My Husband Is Not A Rainbow With Kelley Lynn

On July 13, 2011 Kelley Lynn woke up to an entirely new life. Her husband, Don, collapsed from a massive heart attack at work just four years and nine months into their happy marriage. Kelley suddenly became a widow. This week we’re talking about how loss forces us to reinvent ourselves, why we need to grieve both personal and joint dreams, and how one laughable grief cliche turned into a global rainbow-spotting movement honoring Don’s life.

Transcript

Well,

Grief growers,

Thank you so much for joining us for another episode here on coming back I am delighted to be virtually sitting across from Kelly Lynn whose TEDx talk I saw Man had to have been at least two years ago If not three and I don't remember how I found it But once I did I knew she had to come on and speak to us here on coming back Kelly welcome to the show and if you could start us off with your lost story Thank you so much and thank you for the welcome so my lost story started in 2011 on July 13th and I literally woke up to a brand new life that I didn't ask for I I woke up around 645 in the morning to My phone ringing over and over and over again and my husband had gone to work about an hour before that He was a paramedic and he was perfectly healthy as far as I knew 46 years old We were four years and nine months into our very happy marriage.

Just starting our life together and I got a phone call from the hospital that was right down the street and they said we have your husband you need to get Here right away.

I didn't know what the hell they were talking about because he had just left for work Why would he be in the hospital?

They said you just need to get here.

So they said can you get here?

I said,

I guess so I got a cab somehow.

I don't really remember how I did that.

What were the details of how that happened?

But I got myself there and they told me that they found him collapsed on the floor At his job and he died Of a massive heart attack and there was absolutely no warnings no symptoms of any kind You know to say it was the biggest shock of my life is the biggest understatement I think I could ever say And since then my life has been completely changed altered and Just been a long road to becoming Whatever I'm going to turn out to be I guess is the best way to put it Yeah,

I really see you in that notion of I'm still kind of figuring out what I am in the aftermath of this because that's really familiar in loss I think Movies and stories and even our friends and family have this illusion of okay It's been X number of years or X amount of time and so now you should know who you are and know what you want And have your dreams all lined up and redefined and what goal are you going to be in the future?

So this idea of it happened,

You know Over eight years ago now and I'm still in the process of becoming who I am in the aftermath of that Yeah,

And I think that honestly whether or not you've been through a loss like this I think we're all trying to always figure out and rediscover Again,

And again who we are and what we want out of life and I think those things Change as we evolve and as things happen in our life and as we get older and you know a loss like this certainly Puts a huge altar on the plans you had and the plans you now have to recreate but I think in anyone's life Everybody is always recreating themselves That's kind of what life is about and I didn't know if I knew that before the death of my mother And now it's kind of all I think about in a way I literally just wrote down the difference between becoming a new person in the aftermath of loss and becoming a new person Just all the time in general is the difference between recreation by force and recreation by choice So I think most of our lives are just about the same And recreation by choice so I think most of our lives have this illusion that you know,

I'm not really happy with this job So I'm going to set out and look for a different one or you know,

I'm not really satisfied in this relationship So I'm going to break up with the person and then figure out what I want next and all these These small griefs and losses create this illusion of like oh we're choosing what happens to us and then in your case when Sudden unexpected lightning bolt loss happens.

It's like wow,

I have to reinvent myself and I really didn't want to Yeah,

Yeah,

That's exactly it.

It is by force.

You don't want you don't want any of it You don't want that new life that's just being like attacked onto you and thrown at you out of nowhere and You have two choices when when it comes down to it.

You can either you know Deal with the new life that's been thrown at you that you don't want at first and maybe for a long time Or you can just kind of cower in the corner and give up on everything and I don't know I think even early on when I wanted to give up on everything and I didn't want to necessarily go on and live and you know I was extremely sad and in a ton of pain Even then I kind of knew somewhere in my heart That I wasn't going to give up.

I wasn't gonna you know,

Just throw my life away I didn't know how I would get through it,

But I knew that somewhere I wanted to I wonder if you can speak more on that to that this feeling of I don't know how I'm gonna get through this.

