Dead Moms Club With Alica Forneret

Alica Forneret's mom was sick for most of her life. But her dad always reassured her that if things got bad enough, he would tell Alica when she and her sister needed to come home. That day came in October of 2016 when Alica's mom died in the ICU. We're talking about how love sometimes looks like planning, the power of having people with similar losses around, how you can use your gifts to help someone who's grieving, and where Alica got the idea for her popular Dead Moms Club pins.

Transcript

Elisa,

I am so stoked to have you here on the show today because I found you I like tracked you down on the internet after reading a modern loss article about commemorative jewelry for grief and I ended up tracking down everybody who was in that article But your pins the dead moms Club spoke out to me the most a because I've lost my own mother and B because I have never seen something that Expresses grief so like simply and so publicly but not you know Without words,

And I just thought that was super cool So if you could please start us off with your lost story And then eventually we'll get into that creation story of the pins as well Yeah,

Absolutely and thank you So much for having me today It was so great to to hear from you and have you so enthusiastic about the pins because it was something that you know Was born out of something quite rough Obviously the death of my mom But yeah,

It was just great to hear from you.

So my mom Deborah ball fornare she died in October 2016 and She had been sick for a lot of my life just in and out of the hospital Had lots of different health complications when she was sick.

She was quite sick And you know really down for the count in the hospital for days weeks Whatever it was on end,

But she when she was on one of my like,

You know Most beautiful memories about my mom is just how on and vibrant and loving and empathetic.

She always was so in September of 2016 my sister got married my younger sister And at the wedding right after the reception and everything the dancing the partying and edit my mom fell In the venue and so she ended up in the hospital overnight that night was out by the Monday and then I got on a plane to Scotland and was moving to Scotland with my now fiance and You know a couple days my mom was fine we'd been texting talking to my parents I'd landed I was Settling in it was something that my partner and I had had planned for a long time and then over the weekend got a call from my dad and he told me I needed to come home and With my mom being sick for so long it was always and I've traveled a lot and I like moved all over the world for my undergrad and since my undergrad and just Forever and my dad always told me whenever my mom would get sick.

He would say,

You know She is okay.

She's gonna be okay But when she's not okay,

And I need you to come home.

I will tell you just trust me and that weekend The first weekend of October that year when my dad called me while I was in Scotland He said you need to get on a plane and this is the time that you need to come home So I jumped on a plane flew back from Scotland to California.

So it's like all this is happening in,

California And then I landed and a couple days later after being in the ICU my mom died and so she she passed in the ICU and Didn't really have any plans for her funeral So I was sort of you know,

The first step into my grief journey and loss in this whole period of Exploring grief and loss was being the person responsible for planning my mom's funeral that weekend So yeah,

That's that's the you know,

The turning point of really what happened and I lost my mom Thank you so much for sharing that with us And also this is something that sometimes happens on coming back But sometimes not is that you said her name right at the beginning and I think that's really important Sometimes not is that you said her name right at the beginning and I think that's so powerfully important Yeah,

Absolutely.

I am I host death over dinners and I always like to start the death over dinner with everyone making a toast to the person that they're they're celebrating or thinking about or talking about that they've lost and we all need to say that person's name and So whenever I talk about my mom or my loss or my journey or my work I really like to make a point as often as possible to say my mom's name So that she's not just like my dead mom like she was a person and she had an existence and an identity Outside of being my mom and being my dad mom for so long That I really like to honor her in that way and it's I don't get to hear it all the time because she's you know,

People talk to me about her sometimes but It's nice just to hear it and say it every once in a while when I have the opportunity Yeah,

That's something I feel like resonates with so many of our grief growers experience as well the listeners of the show is that I've been told sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that will say their name anymore Yeah,

Especially when you know and maybe you've experienced this especially doing work in this space I I Find myself Introducing my mom to people for the first time a lot of the people that I'm meeting and working with and and getting familiar with and we're doing this grief work with you know They've never met my mom.

They don't know my mom.

They don't know my mom's name They haven't known me for 30 years to remember my mom's name or my dad's name to ask how he's doing So,

You know,

It's it's this introduction that people that are new to my life never got and really only get from me so I think it's it's really special and I think that I know a lot of people like to take the time and have You know like rituals set out for being able to honor someone and I think just being able to talk about and see my mom's name as Much as possible is is really Impactful for me it makes her you know More of a person that I can remember as a whole person versus just the Experiences that I'm having in the thoughts that I'm having since losing her Yeah it um It brings the whole self back I'm drawing a circle in the air.

