Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop With Vivian Nunez

Vivian Nunez was Too Damn Young—too young to lose her mom at 10 and too young to lose her grandma at 21. At 26, she's the founder of Too Damn Young, a website that helps teens and young adults who have lost someone they love. We're talking about creating a personal vocabulary for grief when textbooks fail, coping with the anxiety of waiting for the other shoe to drop, what dating is like as a young grieving person, and how Vivian is making room for Latina grief in a space that is very white.

Transcript

Vivian,

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

I'm excited to have you here as a referral from one of our former podcast guests,

Gladys Otto,

Who came on to tell us about her book,

The Good Goodbye.

And she directed me to your project,

Too Damn Young.

So I'm really excited to talk to you about grief and your lost story,

But also how it has become something bigger through the years.

So if you could please,

We'll start at the very beginning with your lost story.

Of course.

Honestly,

Thank you so much for having me on here.

It's a Friday night in New York City,

And I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

So my lost story started with my mom.

So I lost my mom when I was 10 years old.

I'm 26 now.

And honestly,

And we'll get into this throughout the whole podcast episode,

But really with my mom,

It was such a young experience in terms of like,

I was so little,

I don't remember much of my life with her,

And I don't remember much of my process right immediately after her.

So for me,

One of my bigger grief stories was when I lost my grandma when I was 21.

I felt that very much in my soul.

And because I was one of her primary caregivers,

Because I was so involved in her life,

Seeing and losing her and the process that came with it was definitely one of my first times I felt actively experiencing grief versus with my mom,

It was like a passive thing that happened over the years.

And that's ultimately what inspired Two Dime Young.

So Two Dime Young is a community and a resource for teens and adults who have lost someone they love.

And it was in wanting to fill that gap of what it meant to grieve as a young adult and processing grief that you may have experienced as a child or as a teenager,

And then experiencing life and having a girl with a sort of emptiness alongside of you.

And understanding what that is,

Is how I came to be where I am now.

I'm really interested in this phrasing that you used of passive versus active grief in losing both your mom and your grandma.

Can you elaborate more on that for us?

Yeah,

Of course.

So for me,

When I say passive grief versus active grief,

With my mom,

I was 10 years old,

And she was 44.

And I didn't really experience the lead up to her passing away.

For us,

It was,

For me at least,

It was a thing that was almost very separate from my regular life.

I was still going to school normally,

I was still experiencing my life as it was.

And really,

The main impact happened when news hit that she had passed away in the hospital.

And then even that was something that I had to process over time.

And it wasn't something that I actively sat and grieved as it was happening.

I think it started hitting me a lot more once I was a teenager,

Once I was in high school,

And once I was experiencing the moments where I realized,

Oh,

Wow,

I don't have a mom.

And like,

What does that actually mean in my life?

First is with my grandma,

Because she was my legal guardian since my mom passed away.

And we had all of this life together.

And then I was there when she got sick.

I was there when she started going into the hospital.

I was a primary caregiver for her.

I was talking to doctors.

I was in and out of ICU with her.

There was just this sense of being so present that then made me,

That almost forced me to need to be present in the grief that followed.

I didn't have the opportunity to kind of go back to my life as I normally would have and process the grief later on and to my benefit,

I think.

Because I think that too,

When I lost my mom,

It was this delayed reaction that came with the passiveness of that grief that I didn't necessarily or haven't had when I came to my grandma's.

Thank you for making that so clear.

And this is super fascinating to me because I know a lot on the show,

We've talked to adults who have children who are witnessing their children grieve.

And we can talk as much as we want about developmental stages and how kids grieve below the age of five and 10 and below and 13 and below and with all these kind of brackets and markers of what they quote unquote should be or will be feeling in these stages.

But to hear from somebody who has had a loss so young,

It's kind of,

We're flipping the script,

Reversing the table and we're not,

Here I feel privileged not to be talking to somebody who's watching somebody else grieve,

Like a second degree grief,

But to someone who's actually experienced it.

And you have your own language for it.

It's not the psychology of from the ages of five to eight and the ages of eight to 12 and all of these symptoms of like trouble sleeping and needing routines and all this kind of stuff.