I just know that I'm going to get through this because I think so many grieving people have this Suspended in their brains.

They're like looking for Can you just give me the list like the top five tips of how to survive your husband suddenly collapsing at work?

Which is very specific.

Um Yes,

But there needs to be this this restless search for how do I And not a lot of falling back on this.

I hate to use the word faith because that has a religious connotation But this faith that somehow I will make it through it the the the the thing that I will do It the difference between how and that?

Yeah,

Absolutely,

And I think um,

I'm kind of glad you did bring up the word faith because i'm not a person of faith um So I think in some ways it makes it a little harder if you're not if you don't have that Belief to fall back on.

I mean sometimes i'm jealous of people that are very religious or very um,

You know that that that they believe god has a plan and those types of things because I don't believe that so It's really really hard for me sometimes to come up with reasons To go on and I think the the biggest way to answer how the how do you do it?

Is Um,

It might sound cliche,

But it's absolutely true like one like one millisecond at a time one thought at a time one breath at a time just kind of keep doing the very next thing that feels less horrible Than or least horrible than the other thing,

You know if you can Do this keep doing the next thing.

That's not That's going to cause you the least amount of pain because in the beginning everything is painful,

You know after this kind of loss Everything is painful.

Everything you do is painful.

So and that's just the truth of it So I think if you can keep doing the thing that is the least amount of pain um And whether that means you know taking a day off from work that day or not hanging out with family that day because that's going to hurt a little bit less than hanging out with family and being reminded of the loss or Um,

Whether it means going out that night because you want to escape it for a few hours or whatever it is on that particular day I think that's kind of how I Started was just okay.

Let me do the next thing.

Just keep doing the next thing um and As time goes by You know,

You're you're getting through it very very slowly.

You're crawling through it,

But it's happening The other thing I would say is that as you go through the pain of this kind of a loss You really start to Realize that every time you have that pain It feels like it's going to kill you because it's so painful,

But it doesn't it doesn't kill you And so every time it doesn't kill you it's almost like a realization of like oh I got through it again.

I got through that Horrific pain again,

So maybe that means I can get through it the next time it happens Yeah,

And I think that in and of itself is A version of faith is like if I can build up enough evidence that i'm surviving The next hour or that I survived yesterday or oh my god.

I went a whole week and i'm still alive It's like you build up this bank of evidence or even faith in or trust in that Self again as a grieving right?

Holy crap.

I can actually survive this Yeah,

Yeah it is and it's like you kind of realize it each time because it really does feel The most horrible feeling in the world is that pain?

Because you feel like oh my god,

How do people do this?

How do people?

Get through this level of pain because it hurts so bad and you just miss them so much and you miss Everything about that life and you just don't know how to go forward in the beginning and for a while and If you can get through those few hours of that pain and then you're still alive That's kind of a little a little victory,

You know Yeah,

Yeah and it's It's just this Proof,

I don't know.

There's almost like a stubbornness in it.

Like i'm still right Yeah,

Yeah,

I can do this and yeah,

I'll show them I don't know who them is but Whoever they are i'll show them I love that though.

It's almost like staying alive out of anger or out of spite.

Yeah I have I have heard of grievers who do that.

They're like i'm gonna stay alive because this could quite possibly kill me And that's the reason they're staying alive is like this wants to kill me and i'm not gonna let it And you know what?

Whatever the reason is.

I think that's that's your reason like whatever the reason is whether it's because you Have a religious faith or whether it's because you're angry and you want to stay alive out of anger or whether it's because You know you um what it became for me after a while is my husband died in a split second It was completely sudden Shocked the life out of me And he was so young and he had so much life to live still And you know,

We had just started our life together.

We didn't have a house yet.

