Lisa Goich: Learning to Process Grief with Humor and Grace
Lisa Goich shares the story of being able to spend 14 days with her mother before she passed away and how she learned to process grief.
Episode Discussion Points
Loved ones and others come as death draws near to usher loved ones to the other side.
Why it is important to keep talking about loved ones after they pass—especially their funny stories.
Processing death (especially when it is unexpected) takes time.
Live life and tell people how much you love them!
You never know how many lives you touch.
How using a journal (whether it be Lisa’s guided grief journal or a blank spiral notebook) can be a place to write down your thoughts or what you want to tell your loved one who has passed. Or you can talk to them as if they are in the room.
Everyone goes through grief differently.
Don’t carry around guilt or “I should’ve called, visited, etc.” That won’t help you. Put yourself in their shoes and choose to live life happily—because that is what they would want for you.
Why it’s okay to feel okay again after a loved one passes.
Embrace wherever you are today in your grief journey. Grief is often like the game Chutes and Ladders.
Have a list of friends names and phone numbers to call when you are struggling.
You are not the only one grieving. Find a support group in person or online. You can also join Lisa’s group: @guidedgriefjournal
One Of My Favorite Takeaways
Lisa said, “We all grieve differently. We all heal differently." I love this thought. Too often we compare where we are vs. where someone else is, and that is such an unfair comparison because we are each unique and process things differently.
Connect With Lisa
You can order her new Guided Grief Journal here: https://www.amazon.com/I-Wonder-Guided-Grief-Journal/dp/1642936421
#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #hardtimes #grief #griefjournal #lisagoich #death #healing
Transcription
Lisa 0:03
One of the things I said as my mom was dying, I said, “I wonder if my first breath was this soul stirring to my mother as her last breath was to me.” This was my first time that I had been with somebody while they were dying, yet, it's just a sacred moment.
Tamara Anderson 0:23
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
My guest today is an award winning author, podcast host, and publisher. Her passions lie in her creative endeavors, which include her company, A Girl on the Go, a production and publishing company created to inspire, mentor, and influence girls and young women to help them realize their dreams and goals. She produces and co-hosts a weekly podcast with New York Times mega best-selling author Mitch Albom called “Tuesday People,” which is a podcast based on the teachings of Morrie Schwartz, Mitch’s beloved former professor from his best-selling book, “Tuesdays With Morrie.” She lives in Los Angeles with her musician husband Teddy and her three rescue dogs. I'm pleased to present Lisa Goich. Lisa, are you ready to share your story of hope?
Lisa 1:39
Yes, I am. Thank you for having me.
Tamara Anderson 1:42
Oh, this is going to be so much fun. So one of the interesting things about Lisa is that she is a former standup comedian who is an introvert. Tell me how in the world that works.
Lisa 1:54
I know. It's funny. Well, you know, I never even realized I was an introvert until the pandemic hit. I would always say I'm an extrovert. You know, I like people. I like talking. Yes, I was a comedian. But once the pandemic hit, and we were all locked inside, and I had other friends who were itching to get out and be with people, but I felt 100% comfortable where I am, I realized that. Then I had to start thinking of things, like when I go to parties I normally like to sitting on the couch and pet the dog. It's hard for me to make small talk, especially with strangers or people I don't know. I tend to, you know, gravitate toward the people at the party that I already know, and that I don't have to start at the very beginning with. I can't believe it took me this long in my life to realize that I am an introvert. I really like my alone time. I like being with my thoughts, and myself, and my books, and reading, and sitting with my dogs. I don't know, I just never realized that before. It really put a lot of things together for me and my brain. You know, that's interesting.
Tamara Anderson 3:14
I think the pandemic has given us a lot of time to reflect and probably do a lot of introspection. So I think you're not the only one that's had to put some puzzle pieces together.
Lisa 3:25
Yeah, it helped me, now I realize who I really am, and it just made a lot of sense for me. So yeah, I'm an introvert and I was a standup comic. It's easy, though, to be a standup comedian, and be an introvert. I bet you there are a lot of us out there. You spend a lot of time traveling by yourself, from city to city, and you spend time in your hotel room, most of all, until you leave for your show at night, you go to do your hour, or whatever your time is, and you hang out for a little bit, then you come back home. So then you get back in your car and drive or fly to wherever your next place is. So it is a lot of alone time. So it makes a lot of sense. When you're out there, I'm speaking to people, but it's a two way conversation in the sense that you can feel their energy coming back at you. But I'm not talking to anyone. I'm talking but it's not a conversation. You know, it's a silent conversation, but it's not a conversation. So it makes sense. I don't know. It's not so far-fetched.
Tamara Anderson 4:32
I love the way you've described it right there. I'm like, “Okay, I guess that makes sense.” Yeah.
Lisa 4:38
You just talk to the crowd, and then you get back in your car and you go home. I haven't done stand up in a really long time. It was my job for about 20 some years.
Tamara Anderson 4:50
Wow. That's cool. That's really fun.
So today, we're going to dive into a part of your life that was a little bit challenging. That was your mother getting sick and passing away. Would you mind talking us through that storyline a little bit? Because that led you to writing a book and now a grief journal. So give us a little background on this story.
