This is the transcript for Grief Out Loud Ep. 347 Words Matter: What To Say When Someone Is Grieving - Shelby Forsythia. Find the audio version here.
Ep. 347 Words Matter: What To Say When Someone Is Grieving - Shelby Forsythia
SPEAKERS
Jana DeCristofaro (host)
Shelby Forsythia (guest)
Jana: Hey, listeners, it's Jana. Welcome back to Grief Out Loud. It might be hard to believe, but almost 25 years into this work, I still get stymied by what to say to someone who is grieving. I have a pretty good sense of what not to say, but what to say really remains a mystery. I bumble my way through these conversations reminding myself that the details of what I say matter less than the fact that I'm reaching out and willing to talk about grief at all.
Jana: So that's why I was so excited to read the latest book from Shelby Forsythia, a longtime friend in the grief world. She's back on the show today to help us all understand how to use our words to provide better support.
Jana: Shelby has a lot of personal experience with grief. Her mom died when Shelby was a young adult. Her best friend, Tami, died a few years ago, and her cat, Gigi, even more recently. Through her work as a grief coach and podcaster, she's talked with so many people who are grieving, and from that work she landed on three main stories that people who are grieving tend to tell themselves. The first is "I'm crazy" — also known as "something's wrong with me" or "I'm doing this wrong." The second: "I'm all alone in this." And the third: "It's going to feel like this forever."
Jana: These three stories helped Shelby land on three phrases that can be antidotes to them: "Of course," "I'm here," and "Right now." These phrases offer a structure we can all fall back on in those moments where we don't know what to say or how to say it, when the people we care about are in pain.
Jana: Shelby is a phenomenal storyteller, so I have no doubt you're going to learn a lot from what she shares. Her new book, Of Course, I'm Here, Right Now, is out on March 31st of this year, so be sure to grab your copy soon. Okay, here's our conversation.
Jana: Shelby, welcome back to Grief Out Loud!
Shelby: I am so glad to be here — the trifecta!
Jana: I know — when you've been on the show I feel like we just keep trading back and forth, but it's because you keep doing exciting things, like writing new books. I am very excited to talk to you today about your new book, Of Course, I'm Here, Right Now. This is your third time on Grief Out Loud. For listeners who aren't familiar with you, can you catch people up — why are you here talking about grief?
Shelby: The shorthand is that I'm a grief coach of 10 years, a podcaster, and now a three-time author. If you know anything about me, you can know those three things. The longer version is that my loss story began when I was in my late teens and early 20s, with what I affectionately refer to as "the four years of hell" — loss event after loss event across the course of four years. It happened to be the four years I was in college, but had nothing to do with my college experience.
Shelby: They were both death and non-death related losses. My dad lost his job, which put our family into financial instability for the first time ever. I came out as a queer person in a Southern religious family — which was kind of accepted, but also kind of not — and so there was a lot of identity grief, family grief, and relational grief happening with that. Less than a year later, my dad got diagnosed with two brain aneurysms that required massive, invasive procedures. And there were moments where, as a daughter, I was grappling with the very real possibility that my father might die. When doctors go digging around in your brain, you become a different person as you heal, and so I watched him become more and less like himself as he was recovering.
Shelby: After his final brain surgery, when the scans were clear, my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. The cycle of hospital visits and meal trains and carpooling to Duke University for chemo and radiation began all over again. That culminated in my mom's cancer going into remission — and then returning in December of 2013. We got the news around December 19th that doctors could buy her time but could no longer cure her. Hospice said we had about six weeks to six months to say goodbye to her, and then she died in seven days.
Shelby: I often tell the story — and I may have told this before on Grief Out Loud — but it felt like the foundation of my life fell out from under me, and then the rug and the floor and the center of the earth. Everything I had built my life on top of, or thought I was, or knew myself to be, just crumbled underneath my feet. For a few years there, all I knew to do — because all society was telling me to do — was to stay busy, move forward, keep going, and kind of productivity or hustle my way through loss.
Shelby: About two and a half years after her death, I learned that didn't work when someone stole my wallet unexpectedly in downtown Chicago, and I started weeping for this lost wallet, realizing that what I was really crying about was my mother's death. It was the first time I gave myself any sort of permission to grieve. That moment in 2015 jump-started my journey of teaching myself about grief and loss. I thought: if I just now gave myself permission to grieve — two or three years after her death — what else is there to know? And so I became what I now call a student of grief, always learning from grief as a teacher in my life, reading books, listening to podcasts like this one, and receiving education from grief professionals.