We didn't have kids yet We didn't have any of the dreams that we wanted together Yet and so I felt like he was robbed so much more than I was like I was robbed of him So much more than I was like I was robbed of him in that life,

But at least I got to live he was robbed of Life and that still sticks with me and that became my reason to live Was so that I could live because he can't because he doesn't get that opportunity So,

You know,

I'll be damned if i'm not going to make the most out of this life that became my reason Yeah,

And this is a new concept to me this idea of i'm gonna Rage or seek justice through my life on behalf of the person who died Yeah,

I've never heard anybody phrase it that way you're like i'm angry that he didn't get to see all this so i'm gonna stay just because He did not get that opportunity and it feels a little bit different than i'm going to live in memory of him Like that has a different ring to it than Yeah,

That sensation of oh my gosh,

He had this life taken Yes Yeah,

And that's still how it feels to me and people have told me you know that that's I don't know people have some people have questioned that like,

You know that I shouldn't feel that way that his life was taken and that You know That it was his time and all that stuff and I just don't believe that I don't believe in it being someone's time When they're that young I just can't justify that so in my mind It'll always be that he was robbed of life and he was taken too soon and you know anybody that dies young or you know,

It's kind of like There's only one peaceful death in my mind and that's you know being 95 years old surrounded by your family and you know You die in your sleep.

That's that's a peaceful death.

You've lived a full life and even that's sad because death is just sad but I think when you're you know when you're when you die in the middle of life when you die when you're still young and still have so much to do and you know,

Um,

That's just tragic to me and so it is it is a almost an anger or like a a very fierce type of feeling like I really Want to live in color and in full blast because my husband didn't get that honor and that opportunity I want to know now as you're talking about dreams and hopes for the future and the things that you guys had planned to do together if and how Those dreams or visuals have changed or been forced to change Since the day that he died Yeah,

Yeah,

That's a really good question.

Um,

So I guess there's dreams That we had together and then there's dreams that I've always had For my life on my own Which included you know,

I I went to college for Acting and theater and writing and I was a performing arts major.

I moved to new york city when I was 18 And lived there for 26 years after that my whole adult life And in the hopes of you know,

Um doing acting writing Comedy any any type of that stuff was always my dream Being on saturday night live doing something like that was always my dream and then when I met don He became part of that dream and he wanted that dream for me And he was a paramedic so he figured I can do that anywhere He lived in florida when we met we met on the internet in a music chat room and so after A few years of us talking he moved to the new york area with me and he supported me in every way You can possibly support a person But especially emotionally just my support system.

He believed in me.

He you know wanted me to have these dreams and so Losing him was obviously Horrific and he was a great person and he was a great person He was actually Horrific in all the ways that losing a partner is but it was also Horrific in the sense that it did change every single Dream that I had and forced it to alter Because I tried to live in new york for a while after he died.

It was way too expensive.

I had to leave Um after five years or so I moved back in with my parents in massachusetts Which is my home state and i'm currently living there now so Um,

I mean i'm a real estate agent now.

I never saw that coming So and I I like it.

I mean,

It's it's a great it's a great job.

Um,

I still do comedy.

I still write,

You know I still do the things that I used to do but That dream of you know being an aspiring actress and being an aspiring comedian and that struggle.

I can't I can't do that anymore.

I can't afford to do that anymore.

It's not realistic.

I had to leave that that life behind um because I don't have the same support system that I had with my husband and I don't know how that would have turned out.

There's always that question of like,

You know Would we have stayed there our whole life would we have moved back?

To more of a suburban lifestyle would we have had a family?

I know we wanted one Um,

So,

You know,

There's a lot of unfinished questions when someone dies and you just Are left with this feeling of you know,

How would that life have looked I guess um,

And then you're trying to create a new one a new life for yourself,

So Um,

Yeah,

I don't know it's a complicated question,

But there's definitely been a lot of a lot of things that I wanted that I no longer Can do but at the same time i'm rebuilding A new life and that life includes a lot of those things just in a different way Yeah,

It's a it's really i'm getting this visual of like doors closing it's like when somebody we love dies there's all of these Different options for our futures that we no longer have access to it's like they're sealed off like they're welded shut and they cease to Become options For our lives and so when we lose somebody that we love all of those hopes dreams and expectations die along with them and i'm so interested that that you brought up these dreams of You being an aspiring actress and continuing to live in new york because those were Like your own dreams that changed when you died as opposed to I think a lot of people talk about the joint dreams Of like buying the house having the kids,

You know Seeing them graduate and taking them to soccer practice and all this other stuff.