Lisa 5:14
Well, as you said in the introduction, I live in Los Angeles. My parents live in Michigan, that's where I'm from. I would go home a couple of times a year to go see my parents. Occasionally, they would come out here, but most often, it was me flying there. My mom, when she passed away, was 85. My dad, he's still alive. He'll be 99 in April. My dad is almost 99, almost 100. Whenever I would leave Michigan to come back to Los Angeles, I would be gutted. Often, the car would drive away, and I'd look in the rearview mirror, and I would see my mom. We'd always hug and I would see my mom and crying at the curb. I would always cry when I had to say goodbye to her. It was because I feared that what if this is the last time I see her, you know? So the last time I went to go visit her was just a regular visit. She had just started dialysis for kidney failure. When my cousin picked me up at the airport, I saw that we weren't heading in the right direction. I said, “Oh, this is how we get to my mom's house.” He said, “Well, no, we're gonna be going to the hospital. Your mom is in the hospital.” And I'm like, “Nobody told me that. Nobody said she was in the hospital.”
Apparently, to make a very long story short, what had happened was she fell during her dialysis appointment and really bruised and injured herself. It was winter. It was hard for my dad. My dad had to get her into the car to take her to this place. I don't know if she slipped on the ice or fell or something. But she was injured. She said she couldn't walk. It was difficult for her to even sit up in her bed when I got there. I mean, she was bruised all over her sides, her legs. While at the hospital, she was talking to a nurse and said she just didn't want to have to do this dialysis anymore. She had a lot of other issues, too. She had horrible scoliosis, horrible osteoporosis. Her back was gnarled, you could physically see her back twisted. For years, that caused her a lot of pain. She had a lot of digestion issues. She had 18 inches of her colon removed about a decade prior. If you've had any little surgery, I had a gallbladder removed seven months ago, it can wreak havoc on you. You don't even realize what one little thing missing from your body does, let alone 18 inches of something that was designed to be there. So she lived with a lot of discomfort for many years.
So when she was going through dialysis, she was talking to this nurse or doctor at the hospital and said, “I don't like this dialysis, I can't go through it. It makes me feel horrible. I don't like the feeling.” And the doctor said, “Well, you know, you don't have to go through it. You don't have to do dialysis.” My mom said, “Well, what do you mean?” She said, “Well, if you don't do it, you'll die. But you don't have to do the dialysis.” And my mom never realized that she had an option to do it or to not do it. But it was just based on all of her other elements and stuff. Her life was not optimal for her, and so she decided to cancel her treatments and not do them anymore. So she basically revealed that to me when I went to go see her in the hospital. The doctors all came in, and we had counselors come in, and everybody came and sat with us, and seeing the suffering she had been through, I totally understood. It certainly took a while to process that thought. The nurses kept saying, “Well, it'll be about two weeks. She'll live for about two weeks, and that's about all her body can handle without her kidneys.” So that was it. And once I processed that, they basically sent her home.
We had a hospital bed set up in her living room. I call it a two-week party for her. We had people come in, relatives and friends, and people bringing food and she just sat as the queen that she was in her bed. If you can choose your send off from this world, I would say it was the best possible way for her to go. It was little pain. She was on medication the whole time. When you go through hospice, all of your medicine gets taken away. So none of her blood pressure meds she was on anymore. She wasn't taking any medicine for the first time ever. I think she was probably experiencing a lot of side effects from her other medicine that she didn't even realize. She felt good for the first time in years, and decades, probably. It allowed her this chance to just feel good until she left. So though it was bitter, it was sweet. We had two weeks to just do nothing but concentrate on my mom. I wish that for everybody. I know some people die suddenly. That's a horrible loss because you don't have that. I couldn't imagine if my cousin had picked me up and it was the opposite, and he said, “Well, I have something to tell you. Your mother passed away today.” That would have killed me. That happens to people, you know. I feel like I was given this unbelievable gift of these two weeks with my mother. I just started a new job. I had to call my job and tell them, “I'm going to be here for two weeks.” It was right before Christmas. I didn't know how that was going to go over. My mom kept saying, “Just go back, go back, go back.” I'm like, “No, I can't go back.” In my book, my first book was called “Fourteen Days.” I wrote a memoir about these two weeks. In my book, I talk about this. It's Christmas, and I couldn't help but think of all the things that were happening back here and that I had to miss. You're pulled between these moments of guilt, because you feel terrible for even thinking about these other things and the reality of, “No, I just want to sit here with my mom, and this is what I'm going to be doing.” So during that time, I was writing mostly on Facebook, just to keep our friends and family posted that weren't in Michigan, to let them know what was happening. They weren't really, like, you know, “Today my mom came home.” They were sort of more poetic writings, and some friends of mine were saying, “You should save these and do something with these one day.” I never even at that point wasn't thinking about that at all. I was just writing these little blips and blurbs every day, several times a day, for the two weeks. Thank goodness I had those to go from because those became my sort of roadmap.
My dad keeps a diary every day. He's done it for probably 40 years, at least, I'd say. His diary, though, was a different kind of diary. “This morning, I woke up at 8:42am. I drank coffee. It was snowing. The temperature was 32 degrees. The streets are clear. We watched The View.” Everything is in there. So the beauty was when I sat down to actually write this book, I had every moment written for those two weeks. I know exactly what we watched. I know who the guests were on any TV shows we watched. He writes everything in detail. So pretty much what I wrote was 100% accurate. I didn't have to patch things up with any sort of memories. It was all right there. So I wrote this. The two weeks were sad, but it was a gift to be there all the way to the moment she died. This will springboard into what we're here to talk about today. But one of the things I said as my mom was dying, I said, “I wonder if my first breath was this soul stirring to my mother as her last breath was to me.” Because in that moment, I could feel this full circle moment happening, where I thought she was there for my first breath, and I am here for her last. It's such a moment of… I can't even say. I don't know if you've ever been with anybody. Have you ever been with anybody as they were passing away?