And so I'm fascinated by this passive grief and this active grief and the role that you played because it seems like the older that you got as you lost your grandma at 21 was you had that full picture of what this will encompass for your life.

Not only because you've lost before,

But you had such a more active role in her day to day life as well.

Yeah.

So I think even a couple things there,

I guess I hadn't really realized how much I had a vocabulary for it,

But I do.

And I think too,

I unsubscribe to the notion of grief being a thing that I could define with a textbook the minute I started realizing that my grief didn't fit a textbook.

Right.

Because especially because of the passive grief aspect of it.

Right.

Because if my grief was according to stages,

Then it wouldn't have been so cyclical either.

Right.

And it wasn't in stages.

It was especially my mom.

Right.

It's something that hits time and time again.

And I go back and forth between the stages that are supposed to be kind of check marks in a notebook.

And it's just not how it happens.

I always say that grief isn't this thing that I'll ever get over.

It is something that I learned to live with and whose form changes as I grow up.

Right.

I don't miss my mom the way I did when I was 15.

Right.

I miss her in a very different way at 26 than I did when I was 13 and starting to like go to high school.

And I miss her very differently than when I started dating.

And I miss her very differently now that I'm in a like more stable relationship.

And they're just aspects of my life that as I continue to grow,

I'll just miss her in different ways.

And I'm okay with that.

And I think that one of the things that having such a strict definition of grief,

I feel has done in a detrimental way is put people in this box that if what they feel does not fit,

Then maybe that's not what they actually feel.

And that's a really hard place to put someone who's just trying to navigate missing someone.

So I think from that perspective,

It's always been really interesting.

And I'm such a words person to my writer.

So I words have always been the thing that have helped me define the pain and the grief and figuring out what boxes to go on.

But when I came to my grandmother,

You're right,

It was something that because I was just so present in the process of losing her,

I had no other choice but to grieve her in the same way.

And then to understand my identity,

Right.

At that point,

When I had lost her,

My identity was very intertwined with hers.

It was I was her caregiver,

I was her granddaughter,

I was someone who was signing papers and her end of life decisions,

Right.

So who I was standing alone in that was non existent at that point.

Honestly,

It was I was a student,

I was graduating from college,

And all these things were supposed to be lining up for a life that I was supposed to have,

But none of it felt mine.

And so I had to take time to figure out who I actually was.

And to some degree,

It's something I'm still in the process of and also something that I've arrived in.

And I know a lot more about myself than I did when I was 21.

But grief has kind of,

In some ways,

Helped navigate that whole discovery period because it's forced me to have to face who I am,

What I want,

Where I put my values in ways that maybe someone who hadn't lost at this age would have to.

I want to branch off of that and ask,

Do you ever fear for your own life or for your own mortality because you've seen two very significant women in your life die,

And granted they're older at their deaths than you are now,

But does that kind of change how mortality looks to you?

Oh my God,

Yes.

I think my biggest fear in life is death.

And I think this is true of anyone who has lost anyone young,

Especially a parent.

I think you fear the age that they are,

That they were when they passed away.

So I'm very afraid to be 44 because I feel like that's just a scary age now for me.

But to the same degree,

Yeah,

I 100% fear death.

I think that mortality is something that I have a difficult,

Complicated relationship with.

And I realize it now because over the last year or so,

I've developed a fear of flying and it's less of a fear that it doesn't stop me from getting on a plane.

I travel a lot for work.

I have to.

But it is this place where I'm more forced to face the mortality of something because I'm up in the air and that's pretty much all you can get.

But it is a difficult relationship with death because I saw two people who I love very much die,

Right,

And at different points in my life,

At different points in their lives.

But it was this presence of realizing how close death really is that made me fear it for my own life.

And it's something that I navigate with my anxiety the most.

So I'm in therapy,

I have been for like five years now.

And I actively figure out ways to remind myself that I'm very much alive and that a happy thing doesn't have to be chased by a sad thing.

Because I think that's another thing that you,

Instead of just mortality,

Because sometimes mortality is very high reaching,

Right?

You're like,

I am afraid of death.

But sometimes it's a small or small is a hard word to describe it.

But it's as granular and as daily as I'm afraid of like good things because what if a bad thing happens?