Shelby: I started talking about grief publicly in 2016. I didn't identify myself as a grief coach then, but that turned into a podcast, which turned into my first book, then a second, and more podcasts and more books — and now it has grown into what I call my little grief business. I'm a one-woman show. I support grievers one-on-one, but also in a group setting, in an online course and community called Life After Loss Academy. And then this third book is what to say to support someone who's grieving — for friends, family, coworkers of grievers, even professionals who are working with grievers. But it's also for grievers themselves, who sometimes struggle to offer themselves compassion when they are deep in grief.
Jana: Shelby, I want to go back in time for a moment. You said something about that moment where you realized you needed to start giving yourself permission to grieve — two years after your mom died, after this buildup of losses. Do you recall what was one thing you did to give yourself that permission?
Shelby: I can tell you very clearly — I actually wrote this story in my first book, which is called Permission to Grieve, because it was inspired by this moment. I almost felt like I had no choice. Someone stole my wallet. It was not a violent altercation — I had my bag hanging over a chair, someone took the wallet and walked out of the store. When I realized it was missing, I had just applied for a job, so everything crucial to my life was in there: social security card, driver's license, credit cards, everything. I took the bus home trying to contain my emotions, and as soon as the door shut behind me to my apartment, I just broke down on the floor and started wailing — pounding my fists on the floor. I'm so surprised to this day that none of my neighbors called the police, because I lived in a six-story apartment building in Chicago.
Shelby: Giving myself permission to grieve looked like allowing all of these huge emotions that I thought would kill me, or that I thought would make me seem crazy in the eyes of other people. I write in my first book that after that adult temper tantrum — it lasted about 15 minutes; it was not a long time — I felt like a glass that had gone through the dishwasher. I felt really clear. I thought: this is the first time I have not felt weighed down by the heaviness of grief. It was absolutely mind-altering. And I thought: I want more of what this feels like. It was like a lightning bolt moment that helped me understand, in the blink of an eye, what it is to give yourself permission to grieve, and it invited me to keep pursuing it. Of course, screaming and crying and wailing is not the only way to process or express grief — but that feeling of "all of you, and all of how you are feeling, is allowed" — including grief — that's what I'm perpetually on a quest to help myself and other people release and feel.
Jana: It's so important, that piece you said about it lasting about 15 minutes, and after it was over, you wanted more of that — because I think so many people feel the magnetic pull toward what we often call "the abyss": if I let myself really feel these feelings, I'm going to fall apart forever and never come back. There are parts of it that are terrible and awful, but I appreciate you pointing out that there was actually a start, a middle, and an end — it did actually end — and then you found yourself wanting to do it again. Such a different way of looking at that pull of the abyss.
Shelby: Yes, and I appreciate you saying that. I literally just published a podcast episode a couple of weeks ago about "I need to cry, but I can't." One of the feelings grieving people often tell themselves — including me — is: if I start, I won't stop. If I start crying, the tears will never end. Something I learned when I was first being trained in grief in 2016 is that most crying spells last anywhere from about three to maybe 30 minutes at a high output level. My best friend Tami, who died in 2022, cried a lot and was very proud of it — she was a Cancer in astrology and would say, "I'm a crier and I love it." She told me: "You'll either run out or you'll pass out. You'll either run out of tears or you'll faint — it's your body's way of turning itself off and back on again."
Shelby: When I entered that wailing, crying, shrieking experience, I did not know it was going to end. That certainty was not something I had going into it. But having survived it once, I know I can do it again and again.
Jana: I really love that. That's why I put a timeframe around it — so that people who are afraid of the abyss, afraid of falling in and never coming up for air again, can potentially try that kind of grief expression if it speaks to them. Or try another way if there's something else they feel called to do, but are afraid of it going on indefinitely.
Jana: I've heard your story of the wallet being stolen many times, but I don't think I'd ever heard it this way before. You mentioned that when your mom died, it felt like everything you'd built your life upon fell apart — and then it took someone taking all these pieces of documentation that symbolize who you are to crack something open.
Shelby: I've never thought of those parallels either — but that's perfect. I always saw my wallet as a source of financial certainty and stability, and my mom was a source of certainty and stability. And again, something very precious and very crucial was taken from me. But I'd never put together that on some level, my identity was literally being stolen. And with my mom's death, something I grieved was definitely my identity and who I knew myself to be in the world. No one's ever reflected those parallels back to me before. That's very, very cool. This is why I come talk to you.
