Soaring Spirits International With Michele Neff Hernandez

Michele Neff Hernandez, the founder of Soaring Spirits International, wasn't panicked when she found out her husband was hit by a car on his regular bike ride. He was strong and capable. But when he died, her life and the lives of her children were turned upside down. This week, Michele is sharing a suitable alternative to the dreaded, "How are you?" telling a touching story about how her kids continue to grieve, and reminding us of the power of finding loss stories that look like our own.

Transcript

Thank you so much for joining us on the show today and I'm so thrilled to be put in touch with you through our top of the show, Top of the season here on Coming Back who is Megan Devine, Our interviewee and through so many other people who've actually requested that you come on the show. So just thrilled to have you here and if you could please start us off with your lost story. Yeah well first let me tell you how much I love what you're doing and it's an honor to be included on the Coming Back show so thank you for that. My story begins on the first day of school August 31st of 2005. My three kids were heading back to school for their first day, My daughter's first day of high school, My youngest first day of middle school and my husband Phillip Hernandez went out for a bike ride. He always rode on Wednesday afternoons and so he went out for his regular Wednesday afternoon ride and about 45 minutes after he left my kitchen phone rang. I was making dinner for the kids and doing all the first day of school paperwork that comes with having just returned from that first day and I looked it was right after caller ID was a thing and so I looked at the caller ID and thought huh that's weird I don't know that number and I almost didn't answer it and then I thought hmm it's a cell phone number maybe I should answer so I did answer and it was a woman who was at the side of the road about a mile and a half from my house and said that my husband had been hit by a car and that she felt like I should come right away and so I got the location where he was which as I said was only about a mile and a half away from home hung up the phone and basically my brain went into well if this lady's calling me from the side of the road for some reason in my head that meant she hadn't called 911 and and since she didn't need to call 911 that must mean that things were gonna be fine and so I told the kids that a friend would come and sit with them shortly but I had to run over and get Phil because he'd been hit by a car but probably he had just broken some bones and I was gonna take him to the hospital so I got in the car and drove straight to the accident site and quickly became aware that it was much worse than I had imagined and that 911 had already been called I arrived just shortly before the ambulance and then after being loaded him being loaded into the ambulance and lucky for me they also included me and put me in the front seat of the ambulance I was able to go with him he died his heart stopped actually on the way to the end on the way to the emergency room which was probably only about three miles from where we were and then he was pronounced dead about half an hour later so that began the journey of trying to figure out how to live my life as a widowed person and how to create a meaningful life after the one that I had planned was altered beyond repair oh my god of course and I can't imagine well I hate the phrase I can't imagine but it's like I can never fathom what loss like yours is like and I hate when when people say that to grievers but the the suddenness of this is as I've said in previous podcast it's a life I have not lived is is probably the best way that I can phrase that and I guess my my first question for you is how do you or how did you go back home and yeah explain to your kids and your family you're like it it's not a broken bone I will tell you that it was a that's one of the portions of the story that is is still the hardest you know to recall which is just that I had you know I didn't think about what I was saying when I left the house and I truly believed in that moment that it was possible that he was going to be fine and that I was gonna pick him up well those words really echoed in my kids heads and so I had we were a blended family so I had three step kids who were adults living out of the house and my three kids who were 14 13 and 11 living at home so the first thing that happens after I realize that he has died is the very first thought was I have to tell his kids like I'm gonna have to call the kids and so I wanted his adult children to have the opportunity to get to him at that moment if they if they wanted so I had some difficult phone calls to make so I may I was able to reach one of them and then I was able to reach my brother-in-law who went and found the others and so then I'm really fortunate I you know I always think it's very funny that I started a community of support for widowed people because in my own would have experienced I was incredibly well supported by people who could not have done enough for me so I am one of seven children and every single one of my siblings plus my parents were in my living room that night so that's how I went home is that they all came and literally my entire living room was packed with people and we told stories about fell but prior to that I I had someone pick up the kids because once you know I thought I was only going to be gone for a minute well when I was in the ambulance I'm realizing this is not going to take a minute so I'm making arrangements with the kids and I'm in the front seat literally like having an office phone calls canceling appointments like trying to clear my life and I'm like all of a sudden you're turned into a receptionist in the front seat of an ambulance and I'm like got one ear like back there trying to hear if they're working on him and one and one ear in the front trying to make sure that you know my kids are taken care of that you know everything that needs to happen is happening I had appointments that night I'm a was a personal trainer at that time and I had appointments so people were gonna be waiting for me so I was trying to cancel that later they all said to me I can't believe you've been called I