And that's like a cycle that you're just getting stuck in because you see so many bad things and you lose people.

But I think that it's also the biggest reminder for me that I have this one life and this one chance to make a difference in it.

And how am I going to use my everyday to make sure that I'm pouring into a mission that is aligned with that for me?

I think that was so well said.

And I literally wrote down as you were speaking,

A happy thing doesn't have to be chased by a bad thing.

I'm wondering if there's anything concrete that you're doing or something maybe that you even learned in therapy to combat that thought,

Because that's something that hovers over me all the time.

Like that other shoe is like right above my head all the time.

I'm like,

When's it going to drop?

When's it going to drop?

Yeah,

I think it's something that for me,

I didn't realize I do,

Honestly.

And so very recently I didn't realize how often I do it.

How often like subconsciously my chest will just tighten or my heart will just start beating if something is going really good,

If I'm having a really good night,

If I'm being,

If I'm just really happy.

So I think the biggest thing for me has been to notice those thoughts and to like say,

Wow,

Like I'm thinking about this simply because of the fact that I'm afraid of bad things happening.

Right?

It doesn't mean that I am,

Because I had to really separate the,

This is not a premonition.

This is just a bad thought.

Right?

Because I was attached to the idea that like,

If I'm thinking it,

It's going to happen because it's a premonition versus this is just my anxiety and it's not something that's going to happen just because I think it.

And that has helped me shift.

It doesn't make it easy.

It doesn't make it go away,

But it makes me stay more present in the fact that just because something is happy doesn't mean that something is bad.

And even if something bad did happen,

It doesn't mean that it is caused by my happiness.

And practicing that has been probably the best way to just navigate it,

Has been like constantly having to remind myself of this.

There's just so much in here that is dripping and full of wisdom.

Like I'm so,

It's one of those,

I see all these posts online sometimes about people,

It's like one or two sentences about a feeling or an emotion.

And then the comment underneath it is,

Wow,

Somebody finally put it into words.

And it usually happens on something like Tumblr or like Instagram or something.

And they're like,

Wow,

It's in words.

And that's exactly how I feel hearing you speak.

It's like,

Wow,

Even if I am happy and then unhappy,

The happiness isn't the cause of the sadness.

Like that forced uncoupling of the two,

The really good thing and then the other shoe dropping.

Like it,

Holy moly,

I'm just like absorbing everything you're saying.

And it's wildly cool.

You can tell that you're a words person,

But also that you've put the time and the energy into a very increased amount of self-study as a result of your losses.

And that makes me want to turn into a totally like 180 direction from this conversation.

And it is a little bit earlier in the podcast,

You were mentioning your dating life and I'm wondering what loss does to you,

For you,

With you,

How you interact with loss and grief in the world of dating.

Because I know for me personally,

I almost have like this invisible rule of I can't be in a relationship with somebody who hasn't like seen some shit,

At least on some level because I'm like,

They're not even going to relate to.

And then some people are like,

I won't get in a relationship unless somebody's had a perfect life because then their quote unquote instability matches with their partner's stability.

At some point it's going to be rocky for both of you,

But I won't,

You know,

I won't merge the bubble that way.

So I'm just wondering how that has impacted you as somebody who's from a 26 year old to another 26 year old.

Yeah,

I think for me,

So I'll take you back a little bit.

I think that when I was dating more actively,

I'm in a relationship right now.

So I'm going back like almost three years at this point.

One of my biggest things when I was dating was just like,

I can't possibly sit with someone who is fascinated by my losses,

Or like puts me on a pedestal for the fact that I lost so young and somehow I like made it out.

Like that made me really uncomfortable.

I had many a date where like guys were just like really impressed.

But like not in a like normal way,

Just in a very like,

Oh man,

You've already put me on a pedestal and I'm going to fall because I'm a human being.

And like having navigated what it has to navigate didn't suddenly make me a superhero.

And so we're starting off on the wrong foot already.

So that made it really quick for me to kind of decipher who I wanted to be around.

Another really big indicator for me was if I couldn't talk about my mom or my grandma or my losses in general or my work with Two Dime Young in a way that didn't make them feel uncomfortable,

Right?