I know you can't see it on this end in our grief Can't see it either but I'm drawing a circle.

I promise I am With my arms just this holistic picture of oh,

There's the whole person not just life in the after I think the next direction I want to go is a question.

I wrote down while you were speaking There was a phrase that you use that your introduction to grief was all of a sudden being the person responsible for coordinating all of the details and I'm wondering as a younger sister and as not a spouse kind of How were you made that person in your family and also?

Where did time to grieve fit within all of that?

Yeah,

So one note yes,

My sister is married before me,

But I am older So I'm I'm the older sister and I think so.

I've talked to my grief counselor my therapist about this a lot and It's it was like one of the first things where I was like This is why you see a grief counselor because they explain this stuff to you that you know You're not going to be able to get a grief counselor So I'm I'm the older sister and I think so I've talked to my grief counselor my therapist about this a lot and I'm like,

Okay,

I'm gonna get a grief counselor because they explain this stuff to you that you didn't know what's going on Right,

So she told me in one of our first sessions after we talked like you're a planner You find comfort in having you know control over situations where you can plan you can create lists you can organize things you can set things in motion and you feel like there's this progress and a sense of peace when things are in your When we were talking about the opportunity to plan my mom's funeral with my dad I love spreadsheets.

I love writing.

I love communicating and I love Control and planning and I think that you know,

My younger sister was not in a place where she wanted to be planning everything and reaching out to people and Organizing and juggling and doing all of that.

And so she didn't take on that responsibility and with my dad You know he was going through something that was Such a bigger loss for him as the person who spent every day with my mom for over 30 years That I could step in and say yo,

This is my jam.

Like this is what I do for my nine-to-five I have a event planning background and experience this is something that I can do to contribute that will be meaningful and that will be helpful to the situation and I can thrive in it and I think it was for me like it was either that or Sit and watch Gilmore Girls and drink whiskey in the middle of the day which did end up happening after the funeral but like for me to be able to just really Contribute something I think it honestly gave me a lot of peace and it was a really beautiful way for me to talk to my family and to talk to the people that were coming and to talk to like the cater about My mom in like a positive way where we could celebrate her and think about positive fun things to do at her memorial versus just sitting with my dad and you know going to multiple multiple funeral homes and having to pick up her ashes and You know dealing with death certificates and picking up her stuff from the hospital like for me.

It was a good balance and a good chance to balance my Grieving that was positive and my grieving that was really negative.

I Hear that and it totally resonates with something that a previous podcast guest Megan Devine says on How best to help people who are grieving is to not?

Take these tasks away from them because for many of them it's the final act of Love or the final Act of devotion that they get to have for their loved one Yeah,

Absolutely and I think so we we hosted my mom's Service in our backyard at my dad's house.

I call it my dad's house number at my parents house where I grew up and so we You know had gathered people there and brought all of our family in from Canada because my mom was Canadian and it was really a Chance to be in a space where it still really felt because it had only been a couple of days Like she was still there with us,

You know,

And it wasn't like she was there with us It wasn't like I was in denial and I was like she's just at the grocery store or like she's taking a nap but it's still very much felt like things that she touched were in places that she had just touched them and Her spot on the couch was still her spot on the couch,

Which years later,

You know will like sink into it now And I think you're right in that it really was a chance for me to feel like I was Honoring her and her presence there still and Not just thinking back the longer,

You know,

I go and my family goes Without her and it's no longer that thinking back reflecting of the time She was once there like there was still such a presence Because it happened so recently That's something I was thinking on too is that you're going on your three You're going on your three this year.

Yeah,

That's like whoa really soon Still and like time means nothing in grief I was working on a written piece this weekend and I'm like time is this fluid bendy weird thing where You know,

Sometimes seconds can feel like years and then years can feel like the blink of an eye So like time does weird things when we're grieving but Let's see what direction we can go next with this.

Can you speak to the power of or maybe even just the usefulness of Having a therapist or like a sounding board for grief.

Oh my gosh.

Yes I think for me what's been so special About having a third party is it takes The pressure off of myself to figure stuff out which I do very publicly obviously,

You know,

We're here Because I put my work on the internet and on Instagram and on Facebook and everywhere But I do my work so publicly but still have a lot to work on my partner Had met my mom twice before she died My dad is dealing with his grief.