don't you know I just went into automatic mode like what do you do in that moment okay you clear your sky that's what I did. Clear your calendar for the rest of the afternoon. Clear your calendar real quickly so anyways I had done that and so my kids were with friends and and my parents were coming and so I asked them if they'd pick up the kids and bring them to me at another friend's house where I was kind of waiting for everyone to gather and then we were gonna go home together and so my kids are happily playing at their friend's house you know they're worried but I had told him that they broke he broke his legs and so when finally they came downstairs from their friend's house and saw grandma and grandpa my daughter said I knew things weren't good when grandma and grandpa were there and so then they they bring them to me which was not a very far distance and you know I'm we're riding home in the backseat of the car after I've told them I mean you know we've got the four of us are packed in the backseat of this car and one of the kids says to me mom but you told me he just broke his legs and so you know like I said still those words ring because that's really what I thought but those poor kids were like but mom like he can't be dead you told us he just broke his legs so yeah those were really really really hard times and and it's funny looking back now because when I think the other thing is there's a there's a matching sentence to I can't imagine and that is in my mind I don't know how I did it and so it's funny to think that there's so many times when I feel when I hear other people's stories kind of just what you said like I can't imagine because I truly can't I can't imagine what it must have been like for them in that moment and the pairing sentence to that for me is I don't know how I did it there's no answer to the question like how did you make it through I don't know I just did what came naturally in that moment and I sat back there with my kids and cried because I had told them that you know his legs were broken and that clearly and actually wasn't even true so you know ultimately we started moving you know as forward and back and sideways as we could while we made our way through what was to come before we get into like the days months years that followed I want to pause for a second and ask who he was to you his name is Philip Hernandez and he was that jokey guy that did crazy things and you thought no way he's not gonna do that living with him was never a dull moment his favorite thing to do was to scare me like so he would hide right before he died we'd remodeled the house and in the remodel there was a huge mirror and I could see him now so his ability to scare me and it was the best I have this clear memory of the first time and and my favorite part was looking at him being so delighted that he was about to scare me but I could see him and so he's waiting he's waiting he's wondering why I'm not coming suddenly he looks up in the mirror and realizes I'm looking at him and is crushed that his opportunity to scare me has been altered by this remodel. He ruined it! Don't put a mirror over there! He was dedicated and loyal and he physically seemed like he could do anything which also made his death really hard to kind of wrap my head around because if you'd asked me before he died I would have thought if there was anybody who could survive an accident like his it would be him and in fact I later learned that his body made such a significant impact on the car that people that the police went back to look again because they couldn't believe it was a person and he just was just athletic and solid and strong and hilarious and he had you know that kind of thousand watt smile that lights up a room. I love that for you and it makes me even so much more sorry that he's not physically here. Yeah yeah there's nothing like that you know it's so funny is that in many ways my earliest fears were that I was gonna forget and and I was trying everything you know I did everything you can think of to try to make sure I wasn't gonna forget and not long ago I had the experience of he used to call his mom a Mother's Day well he called his mom regularly but he always said the same exact thing when he called her same greeting every time and it was Mother's Day and I suddenly remember I realized like I can't remember what the greeting is I don't remember I don't remember what he said and had like this moment it's been 13 years since he died and so this is about last year so I'd say it's been 12 years and I'm freaking out because see I knew I was gonna forget this thing and then not long later I was on a run and I was talking to him and arguing with him and I thought to myself okay well I guess it's okay that I don't remember exactly what he said to his mom because I'm still arguing arguing about running of all things it was hilarious so you know it just it solidified for me the reality that you know the people we love exist in our very cells and that there's no way to forget that you may forget some individual piece of something and you don't know when the piece will come visit you at some random time in the future so I'm learning to be a little bit more relaxed around the very specific things and welcome the memories that come you know like him standing there looking in that mirror being so mad that his new his way of adding fun to our lives by jumping out from behind a corner was ruined by the remodel I'm noticing a lot of parallels here not only between your widow story and Megan Devine story but in our interview we focused a lot on you know what our brains hold on to about loss and what we forget and for a big portion of the top of that show I did kind of like a almost like a monologue about how we do have permission to forget things that we thought we would remember the rest of our lives so so yeah so good on you for having that conversation but also just continuing to argue with him and it's just proof that our relationships with our loved ones continue yes after they're gone they live on yes in our very selves is your your verbiage and I love it yeah thank you for sharing that and I kind of want to get into now you know the days months weeks and now years following his loss kind of how your life has unfolded both with your children and yourself as