Or in a way that if they reacted in a way that was very uncomfortable from the get or if it was very like taboo to talk about them,

It was like,

We're not going to work out because I can't talk about my life and my work in a way that is meaningful to me because suddenly you're afraid of your own mortality.

Granted,

I totally understand how scary that is because we just talked about how scary that is.

But at the same time,

It was like,

I have to have permission and space to be myself.

And so much of who I am is influenced by the fact that I have not just lost but that I've navigated pain,

Right?

And I navigated and my resilience is a direct result from that,

Right?

And my personality has been molded by that and my sense of humor has been molded by that.

So if we can't meet there,

Then it's really hard to me in general.

I think one of the things that really attracted me to my boyfriend is,

Especially at the beginning,

Was the fact that he saw the potential in Two Dime Young as a community,

Right?

And it was never this thing that was just like a passion project because she lost her mom or grandma.

It was always like,

Wow,

This can be something really big.

And I was moved by that.

But at the same time,

I think that he's never lost anyone.

Not anyone that was incredibly close to him.

And I think that that has made for an interesting dynamic in our relationship.

Because you're right,

It's really hard to tell someone,

Hey,

I'm feeling this way on a Thursday because I miss my mom,

And have them not want to fix it if they've never gone through it and accepted like,

Just the reality of what that has to mean,

Right?

It just means that I miss them and it's okay.

But he has had to learn and is still in the process of like,

How to just let it be instead of trying to fix it,

Because there's no way to fix it.

And I think that's proven harder for him than it has for me.

But it is an interesting dynamic because he hasn't lost someone and I have lost two people who are really close to me or my parents,

Essentially.

And the dynamic there has been one where I have had to have a lot of understanding that not everyone comes from the kind of growing up that I did.

And that's okay,

Right?

Not everyone has to have lost,

At least I don't think that everyone,

Not everyone has to have lost someone in order to understand and empathize with that on a high level.

On a day to day level,

It takes a lot of listening if you're going to be around someone who has lost someone to meet them where they are versus forcing them to meet them where you are,

Which is a place where like you're just way more okay with the notion of,

Well,

Okay,

You missed them,

That's fine.

And then just moving on or like,

Oh my God,

We need to fix this versus just letting it be.

So over time,

He's gotten a lot better.

And it's such a small thing.

And I don't even think he notices that he does it now more regularly.

But it's something that's popped up a lot more often over the last few months where it's like,

He mentions my mom and my grandma,

Just like off the cuff,

Like,

Like,

I'll do something silly or I'll do something and he's just like,

Oh my God,

They're probably looking down me like she's your problem now.

And it's like little things like that,

That I'm just like,

You have no idea how awesome that is,

Right?

Because suddenly,

Like,

They're just regular characters in my life,

The way that your parents are regular characters in yours.

And yeah,

And it's but it took us well,

Like we've been together almost three years now.

Like,

It took us a really long time to get here.

Right?

It took us a lot to navigate to a place where like,

He would mention he can mention them in that way and feel that comfortable.

And I think it has to do too with me,

It has to do with me talking about them in that way and being more comfortable just mentioning not just the sad days for him,

But just telling him regular stories about them.

And and so I think that it is if you're in a relationship or if you're trying to date,

And you want to figure out how to navigate grief within it is a case by case basis and a day by day process.

Because there's no one who is ready.

You weren't ready when you lost your your people.

Right?

So to introduce the loss at a later stage of someone new and,

And want them to respect who they put the people were,

And also respect the loss at the same time,

I think it takes time,

Because it takes time to know people and then it takes time to lose people.

So giving that the space and the time for them to get to a place where they can have a joke like that is,

I think the best gift you can give yourself because if because it's like you're in constant pressure to try to have someone get it from the very beginning.

And like some people will and that's awesome.

But some people don't and their attraction is still there.

So it's like,

It's navigating a day by day I found it was the most effective.

I think that's really neat that you said that because it speaks to the role of patience on the part of someone who's grieving and grief.

I know so many pieces of grief literature and even a lot of the stuff that I write that I'm like,

If they don't get it,

Maybe time to find other people,

Even if it's not in the dating room,

Even if it's like friends or co workers.