My sister is dealing with her grief Having an outlet that is just for me to work through My grief and my grieving and how I'm navigating it through all of these life experiences Has just been so important and I think I'm so grateful for The you know the privilege and the time and the money to be able to see a counselor Because I think that there obviously are so many people that don't have that and carry so much of this and I have an outlet Every two weeks that I can talk to about things that yeah,

I could talk to all of those other people in my life about But sometimes it's good to just unload it on someone else who You know doesn't have to worry about taking care of me all the time and I think that it was something that I was really open to I was really open to in the beginning and Just from talking to people and having a couple of friends who lost parents around the same time that I did Hearing from them that support groups and grief counselors and therapists was just like the way to go I I just jumped in and it's been really really helpful for me.

I think that's something really special to have a group of people around you who are like this has happened to us too I think that's something that a lot of people who Face grief in their 20s and 30s do not have is this feeling of oh my god one of my parents or even both of my parents are dead and everybody around me is like Doing things like getting married or getting their first salary job or like moving for the first time and they have both parents there to witness them in that so I'm wondering I kind of this is gonna be a two-part question,

But What did you draw most from this group of people who had also?

Lost a parent around the same time that you lost your mom and Also,

What's like the scariest thing about that though?

The scariest thing about Like losing a mom really early on in your life That's a big question Maybe I should have put them together,

But there they are No,

Yeah So the first question what I drew from it has just been Being able To have someone else say and multiple friends say like no I hear you No,

I hear you.

You're not going crazy or no.

I hear you people said that to me too and They're the ones that messed up or I hear you every day is hard Not just on Mother's Day or your mom's birthday or Christmas when people reach out I think that that alignment and that Understanding that there were other people Who just have bad Tuesdays and won't look at me like it's taken me too long to get over something or who are Worried that if I have too many bad Tuesdays in a row that something really bad is happening and I'm not getting over my grief That has just been incredible for me and I think that knowing people Who are willing?

To talk to me about this stuff because they've experienced it themselves has been really special And I think too it's not just you know,

I do the work that I do one because it's a creative outlet and two because I enjoy Listening to people and talking to people about what they're going through because I think that what's really important is that support system wherever you can find it and It's great having friends in person that I can talk to you It's great having friends and family around the world that I talk to you It's also really great to have just people who are young my age who know what's going on Who are on the internet and it's been really incredible to draw from their strength and their openness Whether they're doing it professionally or just like in modern loss like private groups and stuff like that But I think that it's just been it's been so good to have people who can say to me Yeah,

Like this is hard.

You're not going that it's been a year.

It's been two years The third year is gonna be really hard,

You know I'm getting married this year and I can talk to people who aren't just like oh well like put a picture of your mom on a table in a corner and it'll be awesome and we'll like You know say a poem for her but friends who are like no Like it's gonna suck and you're gonna cry and I'll be there with a waterproof mascara because I did this myself I think that the reality track and the frankness from those people has just been incredible to me Then I guess the second part of your question what's been the scariest thing about losing my mom So far I think it's Navigating all of the things that you listed Which was,

You know moving to another city in Canada You know having my third salary job in a new country I'm getting married this year in September I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago all of those milestones like They're hitting me right now and they're all Things that are really really exciting in a lot of ways and so painful and scary at the same time and there are so many milestones to come and I think what's You know for me some days.

I think my answer to this would be really different some days,

You know My answer to this would be really different some days,

You know,

My answer be like,

Oh,

Yeah All those things that have already happened other days the scariest stuff to me is Like what hasn't happened yet and how I'm gonna get through it,

You know Having kids without my mom Turning 50 without my mom retiring,

You know people still have their parents around for that stuff and I don't know what it's gonna be like and Right now I'm feeling Pretty okay about that kind of stuff because I know that I have great support systems around me And I know that the stuff that's been really hard so far I've had Incredible people around before and done a lot of work just to keep myself You know,

Like just surviving But I have no idea what the rest of the milestones that I'm gonna hit are gonna be like and that that can be pretty scary sometimes Yeah,

Yeah often a lot of grief comes from I think you phrase that perfectly what hasn't happened yet And it's like I have to it's not just everybody says one day at a time which like granted that's often how you Survive in grief is if I can just make it through the next 10 minutes or the next hour the next day or whatever But then also there is that Weight that like it kind of sits over your eyebrows like a visor and it's like I'm seeing into the future And I'm gonna have to do one day at a time for an indeterminable amount of time Without this person and so there's always some part of us that knows that our future will stretch much further Without them than it did with them generally,

You know and that's That's incredibly hard.