Um,

And i'm i'm just really Grateful that you went in that direction because loss We we're not only losing our joint dreams that we created with the person that were died that died.

We're losing our own We're losing our own hope streams and expectations for ourselves as well because things just aren't energetically logistically emotionally plausible anymore Financially,

Yes.

Oh my gosh a thousand percent Yeah,

Well and when you said he was the person that really supported you in that i'm like,

Oh sometimes the people that die Are our biggest cheerleaders and when we don't have somebody yeah hearing for us what happens then to our dreams Um,

Yes,

And he was he was he was my biggest cheerleader my number one fan my support system my best friend all of that and And you know,

He was the type of person that would say and did say many times you know what go on that audition I'm gonna work two jobs or i'm gonna work overtime today because I really think you should go to this audition You might get this job.

You might get this tv gig or whatever it was And when he died,

You know,

I no longer had that that obviously went away and so I had to pay all the bills and I had to pay everything and you know everything doubled because I was suddenly in our apartment alone and I was suddenly Paying the car bills and all the bills that he paid half of and it was just like overnight everything became so hard financially in addition to all of the grief and And just the loss of your partner your life partner your best friend financially it was Such a struggle because it was sudden so we didn't have life insurance.

We didn't have Anything we had nothing we lived paycheck to paycheck.

You know,

I was an adjunct professor and he was an emt so an emt so there wasn't a ton of money there and we were living in You know 10 minutes outside of new york city the most expensive city on the planet.

So So it's hard to keep that up.

I lasted almost five years after his death and Struggled like crazy directed a bunch of theater shows picked up,

You know tons of part-time jobs kept my teaching job And in the end it just became I had to make a decision.

That was a very hard decision for me Am I going to leave new york city?

Am I going to leave these this life behind and Essentially start over because I I just can't do it anymore.

It was just so tiring and I Wasn't doing any of the things that I was doing when I was married because I didn't have that support system anymore So I had to make the decision Decision to go in a different direction and try something else.

Um,

And then I I did I moved back And moved in with my parents.

I was writing My book at the time I I wrote a book about the loss of my husband and it's been out for about a year and a half now on amazon and um I That was part of my decision was i'm going to go home.

I'm going to stay with my parents And i'm going to finish this book because I I was not able to finish it In new york because I was so busy working.

I was working like two three jobs all the time just to Just to stay alive and to pay my rent and I was I had to get a roommate,

You know I had to sell our car I had to sacrifice so many things And it just felt like all I was doing was sacrificing pieces of myself and I just wanted to stop doing that and find a different path and Somehow make it work and the only way to do that was I needed to leave I want to thank you for bringing light to that subject because I think a lot of society forgets how expensive grief is Yeah,

The more and more I hear about it the more I consider myself very fortunate because I was kind of at that tipping point between teenager and adulthood when my mom died and so I knew for the most part that my father or our family as a whole would be absorbing most of like The funeral expenses and the memorial and like all these other things and cremation and things like that,

But people forget You know,

There's these Gradual losses that happen too of oh my god.

I have to take on the power bill.

Oh my god I have to take on this half of the rent.

Oh my god.

I have to take on the car payment and you know Gas bill like everything All of a sudden piled on um,

And and that's not something that's really discussed because people see the word grief or they Know you're a grieving person and they think it's just a heart issue Yeah,

That's so true Yeah,

So thank you.

Absolutely for bringing the light to that.

Um,

I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about yeah your Tedx talk because I think the biggest takeaway from that the tedx talk grief growers for those of you who are listening And want to look it up on youtube is called when someone you love dies There's no such thing as moving on which in itself is just yes a true statement and and something we talk about here on coming back is banishing this language of Getting over moving on going around like yeah,

Like the the stories of Grief is done and it's over like that doesn't belong in this space So when I saw that headline of your youtube video,

I was like,

Oh my god,

I have to watch this But the biggest takeaway that you spoke about spoiler alert here for people listening is that love grows love and you talk about How people who've been impacted by grief?

