet: It's easy to understand how. Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah. And it could be because one is more car compartmentalized than the other. And so it seems like they just don't care as much as I do, and that's not the case. That's.

Fire Tablet: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: So I think that was beautiful, that you shared that with us. Because that's so true. It's a maturity of a relationship. It's it takes this long to be able to really understand

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: your partner.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And and this level of a

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: a loss to your family. It's so important

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: you shared just a second ago about grief share that the 2 of you are going through grief share. And I think that's beautiful. It doesn't matter how long it's been.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: What do you think of grief? Share? How has that been? Would you mind expanding on what it's like.

Fire Tablet: It has been good. I liked

Fire Tablet: you know, it having been this long. So it's been over 2 years since we lost Edie, so

Fire Tablet: it has been great. It's been great material. It's 1 of those things that you start to feel like. It's like you're not a grief graduate. But you do feel like you're a little bit more experienced, or whatever. So I feel like you almost feel like, and this has only ever been

Fire Tablet: self prescribed. This is never anyone else has ever made this feel. But you get to a point where you're like

Fire Tablet: you feel like you're losing your your grief is supposed to expire like you're not allowed to. Still, it's like, okay. A lot of things have happened since. Like to a lot of people like get over it. No one has made me feel that way other than me. But it there is this feeling of

Fire Tablet: you're like.

Fire Tablet: But no, I'm not. I'm not over it. And and so, being in

Fire Tablet: grief share, and seeing that there are other people, too, that it's like some of them. It's like this is their 3rd time being here because they lost their mom 6 years ago, or whatever you know. So it's just like that's that was definitely like.

Fire Tablet: it's just. It's cool to see like I said, you don't compare grief. But then also, just to see that just to see very tangibly that grief does not work on a timeline

Fire Tablet: for me, too. I mean, just like I said literally, that stupid page with the 200 check marks. It felt so good to do, Casey, like it was like.

Fire Tablet: Okay, like that wasn't just me. That is a symptom of grief, you know, and like, and to see them described so differently, too, because you think like there's fatigue, and it's like it's not. There's fatigue, there's loss of will. There's this, there's this, there's this, it's like you felt these very, very dynamic emotions, but you felt so

Fire Tablet: unable to express them, or you didn't feel like anyone wanted to hear you express them, and that's the sole purpose of this. And so but then, to just really kind of start getting into dissecting what you're actually feeling versus what you're not. And

Fire Tablet: you know, like I said, like

Fire Tablet: my husband only felt 5 of those things, or whatever. So it's like, let's really pay attention to the 5 he was feeling, you know and like. Let me be sensitive to those

Fire Tablet: and you know. And then in just in hope, too, that like things that you're sharing, you know, I

Fire Tablet: I think I said in one of the 1st sessions, I

Fire Tablet: I said something about the fact that basically like because we were talking, the question was like, has someone said something inappropriate or hurtful?

Fire Tablet: And then to hear, I honestly haven't had that. There's, you know there's been a couple of things

Fire Tablet: that hurt, but not a lot.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Like, what like, what hurts.

Fire Tablet: So like, I mean, like, like, for instance, the lady that's leading group share. Her story is fairly similar to mine, but she's in her eighties. So she this is ha! You know this happened to her, you know, something like

Fire Tablet: 50 years ago, or whatever. So she lost her, you know, young daughter and

Fire Tablet: but her daughter was adopted, and someone said to her, at least she was only adopted.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hmm for sure.

Fire Tablet: Something to that effect, or at least you have other children, and I honestly have not had those I've had. You know. It's funny. There are a lot more turns of phrases about death than you realize until after you lose someone I can remember. I was the one that hurt me like. I said the thing I can remember being with a couple of girlfriends not long after she passed

Fire Tablet: we had taken our boys for a bike ride, and we were just resting, and I said something.

Fire Tablet: We were talking about how one of the girls was gifted in this way, and the other one, and I was like man. I would just like to be good at something. Just one thing, because they both had these like multiple things that they were doing or whatever. And then one of my girlfriends said, whatever you're gifted and your thoughtfulness, she said. You have, she said. From the moment I knew you, you have offered to like. Keep my kids for me to do something more than anyone I think I've ever known, and I said out loud.

Fire Tablet: Oh, that's me. I can keep your kids alive, I guess. And then, just having said that out loud, I was like, well, maybe not

Fire Tablet: like just these little like like, I said. Landmines. It's just like things that are lying in wait that you don't like. That conversation seems so innocent, and I just

Fire Tablet: stepped right into it with no foresight that it could possibly be coming and

Fire Tablet: But you know I I shared with the group because they were just all talking about these things that people had said and you know I had a lady one time say to me she was talking about

Fire Tablet: talking about like talking to her daughter about like tampons and things, or whatever, and she was like. Well, you're lucky you don't have to have those conversations. You don't have to have the girl conversations, and you know, and like

Fire Tablet: no ill will was meant. But it just in that moment just cuts

Fire Tablet: she. But it's like also, in that moment. I don't want her to think another thing about it. She did not mean that

Fire Tablet: And so I just. I said something to the group of something about like where you are able, give the benefit of the doubt like, just show mercy, because

Fire Tablet: that person could have said nothing, and that to me has been people that have. I've seen people avoid eye contact with me like I'm not like, I know they have. I've seen people avoid me because they don't know what to say, and it's like.

