At the beginning of our grief journey we just try to make it to the next minute or the next hour. As our journey continues, we realize we have to get through all of the “Firsts”. Many of these “Firsts” are very difficult – holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The journey is long and difficult.  However, what happens when you move into a home filled with grief?

Today Elizabeth Smelski joins us to share her personal story of grief and what she experienced when she moved in with her aunt and uncle who had recently suffered the loss of their young son.

We welcome your comments and questions! Send an email to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!

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Website: http://hopethrugrief.com.

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Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org

Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical, or mental health treatment, please contact a medical, or mental health professional immediately.

Thank you

Marshall Adler

Steve Smelski

Hello everybody.

And welcome to today's episode of Hope Thru Grief.

I'm one of the co-hosts Steve Smelski and I'm here with my good

friend and co-host Marshall Adler.

Hello, everybody.

Hope everybody's doing very well today.

We decided to do something a little bit different today.

We've got a special guest on today.

Ms.

Elizabeth Smellski yet actually happens to be my niece.

And she grew up around Jordan and our family, and we've known

each other an awful long time.

And we asked her to come on today's episode to share her

story about loss with Jordan.

And then she actually lived with us for a couple of years after Jordan had passed.

And we wanted to talk a little bit about what it's like living in a

house of a lot of grieving people.

So, we'll see how the conversation goes and I know Elizabeth has

some stories to share with us.

So Marshall, do you want to kick us off?

Sure.

Elizabeth, thanks so much for agreeing to be our guest today.

And I know that I've heard so many stories from Steve about you, so I'm glad I got

a chance to see you face to face over the computer, even though we can't do it, uh,

in real life, we're doing it virtually.

So I'm always interested in different dynamics and different relations.

You know, Steve and I got very close with each other from Grief Share.

We both obviously lost sons and we, you know, there's all saying

we both belong to the club.

Nobody wants to be a member of, but we are.

And so I think we have a connection and an understanding what it's like as

a father to lose a son and obviously Shelly and my wife, Debbie, have

a bond and understanding what it's like to be a mother to lose a son.

Yours is different because my understanding is you really consider

Jordan like a little brother.

So if you could maybe just sort of start out by telling me your relationship with

Jordan would be a good place to start.

And then we can sort of see where it goes from there.

Hi, uh, thank you for having me today.

So Jordan, while he wasn't, my biological brother was always, it's hard for me

to remember a time he didn't exist and he was such a big personality.

I think that overwhelms the first, like 10 years to, without him, but ever since

he was born, he even his first few years, he stayed at our house during the week.

My mother watched him while Steve and Shelly worked.

And so we would come home from school and he was there.

And so that, you know, it was five days a week and at one

point a couple of days a week.

So really from the moment he was born, it felt like he was a part of our family.

And we always joked.

I have a brother and a sister, so we're a family of five, but we always

joked that our family wasn't complete until Jordan was staying with us.

And that we were always meant to have that fourth kid in our family and

just always felt complete that way.

And we always grew up with him.

My biological brother and Jordan actually share a birthday.

So they were born on the same date.

And so that was always a big deal because we would get together, you

know, Steve ,Shelley, and Jordan would come over and it was all of us.

And I think we all agreed that things always felt complete when

we did that and there was a special just to be two families that

hung out all the time like that.

And to really feel like we felt like one family.

And so in that regard, I do think of Jordan a lot as a brother, more

so than just a cousin sometimes I just felt very close to him.

And so when I did lose Jordan, It was actually my first experience

with grief and my first experience with loss, you know, we were figuring

all of that out as a family and how drastically and quickly things changed.

We're actually away on vacation.

My mother and my sister and I, when Jordan passed, we were

all the way across the country.

And I remember that when Steve and Shelly were texting my mom and they kept

telling us like, Jordan not feeling good.

And we thought, well, that happens all the time.

And then it became more serious, but you know, Oh, it's meningitis,

but he's going to get better.

We're at the hospital.

But in my memory, you know, it was so fast within a couple of days, it

went from, we were going to be home.

And we had plans to see them shortly after getting home to he was gone

and we weren't even here, we weren't here in Florida when that happened.

One thing we struggled with it, you know, as a family of just how quickly

things had changed and how you have this clear vision of how your future is

supposed to be and what your family is.

And it never crossed my mind that it wasn't going to be like that

or that Jordan of all would be the one that was taken away time.

Right, you know, I, one thing that I've learned is after Matt's passing is

there's one guarantee in life and that guarantee is there's no guarantees.

Everything you think is guaranteed is an illusion.

It's the presence, but it doesn't mean it's the future.

And, you know, hearing you say that it's interesting cause you weren't there.

Like I just think back, you know, my I've said this before the

podcast, my parents lost two sons.

One was older, one was younger than me and I really didn't know either

one, but my parents grieve their whole life, especially my mother,

literally on her death bed, she was grieving the loss of two sons.

They're both about three to two to three years old when they, when they passed.

But with Jordan, I, it, it sort of reminds me of my father was born

1921 before the age of antibiotics.

And he told me his story and I will never forget this.

When he was six years old, he was out playing with, with his

friend and his friend fell and cut his finger scraped or something.

No big deal right?