And I think at some point,

Though,

To provide it they aren't outright,

Like hostile or threatening.

There is something to be said for the role of patience or asking people to listen or doing some like both verbal and nonverbal teaching of how to handle a grieving person.

And I think you know what I think the difference maker is right?

I think the difference maker there isn't just for the person to be patient or for the it's for the other person to want to learn.

Yeah,

Right.

I think that that's a difference maker.

It's like you feel way more okay with being patient and teaching and,

And,

And kind of giving someone like a step by step guide almost when the other person is receptive to that,

And when the other person asks for when the other person is,

You can tell is just trying their absolute best,

But sometimes their best comes up short,

Because they've never had to face the same circumstances.

And so then empathy has to go both ways.

Right.

But at the same time,

I do agree with you,

I think that there is a limit or a situation.

I don't think it's fair to ask someone who is days into their grief to teach someone else.

Right?

Because I think that they're processing their own thing.

And they're trying to figure out how to navigate it on their own.

And that you don't have the bandwidth at that point,

To actively teach someone else how to be your friend in that space.

So it's okay if like,

You have to take a step away from someone who just isn't getting it done,

Because you have to figure out how you're grieving.

And it's enough at that point,

And way,

Way,

Way,

Way more on your plate than anyone can even fathom.

Right.

So I understand it from that perspective.

I think I wouldn't have been,

It would have been much harder for me with my boyfriend if it was like,

A month after my grandmother had died or something.

Because it would have felt really tender,

And I would have felt very sensitive to the fact that someone didn't get it from the beginning.

And like,

There's just a time gap that really helped.

And that you're just way more prepared to teach someone because you know more of it,

Right?

It's really hard to teach someone a language if you don't know the vocabulary.

So you have to get yourself to the point where you know,

Where you have a dictionary of words that you can pass on.

I just can't say it any better than that.

A metaphor is coming up or another story I read.

I believe it's in Megan Devine's book.

I've been mentioning her book on almost every podcast episode this season.

A,

It's so long,

But B,

It's so good.

And she writes this short story about like,

Being in grief is like,

The instant somebody you love dies,

You absorb a new language into your brain.

And everyone around you,

Even the well meaning people are like,

Okay,

You have to teach me this language so I can help you.

And you're like,

I just suffer the worst loss of my life.

I can't figure out how to teach you this language.

Like,

I don't have the energy to speak this vocabulary to you,

With the hopes that you'll learn it and know how to speak it back to me.

Like,

It's just too much to ask in those first days,

Weeks,

Even months,

Even the first years.

And so that's a really isolating experience.

I want to link back to something you said too,

And that you kind of have to start to know yourself as a grieving person first,

Like,

Before you can start informing other people of what that looks like and how to help you.

And what are your,

Like hallmarks?

Like how do you know when you're grieving?

I have a very big affinity towards dates.

So for me,

The things one of the things that I realized,

Again,

Over time,

That really messes me up the most are anniversaries.

So it was really interesting.

This was the first.

So my mom has been dead now for 16 years,

And her death anniversary is January 10.

I was on a plane this year on January 9 at 8.

20 p.

M.

To India.

And so I was flying from New York to Mumbai.

It's a 15-hour flight,

And then it is a 10.

5-hour time difference from New York to Mumbai.

So by the time we landed,

We took off January 9.

By the time we landed,

It was January 11.

Wow.

So I had essentially skipped the entire death anniversary.

That was not planned.

My boyfriend was the one who booked the flights.

But it was the first time in my life that A,

I had skipped a death anniversary,

And B,

That I had been given the opportunity to not feel attached to a date because it's something that really is triggering for me because I'll just live the date like if it was 2003.

So like my head will replay everything the way it would have done.

And I didn't – I couldn't look at a clock and do that because I was on a plane.

And then I was awake,

And it was the 11th.

And so then it gave me this really awesome opportunity and the space to just make what I needed from the anniversary.

So instead,

I just celebrated my life.

I was in India.

My mom would have been flipping out over the fact that I was somewhere so far away from where I grew up or I was born where she like came to live from Ecuador,

You know.

So I gravitated towards that.