Tamara Anderson 14:08
I have not.
Lisa 14:09
I'm sure you will at some point have that moment. This was my first time that I had been with somebody while they were dying, like when they just left. It is a moment. It's just a sacred moment. My mom saw people there from, you know, a few days before she died. There were two men that came to her. I don't know if they were guides, or angels, or people that came to escort her. They were there on the last day. They were there when she left. I can't even explain it. It was probably one of the most sacred experiences I've ever experienced. I've been with my dogs when they've died, and cats, and stuff. For me, because I love them like they're my family, those moments, too, are very deep for me. But this was different. It's your mother. It's the person who I hung on to my entire life. Speaking of being an introvert, I think I spent most of my time, until I was in my late 30s, with my mom. I lived at home a very long time. I loved living at their house. I always went places with them. When I was a little kid, I preferred being with my mom and her old friends over my friends. I was definitely a mama's girl. It was a tough loss. But to be there, in those moments, was incredible. It really was eye opening to me and just changed a lot inside of me.
Tamara Anderson 15:51
Sorry, I'm getting all teary over here. Very heartfelt and sweet. And it's, you know, in some ways, it's so comforting to know that when we do pass, that we're not going to be by ourselves. There will be people there to greet us. I love how you call it a sacred experience.
Lisa 16:16
Yeah, it really was. It was, whether or not you believe in things or an afterlife or whatever. You have faith that can tell you that it's there. But you don't really know scientifically, if something happens. I was never sure. I didn't know, and I went into this not knowing, either way. Is my mom just leaving and then that's it? But it wasn't until she saw these two people. She saw them when she was still pretty with it. In the end, when she started taking morphine, it muddled her mind a lot. But not at the time she first saw these two gentlemen. And it's weird, but why they were two guys. I don't know who they were. They weren't her relatives. Although she did have a moment where she saw, I said, “Who are you talking to?” And she said, “Yjka,” which is uncle in Serbian. She said, “I saw yjka just now, he no longer drinks.” They started laughing. I'm like, “All right.” I mean, it's funny that you put those things together. Like I thought it has to be real, because where did you get that from? I saw yjka, he no longer drinks. She said, “And wow, he's such a handsome man now.”’ And it makes you think that maybe he went back to some other part of himself that was a better part of himself before he turned into the person he turned into. He was always a nice man. But maybe we go back to this other, whatever our optimal time was. That's who we become forever, you know? Then his sister, which was my grandma's sister, I said, “Did you see Tatastana?” She was she was a little eccentric. My mom said, “Oh, no, I would have been afraid if I saw her. I didn't see her.” So she, she had the whole story down. She had a moment.
So there were moments where she was with people from her life that she had seen. It was the craziest thing. And that continued. It was funny, because when she first saw the two men, and I said, “Who are you talking to this time?” And she says, “Oh, this man right there.” And I looked at the end of the bed, I said, “I don't see anybody.” She said, “Yeah, they're right there. There's two men and somebody had like a clipboard. And he was writing something down.” I said to the guy, I go, “It's not me.” I said, “Not me. It's her. You know? Take her. It's not me. I got some time left here. You know, and I just want to make that clear.” I'm here to assure anybody who might have questions, I 100% believe that there is something else. Even Steve Jobs, I don't know if you heard those times when he was passing, he said something like, “Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.” And what is that? What does that mean? What is he seeing? There's the man, the ultimate scientist, you know, who brought us this ability that we're talking on right now to talk to each other? There's just bright moments in loss, if you can even imagine that.
Tamara Anderson 19:37
So you talk about there being bright moments in loss. There's also hard times in loss. So yes, perhaps what are some of the lessons that you were able to draw from and learn from watching your mother pass, and passing through the grief cycle?
Lisa 19:52
It's weird because during that time, I was worrying more about my dad. My mom and my dad were married 64 years. I think it gave me something else to think about, which was him, and his loss, and him saying goodbye to her, and her saying goodbye to him. I mean, there were moments where my dad would just, it killed me to see him sitting at her side and just crying, and my mom trying to soothe my dad, saying, “It's gonna be okay.” To this day, my dad, she died in 2011. So this December, it will be 10 years. My dad still, to this day, says, “I want to be with her. I'm ready to go see my Mika. I'm ready to go.” You know, every day, he talks to her every day. He has a picture of her on his dresser and he talks to her in the morning, when he wakes up. He talks to her at night when he goes to bed. His last 10 years have been living to get back to see her again. He goes to the grave, he sits there in his little lawn chair, he brings a folding chair and talks to her. So for me, the loss was most painful watching my dad say goodbye.