Again, this is before antibiotics and he got a infection ,wasn't feeling

welcome come out to play the next day.

The day after that, he had to go to the hospital.

The day after that, they started asking people to give blood for transfusion.

The day after that he passed away.

It wasn't the amoeba like Jordan, but it was free antibiotic, you know, that

same scrape or whatever it was today, probably be just given a broad-based

antibiotic and you know, be fine.

But obviously medical science does not have an answer for the amoeba.

So what you're saying, it just sounds oh he's at the hospital, he'll be fine.

And Steve and I have talked about this.

You know what, again, it's not it's what is worse?

Is it worse getting shocked the way Steve and Shelly were in the way Debbie and I

were, or is it worse to, we've had guests where there's been horrific long-term

illnesses like cancer, where you just know that this person's prognosis is not good.

And I've had many friends, who've had a Glioblastoma Brain Tumor and,

you know, medically the odds are so stacked or Pancreatic Cancer.

And I dunno, what's worse.

So from your standpoint, you said this was your first experience with grief.

How did you deal with the suddenness of it and the unexpected nature where

everybody's life just took a horrific turn that nobody saw it coming?

I think at, at first there wasn't, I don't want, so there wasn't a lot of dealing

with it, but there was a long period of, I think just even trying to wrap our minds

or wrapped my mind around what happened.

Because the choice of being there to see someone when they pass away or,

you know, a lot of my family got to see Jordan in the hospital and I've heard

what that experience was like for them to be there in those last few days and

to actually be there at the day of, and for my mother and my sister and I, we

didn't have that choice because we've been, you know, we left to fly home as

quickly as we could, as soon as we knew.

And honestly, I get some thing to me, we got home the way we did, because we

had three flights to get home from out in the middle of National Parks in Utah.

And it was three flights with about an hour, maybe in between each flight.

And somehow we made all three and we went home.

We were home by 8:00 PM that night, sometime that night.

And I remember when we were out where we were my first thought, as soon as I knew

that Jordan had passed, I want to be home.

I need to go home.

Heart's pulling me to be somewhere else.

And that's when we figured out the flights, we got home as soon as we could.

And we came home to Steve and Shelley's house, where it was, as you guys

say, like, you know, the house was the grieving family was grieving.

Everyone was already grieving there.

And I think that was kind of.

The surreal first start of the process, because I think there was some, some

part of me that hoped that it was a misunderstanding, you know, I'm

not seeing it, but it can't be true.

He was 11 years old.

How can someone have gone from perfectly fine to almost

seemingly a day or two later gone?

You know, how do you wrap your head around that?

Especially.

When you think of children that age, as you don't think of losing someone that

age, it just doesn't even cross your mind.

It doesn't seem like it's been an option for that to happen.

So I think starting our moving process was having to face the reality of

it and it took, I feel like it took a few months, me before I could

start to really address the grief.

And like I said, this was my first experience with loss.

I don't think any loss is necessarily easy to deal with by any means,

but there's something that feels wrong or out of place when it's

someone younger or younger than you.

And so there was a sense of having to accept that understand that so

that I could begin to figure out what, what does grief look like?

How do I even go about a process?

Uh, I keep trying to think of steps or like all that kept popping

my head was I, I knew somewhere that there were steps to grief.

I knew I had heard it at some point in my life and I was like, well, there's

gotta be a, there's a procedure.

There is a system that I am supposed to go through and that's what fixes it.

That's what it makes work.

And probably the biggest thing I've learned through my experiences.

It does not work that way.

No it doesn't

I think I was looking for a band-aid.

I was looking for something that was going to heal this, you know, I

felt like a part of me was missing.

And, um, I sometimes equated it to, it's almost like, like a loss of a limb or

a loss of something where like I had to figure out how to keep going and coming

all the things I was used to doing.

But with this piece missing, it wasn't even sure what was

missing and how to go about that.

Now at the time I was in college, I was 21 and I was ,you know college is

not the place for grief as, as weird as that may sound just about everything

about college is kind of the opposite.

You know, there's a lot of an expectation and futures and goals and dreams, and

those are not any of the things you're thinking about, or at least for myself,

when I was going through grief, you know, being around people that had all

these dreams and future aspirations.

And I had them, I knew I had things I had to pursue, but I was trying to

figure out how to balance that with the, just the huge loss going on.

And I didn't know what to do at the time.

How did you do it?

Because you know what you're saying about grief, I can absolutely relate to

because you know, I've said this before I.

I'll talk about Steve.

Steve started the chorus by saying we're all strangers, you know, I'm

sure all of you, people who have taken courses on grief, how many people

taking courses on grief and everybody's looking around like, you're kidding.

Who would ever want to take a course on grief?

You never would until you're in it.

And then you're saying, okay, how do I do this?

And there's no roadmap.

And that's the thing we had to go through and I think grief share was great for

us to sort of give us a path that began.

Everybody's gonna find their own path, but a path to do that.

But you learn at a young age.

There is no fix.

There is no, this is the path for one plus one equals two

playing a teacher this right.

Um, I'll just digress for a second.

My, I always throw jokes and my, my grandmother was dying in 1967.

And we flew down from Buffalo.