When they grieve Especially if there was love involved which I think for a lot of us in grief there is it's something that Multiplies after loss it doesn't go away because the person that we love died.

It kind of gets diffused or passed on to or Not regifted but like inherited To other people like it's almost like the love continues for the person who died it changes form But then all the the in-person love that you had for them almost like finds a new host And like moves into other places that can be expressed in the world and I just loved That idea so I kind of wonder how you came on that revelation yourself of love grows love But then also how it shows up in practice in your life First of all,

I love the fact that you used the word regifted I think that's such a great term because Because usually regifted is like such a tacky thing,

You know,

Like i'm regifting this gift for christmas or whatever but I love it used in this context because it is regifted it's like taking the love for someone and and giving it forward to someone else because of that love that you Experienced with that person you are now able to love someone else and love better because of what you've been through so I'll tell you how I came about that I'll tell you how I came about that that concept of love grows love um Or the first time it sort of entered into my head it was early on in my grief,

Um I'm,

Not sure when maybe In the six to eight month period somewhere in there and I had read this article And I don't remember where I read it.

It was probably in like the new yorker or one of those places.

Um That I read it online and it was just this little this little piece and it was a true story And it was uh a woman who was an older woman and she was a widow and she was talking about Her husband being on his deathbed because he was very ill and he was they were both older And they had been married for years and years and years and years and years so very different from my story but I still related to it and She said that when he was on his deathbed She asked him,

You know,

She started crying and she asked him just very sincerely You know,

What am I supposed to do?

When you're gone,

What am I supposed to do without you?

What do I do?

With the love how do I survive?

And he told her take all the love that you have for me and spread it around That's what he said to her and I thought that was the most beautiful thing and also Just great advice just really great advice take the love that we have And spread it around and That really stuck with me like in so many ways And so even when I was you know feeling hopeless and like I didn't want to continue That sort of stuck in my head as a thought and as a concept and then What started to happen was I started to feel that happening like I started to Do things that were in honor of my husband Such as you know creating a pay it forward day on july 13th the day he died He was a very giving person So I took that love The and that giving kindness that he had and I shared it forward by creating pay it forward for dawn shepherd day To asking people to do something Random a random amount of time Random a random act of kindness and then telling me about it writing to me about it on my facebook page And then I would write up a big epic blog of kindness every july 13th and I still do this I do this every july 13th and it turned into hundreds and hundreds of stories I mean a hundred to two hundred people would take part In this project that I was doing and half of them didn't even know dawn and Then I started getting involved in the widowed community.

I started meeting more widowed people and more people You know that were young like me when this happened to them And I started experiencing their stories and getting inspired by what they've done with their lives and It was almost like I lost my husband.

I lost this great piece of my life and then because I reached out And shared his love and shared our story forward every time I did that My life would multiply my world would multiply In love and so I was gaining this family in this community of people Other people that were in pain and together We were becoming this big giant network of love and It really is true that if you reach out and help other people It helps to heal you it helps to heal them and you grow your own world you make it bigger This is such a great example of Carrying on Someone that we love with us in the day to day without having to make it Monstrous or like I didn't create a 501c non-profit or like do a 5k Or post a scholarship or all these other things and they're all well and good I wrote in my book permission to grieve There's a chapter called permission to do and it's all about taking grief out into the world in the form of action especially visible action and there's this enormous pressure to Mark your loss with something huge and tremendous and I think that's a really great example of that I think that's a pressure that a lot of grieving people feel but for you it's like one day out of the year We're all going to do something really kind for somebody that we don't know in honor of my husband who died and like that's yeah You know It's not it doesn't have to be grand because it's already grand like we don't have to make it any bigger than it is because It's already so big and I love this idea of yeah diffusing That love out into the rest of the world I want to bring up the title of your book also it makes me laugh every time I see it And then look at the cover too the whole thing makes me laugh.

It's called my husband is not a rainbow And I want to know where the idea for the title came from.