I thought you know, I can handle this, I can. Of course, it's going to be sad, but when you're in it, in those moments when I was in it, you're not processing it yet. At least I didn't. I wasn't processing what it was going to mean to not have her around. I was so used to being here in California while they were there, and I think what's what helped me past it was that I could sort of come back here and pretend that she was still there somewhere. I still do that kind of, you know. She's just in this other place where I'm not right now. But I'll see her sometime again. It's weird that I have this, it was sort of a comfort to be able to leave and come back here. You know, I wasn't there. It's harder when I go back home. My parents are no longer in their house. I think that was also a hard time for me was when we were packing up their house after my mom had died. My dad moved to an assisted living place. That was one of those points where it's really hard, saying goodbye to their house, and then looking at the living room where my mom died in. At least when I went back to visit my dad, I would still have that zone. It was their place, it was their house. Then when that's taken away from you, I think I don't even have a home to go back to anymore. You know, the family home is gone. When the family home is gone, that's the heart. I think the family home is the heart of the family. Visiting my dad in his assisted living place isn't the same because it's not where I grew up. It wasn't their backyard. Even saying goodbye to the house, I went and looked in the backyard where we would have dinners in the summer. My mom was not an outdoors person. She didn't love sitting outside. She loved her sofa, and watching TV, and putting her slippers on, and that was kind of where she found comfort. She didn't love squirrels. She was so funny. She would see a squirrel in the backyard and my mom would open up the backdoor and hiss at them. I was like, “What are you doing?” She's like, “I don't want the squirrels in the yard.” I'm like, “It's their zone. You have no authority over the backyard for the squirrels.”
Tamara Anderson 23:48
That is so funny. So I guess one of the tips here that we're learning is that it's fun to still talk about them. To laugh about their funny stories, right?
Lisa 23:58
Yes. And that's what I did. That's what my book, the book, “Fourteen Days” is about. People, when they buy it, and a lot of reviews I read about it, from total strangers, are like, “I was surprised at how funny the book was.” I guess maybe it's just because I come from a comedy background and my mom was really funny. Even to the end, she was funny. I talk about in the book, she was mad at her neighbor. Craziest thing. My mom and her neighbor were friends forever. My parents, when they were going through this dialysis, it was wintertime. My niece had had some stuff stored in my mom's garage, so they weren't able to use their garage. But my neighbor had a garage and she didn't have any cars, she didn't drive. So my parents asked my neighbor if they could use her garage for a while so my niece could get her stuff out of the garage. She initially said yes. But then her son came back and said, no, they can't. My mom got really mad. She decided she was going to hold this grudge against her neighbor, and never talk to her again. So while my mom was dying, I said, “We should tell her that you're dying. You're not going to be here, you should say goodbye to her. It's not nice to not say goodbye to her.” My mom says a couple swear words and said, “I'm not gonna. I don't give a blah blah blah about her. She didn't care about me, and I don't care about her.”
It was funny because my mom was sitting in the living room. Her neighbor was a little, tiny woman, just like my mom. Little, tiny lady. I could see the neighbor looking into my mom's house. She knew something was up. She’s looking into my mom's house. She was looking from her bathroom window, which is a higher window, which would mean she'd have to stand on top of her bathtub, like on the edge of her bathtub. She's an older woman, to look out the curtains of the bathroom window, to look into my mom's living room, where my mom was there in the family room. I said, “She's looking at you right now. She's staring in here. Let me call her and bring her over here.” And my mom, “She’s not gonna come over here!” “She's gonna kill herself on this bathtub.” My mom, “I don't care.” All over the garage. So there were moments at the end where we would be cracking up. Here I am, sitting here with my mom watching the neighbor staring like Mrs. Kravitz into my mom's family room. We got a lot of those moments. We were able to, you know, I guess, enjoy those moments.
But then there were sad moments. Oh my gosh, probably one of the most touching times was the mailman came one day. John was his name. My parents had the same mail carrier. Like, here, we have a different, it seems like a different mail carrier every day. I don't know if it's just certain neighborhoods or whatever. But my mom and dad had the same mail guy for years, John. And John came over. I saw him coming. I went to the front door, and took the mail from him. I said, “I don't know if you know, but my mom is dying. She only has…” I think at the time was maybe a week left or something. And he says, “Oh, my gosh, no, I didn't know.” I said, “You want to come in and talk to her for a little bit and say hi?” And he's like, “Sure, sure.” So he comes in, he puts his big giant mailbag at the front door, and comes in and talk, sits down in this chair next to her bed, that was like the chair where everybody could come talk to her. And John, the mailman, came and said his goodbyes. And to see John the mailman crying, when he left, broke my heart, like it broke my heart. I noticed in his bag, he had all these Christmas cards. It just struck me as, here we are at this moment where people are celebrating this holiday, and the post man leaves to deliver these cards to these people of joy. Here we are in this whole different reality right now. Which is something that you don't realize, all the time, that when you're like, we are here, we are right now sitting here in this moment, having a relatively nice day, a talk. But while we're doing this, there's somebody that's going through, what I was going through at that very moment, saying goodbye to somebody that they love. It's those things we can't ever forget. That was probably one of the most painful moments of that time, because it's watching other people. I could take my moments, and I guess process them easier. But it was harder for me to watch other people be sad, if that makes any sense, and see her friends come over and say goodbye, and her lifelong friends that would come over to say goodbye to her. That was so hard for me. I thought, “These people have known her way longer than I have.” To hear them say goodbye to my mom was really, it was poignant. You know, it was difficult.