So yeah,

I Mean great answer heartbreaking answer.

But yeah,

That's really resonating in my own Story and space as well.

I'm sure as with listeners of this show,

Too How did all of this make it online?

Like what was the moment where you were like,

I don't know how it started Like was it was it writing or creating or hosting death over dinners or because this is all you host a conglomerate of grief affiliated honoring supporting Activities and outlets online.

That's really cool.

So like you have your um,

You have your hands on a lot of pies,

Which is neat But at the same time I wonder where The point of entry is for you Yeah,

So This is always so weird for me to think about like what's this meant to be In 2015 December 2015 I was laid off from a startup that I was working at in New Orleans My background is in writing and editing and creative work and when I was editing for this startup and got laid off the company went under and My designer and I that I had been working with were like,

Let's just float for a while We're gonna like look for jobs in New York and do all this but at the same time let's like do something creative let's use our time well and We ended up putting together a project That was all focused on death.

So the first theme of this broadsheet that we'd created We were running around doing photo shoots everything all focused on death and dying and how people creatively explore death and all of the different cultural artistic connections to death that there are in the world so that was the December before my mom died and The month before we went to print you were wrapping everything up we've done shoots and collected stories from people and done all this work design this whole thing to go sell in London and Then my mom died so that was my entry into like working on death publicly and creatively and after doing all of that work You know,

My mom died I ended up going back to the UK like back to Scotland was back with my fiance my now fiance and went down to London and started selling this broadsheet and did a pop-up with in partnership with with another magazine at Ace Hotel down there and People like loved it want to talk about death people are all about death people loved it and I was like,

Oh Cool.

I have done this in this abstract way and I've done this abstract project Just because we like knew that death would be a thing that would intrigue people and then realized I now have a totally personal connection to death and grief and dying and Decided once we finished that project and wrapped it up To use my connections in that space and my willingness to explore that space To do the same specifically with grief and with mother loss.

So I wrapped that project up and It's slowly like you'll see on the back end of my site and like I'll send links still around sometimes From that project like everything now points to me and my work and my grief projects But there was this overlap for a while until I yeah,

Really realized that like I can talk about other people dying and you know ancient rituals and do these photo shoots of like funeral tea ceremonies and doing all that but like I should be dealing with my own stuff and if I'm willing to write about it I should and I should put it out there and the response was really positive It you know,

It's one of those things and people are like,

Oh that's so interesting and I'm sure I'm sure you hear this all the time Like well,

That's so interesting.

I've never heard like anybody Do work about this and like there are so many people there's so many books like we just aren't you know taught to Openly look for this stuff and read about it and talk about it and listen to podcasts about it Like there are podcasts about death and grief and loss.

I'm like,

Oh no,

There are podcasts about everything It's almost like that there's that kind of inappropriate on rule that rule of the internet of like if it exists there is porn of it and now the rule is if it exists,

There's a podcast about it and like I have found people I mean there are people who do nothing but go on cruise ships and host podcasts about it There are people who talk about hair products There are people who re-watch the golden girls and do a podcast on every single episode of the show and the history behind it like it It's an insane platform to be on but i'm laughing at your story because it's like the universe Somehow bestowed upon you Grief and death 101 and then you graduated and went to grad school grief where you actually had to experience it for yourself and that's kind of that's putting it through more of a playful lens than I think it needs necessarily but Listening to you you seem to have such roots in the ground about grief and where you exist in that universe and I think that comes from a lot of external support especially in the early days but like You kind of had a primer on it for lack of better phrasing Oh,

Yeah,

I think it was what was really Important Was I spent almost an entire year Talking about death and talking to people about death and reading stuff about death and writing stuff about death I like just was thinking about it all the time and it wasn't specifically always related to grief I was just thinking about it all the time and it wasn't specifically always related to grief

Reviews

Great talk.. I will turn 50 in September and my mother died when I was 15. While all my friends complained about their mothers, I was trying to process the fact that I’d never get to complain or ever see her again. I have spent the last 30 years feeling ashamed because this is still so raw at times for me but this makes me wear it like a badge of honour. Her death is very much a part of who I am and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Thank you for this subject matter. It was a painfully lonely feeling being a girl with no mother and having a father who was so lost that pretending she was never here was his way to cope. I look forward to following your podcasts. ♥️