Jana: Thank you for allowing me to travel backwards! Let's come into the present. You've written books before — how did you come to this newest one, about how we actually talk to people who are grieving?
Shelby: I would love to say I saw a problem in the world and set out to fix it. But this is another situation — kind of like the wallet — where it arrived to me in a very small interaction that ended up being life-changing. Sometime during COVID, between 2019 and 2021, I was working with a client over Zoom whose baby had died. This loss was the worst cherry on top of seven or eight years of back-to-back miscarriages. This woman told me: not only have I kept losing and losing and losing — we had hope. And then the hospital delivered news that the baby had medical malformations that meant he would not survive outside of her body.
Shelby: We weren't even talking about her grief specifically. She said: just before I got on the call with you, one of my acquaintances — who hasn't really been the nicest to me — just announced she's pregnant on Instagram. She was spiraling into: why does this woman deserve a healthy pregnancy when I've never had one? How dare pregnancy be so light and easy for her? First she felt judgmental toward this other woman, then toward herself — telling all these stories: I should be happy for her, I should be able to congratulate her, I shouldn't still be so angry. She was building a case, one against this woman and one against herself, banging the gavel of "guilty, guilty, guilty on all charges."
Shelby: I let her keep talking, and then there was a silence. And I said: "Of course you would be upset that someone you don't really like is pregnant right now." She paused, and I thought the call had disconnected. She said: "I never thought of that before. I didn't think it would be okay to feel torn up about this." She asked: "So I'm not being ridiculous?" And I said: "No, this sounds very normal to me."
Shelby: That moment moved in slow motion. All I did was use words to validate her emotions and wrap it in the context of that moment — and it absolutely changed the story in her head, which was "I'm crazy, no one gets how I feel, something is wrong with me." And I thought: if a single two-word phrase — "of course" — can do that, what other phrases can we use to support and comfort grieving people who are telling themselves these stories of crisis and despair that many of us don't even see? And how can I share them with the world?
Shelby: So the seed of the book was planted in that moment. For the past four or five years after that, I've just been listening to grievers and reflecting on my own experience. I've discovered a pattern: there are three big stories every grieving person tells themselves at some point. They are: "I'm crazy — something must be wrong with me." "I'm alone — no one gets how I feel, even in a crowded room I'm all by myself." And: "It's going to be like this forever" — especially in cases of death or divorce, where something permanent has happened, and so therefore the pain must be permanent too.
Shelby: And I've learned that these three phrases — "of course," "I'm here," and "right now" — interrupt these stories that grieving people tell themselves, so they are not so trapped by the myths of what society has taught us grief is supposed to be. They kind of pair with each of the stories: "Of course" is the validator for "I'm crazy." Of course you're still sad — your dad is still dead. You're no longer crazy. "I'm here" — even though I can't understand what you're going through, I'm here; I haven't forgotten that you're grieving — is an antidote to "I'm so alone in this world." Suddenly you are carrying their grief on your shoulders too; they're not carrying it alone. And "right now" — it makes sense that hope feels far away right now — doesn't say "it won't be like this forever," which contradicts their reality, but says: this moment is exactly that — a moment in time. And in its own way, "right now" says: this is not all there is. There is more beyond this.
Shelby: Something I love about these phrases is that they're non-religious and non-meaning-making. It's not "God never gives you more than you can handle" or "God needed another angel" or "everything happens for a reason." They're also not prescriptive — not "time heals all" or "you just need to stay busy" or "you just need to date again." They're not telling grievers to do or be anything other than what they already are. They're just tiny little permission-granting statements that you can use for anything — from "my kid didn't get a part in the school play" all the way to "my coworker's sister just died in a car accident and I don't know what to say." They're such powerful little phrases, and I've seen them work over and over and over again across 10 years of working with grieving people.
Jana: Are there ways, Shelby, that you told yourself those three stories — "there's something wrong with me," "I'm all alone in this," "it's going to be this way forever"?