a freestanding woman in the world I think the first question I want to get into though is you know a child of seven and both your parents showed up and all these friends and things surrounding you was it overwhelming did you feel immensely supported did you feel like you needed space to breathe I guess all of a sudden loss puts a bunch of people in our house that aren't normally there and and sometimes it's really really it's a grateful experience and sometimes it's like alright everybody please go home I just want to break down yeah absolutely and you know the answer is is yes and no so I did feel extremely well supported and I'll and I'll tell you one of the first things the very first things that happened we sit in the living room and we have our time together and then I've got to get those kids to bed somehow and so I I do all of the comforting things I can do for the kids I finally get them all settled it's probably past midnight now the accident happened about 530 in the afternoon and so I I come out and my mom is standing outside my room and I don't I think I must have said it at some point I just I still don't know how she knew exactly I know I told her but I don't remember when but whenever Phil and I were rarely apart we just happened to have the kind of careers and lifestyle where we were together a lot and so whenever we were apart whichever one of us was home alone would pile the pillows on the side of the bed of the person who was missing and so it was just this sort of silly tradition that we had and so I walk into my room and my mom had piled the pillows up in his place and so I just remember that so clearly like seeing the pillows there and thinking I don't know if I can do this I'm not sure I can do this and and then my sister saying to me would you like me to you know would you like me to sleep with you and I was like absolutely not I didn't want anybody in that bed nobody the pillows fine no people so it was just it was interesting that so early on there were some things that were really clear to me while other things were super hazy but one of the clearest moments I had was nobody in my bed and so it became kind of a thing where they were like no no no she doesn't want anyone to sleep with her I like it and I'm laughing but the whole time you said that oh my gosh I've got chills and like there's tears in my eyes because it's such it's such a gesture to remember what people pick up on yeah and just do for you without speaking and at the same time this is also a really beautiful example of people saying not let me know how I can help you but asking what you want do you want me to sleep in the bed with you do you want me to perform this action and then you get the freedom to say yes or no or I'd like it with a twist or you know how however it's different for you and that is so often what helps grievers more than let me know how I can help because then you have to figure out something for them to do and then you're like I don't know if I can ask this of you and and all my other things so nod to your intuitive family they and in like I said they were incredible and so yeah and there's a lot of them so you can actually times it was like okay this is too much and and but I did always feel very free to say so and and at some point you know so they basically stay I they stayed for almost a month not all of them at once obviously but the whole family stayed overnight and then they started making plan I mean then we had a funeral to plan right so we did the whole funeral thing and most of them stayed for that whole piece and then they started taking turns one stayed a week another state a week another state a week and by the time we got to the fourth week I was like okay I'm gonna have to learn how to do this and so it's time it's time for me to be alone and I think that in my new life I've had this opportunity to share these experiences with people who are not grieving and I value that so much because what I tell them is be yourself and do something practical that makes sense and that doesn't cross any borders so if you walk past a grievers house and their lawn is not mowed and it hasn't been mowed for six weeks don't go knocking on the door and say can I mow your lawn just mow the lawn and they're gonna come out and feel like a Christmas miracle just happened because that thing they've been looking at thinking oh my god how am I ever gonna get that done is done send a gift card in the mail for a dinner that they can just pick up instead of coming by with food which is appreciated but your freezer gets really really full and my kids still won't eat lasagna and it's been 13 and it's so true I mean some of the things that stand out to me the most I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the podcast before but we're we're gestures from people I didn't expect to get them from but also yeah the practical things like gift cards like for groceries or for for again dinner that we can just pick up that will actually eat not like the 18th chicken casserole that's been jammed into our freezer something with a vegetable in it because people tend to bring cake I'm like why are you bringing cake when people die I don't understand so many casseroles at our house and that's the other part of it that's so hard I think is that it's done with love and care you know and that you feel then now obligated because this person has made this gesture and so if people can do things that are that are practical and non-invasive you know and my next-door neighbor said we were scheduled a carpool we were we had started that very day so we were scheduled a carpool for that year and she walked into my house I didn't even know her very well we we literally got to know each other through our through this experience but she walked into my house and she said I just want you to know that I am driving carpool from now until forever and that's the end of the story both ways and then I was like I mean you know I'm stunned still I can't speak kind of and she and I just knew and then she just started and then she drew I had to talk her out of it three months later I was like okay Carrie you have been driving for three months I think I can drive now but it was so it was like you said someone who I wasn't expecting we were not good friends we were neighbors and