She was actually in Miami beach and obviously she was a Jewish

woman and she was at a Catholic hospital and I'll never forget this.

She's out on her death bed.

And my dad was like this and my mother was like this was always using humor.

And there's a big crucifix right over her bed okay?

She's a Jewish woman and my dad asked her, like, um, how do you feel about

having a big crucifix over your bed?

And she looked at him and said at this point, if he could help

me, I'm all in favor of it.

And I was 11 years old and that was sort of my first feeling of grief.

My grandfather died three years earlier, but I was seeing my grandmother

die and she used humor with it.

So for us to go to the church was fine because if it could help.

So I'm interested, how did you make that realization and say,

how do I go forward from here?

Well, so about a month or two after Jordan had passed, I was in a position

where I need somewhere to live for and Shelly, you know, and I don't even

remember exactly how it came about, but she kind of threw out, well, what

if you lived with Steve and I, um, you know, at a point where all the family

had left, you know, you talk about how a lot of that, how about if a family

comes to support you during your grief in your, your house, oddly can feel so full

during a time where you feel so empty.

But at some point it leaves, you know, that support.

And I think that point had just happened and the family was gone.

And so she threw out this idea ,how would you feel about living with us?

You know, we're not that far from the college campus you're

going to, and you can commute.

And it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

And so I moved into their house.

Uh, actually I was the bedroom down from Jordan's bedroom and we kind of

started, I think, to see each other through this grief process and want

people talk about is how people grieve so differently and something, I think you

really don't understand until you see it.

And until you experienced that, because there's a I feel like there's a thought

that, well, if I'm feeling this, he's feeling that and she's feeling this

and we're all feeling it either at the same time or at the same severity.

And that that's really not how it works.

And, you know, I almost feel like we started to see everyone would

take turns in a sense, you know, someone was having a harder day than

someone else or a harder moment.

And we had to learn how each other grieved.

And I had to see, you know, two people that I cared about so deeply

and were like a second set of parents to me, going through feelings

and emotions that I couldn't fix.

You know, you have this, this feeling inside when you see

someone you love hurting.

And I think you, you innately want to make it better.

You want to find a way.

But I had to quickly learn that there, there was no way I was going

to make this better for myself, for Uncle Steve, for Aunt Shelly.

I can really clearly remember one day where I saw my Aunt Shelly out on

the porch and just, she was, she was crying and she was, you know, talking

herself through a really hard moment.

And it made me cry cause I could just hear the heartbreak and

hear all the pain in her crying.

And I remember just so strongly wanting to make it better.

I wanted to help her and to the point where I called my dad and

I, I just said, dad, what do I do?

How do I help her?

How do I make this moment better for her?

And I just remember he said, you can't.

There's nothing you can do that's going to fix this moment for her, but

you can just be there and make sure that she knows that you're there,

whether she needs you in that moment or whether it's a private grieving moment,

because I feel like anyone that's gone through grief knows that sometimes you

just kind of need to be alone in your feelings and you don't, you're not

looking for someone to console you.

You just, you just need to have your feelings.

So I just tried really hard to let them know that I was there, whether

it was to talk or just to have someone to sit with, or, you know,

we started going on walks or we would try to find some type of thing to do.

And I think that was the biggest thing I tried was just to make sure that they knew

I was there, if, and when they needed it.

Were you not even trying to be funny here, but obviously you

were family, but I, I think some people are almost afraid of grief.

And the thing in that sense, I think is contagious.

And it is contagious because we're all human.

And we live in this planet and long enough either we're going to die and people can

agree with us or we're going to live.

And people we love are going to die.

So it is contagious, but they must've been brave for you to go into a,

you know, a household of grief.

How old are you when you did that?

21.

Okay.

That's speaks well of you because that's not easy.

I know people two, three, four times year ages that wouldn't do that.

They just said, I can't handle this.

I mean, did you have any trepidations at all about that or,

You know, I didn't, um, I really didn't think all that much about it.

I think maybe because I have, I was feeling so lost at the time myself.

As I was starting my major classes in college, I was studying education.

And so every, there was just a lot of change going on at this point, you

know, I had moved, I was grieving.

I was starting new things at college, even like friends relationship wise,

I had learned through kind of quickly and the grieving process that.

Sometimes there are friends who expected me to kind of pop back and

just "be normal" and for me, I didn't know what that was and whether they

didn't understand the severity of my grief or whatever that was for them.

They couldn't understand why I couldn't eat while I used to be, you know, they

would say, Oh, let's, let's go out.

Let's go to this party.

Let's go do this activity.

And that was the farthest thing from what I wanted to do.

I really just felt so lost and I feelings and was looking for, I think myself,

a way to figure and understand those.

And I think a part of me felt that the same way it had the

strong feeling of I had to come home right after Jordan passed.

And I knew that's where I needed to be a part of me just felt like this is where

I needed to be, to figure out myself and to start figuring out those feelings

and to figure out what is grief and how, and how was I going to process it?

Because I also feel like I, I learned early that it was not

something I was going to get over.

It was not anything that was going to get behind me so much as it was something

I was going to learn to get through.

And it was something I was going to learn to have with me every day

and that it wasn't going anywhere.

And so I could face it and I could figure it out or I could,

and I could hide from it.