Fire Tablet: yes, maybe they're not the most delicate, but they tried something, you know. They sacrificed some piece of themselves to say something, and anyway, so I shared that, and like the first, st and then like by week, 2, a mom who had very recently, like

Fire Tablet: 2 weeks, or something crazy very, very recently lost. Her adult son

Fire Tablet: told me like, I'm I'm so thankful you said that it was in the back of my mind, and somebody said something to me this week that had had you not just said that

Fire Tablet: it would have, I would have been so angry. And so just I mean, just even just being around people

Fire Tablet: who are walking similar things, or maybe a half step ahead of you. You know, I mean, it's just. It's definitely

Fire Tablet: a good process, and it's therapeutic and

Fire Tablet: there are. Still. I would still like to

Fire Tablet: do individual therapy. I haven't, and not because I'm opposed to. But you know it's just like sometimes, especially early on for me.

Fire Tablet: adding appointments, no matter what they were, were more trouble than they were worth. It was like the stress of getting places and scheduling and things like that was, it was like it was just not worth what it then added to my life, and especially when like if I had not had at home what I had at home, that would be different, probably. But

Fire Tablet: anyway, but I do feel a need. Now, I would like to do individual therapy in that. Another thing about grief is, it tends to just make every bad thing that's ever happened to you, Snowball, you know. So it's like I would like to. I would like to start to unlink a lot of those things, you know, like. Deal with them individually for what they are, instead of, you know, feeling like

Fire Tablet: it's this, you know, Snowball of things that I either want to approach or don't you know. And so it's like, let's process them for what they actually are, and you know.

Fire Tablet: detangle them.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: like, you don't want it to be a new normal that now everything, just everything. Snowballs like you want to be able to navigate the new Lauren, like the new.

Fire Tablet: It's like the next hard thing that happens. I don't want to link it to my daughter's death, you know. It's like, I just want

Fire Tablet: to, you know.

Fire Tablet: do healthy with that thing, to process that thing the way it should be, and you know, know that I've I've dealt with these other things in the past, too.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah with grief support. Do you feel like, Oh, and I'm going to try to like word this

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: sensitively. Do you feel like

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: like I'm so glad that you're doing it now. Do you feel like it would have helped more had you done it earlier and second point to the question, do you feel like this is something that you're going to continue to do?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: The reason that I'm asking is because

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I also go to grief support. Now I've

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: you know, I'm 37 years into this, and it gets to a point where I'm just.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: So do you feel like this is still a good time, like you are it? It's really helping you to get it out, to talk about it, to like.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: be surrounded by people who have this precious thing in common with you.

Fire Tablet: It is I don't regret not having done it sooner to be honest. And I'll preface that with again.

Fire Tablet: I had

Fire Tablet: really really great support at home. I think if I hadn't I would have needed something, and I think living feeling isolated is never a good idea. I think all the all the lies become louder and louder when you are isolated.

Fire Tablet: But

Fire Tablet: I so probably 6 months after she passed I joined like a year long ladies Bible study. Naturally you can imagine I did not want to do that. The last thing I wanted to do was go one day a week and talk to a group of ladies. It felt like I mean, I didn't know one of them, but I had them judged in my mind. I don't want to go have trivial lady conversations.

Fire Tablet: The group saved my life. I mean, it was these women that were just warriors to me like they

Fire Tablet: would have gone to battle for me like in the way that they

Fire Tablet: prayed for me, and were sensitive.

Fire Tablet: uncertain dates or or not. Just sensitive to this is what I feel like I need to say to you right now.

Fire Tablet: And that group will always be so precious to me. Another girl in the group had experienced like a very similar loss even, I mean, I was only 6 months removed. She was closer than I was, you know, and so just for us to be able to kind of

Fire Tablet: love on each other in that way, too, just being right there in the thick of

Fire Tablet: really just the stunned phase. Still, you know. But then, you know, other ladies being farther along in similar things, and then other ladies not having experienced anything similar, but just absolutely, inexplicably loving us

Fire Tablet: and so just that I but that doesn't mean that I didn't need a nap every single week after that group, because I left with my face looking like a punching bag, and just from sobbing. But just

Fire Tablet: how beautiful that was to just genuinely, I had these relationships that were built and established on the premise of nothing more than us wanting what was best for each other. It was like, because, you know, like your regular relationships don't necessarily have that they have the baggage of your busyness. They have the baggage of things you just know about each other in the past, or whatever else or just personality quirks that get on each other's nerves, or whatever

Fire Tablet: that was exempt from this group we got there, and we took care of business like we talked about what was really going on with us like there wasn't time for trivial, because all we did was talk about real things.

Fire Tablet: And

Fire Tablet: so I say that to say grief share probably would have been more helpful had I not been a part of that group as well. But no, I don't. I don't regret not starting it until now, but.

Fire Tablet: like I said, I had other things in place what felt like very, very divinely appointed things, but namely, my marriage being in the shape it was was the the biggest of things. And then, yeah, so so again, no. But but I also would say that it's never a bad idea like, you know. I mean, I don't think that that's ever a bad idea again. If you're going, and

Fire Tablet: the appointment of getting there is harder and more overwhelming than any of the progress you're making in that.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah.