Shelby: "I'm crazy" was my big one — especially before the day of the stolen wallet, that day that shall live in infamy. The story I told myself, especially because of how some of my family members responded to my grief, was that my emotions were too big for everyone else to handle. I am too much — which is another way of saying "I'm crazy" or "there's something wrong with me" or "I am a problem." By the way, I use "I'm crazy" because that's the language grievers often use themselves. I understand it's not a favorite phrase in the mental health space — I write about that in the disclaimer of my book — but it is the word grieving people use to describe themselves.
Shelby: I was convinced that if the world knew how much I was really suffering, they would be so judgmental of me — and therefore I was judgmental of me. I agreed that something was wrong with me. That's the story I was very much trapped in until the day of the stolen wallet. No one came into my life and said "of course" to me — which I would have loved. Instead, I wailed for 15 minutes and realized I didn't die. But not all grieving people come to that conclusion themselves, and it is just as helpful to keep hearing your emotions validated by the people around you, as you work to validate yourself.
Shelby: How powerful would it have been if a coworker had come up to me a year or two after my mom's death, when I kept her old work plaque at my desk? People would always ask me, "Why does that say Sandy? Your name's Shelby." And I would say, "Oh, it's my mom's." And they'd say, "Oh, that's so sweet" or "I'm so sorry she died" — and then they'd walk away. How impactful would it have been if someone had said: "Of course you'd want to keep your mom's things close to you — she died such a short time ago." That would have been so validating. It just changes the nature of conversation. From "sorry for your loss, my condolences" — which are meaningful in their own right — but people, supporters, friends, family, coworkers, even professionals, they want to know what to say beyond those things. Because our relationship to grief and to other people does not end when the funeral is over.
Jana: Shelby, you mentioned that your best friend Tami died back in 2022. I'm wondering — were the things people said to you after your mom died similar to or different from what they said after Tami died?
Shelby: It's funny — I don't think anyone's ever asked me this question before. After my mom died, the thing I heard most was: "You can't be sad forever." My response internally was always: well, just watch me. Like — who are you to stop me? Grief is going to do whatever it wants with me. And I remember so distinctly: a professor told me that after my mom died. I was in an honors class about political history, and that day — which was exactly two months to the day my mom had died — she was showing videos of famous political and historical funerals: JFK's assassination, MLK's assassination. And I was like: this is too close to home.
Shelby: I gathered up my books and went into the bathroom for the rest of the class. She knew my mom had died. When I came back in to get my coat, she asked why I'd left, and I said: "My mom died two months ago to the day, and I just couldn't handle watching other people's funerals right now." And she said: "Well, you can't be sad forever." What a different experience I would have had if she'd said: "I'm here for you right now. Of course you needed to walk out today."
Shelby: When my best friend died, it was a little different because I had a grief business by then — people know to watch what they say to me from a grief perspective. But a lot of what I heard was from distant relatives of hers or distant friends of mine who never really met her, and their emphasis — even though their heart was in the right place — was on remembering happy moments: "Just keep her with you in a positive way, and let her light shine through." It's not a bad message, because those are things I genuinely want to do. But the fact that it was laid on me as an obligation, with no acknowledgment of the fact that it was sad that she died or that it's hard that she's not here — that felt like garbage.
Shelby: So it wasn't the judgment-oriented grief statements, which can really hurt. It was more the overly toxic-positivity, silver-lining grief statements — which hurt in a different flavor. And again, how different would it have been if someone had said: "Of course you're still sad that your best friend is dead. She was your friend for 10 years. On her birthday, I haven't forgotten that you're grieving. And right now, however you can connect with her — if at all — I'm interested in hearing about that." That's a totally different conversation than "just remember her with love" and "be grateful for the 10 years you had with her."
Jana: I'm thinking about all the things I need to make sure I'm saying differently in the future too, Shelby. There's never enough to learn.
Shelby: Yes. And I never want to criticize how people choose to support someone who's grieving — but if you're interested in doing it differently, that's the work I'm interested in doing. You can totally say things like "I choose to remember her with love" — turn them into "I" statements about your own grief and processing. But it's when you start dictating that grieving people operate the same way you do or believe the same things you do — even if that's not your intention — that's when it hurts.
Shelby: And this is so much of the motivation for writing the book: so many grieving people have told me that after a death, a divorce, or a diagnosis, the second biggest thing they lose is relationships. Friends and family members who drift away, or who say such awkward or heartless things that they no longer feel safe bringing themselves or their grief around them — and so they exit the relationship. A handful of words has changed how they see their emotional safety with that person. I'm trying to prevent that from happening. Words are our best free grief support tool in the entire world. No time, energy, or money is needed — we're already using them. This book is the manual for how to use them well.