Which is something, you know, everyone does at some point when you just put

it aside because you need to, to get through what you're doing in that moment.

Um, I can remember a time, um, speaking of how people grieve differently

and process things differently.

My brother, my biological brother, he's a very internal

guy and he's a very, very smart.

But not always out seeking, you know, a bunch of people and a

bunch of social interaction.

And I remember earlier on this, you know, he, they share a birthday Jordan

and my brother, and I remember someone asking me, does he even miss Jordan?

I just looked at them, you know, and this was early, this was

in the first month or two ago.

And I remember looking at them and I just, I don't understand.

What do you mean?

Does it mean like, obviously he misses Jordan and they

said, well, he doesn't show it.

You know, he's not crying or he's not talking about it.

And I think my defensive big sister kicked in and I just said like,

that's him and that's him processing and him grieving and him figuring

out how he's going to live with his feelings for the rest of his life.

And without even consciously realizing at the time I had learned my first lesson of

how people and grieve differently and how people can process things differently.

And that, you know, for some people it's not an outward show

of emotion in the same way.

Shelly might want to cry in a moment, but my brother, that's

not what he would want to do.

They may be having very similar feelings and similar strengths of

emotions at the time, but that's just not how they're processing it.

So speaking of like moving with people, going through grief, you have to have

to be willing to learn that almost that grief language of each individual

and how, how they process it and what helped them get through those feelings.

It's interesting you mentioned that because I think, you know that my

mother died two days after my son died.

So we had two funerals , two obituaries, and two eulogies ahead to do.

And again, our family, we just use humor as a defense mechanism.

And I will tell you, I have never been to a funeral my

entire life I haven't laughed.

I laughed at every single funeral I've ever gone to, including my

sons and my mothers, a lot of laughing, but a lot of laughter.

And before the funerals, I just was on the internet and I saw this guy's

article whose son died by suicide.

And he was saying at the reception, at his son's at his house for his sons after

the funeral, he was laughing and people were you heard that people were talking

about him saying what's wrong with him?

How can he be laughing at his son's service for his son's

funeral when he died by suicide?

And his comment was great.

He goes, that's my grief.

That's the way I grieve.

My son would want me to do this and what everybody else thinks is irrelevant.

And, Matt, Matt was really funny.

Matt was a really funny guy.

He just was, he made me laugh.

The last time I talked to him, he made me laugh.

He just was always funny and at his funeral.

All of his friends, you know, were there and they were crying and I was

consoling them, which was ironic.

But then we just started telling Matt stories and the tears

became like uproarious laughter and it was the best medicine.

So I think the first thing you got rule, you know, to me, the first rule of grief

is there are no rules, whatever you can do to get through that day, do it.

As long as it's not illegal or immoral or hurting somebody else do it.

Whether it's a.....

A big thing to realize that there's not a right or wrong to it, like you said,

and that people are going to grieve differently or express their feelings

differently, and it's not a right or wrong, it's, it's just your process

getting through, you know, whatever it is and that, because I think grief

is one of those things you think you understand before you go through it.

And then when you go through it, you have a very different understanding

of it is and how it feels.

And that as a society can be some judgments put on it.

You know, this is how a funeral should be.

This is how your grieving process should be.

This is how long your grieving process should be.

And, you know, at a certain time, They just kind of expect, well, things are

going to go back to normal rather than realizing that may not exist anymore.

That meme maybe different.

You know, my life has completely shifted.

I had to learn.

I was judging because I didn't understand how anyone could be

normal right now because in my world, everything had changed.

Everything was different.

So how could I be going to class when people are just, they're worried about

midterms and tests and reading a chapter.

And for me, I'm trying to figure out how to go about the rest of my life.

And I remember, I went to one Grief Share with Steve and Shelly.

I don't remember who talked to him, but it was definitely something they

want to, like the grief share in general was, was there their process.

And I ended up going to one class and I think one thing that struck me so much

right away was the vast variety of the griefs, meaning that you had everything

from Steve and Shelley who had lost their 11 year old to people who had lost older

siblings, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, you know, down to people

had lost sites before even been born, you know, miscarriages and things like that.

And I remember looking around this room and my brain wanted

to quantify grief early on.

It wanted to figure out whose grief is more severe or they wanted to compare

them and relate them and, and somehow put numbers and measures to all of

this because that's, that's what my brain wanted to do to understand it.

Cause here I was dealing with a topic.

I didn't really understand now in a room full of people going through it.

And, I remember judging, I remember having feelings of, well, how can you

be grieving this many years later?

Or how can this be happening?

Or why are your feelings as strong as my feelings?

And I had to sit back and really, really assess that.

And one, what made me think I knew what anyone else was going through.

I had the same feelings about others when I said like, well, what makes you

think you know what I went through?

Well, here I was on the flip side of that kind of putting

my thoughts onto someone else.

And I, for that being a real eye-opener for myself, because I,

it was a negative moment for me.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I, I was frustrated with myself.

How can I have, I just put these people in a position that I don't

like being in, and yet I still did it.

I still judged for trying to equate and compare.

And that's the big moment for me really learning that grief is really

something that can't be compared.