Tamara Anderson 29:32
So probably one of the lessons there is that you probably have no idea the lives that you're touching, just living out your life. Yeah, that's true. And you don't know maybe the mailman just loves you to pieces and you're like, what really? I made a difference to him. Yeah. Oh, but it so touuches people in so many different ways and we just have no idea.
Lisa 30:02
Exactly. You wouldn't know that the mailman would cry if you died. First of all, my mailman won’t because he doesn't even know who I am So I can guarantee you my mailman will not be crying when I die. But perhaps my neighbors.
Tamara Anderson 30:16
Right. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, we're gonna have Lisa talk to us a little bit more about her guided grief journal, and also ask her a few other questions about why she thinks some losses are harder to deal with and others. Stay tuned.
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And we're back. I've been interviewing Lisa Goich about the death of her mother and all the amazing experiences she had leading up to that, and the processing that she had to do because of her mother passing away. In fact, that's what we're just diving into right now. And we're excited to have her share more about her guided grief journal. But before we dive into that, Lisa, why don't you tell me a little bit about why you think some losses are harder to deal with than others?
Lisa 32:44
It's funny how some losses hit you so hard. Closure is so important for us in times of loss and yeah, to talk about hope in hard times, or when you don't have time to process, I think you need a moment to be able to sit and say goodbye to the person. Those deaths that occur that don't give us those moments, I think those are the hardest. You feel like, “I never got to tell so and so this or that,” which is a reminder for all of us, every day, to tell those people in our life how much they mean to us and how much we love them, and call them, see them. I know now we're in a pandemic, so when we're recording this, it's hard to see those people that we love. I haven't seen my dad in a year and a half now. It's very difficult at 98, almost 99 to not have seen him, you know, but I talked to him as much as I can. I try to call him every day. It's hard because he doesn't hear very well. So it's kind of a one way conversation on both ends. He’ll say something to me, I'll answer it, and he answers me completely something different. But you know, I just think you need to, and your friends, everybody, never take anybody for granted because you don't know when anybody's…
I'm on this podcast with Mitch Albom, the writer, and we have a podcast based on “Tuesdays with Morrie,” his book. Mitch was with Morrie in his final days. We often talk about this because a lot of what they talked about was how important living is. You have this time here on Earth, live it, and live it with purpose, and live it with kindness, and live it with love. Never forget to just be with those who you love and tell them how much they mean to you. I think that makes the end a lot easier.
Tamara Anderson 34:54
Now, you mentioned something back there, that we all need time to process these kinds of losses. What would you say to someone who is grieving a loss that they didn't get a chance to say goodbye?
Unknown Speaker 35:09
That's a hard one. In fact, in the book that I just did now, it's a guided grief journal. By the way, the title springs off of that quote, that was from my first book, “I wonder if my first breath was this soul stirring to my mother as her last breath was to me,” which kind of went viral on its own. It's everywhere if you if you Google it. I mean, it's on every grief site. I found some woman on Etsy who makes grief jewelry. She had that quote in a necklace, the quote from my book, and I was like, “Wow.” So I wrote to her and I said, “Can I buy a necklace? That was a quote from my book.” And I said, “It would be nice, by the way, if can you just write where that's from, so that people know where it's from?” Get my book a little credit here, but just at least on her page, where she sells them, so people know where it came from. But the journal, for me, is a good way to process this sort of thing. It doesn't have to be my journal, any journal can, if you want to just start writing in a blank journal the things that you can't tell somebody, that you weren't there to be able to say.
I have two things to say about that. One, based on what we just talked about, about my mom, saying that two people came to get her, I am completely convinced that there is an afterlife of some sort. I think that it will behoove you to just talk to them, talk to them, hear, talk to them. They're listening, they can hear you. If you don't believe that that's true, write in your journal. Write everything that you would want to say to them. Write what those last moments would have been. Write them a letter. Everything you'd want to say to them, get it off your chest. I think a lot of it is just you carry this burden. A lot of people carry guilt. Why didn't I go visit them last week like I meant to? I meant to call him last Friday, why didn't I? Well no, because had you talked to him on Friday, you wouldn't have known Friday that he was going to be dying. You wouldn't have said the things you wanted to say anyway, which brings me back full circle, to say the things you want to say while people are alive. If you don't have those chances, just say it now, say it out loud. Say it when you're laying in bed. Find a sacred time or a space to be able to talk to somebody. I really think it's helpful. I think if you believe that they're listening, they're listening.
It might take time to process it. Everybody goes through grief differently. So I can only speak from how I grieve. But I know friends who grieve in much different ways. I have a friend who still isn't over the loss of her husband, and it's been 11 years. It is all encompassing for her. It is every day. Every day for her is like slogging through quicksand. There's nothing we can do to help her. There's nothing I can do to help her. We've tried. Other friends have tried. Nothing gets her out of it. Of course, the first thing I suggest is therapy. Go talk to a professional who can help you through this, who knows how to deal with grief. I think she went for a little bit. It didn't help. So I just think that there are so many levels of so many people going through things, but I would just suggest to anybody, don't carry around guilt. That's not going to help you at all in this life. The person who passed wouldn't want you to live with guilt. They would want you to live with happiness in your heart, and live your life. That's what I tried to do. I put myself in their shoes. If it was the flip side, and I had died, and they were still living, what would I tell them right now from the other side? I would tell them live, for God's sake, live. Don't think about me, you have your life to live right now. I'm here, and I'm happy, and I'm doing okay. You know where I am. But live your life now. I'll see you one day. We had a good time together here. I just you have to flip it and think about what you would tell somebody else. I think that's helpful too.