Jana: One thing that comes to mind with your book: those phrases — "of course," "I'm here," "right now" — I imagine them being used in response to something the grieving person has said. But do you have any suggestions for how to start the conversation? Even for people who have experienced grief themselves, it can be so hard to know how to reach out or bring it up.
Shelby: I love this question. You're right — these phrases were generated in response to me supporting grievers, and I've tried them as responses to coaching clients, friends, and family. But people asked: what if I want to be proactive? Something I always recommend is: don't just wait for milestones like a birthday, death day, or anniversary to reach out — although those are perfectly good times, and grieving people tend to remember the people who reach out, even years and decades later.
Shelby: Something I like to do — and I'm really trying to practice in 2026 — is if I'm thinking about somebody who's experienced a loss, I fire off a text immediately. As soon as they're in my head, I send it. I have an ex who I have a good relationship with still. When we were dating, she had two dogs — and one of her dogs recently died. We don't talk very much — maybe once a year — and she posted about his death on Facebook. I left a comment: "Russell was the best boy in the whole world. I know he was your adventure partner for so many different things." And then about three weeks later, she popped into my head on the train to work, and I sent her a text.
Shelby: I said: "Hey, no need to respond" — which I always advise. Part of saying "I'm here" is saying "no need to respond." The point of supporting someone is to give to them, not to need something back. So I said: "No need to respond. I was just thinking of you and of Russell. I'm here if you want to share any memories or photos of him. Of course the house feels really empty right now without his presence there. Right now I bet the silence feels deafening." That's different from "I can't imagine what you're going through." It's just: based on what I know of what it is to lose a pet, I said the house felt really quiet after that. "I know you miss him. Of course you miss him. Just thought of you. No need to respond." That's a fantastic way to open, especially if you haven't talked to somebody in a while.
Shelby: A big question I get from supporters is: "It's been three months. It's been a year and a half. It's been five years since the funeral and that was the last time I reached out. Is it still okay to text them?" Yes — the answer is almost always yes, unless the grieving person has made it explicitly clear that you are not welcome in their life. What can it hurt? There's really nothing I enjoy more than hearing from people who remember my mom or remember Tami without me prompting them. So much of the work we do as grievers is educating people on how to support us — so much of the initiation comes from grievers themselves, essentially sending up a bat signal and waiting for the world to respond. To do that unprompted is such a love language all its own.
Shelby: Here's a great example I share in the book: if you're a general practitioner — a doctor or nurse — who sees a grieving person once a year, fold their loss experience into your exam questions. You can say: "I know you lost your husband this time last year. I'm here, even just in my professional capacity right now. What is it that you're most struggling with, with regard to your body and grief?" What an incredible way to fold grief into a conversation, even if it only happens once a year. We grieve forever. Grief shifts and changes over time, but the support and outreach and comfort surrounding grief — that can and should also last forever.
Jana: I really like that piece about "right now" — not only as a little bit of reassurance, but also as a way to focus the question: how is your grief showing up right now, in this moment? Because most often our go-to question is "how are you?" — and that's almost impossible to answer when you're grieving. You're left thinking: about what? What timeframe are you asking about?
Jana: Do you have more to say about the question "how are you?" and how it can be a tough one?
Shelby: Absolutely. I actually did a recent podcast episode about this — someone wrote in asking: how do I respond when someone says "how are you" and I literally do not have the time, and they do not have the interest, in hearing a genuine response? I did both a podcast and a blog episode with 20 different ways to respond to "how are you," ranging from the most vulnerable and honest all the way to "I know this is just a greeting and there's no point in getting into it." You can check that out on Grief Grower — that's the name of my podcast — or just Google "Shelby Forsythia how are you" and it'll pop up.
Shelby: Wrapping "right now" or "in this season" or "in this moment" around "how are you" is a fantastic way to check in on a grieving person. It puts a time anchor on the question. Because time gets really fuzzy when you're grieving. Do you mean today? Do you mean since my mom died? Do you mean since I got that big project at work? What context are you asking in? To say "How are you doing right now?" or "How are you doing today?" — adding some prepositional phrase about time — is a really great way to love a grieving person.