But for me,

I want to look a bigger – I know to expect harder days on anniversaries.

Like Mother's Day is also a really big one for me.

I think too when I get – when I accomplish something,

I tend to have a deeper relationship with grief and in the sense that I just miss having a mom – my mom to call and pick up the phone with.

And it's little things like that that you end up learning how to address when it happens,

Right?

So like for anniversaries,

It's easier to anticipate and it's easier to deal with it because of that,

Right?

So to some degree,

I'm like,

All right,

I know I'm going to be this way.

Maybe I won't work that day.

I'll do X,

Y,

Z and I'll like,

You know,

Handle it.

But if it's a random day where it's a little bit harder,

Then I forget what it was a few weeks ago.

I was just like really missing my mom.

Or no,

Last week actually,

This is a cool story.

I've been wearing a necklace all around my neck that was my mom's since literally days after she died and had never really taken it off.

I think I've taken it off in my life over the last 16 years,

Maybe two or three times.

And it broke last week.

And so I'm like holding this necklace and I like take a picture of it.

And I sent the picture to my boyfriend and I was just like – I just sent the picture.

I didn't say anything.

He was like,

Oh my God,

No.

And he was like,

We'll get it fixed.

Like,

It's fine.

And like,

I still haven't gotten it fixed.

And I cried when it broke.

And I was like in tears.

And I was just like,

I can't – I was like,

For some reason,

Like it breaking just like got me.

And the notion of like not having it around my neck and it just all kind of hit me all at once.

And I just missed my mom and I missed just everything about it.

But at the same time,

It also felt really freeing.

I'd had this thing around my neck for 16 years and it kind of felt like a really big symbol of grief that now I could put wherever I wanted to and I could manage however I wanted to.

So I probably won't get it fixed for a little bit.

But I'm carrying it to my wallet.

So I think that the more you learn what are the things that trigger you and what are the things that feel a little bit sad,

The more you learn how to deal with someone in a way that is your own right for someone else.

It would have been going immediately to like fix the neck loss.

That didn't feel right for me.

It felt like I needed to find a new way to kind of remember my mom and my grandmother without having that around my neck for so long.

Wow.

I really appreciate this because I remember I have my own jewelry breaking stories.

Well,

One piece of jewelry was a ring that was actually lost that absolutely broke my heart.

It belonged to my mom but was actually made by her sister,

My aunt.

It's lost in my childhood home somewhere.

I know that if my dad still lives in the house,

So if he and his new wife ever move out,

I'm like,

I need to go through this room and really look for it because I looked,

I vacuumed,

I did the whole thing to try and like go through the vacuum cleaner and stuff and try and find it and I cannot.

I lost it on a winter break once,

Like months before my mom died.

It was important to me then and then after she died,

I was like,

Oh,

Now it's really important to find it.

That was like five years ago because my mom died when I was 21 also.

The other story was actually a necklace that broke that I bought kind of in memory for my mother.

It wasn't something that belonged to her but I find a lot of symbolism in jewelry.

If I'm going through like a phase or a new project or something in life,

I'll buy a piece of jewelry to commemorate it and then I'll never take it off for like three months or two years or however long it lasts and then the jewelry goes away with all my other jewelry and I'm like,

Thank you for your – it's almost a Marie Kondo thing.

I'm like,

Thank you for your service,

Goodbye.

Then I have kind of like naked hands or naked ears or a naked neck for a while until the next piece of jewelry comes into my life.

Oh my gosh,

I've cried over these things so much and I think we put so much – I think we put so much identification into the things that we wear every day.

This isn't just – I think people who have never grieved have the potential to like roll their eyes and be like,

It's just an insert piece of clothing or shoes or a watch or earrings or a necklace or whatever here.

But a lot of times,

If it's your daily connecting tie to that person and or in some cases,

If it's the only piece of them that you have left,

It can be enormously powerful to lose it.

Then of course with everything that's metaphysical going on in the world today,

It's like,

Oh,

Does this mean something?

Is someone else going to die?

Does this mean I have more grief on the way or that my mother can't talk to me anymore?

Something like that because it has the potential to take on this higher symbolism too than just a piece of jewelry.

A hundred percent.