Fire Tablet: And I hesitate to say that, because sometimes I don't think

Fire Tablet: I don't know that we can truly gauge that like, I think, because our body wants to be at rest so much, or because we don't want to get out of bed so much. We may not be honest with ourselves about that. But

Fire Tablet: if you truly feel like you know.

Fire Tablet: like I said early on, like the burden of the appointments, and the going was more than I could handle, which I genuinely felt like it was. Then then I would say, Wait,

Fire Tablet: But don't wait.

Fire Tablet: If you're not talking to anyone, you know, I don't think that that's a good thing. I don't think that we're made to

Fire Tablet: that. We're made to shoulder everything by ourselves, and certainly not at that time. But.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, suffer in silence. I don't believe we're made to suffer in silence.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: How did you get linked up with the grief share like? Is that something that your church does? Or was that a a case?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Do something? Okay?

Fire Tablet: My church hosts a segment of it, but it's not affiliated to my church if that makes sense. Grief shares, I think, international, at least national. But yes, so my church just happens to to host

Fire Tablet: And honestly, one of the ladies that was in that group that was so so dear to me. She and her husband are the ones that facilitate it for for our little area. So so no, I think it's like one of those things. You could just go to grief shares website and just find out which churches or civic centers, or whatever are hosting it. But but yeah, so I,

Fire Tablet: you know I probably wouldn't have necessarily gone to that without her prompting the the lady that facilitates it. But but yes, very, very glad.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, wow! That's awesome. So what do you guys do while you're there? Is there like A

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: is everything kind of you expect to do the same thing? Or is there something different every time there's a different theme like, what does grief share? Look like.

Fire Tablet: So it's it's yes, it's a video curriculum. And it's a it's a set number of weeks because there are different themes that you navigate each week, or that you dive into each week like you know, one week is I? I don't even remember what the early weeks were. But

Fire Tablet: I think one. I don't remember if it was the whole week, or just kind of a subsection of the week, but literally talked about. I call them land mines, but grief share calls them.

Fire Tablet: I don't remember. They have a good little phrase for it. It was like grief.

Fire Tablet: grief, surprises, or something. It's not. It wasn't, it was. But it's something to that effect. But just but it but it felt so affirming like, in that moment, you just felt like, okay, I've called these things landmines. And that's felt dramatic. But it's like you felt very, very seen in that moment that it's like, Okay, like this is a very real thing, and other people have that. But and then other weeks will be.

Fire Tablet: you know, anger or bitterness.

Fire Tablet: One week is self-care, like literally just kind of starting to get to know the things that actually help you. And you know, literally like, now is not the time to neglect your own health, like, you know.

Fire Tablet: chiropractor visits massage, I mean, like, you know, things like that. In addition to just

Fire Tablet: things that may need to be supplemental for a while. But your baseline health is definitely not the time to let that go. And so yeah, so just yeah, there's subsections. And then the material that they've done. It's mostly interviews of people. And then, like the the person that's being interviewed, it'll say like what their losses at the bottom and things as they're speaking. And so so yeah, so it's pretty much just

Fire Tablet: it's curriculum that they've assembled pretty much solely on interviews of people that have walked through it, and some people that have made careers then of counseling outside of it, and things like that, so.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Wow. So it's it is a class

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: segment type thing. So there are more than

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: your husband and yourself in these classes.

Fire Tablet: Right. And so then, obviously, you just naturally share, you know, based on what your experience is with what the theme of the video was and you know, as with anything sometimes that's more rewarding than others. And sometimes you're like, you know, you'll hear something, and you're like, Oh, I don't know if that was relevant. But

Fire Tablet: You can chalk that up to grief fog, too. But no, but it's still just I think it's just always helpful to just hear other people, and it may be the only place that they feel heard. And so you might be just. You know you may be be a help to someone else that you don't even know about. And so no, it's just. It's a really good sense of community. I feel like.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, that's awesome.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I wanna go into well, really, we've talked about

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: some of the best ways and some of the maybe

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: areas of improvement that people can work on supporting those going through grief.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: You mentioned that you didn't have to cook for 2 months, and so that was a beautiful way to support anybody going through grief. Can you maybe talk about that? And then some more

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: just great ways that you would if

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: putting it into an aspect. If if you were taking care of yourself, what would you, outside of your body, be doing

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: for you yourself going through that? Maybe the 1st full year. I

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I know we're a couple of years in now, but it's still relevant. It's still you still need the love. You still need the support so 1st year up into even now, what does that look like.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely so. You know, it's initially

Fire Tablet: like I said we did not cook for 2 months. We had meals every other day for 2 months, and plenty of leftovers in between, and I called it the grief train, like the you know we we live.

Fire Tablet: So I'm sitting. We live in my grandparents home, so I didn't make it very far in life, Casey. I'm exactly where I started where you met me, but so obviously we live in the same city we grew up in. We have a ton of family, but we are also very Southern, and so I say, the grief train just goes in motion like there are just women that know exactly what to do, and

Fire Tablet: literally 2 of Josh's aunts came over. Maybe I guess the same day and just

Fire Tablet: came. I don't know if someone else brought it, or if one of them bought it, but like came with like this massive box of New Tupperware.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And.