You know, it can be shaped, it can be experienced, but you can't compare

one person's grief to another person's grief in terms of trying to make one

more or less than another or one.

Well, yes, you definitely have a right to your grief because of

who you lost, but you know what?

You shouldn't be feeling as much grief because maybe they were older, it was,

you know, whatever it was ultimately as a human being their experiences in

life, they're all you have to go on.

So whatever grief you're going through, whatever life experiences you have

had that have led you to this moment, bod is what helps you go through it.

And that's what helps you work through your feelings.

And like we said, there's no right or wrong.

I think that was one of the bigger moments where I learned that is that

everybody entitled to those feelings and beyond entitled to them, like

it's a necessity, you have to process it and you have to go through it.

And that you have to just learn to be there for others.

And really just try to let the quantifying and the figuring it out.

It's not a mathematical process, it's not steps.

Even if people want to put steps to it.

I know you guys have talked about how steps move more fluidly than necessarily

a one through this, and then you're done.

And I think that that all plays into it, that it's such a fluid process

and it kind of takes on its own life in a sense when it happens.

And we're just, uh, almost kind of a long term, experience it and figuring

it out and learn how it is for me and what it's going to be for me.

How have you changed in the sense that you talked about your friends wanted to go

out and do things and you couldn't imagine doing that and being in school or worrying

about this midterm or this reading assignment and felt so frivolous to you,

but obviously you did finish school.

You do have a job, you work as a school teacher, so you have to sort

of weigh the realities of functioning in the world versus the person that

existed before Jordan's passing.

I've said this, you know, the person that existed before Matt's

passing is gone, never to come back.

It doesn't mean that I don't laugh.

It doesn't mean that I don't enjoy doing a lot of things that I did before.

But I just see things entirely differently.

You know, I've said this, you know, I dream about Matt every

single night, every single night.

And I wake up and he's alive in my dreams and I wake up and he isn't when

I wake up, that's just my reality.

And it's been over two years now.

This could be my reality till I take my last breath and I'm fine with it.

It's my relationship with Matt now.

But how have you changed and how do you deal with that dichotomy of knowing

you are different, but the world isn't?

Yes, that's such a big point to make, because that was

one of my biggest struggles.

I feel different, but the world around me hadn't really changed.

You know, my, my world had changed, but in the big scheme of

things, it was just another day.

And I, you know, going to school, I just had to start making goals just

like you would, if it was get up and take a shower today, it was, well,

I need to read this chapter today.

I need to work on this assignment today.

And I think a part of me, um, I'm on a spiritual level, really liked

the idea of going to work with kids.

And I wanted to, get to that goal.

And I wanted to pay back all those positive feelings I still had.

You know, In my mind, Jordan, he's 11 and he's always this elementary kid,

you know, he had just finished 5th grade and I just so badly wanted to get

to a point where I was, I was there.

I was working with kids that age and I was in order to do that, I had to, I had to

get through college and I, they are just certain things you learn you have to do.

I imagine it would be the same if I had had a job at the time and I would

just I'd have to do certain things.

And sometimes it was more hard than others.

I remember one day in class, my teacher showed a video about a comedian and he

had a joke essentially about birthdays and how pointless it was that we celebrated

them because all we were celebrating, was it, someone had made it another year.

And I remember being so offended by this joke.

You know, here I was two, three months after losing.

Jordan and you have the audacity to make a joke about making it a year.

I would kill for a year.

I would, you know, to get one more year with Jordan.

Absolutely, I would celebrate a year.

I would celebrate a month.

I, I feel like it made my life perspective change in that regard.

Whereas here was a person who he saw birthdays as so mundane.

You know, so boring that we celebrate another life with a person on this planet.

And I would do anything in the world to get less than a year with a person,

you know, this person that I had lost.

And so I cherished moments more, I think.

And it's less about.

It's less about the longevity of things.

Like I think, I don't think necessarily of things in such long terms anymore,

because you know, you used to have this picture of your life and you

thought you knew what things were going to be and how it was going to turn

out and on a dime, it was different.

There's another funny quote that goes to my life is what happens

when you're making other plans.

And I always think of that one

Yeah, it is.

It's a John Lennon quote.

It's a great quote.

It just feels so true that here we were living life, making plans,

doing things, and lo and behold life had other plans for us.

And it wasn't going to pan out the way we wanted it in the way we expected.

So I think I changed in the way that I want to cherish things more.

And I want to, I'm more about the experience and less about

all the way on the road or.

Sometimes not even the big picture that I want to embrace the small thing that

happened and just be happy about it.

Time with family is so important to me now, and not really in a sad way

or anything, but just that I know what it's like to not have it now.

And so I want to cherish every momen I can, I almost feel sorry

for people that don't feel that way.

They almost take things for granted.

I don't want to take anything for granted.

I don't want to have, you know, any regrets of, Oh, well, I should

have spent more time with them.

I just want to embrace my life day to day and really know that I have

loved everybody as much as I can.

And I have been there for them as much as I can, because at the end

of the day, I won't regret that.

What you said is really interesting, cause I think Steve and I talked

about this before that as crazy as it seems sometimes I'd leave the Grief

Share meetings and you see the world going on and I'd feel sorry for them.