Honestly,

So if we can stay on this for a little bit.

When it broke,

I stared at it and I was like,

Oh my god,

Is this like my mom saying like,

Okay,

You're on to the next chapter in your life.

You don't need me anymore in this specific like personal everyday touch kind of way.

Honestly,

I think that's why I haven't fixed it yet because I think part of me is like,

Maybe she's right.

Maybe this is the transition point for me and maybe this is where I need to let go of some things to make room for others.

But I think you're right too.

I think we put so much into these pieces because there's no hand to hold.

We can't ask them.

No,

And you won't have a hand.

No,

It's just that the glass bore out.

Yeah,

It's fine.

But it's really interesting too.

I'm a heavy believer in symbols and nothing being a coincidence in life.

I do think that we end up getting different pieces.

I don't know.

I have a really strong connection,

I think,

To just how I feel like my mom shows up in my life.

I'm a very big believer.

The number 13 is a really big number for me.

Anytime I see it,

I'll be like,

Oh,

That's my mom telling me she's around.

You end up whether or not it's true doesn't matter anymore because it just gives me comfort and that's all I really need from it.

But it is interesting how much we put into these things.

Then how surprised I think I was that I was ready to let it go.

I didn't cry as much because it broke and I needed it fixed.

I cried more because,

Wow,

It's been around my neck for 16 years.

I'm growing up and a lot of stuff that I don't remember from 16 years ago.

I think that was the harder part of it.

It's a matter of figuring out,

Like you said,

What gets replaced.

I have two other necklaces,

One that I bought myself on and my boyfriend bought me on my neck.

It feels like home.

It doesn't matter,

I think,

Of figuring out what feels good after but it does suck when I take those initial moments.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Because all of those thoughts come crashing your brain all at one time and you're like,

Oh my god,

It's so good.

The necklace is broken on top of that.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Those are one of those moments too where you really have to figure out where it's hard to talk to anyone who hasn't really experienced grief as much because they don't understand the 15 different triggers that this one thing breaking elicits for you.

For them,

It's just a necklace breaking and they will fix it.

But for you,

It's like,

Holy crap,

My whole entire connection is like this one person who is dead is gone now.

It's like,

What do I do with my life?

It's just an emotional thing.

It is and everything,

It takes on,

Yeah,

Those 15 more different layers as soon as you're grieving.

You're like,

I think about things in so many different levels than I did before.

Yeah,

1000%.

I'm looking through,

I'm scrolling through your website as we're speaking and I know you host the podcast Creating Espacios.

Did I pronounce that correctly?

You did,

Yeah.

Oh,

Crap.

I'm still working hard on it.

It's all about being Latina and being an entrepreneur.

I have seen the work you've done as an entrepreneur through your website and through To Damn Young and your Instagram and things like that as well.

But I want to know if your grief has been at all changed or influenced by being Latina because I know a lot of times the focus on grief is like,

A,

White and B,

Female.

As many male perspectives as I can get on the show,

I do.

As many people of color I can get on the show,

I do.

Because it's such a big deal.

I'm a white woman.

I'm like,

I'm sorry.

I have a platform but at the same time,

I'm like,

I wish it was different.

I wish it looked different.

The longer I stay in this field,

The more I'm like,

Oh my God,

It's overwhelmingly white and female.

I just wondered if we could explore that for a little bit.

100%.

I'm so glad you asked that question.

1000%,

Yes,

It has been influenced by the fact that I am Latina.

On todameng.

Com,

You'll see there's a Spanish section that I really want to wrap up over the next year and expand on because I think culture as a whole really does influence how you grieve because there are nuances to it.

The same way like you said,

It is a very cultural experience.

There are things when it comes to mental health that are just not okay to talk about in a Latino family.

That made it really hard to grieve.

We don't talk about my grandma or my mom at home or within family.

We don't mention them.

We don't really like,

We'll go to the cemetery,

We'll engage in their memory,

But we will not actively talk about them or share stories or ever really discuss them.

A lot of that comes from the fact that my entire family grew up in a very like,

Let's be quiet,

Let's not talk about sad stuff kind of way.

That ranges from mental health issues across the board.

I think that in some ways,

Todameng was very much an act of rebellion.