I think I have a hunch It was from a poorly led grief support group,

But it may have not been but there's this There's this snide-ness of uh,

Quit telling me what happened to him Um,

And let me decide for myself so tell us more about your book and where the title came from and what Uh readers can expect to find if they read it Okay,

Um,

So it the the full title is my husband is not a rainbow the Totally awful hilarious truth about life love grief and loss.

So it's a long title and it's a long book Because grief is long grief is a long Um because grief is long grief is a long never-ending Tsunami,

I call it a tsunami.

I hate the word journey Um when it comes to grave journey is an 80s band that wasn't very good Has nothing to do with grief And I like the word tsunami because a tsunami is awful and a tsunami comes in and attacks you out of nowhere And that's exactly how it felt when it happened so My tsunami started on july 13th 2011 And that is when the book starts it starts on the day that he died and It takes you through everything,

Um from that day forward,

Um,

And it is different than other grief books in the sense that It was written in real time So it's not a look back at You know the process or a look back at at the death of this person and how I survived and how I keep surviving but it's more of You actually get to as the reader you get to experience the evolution of a person in the aftermath of the death of the person they love and Um,

You get to see it happening before your eyes or read it happening before your eyes Um at the same time it's also a love story because I go back and forth,

Uh between Our love story and how we met Everything that happened in our relationship the highlights of it and then it goes back and forth into my story in the aftermath of his death So it's very brutal brutally honest and also funny very funny because I am a comedian at heart I have a dark sense of humor And that sense of humor got darker when he died So a lot of humor is in the book.

It's written with humor So it's not extremely depressing.

It goes back and forth with every emotion you can think of and the title came from A comment that someone made so you're half right.

It was not a support group,

But it was a person um A very nice sweet wonderful person that was a co-worker of my husband's um At a volunteer job that he had he worked at a local PetSmart store on his days off uh from being paramedic and he Loved animals and so a couple days a week he would go to this PetSmart and he would take part in the adoption of Dogs and cats in their adoption program and he would you know pretty much work there as a volunteer Helping with the adoption center And that's where he had his heart attack In one of the aisles of the store while he was working early morning at the PetSmart and so One of his co-workers there was helping me with our two kitty cats after he died She was helping me to feed them and you know She gave me some food for them and stuff and she came over one day about a week after his funeral And she told me this story.

She said Kelly I have to tell you A miracle happened.

I was on my way to Don's funeral and I was in Hackensack,

New Jersey And my husband hated New Jersey.

He moved there because of me,

You know,

Because he fell in love with me He wanted to start a life with me And so he moved from Florida to New Jersey and even in our wedding vows He said who the hell moved to New Jersey,

You know on purpose Because he hated it so much but he moved there for me so so that was a big part of uh of the rest of the story that i'm about to tell so she said She saw this miracle on the way to his funeral which was in New Jersey where we lived And she said I was driving my car and it started pouring it started raining so hard And all of a sudden it it,

You know the sky cleared up and the sun came out and I was crying because you know dawn was gone forever and I couldn't believe it and I was so sad and all of a sudden Kelly I looked up And I saw this miracle in the sky And it was a rainbow.

It was a rainbow in the sky And and it was your husband your husband was a rainbow Kelly He was a rainbow and she just kept going on and on and on about how he was a rainbow And trying to convince me that he was a rainbow and I My reaction to that was not anger I was trying really hard not to laugh in her face while she was telling me that my husband was a rainbow Because my husband first of all Would never be a rainbow if he was to come back in any form it would be like a kick-ass guitar solo and an Aerosmith song.

Yeah Something like that,

You know not a rainbow.

He would make fun of the rainbow thing.

He would just mock the mock the hell out of that And especially not in New Jersey.

He would never ever be a rainbow in New Jersey Because he hated New Jersey So he would not give New Jersey the time of day and give New Jersey his beauty of being the rainbow So that's where the title came from.

It was more of the idea of like,

You know I do believe in signs actually and I have felt my husband's presence and his energy around me Especially when I give back and when I do things in honor of him and when I reach out to other widowed people and when I Help someone else on their tsunami of grief and all of that.

I feel him close to me closest to me when I do those things But I feel like you know the idea of him being a rainbow was just so hilarious to me and so off the mark You know,

What about all those other people that saw that rainbow,

You know,

They didn't know Don I think a rainbow is a rainbow it happens because it rains and then the sun comes out.

It's mother nature So it struck me as very funny and it became a part of my stand-up comedy routine telling that story And it struck other people as very funny when I told the story and I started getting all of these All of these people mostly in the widowed community,

But people who have who have been through loss Posting on my Facebook page when they would see rainbows like they would take pictures of a rainbow that they saw and they would post it on my Facebook page Just saying oh I saw Don in Nebraska today and it was hilarious it turned into this revolution of rainbows because he's not a rainbow So that became a one-act play that I wrote my husband's not a rainbow it became a presentation that I wrote It became a presentation that I give at Soaring Spirits Camp Widow every year my husband's not a rainbow that's what my presentation is called And it became the title of my book so it's become this revolution sort of by accident and it's really Been amazing how it how it keeps going and going and going the joke of him not being a rainbow That makes me smile so much because it's it's like a case of mistaken identity where somebody really gets a lot out of a message And then somebody else is like wow you really don't know them the way that I know them and I mean for what it's worth let this poor woman have her rainbow But you're like ain't no way no how is he a rainbow in New Jersey And I just think that's so funny because I know that almost everybody listening probably has these grief cues of their own I have my eye whenever I see three birds especially with them when I'm with a specific person in my life it means like my mom is nearby But most people are like yeah you live in a major city there's like pigeons everywhere so it doesn't it doesn't make logical sense to people but for me it means something And so now I love that it's turned into this satirical sign of you know he's with us in the Himalayas he's with us in Seattle and now all of a sudden this this not rainbow has turned into Yes he's everywhere yeah and and what's so funny about it is that because he's not a rainbow he is a rainbow now because every time I see a rainbow I think of him because of this Because of this non-rainbow thing and because everyone else you know mocking it and posting it on my page and forever when I see rainbows it's dawn it's like oh there's dawn there's dawn you know it's like a constant joke that keeps him alive in my life and all these strangers lives that don't even know him who see rainbows now and say oh hi dawn hi dawn I mean it's incredible I want to get back to something really quickly before we wrap up for the day and that's before you and I officially got on the mic for our conversation we were talking about literally right before our time together you left a widows group a grief group and I wonder if you can say something on continuing to attend something like a widows group even though as the rest of the world would say Time has passed it's time to move on time to get over like all the crap that people throw at us because it's my hope that I continue to do great work many years into the future and one of my biggest fears though is that people are like having you gotten over this thing yet and I'm like it's kind of just for me it's integrated so that I could continue to move on to something like this one And one of my biggest fears though is that people are like,

Haven't you gotten over this thing yet?

And I'm like,

It's kind of just,

For me,

It's integrated,

But I'm hoping that you can continue to normalize that for us.

Yeah,

It would be my pleasure to normalize that because I feel the same way of how you just said.

It is a fear that other people won't understand and that other people will think this and that about you're not over it yet,

Or why are you still hanging around with those other widowed people?

Or why are you going to that camp widow thing,

Which is this amazing retreat,

By the way,

Three day,

I guess I call it a retreat.

It's a bunch of workshops and grief-related presentations and workshops that an amazing organization,

Soaring Spirits International puts on every year for widowed men and women.

And I have become very involved with them.

I'm a presenter at the Camp Widows three times a year since 2013.

And the reason that I stay involved and become as involved as I possibly can is a lot of what I was saying earlier about it expands my world.

I mean,

I can take this loss and I can cower in a corner and stay in pain,

Or I can use the pain to make something out of it.

I can create something from the pain or I can let the pain kill me.

And in my mind and in my heart,

The best way to create something from the pain is to take the love and share it forward and take the pain and share it forward because when you share your pain forward,

Somebody else who's in pain suddenly feels less alone.

And feeling less alone is pretty much the best gift you can get when you're sitting there feeling like you're the only one going through this,

Whatever it is.

I'm the only one going through this.

Nobody can possibly understand me.

I'm totally alone.