Tamara Anderson 39:49
That’s actually some really, really good advice. I know one of the things I loved about your grief journal, because I've been blessed to be able to preview it, is so many of the things you recommended were like you were sitting down in the same room with me. It was like a fun little heart to heart. There's a target painted on one of the pages that says punch this target as hard as you want. Sometimes we experience anger. That's a normal emotion that goes with grief. And so, you know, punch the target. Get it out. It says that time heals all wounds. Sometimes, not so much. One of the questions I've been wanting to ask you is, what was some of the best grief advice that you were given after your mom passed?
Lisa 40:42
Ah, I would say some of the best advice was, and it sounds trite, and people don't want to hear this, and sometimes they can't hear this after somebody passes. But it was, “Your mom would want you to be happy.” It’s simple. And it is, it is what my mom would want. She wouldn't want me to be sad. I know. It's hard to process when you're saying goodbye to somebody that you think that you're doing them a disservice by being happy, that you need to be sad, because by showing happiness during grief. There's that quote, you know, “It's okay to not be okay.” I have a quote in my guided grief journal, “It's okay to feel okay.” It's okay to feel okay. Don't feel guilty for feeling okay. Just embrace whatever it is that you're going through. I guess that would be the best advice. Just embrace whatever you're going through today. You're gonna have ups and you're gonna have downs. That's something that was said to me and I talked about this in the journal, too. The journal is not a lateral journal. I do start it, there is a post for day one. Some people may be picking the journal up after day one. That can be your day one of picking up the journal, it doesn't need to be day one of the day after you lost somebody.
Day One is a hard day. It's the hardest. It's the day that you first wake up, and you're like, “Oh my gosh, they're not here anymore.” That's the hardest moment. Then you have to go through those firsts of the first birthday without them, their first birthday, the first holiday without them, all of those firsts are really difficult. For me, getting through the firsts of everything made the seconds easier. The next year, the following year, and the following year. People will say it gets easier. I've heard other people say, “That's not a good thing to say to people.” But it does. But then you still might have moments where one day it just hits you again from out of the blue, that sort of thing. I talked about this in the journal, where you take hits. I liken it to the game Chutes and Ladders. When you're a kid, you're moving ahead with your little game piece and you move ahead, and you move ahead, then, ah shoot, there's a chute and you end up down the chute. That's grief. Grief is like Chutes and Ladders. Then you climb up that ladder, you're good, you're good, you're good for another few months. Then all of a sudden something happens, or a moment, or you're reminded of something, and oh, another chute. That's grief. I don't think it's ever a straight line.
Tamara Anderson 43:46
So just be patient with your process.
Lisa 43:48
Yes. Be patient with your process and just know that it's a process. That's something that was told to me too early on, that you’re going to grieve the way that you're going to grieve. Don't beat yourself up. If you're not healing completely after a month or you're wondering why after three months, you're still feeling so sad, well, it's going to happen. Then don't beat yourself up at three months when you're feeling really happy. It's the flip side of that. If you suddenly find yourself really happy and enjoying your life, for goodness sake, don't feel guilt over that.
Tamara Anderson 44:24
That’s really, really insightful. I love that. You have to give yourself mercy. Wherever you are, that day, or wherever you are on your journey. Give yourself mercy. I think the same can be projected to other people who are dealing with grief, giving other people mercy wherever they are on their journey. Yeah, you just have no idea how they’re processing their grief that day.
Lisa 44:55
Absolutely. Sometimes it's a loss, I know with my friend who lost her husband, she also feels like she lost friends when she lost him. I think a lot of people go through that, because you lose friends for different reasons. Sometimes people can't be with somebody when they're in such deep grief. I think it's an uncomfortable place for people to be, and they don't know how to be with you, in that moment. They back away, and you feel like you're losing people. I would say, if you are the griever, reach out to your friends and tell them that you need them. Sometimes friends don't know, they think that you're okay, and you're living your life. But if you really are hurting, and your friends have stopped coming around, maybe it's because they believe that you're doing fine. If you need the help, call. I'm so big on just calling friends. In fact, in my journal, I have a thing of friends to call 24/7. Just write their names down so you can rotate them. If you feel like you're leaning too much on somebody, go down your list, and go to friend number two, or number three, or friend number five, or your sister, or somebody you know that you can speak with. Don't feel guilty for having to spill your beans. I think that's where stuff gets difficult. Then you start building up resentment because nobody's calling you, or nobody's saying anything to you. You can see that process with people all the time, then people start resenting people. Then the people who aren't grieving are resenting the griever for saying bad things about them, but they're saying bad things about them because they're not calling them. Well, you reach out, if you're grieving, and you need some help reach out. I guarantee you, your friends will be there for you. You know, they will. But they may not know that you need help.
Tamara Anderson 46:57
Yeah. So it almost takes a little bit of courage, you know. Maybe you're not usually the type of person who calls somebody up and says, “I'm struggling,” but it takes courage to admit that. But by admitting it, we open ourselves to more healing and more processing, because sometimes people process things on paper better. Sometimes people process things by talking them out. Yeah, sometimes they probably do a little bit of both.