Fire Tablet: And then one of them came and realized, like Josh had what I used to call the squatty coffee potty he is the only one that drinks coffee. So he had like a little like 2 cup coffee pot. And she came into my house and realized like, that's just not gonna do with all the people that's gonna be coming in and out and everything. And so she came with a new coffee pot the next day

Fire Tablet: and Josh's cousin, who was like one of his best friends. She came into our house, and she was the one that had organized the meals, and she looked like she was like.

Fire Tablet: I just have to say, like

Fire Tablet: people love y'all like. And she she said it in such a way that she was exhausted because of like the number of calls and stuff that she was getting and having to field for us, and and so just don't underestimate for a moment how valuable things like that are to people, because I couldn't have done it if someone had texted me about bringing me food.

Fire Tablet: Granted. And I I say this with all sincerity. I cannot be more thankful for those meals, but if I had to organize them.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, I.

Fire Tablet: Just that it's not worth it, please like. And so for.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Can't even handle the mental load for you to be able to help me. I can't take on the mental load of facilitating it like.

Fire Tablet: Not to mention so literally. His 2 aunts basically lived here, and every time someone brought food they packed it up in a way that my kitchen was going to stay clean. I mean just these things that just know, like, you know, so many people don't think about that are just

Fire Tablet: the most humble forms of servant that you know, and it just they would. They left this like Giant cooler of

Fire Tablet: canned drinks on ice like just kept it stocked for like a week, as people are just coming in and out and seeing us, and like, I said. And then I've just like.

Fire Tablet: you know, kind of knowing that we probably wouldn't want to waste this food, but like I'm not

Fire Tablet: processing it right now, and so like

Fire Tablet: getting rid of the older food as the new food comes in. I mean, just all of that like. That may seem like a small thing. It was no small thing to me.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Huge, like wow.

Fire Tablet: Small thing to me, and then thereafter, you know, people had. You know, you people had collected money, and

Fire Tablet: you want to know one of the things that we used money for the next month, like

Fire Tablet: I hadn't cooked in 2 months. We used it for hellofresh, which was not sustainable for us to always do. But it was like, I need help starting to cook again like I don't even remember what it's like. And so and my kids loved it like the big graphics that they send, and they helped me with the. And it was just such a sweet little memory of us cooking those meals together, and just starting to do that again. And

Fire Tablet: and then you know, people had already collected money for us, which was just

Fire Tablet: immensely kind. We a we were able, just like once or twice, to just sneak away for a few days and just be in a different set of walls.

Fire Tablet: you know, just literally just spend absolute, uninhibited time with our children and

Fire Tablet: but also then we were in the middle of starting a new. Our kids compete in our churches Sports League, and we were getting ready to start a new season. And we always coach typically. And so we were getting ready to start flag football like I said she had been at flag football practice with us the night before, and

Fire Tablet: so many people at the sport like. So the the guy that runs our sports ministry came to me, and he's like Lauren. He's like, I I know what you're probably gonna say he's like.

Fire Tablet: I just have to ask, because so many people have asked to do something he's like, Can we? Can we do something to raise money?

Fire Tablet: And I said.

Fire Tablet: I said, we can do it under one condition, I said. This is where we've invested our time.

Fire Tablet: This is where we want our boys competing. This is where you know we had planned on all of our children coming up and competing because this is the culture we want our kids to learn to compete in. We are outgrowing our facilities, I said. We can. We don't have. We didn't have lights. We didn't have lights to light the field so we couldn't practice at nights, or play at nights which, based on the numbers, was not sustainable for us to not turn kids away. If we weren't able to practice at night.

Fire Tablet: I said, if you want to do something in my daughter's name, I said, we're going to light these fields.

Fire Tablet: and you know just again, everyone asking and him facilitating that conversation. I didn't know how to start something that would be deemed a legacy, but they gave me that gift, and you know we got quotes for these lights, for to light these fields it was like a hundred grand.

Fire Tablet: And so I was like, Okay, it'll be maybe a 4 or 5 year project. And so they planned Edie Day, as they call it, and every season we have an Edie Day where we do vendors like my mom has turned into like a baker like she literally would bake for weeks and make so many baked goods. And then there's like this little girl that well, she's not little girl now. She's 12 years old like

Fire Tablet: that's so so dear to me. That was like, I'll make rubber band bracelets, and it's like she could have easily said, like I'm a kid, I can't do anything. But she made like 600 rubber band bracelets, or whatever, and she would literally like look a grown person in the face

Fire Tablet: and give them the eyes so she would get the biggest donations of anybody. And that 1st Edie Day.

Fire Tablet: I think we raised something like

Fire Tablet: I think it was over $20,000 on the 1st day. I don't even know it may have been more than that. I don't know it. I hate that. I don't know that number, but

Fire Tablet: we lit those fields in less than a year.

Fire Tablet: In less than a year we had lights on those fields, and it's like that's not anything I could have thought of. That's not, you know. And so I just tell people like.

Fire Tablet: don't think that what you have to offer is too small, because the person grieving

Fire Tablet: can't do any of it like they can't do any of it on their own, not in those early days, or you know, I would have struggled to ever ask anyone for that on my own, even if I had the vision for it, even if I had the idea for it, like my personality, is such, I just would have struggled to ask people for it.