we were neighborly but we were not good friends and through my experience of her supporting me in such practical ways consistently after that even we become very dear friends can we talk about the evolution of friendship after loss yes yeah for sure isn't it a crow it's I mean I dropped off the face of the planet with so many people but then at the same time the people that rush in I'm like oh I didn't expect to see you here was kind of my experience with anybody who just like came and stood in your living room and stared at you and then you were kind of like okay am I supposed to offer right or something like I had people who just came and stood and I was like okay I really don't have energy right now for this and I and you're in such an interesting position because I appreciate that you're willing but I think we can be done now thanks for stopping by I had some really interesting experiences but I I think what I took what I appreciated were the people who who could just let me be whatever I was in that moment and sometimes that was super sad and sometimes that was I used to talk my you know you must have heard this question a million times how are you and so one of my sisters was calling every day and every day she'd say how are you and and after I don't know maybe only a couple weeks of this I said you have to stop asking me that question I can't I appreciate you calling me every day but I cannot answer that question every day and so I said you we came up with this phrase is it a medium day or a horrible day for me can you get into what that means for you yeah so if I if I was having a medium day then it was one of the ones that wasn't as super sad or I felt like I'd had some sort of you know moment where I felt like okay maybe I can do this and if it was a horrible day that I would just say it's a horrible day and that could mean any who knows what thing but it really it made such a difference because she could still call me every day she could still get an update every day but I didn't have to answer how are you every day with her because of course other people were asking the same question and so it really it reframed things for me in a way that was both sometimes hilariously funny and also relief it was a relief not to have to answer one more person asked me how I was you know what's funny and is coming to mind with the phrasing of that question is kind of harkening back to how our brains operate in grief and there's a lot of studies with kids and with toddlers especially and how their brains operate where you can't ask them an open-ended question you have to give them would you like door number one or door number two in terms of choices and it's interesting not necessarily that we revert back to that in grief but I think that so much comes up when we say how are you it's like we just stare into the distance and I'm like I cannot possibly put all the emotions I'm feeling into your hands right now because I don't even know what I'm feeling but if you ask me if I'm feeling a or feeling B oh I can definitely point to one that resonates more and yeah just how the brain operates in the midst of grief has always been fascinating to me me too and also you know how how instinctual it really is and and that we often fight the instinct because it doesn't feel you know because sometimes it's too honest or it's too it's too Frank you know people are and so the complication of how are you is also partly based on who's asking so you've got not only the can I possibly put into words what I'm feeling right now there's also the other layer of would I even tell you the person is are you privy to the same place I were yeah if I were able to put it into words and I think because our boundaries and this is one of the ways that I think friendships are so so impacted because our boundaries are so different in grief it sometimes feels like you have to drop them all in order to let in enough people to hold you up during this time and then suddenly you're like wow there's all these people in my space and how and and there's varying degrees of whether they can be in your space they want to be in your space or if they just want to be able to tell you how to do it and if you're not willing to do it their way then you're probably doing it the wrong way and I think that's where friendships can go afoul if they can't be in the process and be able to just be while the process around them evolves for the greaver you know and of course you're not dealing with just one greaver right when in my circumstance my family was dealing with me primarily but then my kids and you know they're watching my kids watch me they you know I couldn't go five feet without one of them being attached to my literally attached to me somehow because they were so afraid that if Phil of all people could be killed what was that gonna mean you know for their mom I was suddenly mortal and and that was really hard for them and and then as a consequence of that of course for my family as well I'm writing this down the notion that mom is suddenly mortal and that's that's the thing I talked about grief in developmental stages for kids it's season two of coming back and it's so vital especially for kids who are below high school age to know that you know they are safe mom's not gonna die to anytime soon that she knows I've you know things of that nature but if it could happen one it could happen to the other so the pieces get put together for them very very quickly I'm curious because you are a parent kind of what you told your kids about the death of your husband and kind of if you continue to reveal details over time or if you gave it to him all at once or kind of how how they understand what happened to him and what happened to your family well and I really it's been so interesting you know I guess that's an a word to use but it has been interesting to see to witness the evolution for my kids specifically because and because as an adult you understand grief you know mostly all at once yeah it's a big train and it's coming and you see it and suddenly it while there are layers of what will happen in terms of your understanding you get the concept really quick for kids it was so amazing because my kids were just about to be teenagers right so in addition to the tumult of the teenagers themselves there was