Jana: Absolutely. "How are you?" is one of my least favorite questions in grief, because I didn't know how to respond. For a really long time I just said "I'm fine, how are you?" and redirected it back. But for grievers who really want to answer honestly, or supporters who really want honest answers, asking "how are you right now, in this season, in this moment" is a really lovely way to deepen the conversation.
Shelby: Or you can open a conversation with: "It would make sense to me if 'how are you' is a hard question for you to answer right now. Is there another question I could ask that would let me check on you — that wouldn't feel so impossible to answer?" That's another fantastic way to open a conversation without putting the spotlight on them to know how they feel in that moment, because a lot of times, I didn't even know. There were like 20 things all coming up at once.
Jana: In these conversations about what to say and what not to say — it's all such helpful information, and I know it can leave some folks feeling self-conscious, or with some trepidation: I don't want to get it wrong, so I end up not saying anything at all. Can we talk a little bit about why saying something is usually better than saying nothing?
Shelby: Yes. In my online course Life After Loss Academy, I teach that there are 11 different ways hurtful behavior shows up between grievers and the people in our lives. I gave them silly names because that makes me happy. There's the Nuisance Nurse — always trying to prescribe you a remedy for your grief: "You just need to try yoga, lavender essential oils," whatever. There's the Judgmental Jerk — people like my professor: "You should be over it by now. You can't be sad forever." But the most common one, across all the students who've ever come through my course, is the Disappointing Disappearer.
Shelby: This is the person who maybe shows up once — for the funeral, or the day your divorce papers are signed — and then vanishes. They fade from your life for no perceivable reason other than that you have become a grieving person. Far and away, the biggest pain that grieving people bring to me is: "My friends and family have all disappeared. The only thing that's changed is that I have become a grieving person." And so obviously this folds back into the story of "I'm crazy. Something is wrong with me. I am a problem. People don't want to be around me."
Shelby: For supporters who don't feel confident in their words: something is better than nothing. And there's a whole section of this book about what might be holding you back. The biggest one I've heard from supporters is: "I'm not a therapist. I'm not a grief expert. I'm not qualified to help." Our society has done a great job of making emotional support the job of educated therapists, spiritual providers, pastors — people with degrees in how to support people who are suffering. But the thing I argue in the book is that just as we are all grieving people, we are also — in different seasons of our lives — supporters. It is just human to want to be there for each other.
Shelby: You do not need a fancy degree or a magical certification to say: I can assist, just with words, someone who is in great pain or distress. I'm not telling you that you can prevent someone from slipping into despair. I'm not telling you that you can make them happy. That's not the promise of the book. The promise of the book is that you can help grieving people feel a little less crazy, a little less alone, and a little bit less like the pain is going to last forever. That's what these three phrases offer — and they are intended for anyone to use for any type of loss, from "my daughter didn't get the part in the school play" all the way to "my best friend just died from a disease that has ravaged the entire world."
Shelby: I really want to urge people — even grieving people, because grievers are often supporters too — that even I didn't know what I wanted people to say to me when I was grieving. I knew what I hated hearing, but I didn't really know what helped. I encourage grieving people to reflect: what do you wish you could most say to yourself, or that someone would say to you? And maybe start by offering that. A lot of what grieving people say they want is validation, permission to feel what they're feeling — "of course" — reassurance that they're not alone and haven't been forgotten — "I'm here" — and some kind of hope, even if they're not the ones carrying it, that this pain isn't going to last indefinitely. And that is "right now."
Shelby: So grievers: you can offer yourself these phrases. "Of course, Shelby, it makes sense that you're stressed about this book coming out because your mom won't be in the audience." I've been doing a lot of that kind of "of coursing" in my own life right now. The author Elizabeth Gilbert is a great example of "I'm here" — she talks about "letters from love" and shares them on her Substack. The first thing she writes every day is essentially: "Love, are you there?" And the voice of love — the voice of her higher self — responds: "Yes. I am here." You can accompany yourself from within. And "right now" — right now the world is in chaos, and it's okay that you need more rest. Right now you're missing your dog who died, and it's okay to need a little more time getting ready in the morning, because you keep waiting for him to show up. What can you offer yourself before you offer it to other people who are grieving?
Jana: Well, you've set us up nicely to talk about how you're feeling about your book coming out in the world — and it sounds like you're feeling a little sad about your mom not being in the audience for the book launch. How are you feeling about having this framework of three simple things we can all say to people who are grieving be out in the world?