On the outside, because we on the inside have already gotten that call.

We've already gotten the we're saying that could ever happen to

anybody has happened to us and we've survived and the totality of the world

that thinks so I'm immune to that.

I feel so sorry for those people in Grief Share pity those

poor souls, nobody's immune.

Those people in the outside, they're going to be in the inside sooner or later.

It's just the reality of it.

And at least we are in the inside looking out still upright, still here.

And when you said that it was made me think of that, because again, nobody

wants to lose anybody, but newsflash, everybody's going to lose people.

It's reality, either you're going to be dead or people

you love are going to be dead.

That's just the hard facts of life.

And that's what grieves about.

And if you haven't experienced it, buckled up, it's coming.

I and even you know, even people that can be really close to you and,

and they even may be going through the grief because they've lost the

person you've lost as a friend or as someone they know in their life.

You know, it's, it's a little closer to home for you because it was a family

member, but for them, you know, it was a friend, it was a person in their life.

And even still, I would, I would catch people, say things or.

You guys may have, have people say things to you that I know they don't

mean it wrong, but the way it comes across, you're kind of like why

in the world would you say that?

Yeah and sometimes even close family and family that are like friends or friends

that are like family might say things like no early with Steve and Shelley.

People would text me and say, well, how are Steve and Shelly doing today?

And I would text the back and I would say, well, how about you text them?

Or how about you call them?

Because, what am I going to say?

Oh, they're great, no they are grieving , this is a hard time.

And, you know, I can say we got up today and that was our, you know, that was

what we accomplished today, early on.

That was a big accomplishment.

But a part of me just really wanted to keep telling these people,

call, call them, you text them.

Why are you texting me?

And they say, Oh, well, I don't want to bother them.

I know that they're going through a lot.

And that almost just felt right.

It felt so weird to me because I thought here, here are, people will

feeling so alone right now because they're going through such a big

loss and you're worried that you're going to bother them by reaching out

to let them know that you're there, you know if they don't want to talk.

If they're not in a place to talk, they won't, you know, they'll

make that decision for themselves.

They won't look at their phone to text you back or they won't answer the phone

call, but I think it's so important that you, you that attempt to reach out and you

show them that I hear, even if it's just like a hello text, you know, I would tell

these friends and I'd say, send them a hello text and see if they text you back.

But even on some of their harder days, you know, we'd, we'd be eating

dinner and they would say, you know, so-and-so just texted me today.

And all it said was hello, or all it said was I'm thinking of you or just

an emoji, a heart, something like that.

And it meant so much to them.

Just know that and their part is time.

While this world around them was continuing to go on.

And these families, these friends were continuing to have to deal

with their lives, that they cared enough to stop and say, say hello,

say Hey, I'm thinking of you.

And that yet for these people, they felt like they were such an inconvenience.

And to me, I would almost laugh at it.

And I would say, that's text them.

I know if you want to help, I'm doing, I can, I'll tell you.

But if you want to know how they're doing.

Read it out to them ask them.

It's interesting.

I think some of this, what I mentioned earlier, I think it's the contagious fear

that if you reach out to somebody who's grieving, that may come into my house.

And that's the last thing I want in my house is grief.

And also fear of saying something inappropriate or whatever, which when

you're grieving, I know you see it, but you almost become numb to it.

You know, like how many times we've heard?

Oh, you know, we just different comments and I've heard some, we go to grief

share when we have to go to Halos, which is a suicide survivor support group.

And some of the people there have just said they've had friends and

loved ones say things where they just want to punch him in the face.

They don't but they're just saying that they're so their comments are

so inappropriate and you sorta gotta get used to it when it's your grief,

because people are just don't know what to do with their fear, their whatever.

So I think that sort of relates to what you were saying that you almost feel

sorry for people on the outside, because at least for us on the inside, it's real.

We're not, we're not faking this.

We're not playing this out in our heads.

This is reality.

And we have to deal with the reality every moment.

And it's in some ways like that, it's almost, um, pure because it's not fake.

You can't fake grief it hit you like a ton of bricks.

So I was going to say Elizabeth, most people may not know that you

actually tutored Jordan for awhile.

I don't remember if it was one year or two years,

I think i tutored him for one year.

One year?

I know we've had Hudson, Hudson tutor them as well.

I earned that year.

He was, he was one tough cookie.

I teach plus is a day that age I, he is, he makes you earn your money for the day.

He, he could be difficult, but I know you had a couple of cases where people

had said some things to you that were like, okay, I know you had one

story you had told me that somebody brought up amoebas or something.

And, um, how did you deal with some of the comments?

So the story you're thinking that one day I had a parent come in with her

daughter and they, so I teach elementary so the daughter was nine, I think.

And they came in and they were talking about some activity

they want to do for the weekend.

Maybe get away for the weekend.

They were going to go jet skiing and tubing list.

And the mom was apprehensive about this trip.

And she had said, how, you know, Oh, my fear is the

amoeba, you know, hear about it.

But then again, you know, my husband says, it's so rare.

Why are we even worrying about it?

It's no big deal.

And here I was, it was, I was actually in my internship.

So I was you know, a year after losing Jordan.

And I just looked at her and I said, actually, I lost someone very close to me.