What the heck am I gonna do now?

How do I get through the next day?

And if that person reads something that I wrote or sees something that I said or attends my presentation or whatever it is,

Here's my words.

And they know that they're not alone and that somebody else understands this.

That might get them through to the next day.

And then the next day they might be able to do something else they didn't think they could do.

And that's what other widowed people did for me when I was in that dark place.

So not only will I continue to go to support groups and attend things like this with other widowed people and people who are going through loss,

But I lead them now.

I actually lead a local support group for Sowing Spirits in Massachusetts.

We meet two times a month in different restaurants and coffee shops and we have lunch and we hang out and we talk and it's a social support group.

And it is so meaningful to me to be able to do that and to give that back because in my heart,

These people gave me my life back.

They made me want to live again and they gave me a platform and a purpose to figure out what my life was gonna be.

Because when all those old dreams died or transformed,

I had to come up with a new plan.

And they helped me do that.

The community of widowed people helped me do that.

And my new plan is to help them back and that's part of my new plan.

And I really,

Really get a lot of joy out of doing that.

So I think that if you can take your grief and your pain and create some kind of purpose and some kind of joy out of it,

I think that that's a pretty wonderful way to expand your world and expand other people's world and change the world in your little way.

Yeah,

And that brings me to something you said in your TED Talk too of when you change your mind,

You change the world.

And I think this mindset shift of including grief and embracing it and kind of making it a piece of your identity now instead of pushing it away,

Which was that initial response at the beginning.

It really changes how you see not only yourself but others who are grieving too.

And that's really powerful because almost everybody in the world is grieving.

It is really powerful.

And it really is about a conversation change.

It's word usage and how we talk about grief and how we talk about loss and how we talk about death and love.

And not to say,

Not to tell people to move on,

But we carry it with us.

We carry it forward.

We move forward and we carry it with us.

We move with,

I like to say we move with because they're with me.

My husband is with me in spirit and in soul and in energy and in everything going forward.

He's a piece of that life that I'm living.

And I actually have a very loving and wonderful relationship now.

And I've been with my boyfriend two and a half years now.

And I truly believe that I would not be in a place to have love again if I didn't experience what I experienced with my husband.

And if I,

I can't ever choose one over the other,

I guess is what I'm saying.

It's all connected to me.

It's all,

I don't feel like I should have to move on from that in order to have this.

I think it's all connected.

And it's because I had that,

That I'm able to have this,

If that makes any sense.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Again,

Nothing is excluded.

It's all included.

It's like you don't have to choose between one or the other.

It's like,

No,

We just put a,

What do you call it?

We put one of those sleeves in the middle of the dining room table and now it seats 12.

Yes.

I don't remember what you call that.

Somebody's gonna email me and tell me there's a different word for that.

And I know there is.

But yeah,

It's like when you put one of those things in the middle of the dining room table and you're like,

Oh,

We're from seating four to seating 12.

Right,

Exactly.

And you're doing grief in a way that feels true and authentic and not blocking.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's the experience of it?

Yeah,

It's the only way for me.

And I know everyone's different,

But for me it's the only way that I know how to live authentically is to,

I don't wanna erase my past.

I don't wanna erase what happened to me and the person I loved and will always love,

The person that died.

I don't wanna erase that.

Why should I?

Why should I have to?

I don't feel that's,

See,

To me that's unhealthy.

All these people that talk about moving on.

And to me it's unhealthy to think that you should have to delete that from your life or that you should be ashamed of it in some way.

Why on earth should I be ashamed of loving this person forever going forward?

Why?

That makes no sense to me.

And in the same way with any kind of loss,

The loss of your mother,

The loss of a brother,

A sister,

A friend,

Anyone,

You know,

Of course you're gonna love them forever.

Why wouldn't you?

Yeah,

Yeah.

The phrase that just came to me is forced amnesia.

What people ask of us when they tell us to move on is to force ourselves to have amnesia.

I'm like,

That's biologically impossible.

It really is.

To say the least.

So it's a ridiculous request already,

But it really is physically,

Yeah,

Biologically impossible.