Lisa 47:24
I know, exactly. I'm a writer. The reason why, when I wrote this journal, the “I Wonder journal,” I basically made exercises for myself when I was going through the loss of my mom. So I would create an exercise. I would just follow through with my own little exercise. So these prompts and exercises are things I wrote for me to go through the loss of my mom. Whereas my first book, “Fourteen Days” was a sort of a chronicle of my loss, this new book is a chronicle of your loss. It's your chance to write your story and your book. At the end, we provide a lot of blank pages for you to just here's your story, write about your person, the book. Instead of me dedicating the book to somebody in the front, this book is dedicated to your and then there's a blank there. So it's dedicated to your person to write your story. I'm going to tell you, it helps. You don't have to be a great writer. I guide you along on these prompts to do that I think are helpful. Like I said, the back is a place for you to create your own. If you want to make your own exercises or what will make you feel better in this moment. I have a lot of little ritual things to do, like light a candle. I have you write a letter to your person and rip it out and tear it, and bury it outside and plant some seeds there. So when the flowers grow, you know that your message has been heard. I love doing things like that, because you see life sprout from loss. I just believe that there's life all around us, and we have to look for it.
But just lean on your friends, I think they're there for you, and they want to be here for you. It also doesn't discount to go to a professional. My book in no way is to replace professional help. There's nothing like having somebody who understands grief and loss and can walk you through it. But really, your friends and your family people who knew that person, I think, are your best resource because you can speak to them about this person. They know when you say, “John was so funny.” Yeah, I know, John was hilarious. Whatever it is that you want to say about this person. You can share stories, you can share moments with them. Sometimes those moments are enough to bring that person back for just a little while in your memory that helps your heart.
Tamara Anderson 49:58
Yeah, absolutely. It is so important to talk to people about our loved ones that we have lost. I think it helps keep their memory alive. I think that's why family stories are so important. You tell other people about it, it helps us realize that every person's life really does make a difference. They're funny quirks and they're not so funny. I know that people are remembering them. I think it's just, it's sweet. It's touching, right?
Lisa 50:34
I often think about that. I'm Serbian. We always have a wake, like a dinner after a funeral, whatever. Often at these things, you see people, it's that moment. I think these are such an important thing to have, because people go back to a house, or a restaurant, or wherever you go, and you share a meal. The tears that you just had two hours ago, or an hour ago at this funeral, are replaced with laughter. ou watch people sharing stories and having these moments. Sometimes people feel guilty about that, I think. No, no, this is what it's about. Remember that person fondly. Remember those happy times, and all the good times. That's what keeps me going.
Like, especially with my mom, I think about funny stories about my mom. I'll call my aunt up and say, “Oh my gosh, remember that time when we were in Las Vegas, and my mom was in the bathroom.” She was having a hard time in the bathroom, getting out of the bathroom. She pulled this cord thinking it was, when they have like those cords, you can pull that like ring a bell that goes down to the front desk. My mom was pulling this cord thinking that it was gonna ring down to the front desk because she was having an emergency. She couldn't get out of the bathroom. Well, it was the clothesline that you can hang up in the hotel room to hang your clothes on. My mom was pulling the clothesline, thinking that it was a bell ringing in our room that we would be able to hear my mom in the bathroom having a hard time. I still laugh about that when I go to a hotel if I ever see that clothesline thing. I crack up, I'm thinking about my mom yanking on this clothesline thinking that we were going to hear it ringing, or it was going to ring down to the front desk. I wasn't even quite sure what her thought process was at that. I think back to those times. And I tell anybody out there who's listening to this right now, if you have those times, think of those times. I swear to God, they will help you. You know, remember the fun times, remember the funny times, talk to your friends about them. They're the ones who share in those moments with you. Talk to your family members about them, your sisters, your brothers, your living parents, aunts, uncles, depend on those people while they are still here, too.
And I know, I know that it's so hard. I know some people, it's just super hard to process. I always think if I can do it, you can too. We have help. I do, through the book. I started a website called Guided Grief Journal. We have Sunday prompts that I put out every week. They're different from the prompts that are in the book. Every Sunday, if people subscribe to the website, you'll get them in your inbox. Or you can just go to my socials every Sunday, and they're on there. But I try to create a prompt like that every week, and it's a community. So, you know, write to all of us. Write your prompts down in the comment sections, you know, and other people are going to be sharing in these moments. And you know, I'm trying to create a community, especially when the book finally comes out, to create a community where people can join together and you know, a private group where we can share our thoughts. So I have a Facebook page that people can join in on conversations. That's called, on all socials, I'm at Guided Grief Journal. The website is guidedgriefjournal.com. There's links to the socials on the website as well. But everywhere, it's at Guided Grief Journal. The book is called “I Wonder: A Guide to Grief Journal.” But I was fortunate enough to be able to get guided grief journal for everything. So I'm really trying to encourage conversation among people who are grieving, you know, to sort of pose questions to people and say, “Hey, this is what we're going to talk about today.” Share your story, you know, and I really think other people are there to help us.
When I had my gallbladder removed, I joined a gallbladder group online. These groups online are so helpful these days, where you can share like, when I think, “Oh, why am I having this pain?” Oh my gosh, I can just go to this group, and talk to these people who are going through exactly what I'm going through and go, “Oh, I'm not the only one.” There's people who are feeling this right now. Well, it's the same with grief, you are so not alone. Everybody is feeling what you are feeling. We all feel it at different levels, in different degrees. But everybody is feeling it in some way. So look for those other groups online, look for grief groups online, they are so helpful. There's all kinds of grief groups, depending on what your loss is because think about different kinds of loss, losing an 85 year old mother is completely different than losing your child.