Fire Tablet: And so it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing like we've just

Fire Tablet: anyway. So no thing is too small. That's what I say.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, my God! That is absolutely beautiful!

Fire Tablet: That's so cool.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And that's a forever thing.

Fire Tablet: Yeah, nothing.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, my goodness!

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Like whole field.

Fire Tablet: Many dragons get to play under those lights.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Yeah, that's incredible. And that's more of a that's that's so beautiful.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I don't even know I like, it's a

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: just want to take a moment to just appreciate that. Because that's that's incredible.

Fire Tablet: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: It's suffering ceases to be suffering the moment that it finds a purpose.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: And that's yeah, that's beautiful. And the boys will think about it.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: How are the boys doing? I mean, you mentioned earlier how they were.

Fire Tablet: They're grinning at me. They're drawing in the next room, and they just grinned at me.

Fire Tablet: Hope they're they're coming in for their cameo.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hi.

Fire Tablet: How do you.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hello! Hello!

Fire Tablet: This is Henry.

Fire Tablet: Hi!

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hi! Hi! Elliot! Hi. Henry.

Fire Tablet: Paper, brush.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: You guys are incredible.

Fire Tablet: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Guys, so they they're doing really well, they they

Fire Tablet: again like gauging. How any of us is doing is always tricky. They seem

Fire Tablet: to me like incredibly adjusted boys.

Fire Tablet: They are kind, they are

Fire Tablet: They are very good boys. Whether or not whether or not

Fire Tablet: they are processing or have dealt with that is very, very hard to gauge.

Fire Tablet: Someone gave us a throw pillow.

Fire Tablet: And again, this is not someone that's like entirely close to me. It was just something she saw. And she's like, I have to order this for this, you know, for this family. It was another family in our church, and

Fire Tablet: and I was able to tell her this because it was just such a precious moment for me. But it's just a it's a little throw pillow of Edie. It's a picture of her that she had turned into a throw pillow, and when she gave it to me. I told her. I said, I know exactly how this is going to play out like my younger son is going to claim it. It's his. It's done, and he did

Fire Tablet: but then, every once in a while I'd go like tuck him in at night, and he'd give it to me to like. Take back to bed with me. Kind of thing. He's just very, very sweet and very, very silently.

Fire Tablet: very silently, serving like he's just that type like he. It's like he just knows when he needs to come. Sit next to you or like that kind of thing. He's not talkative. He's not expressive. He's just just very quietly gentle.

Fire Tablet: But anyway, one night they share a room.

Fire Tablet: I told you know I 1st came home and told them that she had passed. I told them, like, you know, your your bodies are still going to just want to play and do. And I you know I don't expect that you guys are just gonna sit around and be sad. And then it didn't happen. And I'm just like, Why are you not guys? Not sad? But I did struggle with

Fire Tablet: not like my younger son did say some things, and he's actually my non express, or just not as expressive. But, like, you know he was 5, so just had very, very young ways of trying to sort out what had happened. Like we. I can't remember where my older son was, but Josh and I were in the car with Henry coming home from somewhere.

Fire Tablet: and Henry got teary eyed, and he said.

Fire Tablet: And we're, you know, Bud, what's the matter? And he said, I wish Elliot and I were twins, because it meant means we would die at the same time.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, wow!

Fire Tablet: Yeah,

Fire Tablet: yeah. And so like in his little mind, like he had worked that out that he and Elliot were gonna die at different times, and he didn't like that.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hmm.

Fire Tablet: And you know. And so then you have. You get yourself together enough to have those conversations, and you do. But I had not had any of those conversations with my older son, and he's a lot like his dad, like very, very compartmentalized, very black and white. But he's more. He's a lot like me, too, like he's he's a communicator. And so it was

Fire Tablet: hard for me to see that, like he would know how to communicate, and he's not, and so

Fire Tablet: so I didn't ever want to like force sadness upon him, though, and so, you know, it's just one of those hard things like you don't want to just probe and probe and probe, and not take note, not take nothing for an answer when they say that they're not thinking of anything but it just like you. Just think.

Fire Tablet: you have to be feeling something. And so one night at bedtime that

Fire Tablet: I think Henry had given Elliot the Edie pillow to sleep with.

Fire Tablet: and I went to tuck them in, and they had been laying there for a while already, and Elliot says to me.

Fire Tablet: I'm just really sad, and I don't know why.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Okay.

Fire Tablet: And I said, Bun, I said, Do you think it's because you have the Edie pillow?

Fire Tablet: And he said, Yeah, I think so. And he just starts to cry. And I said, Bud.

Fire Tablet: mean, this was.

Fire Tablet: this was a year and a half a year after, I mean, I don't know. It was a long time, and this was the second time I had seen him cry since she passed the day, I told him, and then this time I mean about this. And

Fire Tablet: I said, You know. So he just started sobbing, and I hold him. Henry gets out of his bed, and he just

Fire Tablet: I mean, I think it felt really good for him, like I've been sad this whole time, and I'm not understood why no one else is. And

Fire Tablet: And I, said Elliot. I said something really, really bad happened to us.