the additional grief but then there was the understanding that kept evolving and so I'd find myself years later thinking to myself okay is this teenage behavior or is this grief behavior and is there is there a difference because this is really really hard but as an example my daughter when my husband died was 14 she was 17 years old when a friend of hers not a close friend but a an acquaintance of hers at school died in a swimming accident and they had a local walk for in support of I can't remember I think it was water safety and so she said mom could we go of course so we went I checked in on her many times the trail where they had the walk was the trail that had Phil was going to the day he died so she and I and actually I think we all went actually we all did the walk we came back I checked in with her she's fine two weeks later she comes home she's really late for curfew so you know I think her curfew was probably midnight and I'm looking at a watch and it's 1210 and I was a stickler for being on time for curfew so I'm sending her messages where are you no answer I don't get a response until 1230 she's 30 minutes late for curfew which in my world was a lot and she doesn't she answers me and says she's on her way I don't see her until 1245 so I'm standing on the porch coming for you okay you're 45 minutes late for curfew that is right mom is on the porch hands on hip we are ready to get this thing done she gets out of her car runs into my arms crying and I'm like okay well what happened like okay now something really bad happened I am all about like what is happening in your life did something bad happened did you get hurt and she says I miss him and I'm like okay so it's grief and it had been two weeks delayed from the time that she had gone to the trail stood up for her friend did what she felt like she could do and emotionally it didn't hit her until she's 45 minutes late for curfew she had sat in the car with her friend crying about how much she missed will so first of all talk about humbling total change of direction but that's the thing about parenting and grief is that you don't know when a realization is coming for them and and sometimes they're not able to give it words right away and so it can come out in behavior it can come out in what looks like avoidance and it can come out in actual avoidance it's just and because as a as an adult you've processed for three years so my processing is three years old and for her in that moment her processing was brand-new all over again and so as a parent you get tossed back and forth between the minute it happened to the where you are today to the minute happened based on their understanding and so it's been really eye-opening to recognize the brain function of children while witnessing it through this grief experience really and it didn't answer your question I did tell them I mean I didn't have a lot of details about the accident except for the literal facts of what happened initially we didn't end up really finding out more about it for years but I did tell them you know that he had been hit by a car it was really very for me and I've heard so many other stories that were way more complicated it was very clear and I think actually in some ways it made them feel a little bit more safe because it appeared to them that it was specifically related to bike riding but I can tell you that teaching the three of them to drive was really hard because where are you doing while you're driving you're avoiding cyclists and you could see in each one of them their anxiety levels change whenever they were on the road near like that's so incredible that I didn't even think of that as a factor oh my gosh oh it was I mean it was so clear for each one of them and they're all of course their own personalities so they handled it differently but every single one of them had like oh my god there's a bike moment like that's a bike mom that's a bike it's a bike I'm like I know so you know and and we also did have that conversation about driving and you know what the flip side of an accident is you know what the flip side of an attention looks like so we've been really honest about it and we've talked a lot about it and we did really from the beginning I think that was just sort of our family dynamic at the time and continues to be so for us it wasn't different and and it was super helpful I think being able to talk about it I think the harder part for them actually was witnessing my grief and not being sure how long it would last or if if the mom they knew before was coming back I think that was probably equally scary for them so who is the mom and I suppose the freestanding woman as well who who is that now you know I early in my grief experience I realized how really grateful I was and I was floored by that reality that I felt so grateful the last thing I would have thought I felt after my husband died was grateful but I had so many people do amazing things and be so kind to us that I continually felt grateful to have been married to him to have had the opportunity to to be a part of his life for him to be a part of mine and my kids and so I sort of took that nugget of gratitude and tried to really nurture it and I don't mean that in a flip way I know that it's so sometimes just cliche to say you know I was so grateful but it really was a deep deep level of gratitude which also was humbling and I am NOT a person who likes to ask for help and I found myself constantly in need of something I had three kids at three different schools and so there was just no way I could possibly be in all places at once and so I learned how to ask for help I learned how to be grateful for this very moment and mean it I think I would have said I was grateful for it before but I think that the depth of grief adds that element I think in this time now I'm really more aware of letting things not be 100% perfect I'm a perfectionist at heart I always tell people I love perfection it's so pretty but I've had to learn to let go of it and to realize that the mass is important in a way that I wouldn't have given it credit for before and so I've had the great honor of being a part of many other people's grief experiences and helping them find a way to create a meaningful life for themselves after experiencing the death of the person they. . .