Shelby: Yeah — it's definitely a mix of things. The thing that's coming up this week — and I fully acknowledge this is a mix of world events and astrology and hormones all together — is that this is the first time I am actually throwing a party for something I've written. My first book was self-published and my audience was pretty small, so I didn't organize anything in person. My second book was released during the first six months of COVID, and so nobody was getting together for anything. This one is the first time where the world feels safe enough, COVID-wise, to host an in-person event, and my audience is of a size that friends and family will come, but also grievers and grief professionals in the Chicago area.
Shelby: And the thing that has really just hit me this week is: oh my god, I'm doing this thing — and my mom won't be in the audience. My best friend won't be in the audience. I've had this dual grief running on repeat: my mom is dead, my friend is dead, my mom is dead, my friend is dead. The volume got cranked up loud this week because it's now within about 30 days of when this is going to happen. And I don't say this to be pitied — it's because this is truly one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. I love this book with everything in me. I feel like this is such a life-changing and easy framework — three simple phrases that work for all kinds of losses — and nothing like this has been written before. My publisher was looking for comparable books when we were shopping the market. They said: "Nothing like this exists." And I said: "I know. That's why I wrote it."
Shelby: I am so proud of this book. And also, similar to going through any major life milestone without your people there — I am also mourning their absence. They inspired this work, and they are also missing from it. The two things I hold going into this are: I am elated, I am on the mountaintop, I literally cannot wait to see what the world thinks of this book. And also, there's an inherent sorrow baked right in.
Shelby: I call this the 1% Grief Rule in Life After Loss Academy. Regardless of what you're going through or what kind of day you're having, at least 1% of it will always be composed of grief. So I might be 99% over the moon, and 1% grief. Or you might be 20% nervous, 30% hopeful, 40% trepidatious, and 10% grief. You could name all the emotions of the moment and turn the dials on what percentage is grief.
Shelby: Just this week, the grief has been louder than the joy — and that's been surprising to me. I told my wife — who is also a member of the Dead Parents Club — that this is the first time I've felt parentless in a long time. My mom died when I was 21, and I've missed her and ached for her in lots of different ways. But losing her in adulthood meant I've largely been self-parenting since her death. I've done a lot of things and had a bunch of accomplishments. My wife and I even eloped, so there wasn't an expectation of many people being there. So this is really the first time since I graduated from college in 2014 — six months after my mom died on Mother's Day, which was just rude of my university — that I'm accomplishing something in front of an audience like this.
Shelby: And I'm really reckoning with: my mom is dead. And then there's another layer: my best friend is gone. There will be one empty seat that I'm going to be looking at, thinking: she should be here. This book is actually dedicated to her — to Tami. Her friendship was so good at words, even before this framework existed. Her example of supporting people through all kinds of life stuff was a really key part of the foundation of how and why this book got into the world. My mom and my friend have both made this book — and are also missing from it.
Jana: So this book is part of their legacies, in a way.
Shelby: Yeah. Yeah.
Jana: Well, Shelby, thank you so much for your book Of Course, I'm Here, Right Now — which, listeners, is coming out at the end of March, the 31st. So this episode is probably in your ears before that — you'll want to go find the book wherever you can find it. And of course, be following along with all the things Shelby is doing in the world, with her podcast Grief Grower and her Life After Loss Academy. I'll link to all the places people can find you and your social media.
Jana: Thank you so much for writing this book and for coming back on Grief Out Loud to talk with me about it — and for the ways you're going to be helping so many people, including myself, get past just those three blinking dots in a text message of "what do I say now?" and to have something to fall back on. Thank you.
Shelby: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I love coming on Grief Out Loud. This is one of the first podcasts I started listening to after my mom died, and it has played such a monumental role in how I've come back to life after loss. Thank you for making this space and for having me on again. I really appreciate it.
Jana: Well, Shelby, thank you again. And listeners — thank you for being part of our community, for tuning in, for sharing episodes with people who might be helped by what we're talking about here. If you want to reach out to me directly, my email is griefoutloud@dougy.org — that's D-O-U-G-Y dot org — and that's our main website, where you'll find all the information about our local programming and all of our free downloadable resources like activities and tip sheets, and of course, each and every episode of Grief Out Loud. I'm always excited to share that the podcast is sponsored in part by the Chester Stephan Endowment Fund. Grief Out Loud is a production of the Dougy Center, the National Grief Center for Children and Families in Portland, Oregon. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us again next time.