He was 11 to an amoeba, you know, just a year ago.

And he just stopped in her tracks.

Cause here, you know, to her, she was just having a very normal

little lighthearted conversation.

People joke about amoebas, which I get from most people it's rare.

When it's your person, it does not feel rare at all.

And so, and I told her the story and I gave her a bracelet that I always

have bracelets on me and I gave her mine and I said, here, you're

welcome to have this website on it.

If you're going to go have an, you know, an activity with your kids, I would love

for you to be informed and just know what you can do to protect your children.

And that if it is a worry of yours, you're not unfounded in your worry, you

know, because we are the prime example of someone that's lost from it of what could

happen, you know, if you had this very small, very rare thing as she kept calling

it and then i wasn't mad, I wasn't upset.

I almost just felt in that instance, I almost felt like I was just in the

right place to talk to her and tell her something and be able to share my story.

And sometimes people will say the wrong thing and they don't know it's the wrong

thing in their mind, not the wrong thing.

And again, I think it goes back to some of that judgment part, um, or

who am I to really judge they're trying, they're saying something.

One instance I can think of I've heard it so many times with Steve and Shelly

was, uh, Oh, well you lost your child.

If I lost my child, I'd never be able to get up.

I don't know how you're out of the house.

I don't know how you're going about this, whatever task it is you're doing.

I'd never get up again.

And I get in some aspect, I think they're trying to relate to the feelings like,

Oh, I know what that feeling must be.

You're so strong for getting up and going about what you're doing.

Okay.

And I, we would try so hard and we talk about it afterward.

And honestly, sometimes it would happen so much.

We'd almost laugh about it.

We would just look at each other when the people walked away and just kind

of have to laugh because we knew how ridiculous it was, what they were saying.

But to them, they really didn't mean it that way.

They, you know, like I said, I think they were trying to relate

or understand or empathize.

And do you almost want to tell them, you know, the option is you get up, you

do what you need to do, or you don't.

Those are really the two options you have there.

And the donor option isn't an option.

At some point you have to get up and keep going or you quit.

And so I just find it almost funny, I guess, because to us it wasn't

an option to get up and keep going.

That was just what we had to do because, but don't get up just wasn't an option.

Right

And, um, and you know, here, these, these are people who just clearly haven't,

they haven't had to go through aspect of grief, whether they've never experienced

grief or whether they just haven't experienced that particular type of grief.

It's was just a matter, I think of having to, to learn, to not judge

it, to kind of learn that too.

They didn't mean it.

I may have taken it offensively, but they didn't mean it that way.

So let me try to maybe think about where they're coming from.

And some of that change in perspective you have, when you go through grief

and how I think you're able to look at things a little differently.

And, you know, even appreciate the small moment where someone absolutely sent the

wrong thing, but we could kind of laugh about it afterward and just be like,

well, they meant well, or, you know, they tried at, you were saying about

how people would fear being too close to grief or fear saying the wrong thing.

And a part of me just wants to say, just try, don't worry about saying the

wrong thing because ultimately yes, the wrong thing is probably going to be

set at some point by someone on Sunday.

But I would rather people try to talk to me and try to say something.

I think this try to avoid me.

And try to avoid the situation that exists.

I know that Steve, Shelly, and I, I think we started to experience that during that

time I was living with them was almost any instance, you know, to talk about

Jordan, to, to experience the story, to still have him in our life was better

than people just avoiding us and us having to pretend like he doesn't exist or like

we aren't going through grief, right.

As if this doesn't, isn't such a large part of our life.

I do think you have to, as crazy as it seems, you have to look at

the humor sometimes with grief.

You really do.

I mean, you can't avoid that, but you know, comedy tragedy, you know, it's

the flip side of the same coin, you know, you've seen that in the drama

and tragedy, you know, in comedy, one guy smiling, one guy, you know, crying.

That's life and I think there are times where somebody will be inappropriate.

We'll say something completely ridiculous.

You do have to laugh at it and you realize they're on the outside looking

in, but they're going to be there again.

The one guarantees, no guarantees, but that's a guarantee they will be there.

So they're, they're novices.

We're experts ,we're living it, they're novices.

I do have to say we've heard an awful lot of comments that

were actually very questionable.

It got to the point where we would walk away and we were like, Do you think that's

the worst comment we've ever heard before?

No, I remember this other one

top 10.

Yeah, we did yeah

David Letterman's top 10 list of most inappropriate comments from people

trying to help you through grief

At the most awkward one we've heard maybe, maybe, but you're right.

So when I speak, I fine, you know, that, that laugh with it.

And that, that light kind of that moment.

Which, I have to say as being a teacher and working with, uh, kids

right around Jordan's age has I started off teaching fifth grade.

And so they're 10 and 11 in fifth grade.

And Jordan passed right after 11, Right at 11, right after fifth grade.

And now I teach fourth grade, you know, and they're 9 and 10, and I

thought that was going to be harder.

Then it actually was working with them.

I remember getting my first job and I was thinking, Oh my gosh, how am I going to

work with 10 and 11 year olds all day, look like him and act just like him.

But in so many ways, I think it's a blessing that I get to see them and I

get to, to be with them and work with them and just know to love on them

and this way that I don't get the love on Jordan in that same way anymore.