Fire Tablet: and I don't think you've ever really cried about it. But I was like that is okay, and so hasn't happened again, you know, but it just like that little pillow gave me a moment I needed so badly, because it was so weird to me how little he felt, you know, and it's so I was able to tell her that. And like I said so just no thing too small

Fire Tablet: but but yeah, I think that they're doing well. We, you know, nothing's off limits to talk about. They know that henry definitely imagines a lot more where she would fit into what we're doing.

Fire Tablet: Elliot.

Fire Tablet: It's like he just

Fire Tablet: doesn't see the need to do that. You know. He's like his daddy like she's not here, and that's sad, but I don't need to necessarily imagine, and you know, or whatever so

Fire Tablet: anyway. So but he's also

Fire Tablet: He's the one that I felt the need to express more to when I was sad. Because I think he kind of like his dad. It's almost like

Fire Tablet: I don't want to acknowledge her sadness because she doesn't want to be feeling it so. I don't want to make it worse. Kind of thing, or whatever so like I kind of just needed him to know, like no sadness just happens. But like we need to like, it's not. We don't have to look away from it like sadness happens. And so

Fire Tablet: I am definitely, whereas he's not particularly sensitive. I am kind of his soft spot, and so he I think it almost made him mad to see me sad. And so it was like, if we don't talk about Edie, or if we don't imagine things, then she won't be sad. And so I think we've definitely gotten past a lot of that. And he just kind of understands like, No, like Mom really likes talking about Edie, and you know we've

Fire Tablet: at 1 point it occurred to me I was like, Josh, I look at pictures and videos so often like they don't have that. And so I told them. You know, anytime you all want to see pictures or videos. Please ask me this or that, or whatever. But

Fire Tablet: My husband put

Fire Tablet: the picture slide from her memorial on Youtube for them, and so they can just go watch that if they ever want to. And somehow they watch dude perfect. More than that. But anyway, we can't judge at all. So.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: How was, how was the memorial.

Fire Tablet: It was beautiful.

Fire Tablet: It was again, like we felt very, very

Fire Tablet: held. We felt very lifted up in that. We couldn't have.

Fire Tablet: you know so many people played different parts that we couldn't have played at that time. I have a cousin

Fire Tablet: that is a good bit younger than me, so he's almost like a nephew, cousin, kind of or whatever. So he's 10 years younger than me, and we've always been very close and he loves loves, loves my kids, and

Fire Tablet: he is. He's a product. He was a production major, you know, or whatever. So he did all of the media, you know he, you know, like what 2520, probably 20 year old. Guy at that time is comfortable, reaching out to

Fire Tablet: my family and Josh's family, and this and that to coordinate all of that. And he just did. I I don't know how it all happened, and he did it all, you know. And

Fire Tablet: you know, just to the you know the guy he's family to us. But our, you know, Pastor, that initiated I mean the officiated and

Fire Tablet: did the service and everything, and just

Fire Tablet: You know how special he wanted it to be, and we asked family to sing, you know a song that I sing to her at bedtime. And

Fire Tablet: you know what. So one of the videos like, he did such a remarkable job. But the videos of like, you know they're typically just a slideshow. But like because he was so gifted like he incorporated videos of her, too. So that felt like such a gift of people getting to see her personality that maybe didn't necessarily meet her. But there's 1 video.

Fire Tablet: My mom is just my mom has like a cheerleader personality type. And so she just had such a different relationship with Edie in that she was just bubbly and fun with her. And I'm not bubbly and fun. And so there's this video of them singing this little light of mine. And my bossy little daughter is basically like shutting up my mom half the time and telling her when to start and when to stop, and this and that.

Fire Tablet: But it's just the sweetest video. And that's what we ended up. Actually, when we lit the parks. It was Edie, this little light of mine day.

Fire Tablet: anyway, but again, just so many people, and I and I probably don't even know the half of what people did, you know? That's that's what's so kind about the way people

Fire Tablet: people's giving is just that they

Fire Tablet: they certainly didn't get thank you cards from me, because that's an

Fire Tablet: probably the biggest shortcoming of my life. You know. But

Fire Tablet: but that's not why they did it, and I know that that's the case. And you know, just a million different ways, people, because there's such a pressure with a memorial right to feel like you're.

Fire Tablet: And I think, I said, that at her service I don't honestly remember, but like it feels like there's this pressure that this is your last opportunity to honor someone. You know it's not the case, but there is a pressure that's there, or whatever so, but then you're at your least capable time of life to do it. And so just the way people stepped in and just did so many different things was just remarkable.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, my goodness, well, how about now? How are you doing now? Years later, do you find yourself

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: still having days where it's

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: they're hard days. It's hard to get out of bed, and if there are hard days, how do you? How do you do that?

Fire Tablet: Absolutely. I mean, I told you I always describe them as landmines. The landmines get farther and farther apart.

Fire Tablet: I don't step into as many things unforeseen. I'm better at mentally preparing myself for the things that hurt. And then there's things that just hurt less. You know. There's that some of the progress as you get farther away there is a weird element of the farther away you get, the more you feel like

Fire Tablet: you don't want it to get farther away like I want it to still hurt because she was mine and I was hers. And this is my hurt to have you know, and

Fire Tablet: but that's not realistic. That's not. That's not the best you know. I I've met

Fire Tablet: great people like, I said, that are like a half a chapter ahead of me or a full chapter ahead of me. You know I have a

Fire Tablet: a new newer girlfriend that you know, like her, her daughter passed away at college.