It was like no one at home wants to talk to me about it,

So can I talk to someone else about it?

I'm going to make a website.

It was basically that because it was like,

I'm not talking to anyone about it here.

Just talking to my therapist about it sounds really lame,

So let me just talk to some other people who may get it.

It was that notion that really pushed the whole kind of being a Latina,

Being a founder in this space,

Talking more about grief,

Talking more about mental health within the Latino community and as a whole.

I've built something I'm really proud of as a result.

I think that's so cool and so incredible.

As somebody who also started a website out of rebellion,

I'm kind of like,

Hell yeah.

I'm like,

Yeah,

I couldn't find what I was looking for or I wasn't allowed to talk about what I was looking for,

So I'm just going to put it somewhere public and hope that other people will find it too.

One of my relatives likes to say that people looking for the light that you're shining will find it.

I always get this visual of like a big bug lamp or a bug lantern.

I'm like,

If I shine it bright enough and tall enough,

Everybody will come buzzing to it.

It sounds like you've really found your people.

This is just like the first platform like this that I've seen.

I clicked over and I will not try to pronounce this page Pensamientos.

Close?

Okay.

On Too Damn Young and that's the page that's entirely in Spanish,

Stories entirely in Spanish.

That's not something that I can personally understand in process,

But to put myself in the perspective as much as I possibly can of someone who is Latina or Latino or looking for these resources online and being like,

Oh my God,

There it is and it's in my language is like holy moly powerful because I think conversations about grief are even largely like westernized too.

You go into Eastern cultures over into like Asian stuff too and I'm like,

I wonder how much of this is also public.

This is the reason that Gladys Otto put us in touch,

I believe.

She's like,

You guys are on the verge of some kind of global tipping point in terms of conversations about grief because for the first time we have the potential for free or for very low cost to put these stories online for other people to find no matter where they are.

If you have an internet connection,

You can find your people.

Yeah.

I think there's such a blessing in that because like you said,

How awesome that someone can go on to Demian and go on and see something in their language.

My hope is to create an environment that's sustainable enough on there that would allow for other cultures to be represented and for other people to feel like it's an inclusive environment.

I do it the same way too when it comes to guys because like you said,

The grief conversation as a whole is when it's mainstream,

It is very,

Very white and very,

Very female.

The fact is that not only women lose people and not only white women lose people.

The ability to have a more inclusive conversation that includes men,

That includes other people of color is important and it's necessary.

It's what's going to make grief a thing that we can teach in school,

How to deal with it,

How to be a good friend to someone who is in it.

One of the bigger projects I want to work on this year is to do a mini tour for True Demian where I go into like seven different cities and do a docuseries of just how do we talk about grief in these places?

How can I bring them to schools to lead workshops and to get kids talking about grief and writing about grief or engaging on it in a way that is productive and channeling in a way that's positive for them?

How do we make sure that we're keeping track of them throughout the year so that they're feeling tended to and not abandoned after someone mentions their grief once?

How are we taking them on this journey?

A lot of that just comes down to really engaging with people and understanding and allowing them to be a part of the conversation and not feeling like they have to be a part of the conversation that we set,

Right?

Grief as a whole,

I say this on True Demian's About page and I say it in general,

Is like the only thing that connects me to someone else who has grieved is the fact that we've lost someone.

Everything else after that is a very unique experience.

It's like an individualized experience.

So why am I going to impose the way I grieve on someone else,

Especially when it comes to culture?

It just doesn't make sense.

So the more we talk about it,

The more stories we're able to share,

The bigger a net we cast when it comes to talking about it as a whole.

It so much reflects that phrase of pick up what works for you and discard the rest,

But on a so much more personal level of if what I'm saying doesn't resonate with you,

Don't do it.

But even beyond that of I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

We have this one thing in common.

Here's the common ground and everything else is experienced by you,

Determined by you.

Grief is ours alone,

But we also can't do it alone.

And so it's a really unique human experience that brings us all together in ways that we didn't expect.

So thank you for speaking on that.

And I love this idea of a tour.

I'm like,

If you're rolling through Chicago or anywhere in the West,

I cannot wait to meet you in person.

I would be so terribly excited.