I can't even fathom what that grief is like. Getting past that grief is much more difficult than getting through the loss of a parent, later in life. Also, the loss of, when you're a six year old girl and you lose your mother is entirely different than losing your mother when you're in your 40s as I was. Hope Edelman, I don't know if you’ve ever spoken with her on your show, she has a group called Motherless Daughters. A great resource. The book is amazing. She just came out with a new book, sort of about the long tail of grief. You know, when you lose your mother when you're young, what that means to you later on in life. It's a great resource for people who lose parents young, especially a daughter losing a mother, which is a whole different relationship and ballgame. So I highly recommend that book to people too, and her groups. It's really good, because, again, it's a very particular kind of loss. And they're all quite different. I could never say that I can understand what you're going through when you lose a child because I haven't. I suggest you go to those people who understand you wholly. You can share your thoughts. I guarantee you everybody in that group is feeling exactly what you're feeling. It makes you feel not so alone.
Tamara Anderson 57:03
Yeah. And that's the point. I don't think we're meant to feel all alone. There's so many of us around, even though we've had to quarantine because of the pandemic. There are people around who are experienced something similar. You can find a grief survivor group, probably to fit your unique situation anywhere.
Lisa 57:25
That's the beauty of us living in this time that we live in. Before, you would have to go in person to a support group or something like that. Well, some people aren't comfortable being in person, and sharing, and support groups, although support groups are wonderful options. They have them in hospitals for grief, any of your local hospitals, if you call and check. I'm sure they have them and once this pandemic is done, they will probably start having more in person gatherings again. But meanwhile, there's a million groups online, it is just such a great place to share your grief. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Tamara Anderson 58:05
Yeah. So the point is, don't grieve alone.
Lisa 58:07
You don't grieve alone, no. And like I said, we have a public page on Guided Grief Journal. I'm going to be starting a private group page so that it's private, you have to join. It's not public, so you can feel safer posting things. On that page, I'm going to just start posing questions and sort of exercises that we can all go through together. Then occasionally, I'm going to bring in different grief experts and therapists to help facilitate some of these conversations.
Tamara Anderson 58:37
Oh, that's so amazing. Oh, my goodness.
Lisa 58:41
Just to help people when they're going through it. But again, journaling has been my Savior. I really highly suggest it to anybody. If you don't buy my book, “I Wonder,” you can just get a blank journal of your own.
Tamara Anderson 58:52
It opens a whole new world of possibilities for healing from that, because I don't think you're going to heal unless you get it out.
Lisa 59:00
You have to get it out. You have to get it out. Think about that. When you have a disease, or cancer, for instance. You're not going to heal if you don't have that tumor removed. I feel the same thing about grief. If you can't get out what's in you, it is a disease. It is a disease. It is eating you inside. You have to get those things out of you. However you do that, it's up to you. Talking it out, writing it out, talking to yourself in a room, going for walks, exercising, whatever it is that you do that makes you purge it. That's what's going to work for you. Some people just become avid runners after they go through grief. You know, the endorphins help. I do like taking walks and walks are something that cleanse my brain all the time.
Tamara Anderson 59:58
Oh my goodness, Lisa. This has been so incredible. First of all, thank you so much for sharing the story of your mom, and for celebrating her life, and for sharing your experience as you grieved, and then making it available to others so that they, too, can help process their grief. It's like having Lisa with you, linking arms with her, able to go through it. So if you feel like you're not sure what your first step could be, go grab her guided grief journal and follow her so that you can feel like you have a support group, or find one that's more appropriate for you and your circumstance.
Tamara Anderson 1:00:41
Any final tips before we before we wrap it up here?
Lisa 1:00:45
Again, as I said earlier, in the interview, we all grieve differently. That is the biggest thing I think you should take away from this chat. We all heal differently. We grieve differently. We all heal differently. We don't all heal on the same timeline. Don't hold yourself to what your friend, Jane, is going through. Well, Jane got over it in a month. Why am I still sad? You aren't Jane. Jane isn't you. Bob isn't you. Jim isn't you. We all have to do this on our own time and finding our own tools to work with. So may you all find your own tools that help you through this process. This podcast is a great resource, for goodness sakes. What you do is so wonderful for people, by sharing other people's stories of hard times. This is the best thing for people to hear. Because they can find little pieces of themselves in all of your stories that you share on this podcast. It's super helpful for people. If prayer is what you do, pray and find guidance from there or here, wherever, wherever you are able to find comfort. It's there. The comfort is there. Trust me, you just have to find your comfort.
Tamara Anderson 1:02:09
Oh, Lisa, that is perfect. Thank you so much for coming on today's podcast and for sharing your story and for giving us the hope that healing is indeed possible.
Lisa 1:02:18
Oh absolutely. It is possible. And you will heal in one way or the other and in time, but it is possible.
Tamara Anderson 1:02:27
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you would like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website storiesofhopepodcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript, and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared, or quote, or a scripture verse that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you are struggling, with hope to carry on and with the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember God loves you.
You can find a transcription of today's episode here: https://tamarakanderson.com/podcasts/lisa-goich-learning-to-process-grief-with-humor-and-grace