Fire Tablet: She's close to 10 years now, or whatever, and you know for her to tell me, you know, for me to just be like I don't know that I'm getting better, and her to be like Year 2 is a lot harder than year one. That's why, and like that would have never that that doesn't make sense to me. So that would not have occurred to me. You know. To me the rawness and the freshness should have always been the worst part, and it's not

Fire Tablet: the worst part is thinking that you're forgetting. And the worst part is thinking that you're not justified. And still feeling this way, and a lot of those things hurt a lot worse than the than the shock and the numbness.

Fire Tablet: So so yeah, so just I think I'm doing well again. That's a hard, always a hard question to answer. How are any of us doing? But

Fire Tablet: but I feel

Fire Tablet: feel like our home is healthy. I feel like we talk about what we need to talk about. I feel like again. I just think that different people in different situations have been placed in my life when I needed them, and

Fire Tablet: and I took them. You know, I mean, that's part of that is, you have the gift of these people, but if you don't choose to open up to them, or you don't choose to have the conversation. If you don't choose to have this conversation, you know, like there's not, you know. I think I told you like to me. The the beauty that can come out of grief is its usability is its ability to speak to another person that that's going to need it. And

Fire Tablet: and so I think we're, I think we're already doing that. And then I think I'm also able to show myself the grace of Nope. I'm not ready to do that just yet.

Fire Tablet: you know, and so it's a balance, but I think I'm doing well.

Fire Tablet: I I struggle probably more in numbness now.

Fire Tablet: Then hurt?

Fire Tablet: I

Fire Tablet: it feel like again like I said, it feels like you're kind of expected to assimilate back into the busyness. Now, like you have less

Fire Tablet: less free passes or something. So, or maybe you just do that to yourself. And so busyness hurts for me if I don't have

Fire Tablet: some stillness programmed into my schedule to sit back, and it's like I mean, if I haven't heard my daughter's voice. In 4 or 5 days it'll take my breath away. You know. It's like I just need to hear something, you know. Again, I mean. What a gift that I have, that!

Fire Tablet: How many people lost children before that! That was an option.

Fire Tablet: But but I think I'm doing well.

Fire Tablet: You know I like, I said. I'm I'm working outside of the home a couple of days a week. I think that's

Fire Tablet: reengaged my mind a little bit. I don't find it's not like a like a career that I find identity in. That's not. That's not its purpose. It's like a means to an end, like, you know, life's gotten expensive. We kind of needed me to do something. We had the luxury of Josh being home a couple days a week, and so I could do this, but I do think it's a small blessing in that. It has. You know I'm using my mind in a different way.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: To lift that fog, too. I mean, like I said, that. I mean, it's a very real thing that my mind did not work the same way with the same efficiency at the same level. And so, yeah, getting to kind of like, who knows? Like I may be, you know, like.

Fire Tablet: Prolonging dementia by being back at work. I don't know, but I mean I do feel like I'm you know, using my mind again in a different way, and

Fire Tablet: but I think we're doing well.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That's good. I'm happy to hear that.

Fire Tablet: Yeah.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Hear that

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: got a quote here that says, I think it's so powerful to reflect on how far we've come. Even in the darkest of places.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: We may not be where we want to be, but we are no longer where we started.

Fire Tablet: Do you.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Do you feel like?

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Well, it's so. It's never gonna get

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: easier. You're only gonna be able to carry it different.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: That's what I've heard like it. It never! It will never!

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Because she will always be gone. It's not like it will end up fixing itself, you know, 20 years from now, and

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: one of the boys is getting married. You're gonna have that same

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: wish that you were doing this with Edie, you know, as the bride's mother, instead of the groom's mother.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely and you know it just. There are so many things that could be dwelled on, I mean, people say, like

Fire Tablet: daughters care for their moms and sons, you know, cling to their wives, families. And it's like, Am I, you know, are my kids, gonna and it's just like all I can do, instead of what if what now like I can be?

Fire Tablet: I can be an irreplaceable force in my boy's life. I can love them so well that they can't imagine, even after they're married

Fire Tablet: marrying someone. That's not okay to be a part of our family, you know, because of how, because of how much love and security they feel at home. You know. So no, there will always be an element of

Fire Tablet: of what could have been of, you know. Would she have still had nasty, snotty, matted hair on her wedding day? I don't know, but

Fire Tablet: but you know and that was what was funny is, you know, we thought, like basically as ignorant as we were to the fact that we were dealing with a child whose heart was malformed. You know, we thought we might have to have the conversation when it comes to childbearing years like she might need to adopt, instead of carrying her own baby like. If the doctor says.

Fire Tablet: you know, and then we'd even had that talk like, you know. Are we going to support her? It's her choice, like, you know, if she's like, No, I'm going to try and like, you know, knowing that that may kill her, you know, or whatever like.

Fire Tablet: like hypothetically like, we're still making those choices for her, even when she's married to someone else. But

Fire Tablet: you know. So so no, there you!

Fire Tablet: Those thoughts will already always be there. I do stop myself from a lot of them, and just try to think more of what we had and, like, I said, celebrate what we still very much have to live for, and

Fire Tablet: 2 boys that did not ask for

Fire Tablet: for their sister's life to end, but certainly not their life, just because their sisters did, and and so we we honor her how we can we?

Fire Tablet: But we still we still nurture the lives we've been entrusted that are still going, and

Fire Tablet: you know it. It won't go away. It won't entirely go away like I said the

Fire Tablet: There's I'm hopeful that there's a day that what I now call land mines like the things that just that you walk up on, that overtake you that you weren't prepared for.

Fire Tablet: I'm hopeful that one day those will be sweetly welcomed. You know that it's like, Oh, like a memory of my daughter crossed my path today, you know.

Fire Tablet: and I think it will

Fire Tablet: They do. I mean they already do. But

Fire Tablet: I'm just. I'm hopeful that there will come a day that it's

Fire Tablet: It's it's lighter than it is dark,

Fire Tablet: And

Fire Tablet: and again, just just the idea that you know Josh and I even had the conversation the other day like, do you think that maybe one day we could leave grief share, and we both affirmatively said, Yes, if I if I had asked my husband that 10 years ago he would have been like, mind your own business like no, I don't even I don't need to. You know I'm fine. They're fine. We're all fine and so, you know, like I said, like I just, I'm hopeful.

Fire Tablet: I'm hopeful in our progress, but I'm hopeful in what we have

Fire Tablet: what we have to impart on other people, too, because of this and

Fire Tablet: Anyway.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Well, going on to what you have to impart in other people. If there was an opportunity where somebody just sat right now, right down next to you right now, and they were going through

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: something similar. Is there a word of encouragement that you would have like now in this space, that you're in this journey

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: departed from her for this long that you would be able to share with somebody that's in that situation.

Fire Tablet: I told you I mean like there's never there's never going to be the right thing to say, I said, but I'm so so sorry this happened to you. I'm so so sorry that this is what you're living is always where I would start.

Fire Tablet: That never is unwelcome to hear like, just

Fire Tablet: for someone to tell you like I see how badly you're hurting, and I'm very, very sorry.

Fire Tablet: That never felt unwelcome.

Fire Tablet: it tells you from a very, very practical aspect, I would say from day one write down more than you think you need to

Fire Tablet: Show yourself, Grace. Show your spouse grace. Do not compare grief with anyone.

Fire Tablet: It serves no purpose, it serves no purpose. It will.

Fire Tablet: It will birth resentment every time you know. And then I mean.

Fire Tablet: I think I just had a couple ladies say to me like

Fire Tablet: it will not always feel this way, and you didn't even want to hear that it felt good, and it felt awful. But I can say

Fire Tablet: I mean I can say it's been over 2 years.

Fire Tablet: and I remember I remember in the immediate days after thinking.

Fire Tablet: Oh, my gosh! When people say they feel like their heart has been ripped out of their chest, that is not a turn of phrase. You literally feel like your body is gaping open.

Fire Tablet: I don't feel that anymore. And it's hard to even physically remember feeling like that. I mentally remember feeling that

Fire Tablet: so you will not always feel like you do in that moment.

Fire Tablet: And then I mean, there is beauty from ashes. I mean, it's just. It's so true, like if you.

Fire Tablet: if you take the hands that are being extended to you.

Fire Tablet: so many people want to extend a hand but there is so so much good.

Fire Tablet: you know. I I told the mom in the group that I'm in that lost her adult son. Recently I said, Let

Fire Tablet: let God show his love to you through other people like he will right now if you let them.

Fire Tablet: And so I mean those would be the things. I guess I don't. There are no magic words, but.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Just be there when somebody's sitting in it. Just let them sit in it just actually be in the grief. There is no.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: there is no timeline for it.

Fire Tablet: And if you're not a calming personality type, do something else I couldn't remember.

Fire Tablet: There were some people that sat with me that it was like they just sat, and they were such a calm. But it's like some people who, you know they know who they are. I mean, it's just like you have kind of a nervous energy, and you need to be doing. And you can't just sit then do something. But don't sit there and

Fire Tablet: be doing something. Yeah, don't, don't.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Thanks to sit with me, cause your anxiety is gonna play into my guardian.

Fire Tablet: Yeah, absolutely.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Oh, my goodness!

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Well, in closing Lauren, I know this conversation. It was not easy. I thank you so much for having it with me thanks so much for being open.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: and just giving us an open and safe space to talk about this. This was a beautiful conversation.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely.

Fire Tablet: Thank you so much.

Fire Tablet: It was probably one I needed to have that I didn't know I did so. Thank you.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: I've been blessed to have you on board, Buddy. Thanks so much.

Fire Tablet: You look great.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: You, too. You look great also. You look like you're still shining.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Thank you so much.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Well, thanks for being on board. Thanks for being on the podcast. With us. I know that grief can make us feel so isolated. But you, being here today, reminds us that we are all never truly alone in it.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely, and you're one of those extending hands. So thank you for what you do, Casey.

Take off the Mask with CasieCasem: Love it. Thanks for letting me thanks for letting me have this conversation with you, so I can keep doing what I'm doing.

Fire Tablet: Absolutely girl.

Fire Tablet: Alright. See you.