I still love him and I still think about him all the time, but it's not

going to be in the same manner anymore.

And you see such a variety of children and different backgrounds.

And as we say, how people might say the wrong thing, parents will

say, ugh, I'm so done with him.

You can keep him and I'm like done, I would love to have them in my life and

because I know what it's like not to, and I know that the parent is joking,

you're done with something, but like I said, that perspective change on my end.

I'm like, absolutely.

I love I would love that, you know, I would, I would love to have that

experience to have them back in my life.

And, and so I take that as a blessing every day that I get to go and

spend my day with people I think are the coolest people in the world.

They just have the funniest perspectives and this, this kind

of pure way of looking at life.

And I think I've tried to focus so much more on that positivity and

that, that looking at the world.

And it is definitely impacted me and definitely given me

the perspective with them.

And I think knowing that so much more now, like after losing Jordan,

knowing that life's not permanent and nothing's guaranteed, and here

I am teaching children who any one of them could be Jordan someday.

It went to an interesting view to be there and just, just to want

to embrace every day and wants to teach them to embrace every day.

Because I want that for them.

I want them to just appreciate the positivity of the day or the

whatever comments in that day and not take things for granted.

And so we, we appreciate, we celebrate every birthday.

I will tell you, we celebrate every birthday in our school day

and, um, They appreciate all the little things and they love it.

So at some point we grow out of that and we as adults, I think start to lose that

appreciation for all the little things.

That's a nice, you know, a kid will come up and tell you, they sound

like the most mundane little thing.

They're so excited and I want them to have that, I want

them to have that appreciation.

For every little thing that brings you appreciation and happiness in

your day, because you deserve that.

Everyone deserves that.

And we start to lose that I think as we grow older.

And I think that that's one of my perspectives that has come back

is that, that appreciation for all the little things and celebrate,

you know, eat dessert, like Uncle Steve says, eat dessert every day.

It's funny you mentioned that because you know, you ask a little

kid, what do they want out of life?

We'll just say, I want to be happy.

And you asked somebody 45, 50 years old.

Well, I want my 401k to be at this level and I want, I want

some muni bonds and this and that.

And then you realize the kid's smarter than the 40, 55 year

old guy talking about his 401k.

The 401k,

it's transitory it's it goes up, it goes down, it doesn't bring happiness.

It doesn't bring joy.

It can buy things that temporarily might give you a lift of

joy, but it's going to fade.

It's going to go away, whatever it is, a car house, whatever

it motorcycle, they all break.

And you know, it's just, it's all transitory.

And so ,it's interesting how you say that because in a circle of life after going

through what we all went through, we're sort of back to the little kids, but what

do yu want, you just want the happiness, all the other stuff that you sort of go

through the timeline of life to, you know, get an education, get a job, do this, this

and this, you know, It's all the fluff.

It's not the essence of what your life should be about.

And I think if your child, you see that, but also if you're smart and

after you go through grief, you see it because you see everything else.

It does,it is just temporary.

And it's not going to last the things that last are, the experiences are the love.

I don't think I've met anyone yet that's lost somebody that they really love.

That wouldn't say, you know what?

I would give up everything I have just to have them back.

The simple joy,

Yeah

I think it does.

It changes the priorities a bit and changes what matters so much in your life.

But truthfully, I think in a, in a good way, I feel like I prioritize

the more important things now.

And like you said, you know, people might have been so worried about

the retirement plan or what's in the bank account or this, or I think,

and having all of these items.

And ultimately, I feel like I've learned early on now, what really matters for me

and what, what does bring me happiness and what, and living with Steve and

Shelly, going through that with them as well while going through my own grief,

we learned what, what really mattered and what was important, what was worth

the effort and what was worth our time.

This time is so important.

And I think you definitely learn that going through grief and that that's,

that that one commodity you can't get back, you can't get more of,

Right

and that's just such a priceless thing to have so important.

You're wise beyond your years seriously.

Well, don't learn that till well, well, well, many decades

down the road, which is a shame.

Cause you can't get it back.

You know, we're all here with so many breaths you get on this planet and

when that number's up, that number's up and you can't get them back.

And that's the one thing I think you gotta realize it's it's

it's it's it's it's finite.

It's not infinite.

And when you lose somebody, you realize that.

Yeah, but it's not, I wanted to thank you for coming on today and talking with us.

I know it's a tough subject for you.

And, uh, I know you saw us at our worst and, uh, just wanted to thank you for

coming on and sharing with everybody.

Absolutely, really appreciate your insight.

And I, I really think I've learned a lot.

So I can't thank you enough for opening up to us and giving us a new

perspective on the grief process.

I think it was very informative and very helpful.

Thank you and thank you for letting me share today.

Thank you so much.

That was great.

Thank you everybody for joining us today with Elizabeth Smelski on Hope Thru Grief.

Hope you have a great week and we'll see you next week.

Stay well.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us on Hope Thru Grief with your cohost

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski

. We hope our episode today

Since we are not medical or mental health professionals.

We cannot and will not provide any medical, psychological,

or mental health advice.

Therefore, if you or anyone, you know, requires medical or mental health

treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately.