Episode 23
Faith, Hope, & GriefShare with Steve Grissom
It may be hard for you to feel optimistic about the future right now. If you’ve lost a spouse, child, family member, or friend, you’ve probably found there are not many people who understand the deep hurt you feel. This can be a confusing time when you feel isolated and have many questions about things you’ve never faced before.
Steve and Cheryl Grissom founded Church Initiative in 1993. In 1998, Church Initiative reached an important milestone by releasing the first edition of GriefShare, a video-based support group that comes alongside grieving individuals. Now in its third edition, GriefShare continues to grow and reach more individuals every year. Currently, over 20,000 churches are equipped with one or more Church Initiative ministry programs.
Join us today for a hope filled discussion with Steve Grissom! You’ll hear his journey and the hope that GriefShare brings to so many each day. Steve and Marshall, both veterans of GriefShare, share the hope that they have experienced as attendees and for Steve and his wife Shelly, GriefShare Group leaders.
To find out more or join a GriefShare group please visit their website: https://www.griefshare.org
Do you have a GriefShare experience to tell us about? We would love to read your story on a future episode of the show! Send your story to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!
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Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org
Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!
Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical, or mental health treatment, please contact a medical, or mental health professional immediately.
Thank you
Marshall Adler
Steve Smelski
Transcript
Hello everyone.
Speaker:And welcome to today's episode of Hope Thru Grief.
Speaker:My name is Steve Smelski . I'm one of your co-hosts.
Speaker:I'm here with my good friend and cohost Marshall Adler.
Speaker:Hello, everybody.
Speaker:Hope everybody's doing very well today.
Speaker:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker:We've got a extra special episode for you today.
Speaker:We've um, special guest on today.
Speaker:His name is Mr.
Speaker:Steve Grissom.
Speaker:He's the founder and president of Church Initiative, which is the
Speaker:overseeing organization that has grief share divorce care, divorce care
Speaker:for kids and single and parenting.
Speaker:And we are a very happy to have Steve with us today.
Speaker:Steve welcome
Speaker:Thank you, Steve.
Speaker:Thank you, Marshall.
Speaker:Great to be with you guys.
Speaker:It's an honor for us to have you,
Speaker:So we thought we would just start out and let you go ahead and share your story.
Speaker:And we were talking just before we started and we know you've got a few
Speaker:things that you'd like to share with us, and we'll just open it up to you.
Speaker:Well Grief Share is a, an organization that sponsors grief
Speaker:support groups in local churches.
Speaker:And today we've equipped over 20,000 churches worldwide.
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:And so...
Speaker:wow.
Speaker:a weekly divorced.
Speaker:It grew, excuse me.
Speaker:A weekly grief share group I mentioned divorce care cause we have
Speaker:a similar program called Divorce.
Speaker:The weekly grief share group meets at local churches and they go through a
Speaker:video, which explains why you feel the way you do during the grieving process.
Speaker:Then the group members have the opportunity to talk about what they've
Speaker:seen on the video and then between weekly sessions, there's a workbook
Speaker:with exercises and some short studies that you do to keep the material alive
Speaker:and take you a little bit deeper.
Speaker:So it's really a three-part program and grief share runs for 13 weeks.
Speaker:And many people will go through the program multiple times they'll go
Speaker:through two or three times because there's a lot of information.
Speaker:The videos they view features some of the world's leading experts on
Speaker:grief and recovery topics from a faith based Christian perspective.
Speaker:But the group is open to everybody.
Speaker:You can have a faith you can have no faith, you can have a different faith.
Speaker:It doesn't matter because people find that there's also
Speaker:a lot of practical information.
Speaker:So we have a great mix of people with all different kinds of losses
Speaker:from loss of a spouse, to loss of a child, loss of a brother or friend.
Speaker:And when they come together and share their losses, one of the most interesting
Speaker:things, Steve and Marshall, that we see is there's a light bulb that goes on.
Speaker:Most people think when they're grieving that nobody understands
Speaker:what I'm going through.
Speaker:Right
Speaker:yep
Speaker:I feel really isolated.
Speaker:RIght
Speaker:I feel really alone and they get in the room with other people and they
Speaker:say, Oh my gosh, there are people who understand what I'm going through.
Speaker:And all of a sudden, it's just this weight off their shoulders because they
Speaker:realize they're in a place where the group members understand the leaders understand
Speaker:because the leaders typically have had a very significant loss in their lives.
Speaker:And so it becomes a very healing moment.
Speaker:Now getting to that first meeting.
Speaker:Is quite often the challenge.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Most people don't ever envision themselves going to a grief support group.
Speaker:It's just not on your radar.
Speaker:It's not in the context and in the course of everyday life.
Speaker:And then you have a loss and you're feeling alone and isolated and you
Speaker:may not even think about, or what to look forward a grief support group.
Speaker:And so it feels really awkward to go the first time.
Speaker:I had a lady telling me, once I worked on her for weeks and weeks and
Speaker:weeks, a friend, it wasn't a stranger.
Speaker:I said, you really need to come to the support group.
Speaker:And she said, I just can't do it.
Speaker:I just, I just can't do it.
Speaker:And she said, finally after weeks of this, she said, okay, I'm going to come.
Speaker:And you're going to be able to tell who I am, because I'm going
Speaker:to be the one in the back row with a brown paper bag over my head.
Speaker:That's kind of something new and of course, once she got into the room,
Speaker:she benefited and was glad she came, but I've had other people tell me that
Speaker:I'll roll up to the group's meeting location and I'll sit in the car and
Speaker:there'll be this great tug of war.
Speaker:And maybe I'll get the door open and I'll close it.
Speaker:And maybe I'll get out of the car and go back into the car.
Speaker:And sometimes they go get in the car and drive away and come back next week
Speaker:and other times that make it inside.
Speaker:And so what I want people to understand is it's perfectly natural to feel awkward
Speaker:about coming to this kind of group, because it's a very unnatural thing
Speaker:to do to, or think about or to plan.
Speaker:So we'd like to encourage people to give Grief Share three weeks.
Speaker:Come for three weeks, just make that commitment, that hard
Speaker:commitment to yourself that you'll give it a three week trial.
Speaker:And then if it, after three weeks to, does it feel right for you?
Speaker:That's okay, then move on.
Speaker:But of course, many people, most people by that time have made
Speaker:friends and develop relationships and, or absorbing the material.
Speaker:And, and really finding the help and benefits that we hope that they do find.
Speaker:That's interesting you mentioned that Steve, because Shelly and I lost Jordan
Speaker:and we started in the middle of a group.
Speaker:I think our first video that we watched was stuck in grief and if it had been
Speaker:just me, I'm not sure I would have walked into that group, but because
Speaker:it was the two of us were like, you know what, it's gotta be better than
Speaker:what we're going through right now.
Speaker:And we did walk in, but everybody knew everybody else.
Speaker:We were the only two that didn't know anybody.
Speaker:So it can be very confronting coming in in the middle.
Speaker:But once you get in, you realize you're not the only one real easy it's easier
Speaker:to come back the second time, I think.
Speaker:I think so and it's important to state that it's not a program where
Speaker:you have to come on week 1 and then go through all 13 weeks like you did.
Speaker:You can come in anywhere in the cycle.
Speaker:It's designed to be freestanding and most groups are read for
Speaker:that and when a newcomer comes.
Speaker:They figured figuratively and literally we'll put there, arms around you.
Speaker:Um, now, right now in this season, many groups are meeting virtually.
Speaker:So we're more on the figure to the affiliate side of that statement, but
Speaker:groups know what is like, because they came for their first session at one point.
Speaker:So they know what you're feeling.
Speaker:And they're not going to let you feel awkward or isolated there
Speaker:they're going to come along beside you from the first time you come.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we did feel that for sure.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:What you mentioned.
Speaker:I mentioned before that.
Speaker:We went, my son, Matt died on July 22nd, 2018.
Speaker:And a few weeks after that, we saw Grief Share on the internet.
Speaker:And my wife, Debbie contacted Steve and we went there at the beginning
Speaker:when it was starting, we were maybe two or three weeks after Matt's passing.
Speaker:And obviously losing a son is just devastating and we
Speaker:didn't know what to expect.
Speaker:And when we went there, We didn't know anybody, all strangers, you know, Steve
Speaker:started off by saying how many people here have taken a course on grief.
Speaker:And we all looked at each other and we said, you know, why would
Speaker:anybody ever take a course on grief?
Speaker:Is this guy totally insane?
Speaker:Why is he saying this?
Speaker:And you realize he's saying it because nobody wants to go a grief support
Speaker:group, unless you have to and we have to, because the reality is we lost
Speaker:our son and any awkwardness we have, we just sorta got to put that to the
Speaker:side because we need to learn how to grieve, because you can think, you
Speaker:think you might know how to grieve.
Speaker:I've lost grandparents and lost my father, but losing a son that was
Speaker:just, and Matt died by suicide.
Speaker:We're very open about that.
Speaker:So we had issues we had to confront and what you really want to comment on
Speaker:is what you mentioned about learning.
Speaker:You're not the only one because, you know, as a parent, your number
Speaker:one job is to protect your child.
Speaker:That's what I always wanted to do.
Speaker:I always wanted to be a father.
Speaker:And when you lose a child, you just can't help, but feel for whatever
Speaker:reason it is, what happened was not what I wanted my life to my life's
Speaker:work to end up where I lost a child.
Speaker:And hearing other people at Grief Share that lost siblings
Speaker:or spouses or aunts or uncles.
Speaker:I realized that the feelings that I had about not being able to protect my child
Speaker:from harm was similar to what other people were having with other relationships.
Speaker:It wasn't unique to me with respect to losing a child and it wasn't unique to
Speaker:me with respect to losing a child from suicide because somebody would say,
Speaker:Oh, my brother went out for a, uh, jog and got hit by a car and why did I tell
Speaker:him to go get some exercise that day?
Speaker:When I should have said stay home and just, let's just watch TV.
Speaker:If I sit, stay home, watch TV, he wouldn't have gone out wouldn't have been
Speaker:exercising and it wouldn'thit by the car.
Speaker:And you realizing it was a car accident.
Speaker:How could you control that?
Speaker:But when you lose somebody, obviously think coulda, shoulda,
Speaker:woulda would've made a difference.
Speaker:And I think to me, that was initially going through grief here was they really
Speaker:first lesson I learned that everybody has their own story and their own issues they
Speaker:have to deal with and hearing that from other people and completely different
Speaker:situations to me was very helpful.
Speaker:Very helpful.
Speaker:I think you said that well, Marshall, all grief is unique, but there are
Speaker:common elements and all grief affects you uniquely you, in other words, it's
Speaker:going to impact you differently than me or Steve or others listening in our audience.
Speaker:So the perspective you get by hearing other people articulate
Speaker:what they're feeling, you will resonate with many of the points and
Speaker:you'll say, oh my goodness, I never thought of it from that perspective.
Speaker:And that just opens up your world, your mind to understand your grief better.
Speaker:Absolutely, because it's a totally different language and I think where
Speaker:you mentioned going to the Grief Share, when you go in there, you feel that
Speaker:everybody there speaks your language now because it's the language of grief.
Speaker:Which is a different language than the rest of the world
Speaker:is going to be dealing with.
Speaker:And just having those hours once a week, where you don't have to
Speaker:explain to somebody that may not understand the language of grief.
Speaker:I find that very helpful.
Speaker:You don't have to explain different things.
Speaker:How grief comes in waves and comes out of nowhere and triggers, things like that.
Speaker:So I think that there's a commonality that is very comforting.
Speaker:It's very comforting to me going through the Grief Share.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And this great sense of relief to realize you're not weird, you're not going crazy.
Speaker:You're not, you're not the only one who's feeling.
Speaker:This just takes such a load off of a person
Speaker:I'm interested in your personal journey because I am amazed what you've done,
Speaker:because I'll tell you I did a prior podcast that ended almost 12 months ago,
Speaker:dealing with Matt's death by suicide.
Speaker:And I'll tell you, I got an email from a woman this week.
Speaker:The podcast went almost a year ago.
Speaker:She just listened to it.
Speaker:She lost her daughter by suicide and it really affected her.
Speaker:And she wrote me this beautiful email and we're going back and forth.
Speaker:And I was just amazed how something I did a year ago resonated with her,
Speaker:which to me is a small in comparison to what you've done with Grief Share.
Speaker:I mean, you've held thousands tens of thousands of people
Speaker:you don't even know about.
Speaker:I mean, with all the groups and all the videos, and now all the virtual meetings,
Speaker:there's people you would never meet in your lifetime that you've helped.
Speaker:So I'm really fascinated that you've done this, but I'm interested
Speaker:in how your journey of grief happened to lead you to this.
Speaker:In my personal journey of grief, I've had two very significant
Speaker:windows of loss in 2007.
Speaker:I lost both parents in a three month window at a very young age.
Speaker:They were in their early seventies, both because of health sudden health problems.
Speaker:And, um that was a very jolting thing for me.
Speaker:The loss of a parent is maybe a little more natural than other losses.
Speaker:We do anticipate losing our parents.
Speaker:In my case, I had no idea that I would lose them when I did so
Speaker:that grief was very heavy on me.
Speaker:And then just two years later, Uh, within another three month window, I lost a
Speaker:brother and then my 27 year old daughter.
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:And so that really rocked my world.
Speaker:I was still grieving parts of the loss of my parents, and then to lose
Speaker:two other very close family members.
Speaker:But, uh how I was leading an organization called Church Initiative, and we kept
Speaker:getting calls from pastors saying we need a resource to minister, to
Speaker:people who are going through grief.
Speaker:We needed something that could be run by lay people that we don't have to
Speaker:go find a panel of experts who will come in week after week after week.
Speaker:The logistics of that would be just crazy to try to handle on a local basis.
Speaker:And, uh, well, I, I scratched my head on that one and uh, said, well,
Speaker:I don't, I'm not sure how to help.
Speaker:I'm not a pastor.
Speaker:I'm not a counselor.
Speaker:I'm actually, I was trained as a journalist.
Speaker:Spent some time in, uh, behind the scenes management of television
Speaker:news operations, and then, uh, moved into some other areas of business.
Speaker:So I said, what do I have to contribute?
Speaker:I'm just another guy with a story.
Speaker:But what God did show me was that.
Speaker:Well, Steve, you do know how to pull together information and communicate
Speaker:drawing from your days as a journalist.
Speaker:And so I knew how to create document tree style videos.
Speaker:I knew how to pull together print materials and work books
Speaker:and all of that sort of thing.
Speaker:And so that became the format for both Divorce Care and for Grief
Speaker:Share, is this 30 to 40 minute video in which we aggregate these
Speaker:leading experts, the world world's experts on grief and recovery topics.
Speaker:And we mix those together with the real life stories of people who have
Speaker:been through a grief experience in the case of grief share and create what is
Speaker:often called a magazine style video.
Speaker:So this is not somebody had a podium for 30 minutes lecturing.
Speaker:This is a, a very rich, uh, where you, you might have 30 or
Speaker:40 faces in one of these videos.
Speaker:And so, uh, we try to make them make engaging, compelling and relatable.
Speaker:We try to introduce people who have been through the loss of a child, the
Speaker:loss of a parent, the loss of a spouse, all of these kinds of losses, so that
Speaker:you will have a connecting point.
Speaker:And then to have these world-class experts explain what's going on, why
Speaker:you feel the way you do, and how to walk your way from what we say from
Speaker:morning, from grieving to hope and joy.
Speaker:And that is a pathway that is a process, but that is possible.
Speaker:And so that's our design, that sort of format.
Speaker:And that's, that's how I got here a very, very unusual path, but I'm
Speaker:really glad that God chose to use my wife and I share all in this way
Speaker:it's an amazing story.
Speaker:I didn't know you had so many multiple losses in a very short period of time.
Speaker:I mentioned before that my son Matt died and then two days later, my mother died.
Speaker:So we had a mother and my son died within 48 hours of each other.
Speaker:So I had two to two funerals, two fobituaries, two eulogies.
Speaker:And I will tell you to this day, my mother was 91.
Speaker:My son was 32 losing my son and my mother within two days, I still have not
Speaker:been able to grief my mother's passing.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because it's all been grieving my son's passing and my mother
Speaker:was the best mother in the world.
Speaker:And I'm sure she would say tomorrow.
Speaker:Can you say Marshall?
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:Don't worry about me.
Speaker:Grief, grief, Matt.
Speaker:But were you able to grieve each of your losses?
Speaker:With everything you went through, plus starting this brand new worldwide program.
Speaker:I mean, you, you had a lot on your plate with that.
Speaker:Yeah, interestingly now I should clarify that we Grief Share already existed.
Speaker:Oh it did?
Speaker:That happened.
Speaker:I had, I had had some other more typical losses for my age, the loss of
Speaker:grandparents and the loss of distant relatives and one close friend.
Speaker:So I had those kinds of grief experiences and those were significant,
Speaker:but those weren't the kind of loss that you experienced with
Speaker:somebody with a close proximity.
Speaker:RIght
Speaker:I had also separatel been through a divorce and grieved
Speaker:the loss of that marriage.
Speaker:And so, uh, processing that, even with the knowledge that I had through the creation
Speaker:of Grief Share was nowhere near easy.
Speaker:It was just very painful, very excruciating, and a,
Speaker:a process it took a while.
Speaker:But I did have the luxury of having the tools that we introduced in
Speaker:grief share already in my toolkit.
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:I can't say that that took away much of any of the pain.
Speaker:I can say that gave me an understanding of the process I needed to go through.
Speaker:That's a great clarification on that because I I don't think the
Speaker:pain ever completely goes away.
Speaker:We'll be on this journey, probably the rest of our life.
Speaker:The thing that I'm fascinated about with the videos is you
Speaker:pack so much into 40, 42 minutes.
Speaker:I've watched him 13 times now, and I still pick up something
Speaker:new that I never saw before.
Speaker:Yeah, sad thing to us is what we have to leave on the edited.
Speaker:It burned for .So much good material, so much good material, but yeah, the,
Speaker:the richness of the wisdom that comes from these people who, who contribute
Speaker:to the videos is just remarkable.
Speaker:They've span a career ministering to people who are hurting, who are
Speaker:grieving and to be able to share that with group members is something
Speaker:that is kind of a unique format.
Speaker:As I mentioned earlier, it'd be very hard to duplicate this on a local basis.
Speaker:And that's why it's on video, uh, is to be able to capture these people launch
Speaker:and then share them multiple times across locations across states across countries
Speaker:is a really exciting way to be able to share this kind of world-class help.
Speaker:You've actually done something different that you hadn't done before, since
Speaker:we've gone into the COVID lockdowns and social distancing, you've made your
Speaker:videos available for the first time online, during the 13 week process.
Speaker:And I think that's awesome for the new people that start and they've missed
Speaker:a few or they miss a couple during the way they can go back and watch them.
Speaker:So if you've got a lot of material that got lost on the cutting room floor,
Speaker:have you thought about maybe putting some together as additional videos
Speaker:during this online process that people could view some of that gray material?
Speaker:Well, my staff will probably fuss at me for sharing this, but
Speaker:we're doing the exactly that.
Speaker:That's awesome
Speaker:We're creating a, my divorce care, my divorce care plus, my grief share,
Speaker:my grief share plus experience.
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:So that group members will have access to the more extended content.
Speaker:So if you have particular interest in child loss, for instance, loss of a child.
Speaker:We have some great experts dealing with that or loss of a spouse,
Speaker:but, you know, we have been talking maybe for four or five years about
Speaker:how do you do an online group?
Speaker:Well, we knew that there were some desirable elements of doing that, Steve,
Speaker:but we always believe that in-person groups were preferably, but then along
Speaker:comes mid-March along comes COVID and virtually every one of our groups had to
Speaker:shut down and could not meet in person.
Speaker:So we can distill our thinking very quickly.
Speaker:And, uh, within, uh, I'm really proud of the staff within a two-week period.
Speaker:We had thousands of groups up and running online.
Speaker:And so the ministry was able to continue, even though the groups were not able
Speaker:to meet in person and many groups, of course still are meeting online
Speaker:because of the in-person restrictions.
Speaker:And also because not everybody is comfortable with going back to a live
Speaker:in person environment, even if that is allowed by local or state regulators,
Speaker:That's very true.
Speaker:For us, it's going to be a problem because one of the people joining
Speaker:us is from Canada, so can't come in the country right now.
Speaker:So we would lose that person if we tried to meet in person.
Speaker:That's another thing that's happened is where a group was limited
Speaker:geographically by the drive time.
Speaker:No longer, we have people joining from several states away.
Speaker:Of course their stories are similar and there's a lot of commonality there.
Speaker:But, uh, in fact, I had a really interesting dimension to a
Speaker:group to have somebody in Iowa joining your group in Florida.
Speaker:I mean, the possibilities are endless and that's happening internationally as well.
Speaker:Yes, that's kind of a unique opportunity for a lot of us.
Speaker:So Shelly and I were actually excited about embracing people from
Speaker:outside our geographic area so...
Speaker:So, uh, what started as a, all hands on deck fire drill has turned
Speaker:into something that will become a permanent feature of Grief Share.
Speaker:And of course there are now live groups meeting.
Speaker:And there are still groups meeting online and there are hybrid
Speaker:groups which meet in person,
Speaker:Oh wow
Speaker:But are bringing in members online as well.
Speaker:So we've got some very creative leaders who are, are doing those things.
Speaker:How did you find your experts because I found the videos
Speaker:very informative, very helpful.
Speaker:And it was a part of life that obviously I never addressed because
Speaker:I didn't have to, because I didn't.
Speaker:need to, because it wasn't in grief.
Speaker:And then losing my son, Matt obviously changed everything.
Speaker:And I was many times sitting there saying, you know, I'm a lawyer
Speaker:and there's different cases.
Speaker:I have, I'll have to get an, a expert in a certain area.
Speaker:I've done it for 40 years and there's different places.
Speaker:You can go to get experts.
Speaker:And I'm thinking, where do you go for experts on grief?
Speaker:I mean, I don't think there were the yellow pages and I was just
Speaker:wondering, how did you do this?
Speaker:Cause I saw the back end.
Speaker:And he had so many people in so many videos and I'm going, this is an
Speaker:incredible achievement logistically.
Speaker:How did you do that?
Speaker:Well, most of these people are published on the topic and so if they
Speaker:have written on the topic and we go through, we read every word of the books
Speaker:that they've written or the book that they've written and if it aligns with
Speaker:our teaching and, and with biblical truths, then we know we have a match.
Speaker:And that serves them as a source of inspiration for the questions
Speaker:where you ask them as well.
Speaker:So quite often, uh, in fact, almost universally, they are published and
Speaker:that's, that's how they come on our radar.
Speaker:And we're constantly scanning, looking for new people.
Speaker:The current version of Grief Share is the third edition.
Speaker:So we updated on our regular schedule.
Speaker:And are always looking for new experts and people who have published new
Speaker:projects and, or have emerged on the scene since our last edition.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:How do you think the pandemic is going to change grief because Steve and
Speaker:I have talked about this a lot, you know, as I mentioned before, I'm Jewish
Speaker:and when somebody lose a loved one is called Sitting Shivah people come
Speaker:over and give you a great emotional, physical, spiritual, and practical help.
Speaker:They just take care of everything because obviously you're in such
Speaker:grief and now that's the antithesis of what you can do during the pandemic.
Speaker:So people that are losing loved ones, where you need support and love and hugs
Speaker:and people around you can't do it now.
Speaker:And it's been nine months already and who knows what the future is going to be.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I'm really interested in your insight on that, because this
Speaker:takes the whole dynamic of grief.
Speaker:It puts it into a different category that none of us have ever dealt with.
Speaker:The only time it's probably happened was the last pandemic 1918.
Speaker:Flu then, which is a century ago, none of us around then.
Speaker:So people on this earth haven't experienced that.
Speaker:So I'm really interested in your insight as to how the pandemic has changed grief.
Speaker:The effects are staggering, simply staggering.
Speaker:When you start to take it apart, let's start with the deaths that have occurred
Speaker:because of the pandemic, we're over 200,000 now .Let's say that around the
Speaker:person who died there, there's a family system and let's just take the number
Speaker:10, 10 people who were deeply, deeply impacted by the death of that person.
Speaker:We know the number is larger than that, but we'll talk about the deepest, most
Speaker:soul level grief is this group of 10 grievers around the person who just died
Speaker:because of COVID or COVID complications that's so you multiply 200,000 times
Speaker:10, and we have 2 million grievers that we didn't have this time last year.
Speaker:And that is going up daily hourly, and we don't know where it's going to stop.
Speaker:So it's impacting the number of people who are grieving.
Speaker:Another thing that's happening is the pandemic is amplifying grief.
Speaker:And here's what I mean by that.
Speaker:Grief is profound in and of itself.
Speaker:But if it happens on the top of the anxiety and the stress and the uncertainty
Speaker:that's as significant as was coming with the pandemic, then it complicates grief
Speaker:incredibly because you're already this big mix of emotions dealing with the pandemic,
Speaker:dealing with racial tension right now, dealing with the political environment.
Speaker:And then you add grief on top of that, that just complicates grief.
Speaker:So significantly, that is a real challenge for grief share
Speaker:groups or anybody grieving.
Speaker:And then Marshall, as you mentioned, the ability to say goodbye is changed
Speaker:so profoundly, because if you can go to a service, it's probably very
Speaker:small and very limited, and a lot of people are left out of a service.
Speaker:Maybe you can't even go to a service depending on the locality and depending
Speaker:on the circumstances, maybe you can't travel to a service, even if you were
Speaker:able to attend, maybe you were in a high risk category and your doctor has said,
Speaker:no, you should not be on an airplane in a hotel room, traveling any distance,
Speaker:your exposure, exposures to a grade.
Speaker:So how do you deal with grief on a foundation like that?
Speaker:And so that's the environment we're dealing with as it
Speaker:relates to grief right now.
Speaker:And it makes it so much more challenging.
Speaker:And that's why a support group is even more significant and more strategic in
Speaker:your life, in your planning as it relates to how am I going to deal with this?
Speaker:How am I going to get through this?
Speaker:Well, we can't all get together and hug and love each other as a family.
Speaker:So you've got to have another support system.
Speaker:You got to have another network and that's where a support
Speaker:group can help fill in the gap.
Speaker:Steve, you were talking about the numbers.
Speaker:I think we agree if we took.
Speaker:That's fear of 10 people that are affected by any one of those losses.
Speaker:That, that number is easy to come up with.
Speaker:What I noticed when it started in New York was people couldn't even go
Speaker:to the hospital for other illnesses.
Speaker:I'm not even sure we have a number on how many died because they
Speaker:didn't go to the hospital for other elements, uh, heart disease, diabetes.
Speaker:I mean, I'm not even sure what the real number is.
Speaker:No,didn't know Steve and then like, obviously it's larger than the 2 million
Speaker:that I mentioned, but I just, I wanted to try to come up with some way to
Speaker:illustrate the scope of the changed.
Speaker:It really is a paradigm shift.
Speaker:It is a monumental addition to the number of grievers in our culture, not just
Speaker:in our country, in the world culture.
Speaker:Because this pandemic is, is global and the effects are
Speaker:going to last for a long time.
Speaker:Mental health experts are very worried about our mental health,
Speaker:even if we're not grieving.
Speaker:And if you add grief on top of the mental health issues that are emerging,
Speaker:it's a scary mix of emotions and feelings and sense of loss, fear,
Speaker:anxiety, the list just keeps going and going up the trigger points there.
Speaker:It's interesting, you mentioned that I saw an article this week about
Speaker:this man that lost his brother and he said his brother died from COVID,
Speaker:but never contracted the virus.
Speaker:And what he was talking about is his brother died from a drug overdose.
Speaker:And he said that the stress, isolation, loneliness just compounded whatever
Speaker:issues he had from the COVID.
Speaker:Even though he didn't have the.
Speaker:COVID virus and he is convinced, but for the pandemic, his brother
Speaker:would, could still be alive.
Speaker:And from a grief standpoint, But the family is saying he did die
Speaker:from COVID because of the pandemic probably didn't come in the statistics
Speaker:because he didn't contract the virus.
Speaker:But from a grief standpoint, they're going through that.
Speaker:And I, I saw a study yesterday that just my jaw dropped.
Speaker:They had a study where they said, I think it was children 11 to 17
Speaker:during the pandemic, 50%, 5-0.
Speaker:had thought about suicide and I'm going, are you kidding me?
Speaker:These young children, that's one out of two.
Speaker:You know, you go out during the day, you're saying three or four kids.
Speaker:If you see four kids, two of them were thinking of suicide because
Speaker:of the pandemic and you talk about unforeseen circumstances that society's
Speaker:going to have to be dealing with.
Speaker:That can be generational because these are young people.
Speaker:You know, I don't want to say here, but we're all the three of us here.
Speaker:I think I'll just be generous.
Speaker:Run the back nine of the golf course of life.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:We can think we're young, but we're not in the front.
Speaker:And I were in the back nine, which is fine, but these young people they're just
Speaker:starting out and it, it just took me back.
Speaker:And so from the effect of grief on a global standpoint, I don't
Speaker:even know if he know what the future's going to hold with that.
Speaker:I don't think anybody knows.
Speaker:And I think we're seeing people who are trying to, um, their anxiety, their pain,
Speaker:so that obviously is very destructive behavior, which can lead to death or,
Speaker:or lead to a lifestyle that ultimately takes you to death can take you to
Speaker:suicide all of these sorts of things.
Speaker:And you're right.
Speaker:We won't know for years or decades what the real costs, what the real totals are.
Speaker:We just know, we know enough to know that right now with what we know it's profound.
Speaker:And we're going into a season, where are they, they are saying that they're likely,
Speaker:it's going to become much more profound.
Speaker:I have six grandchildren and you know, they're great kids, but I can
Speaker:see this getting into their psychic, you know, w what does this mean?
Speaker:How, what, what, what is their worldview?
Speaker:In a post COVID world.
Speaker:And when in the world will we have a post COVID world?
Speaker:I don't think anybody's saying it'll end before July of next year.
Speaker:So that's what, another nine months of it, at least.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and, you know, there are experts extended on out from that.
Speaker:And there are some who are saying that it will be like the flu.
Speaker:It will be with us for a long time.
Speaker:And our hope is that the treatments are such that it could be mitigated
Speaker:and in ways like the flu is, but I don't know, I'm not an expert.
Speaker:I see the media reports.
Speaker:I see the reality of today.
Speaker:What has already happened.
Speaker:This huge, huge body, um, of grievers that is out there who have been
Speaker:left behind in a very unnatural way.
Speaker:Nobody, nobody would have expected this.
Speaker:Uh, my mother-in-law is in a memory care unit in a nursing home.
Speaker:We had not seen her since mid-March until, uh, two weeks ago.
Speaker:And that's repeated over and over again.
Speaker:How can we respect our seniors when we can't see them when we can't touch them?
Speaker:When we can't hold them?
Speaker:When we can't walk with them at the end of their life,
Speaker:That is very true.
Speaker:My parents are, they're getting up there.
Speaker:They probably wouldn't like me to share their ages, but they're in New York
Speaker:and Shelley and I wanted to take a road trip up and we can't go into New York.
Speaker:We have to quarantine for 14 days before we even go see them.
Speaker:And when you're working, that's an improbability.
Speaker:Are you seeing this on a global basis?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Some countries are doing a little bit better managing COVID stats than us,
Speaker:but it literally is everywhere and yes, globally people are the same.
Speaker:We may have different cultural traditions.
Speaker:We may express our grief differently, but we all feel lost at a very deep soul
Speaker:level when we lose someone close to us.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:It's interesting, Steve and I talked in early January about doing this podcast.
Speaker:Steve was good enough to be a guest on the podcast I did last year about
Speaker:Matt and he was a great guest and he approached me in early January, went
Speaker:out to lunch about doing a podcast about grief or just sort of talking.
Speaker:And during that time, the great basketball player, Kobe Bryant died, Kobe died
Speaker:in the helicopter crashed, and I was a big Kobe fan phenomenal player.
Speaker:And I was talking to Steve how something like that affected people because I
Speaker:hear people on TV or talking, saying, I've never seen this before a young
Speaker:man dying in the prime of his life.
Speaker:I told Steve, I say, we've seen it before Steve lost his son, Jordan.
Speaker:I lost my son, Matt.
Speaker:And we know this happens every single day.
Speaker:Every minute of the day, somewhere in the world.
Speaker:And I was telling Steve then before the pandemic hit, I said, maybe this
Speaker:would be Kobe's greatest gift to have the world look at grief differently
Speaker:instead of it's somebody else's problem.
Speaker:It's something I don't want to deal with.
Speaker:You know, I've said before, like sometimes people are afraid it's contagious.
Speaker:Which obviously is not contagious.
Speaker:My kid, I said it is contagious because we're all going to get there.
Speaker:And then when the pandemic hit, I really expanded on that.
Speaker:And it was talking to Steve about it saying now the whole world is going to be
Speaker:dealing with what we've been dealing with because you've got a worldwide pandemic.
Speaker:I know a few people that have died already from the COVID-19 virus and
Speaker:some are young people and it's just a situation where hopefully the world
Speaker:will learn to deal with grief in a better way in the sense that, um, I
Speaker:know when Matt died, you know, I'm a lawyer and I got a lot of social things.
Speaker:If I was a social function, I was almost seen as like the suicide
Speaker:guy that if somebody had a question about suicide, Oh, you go and ask
Speaker:Marshall, let's talk it out by suicide.
Speaker:He know all about it.
Speaker:He's a smart guy, which I was glad to help people with that.
Speaker:But there was no magic bullet.
Speaker:I didn't have the secret sauce saying, Oh, if you do this, this and this
Speaker:there's no people were concerned about their loved ones or whatever.
Speaker:And I would tell them, you know, if I could have prevented this, I
Speaker:would have, I didn't because I can't.
Speaker:And I think with grief with the pandemic, now you just realize, hopefully the
Speaker:people that you love that you lose.
Speaker:It's how they lived, that, how they died, that counts.
Speaker:And the world now I think you see all these tributes on the news about
Speaker:people who lost loved ones and they don't talk about the horrible death.
Speaker:They haven't coronavirus.
Speaker:They say, you know, they do these wonderful things.
Speaker:They were wonderful people.
Speaker:They were wonderful family members.
Speaker:And so I'm looking at this saying, hopefully the world will look at grief
Speaker:differently and I mean this in a positive way where it is contagious, I guess,
Speaker:because we're all going to be subject to grief, but don't be afraid of it.
Speaker:You're going to be living on this planet.
Speaker:You're going to be dealing with grief.
Speaker:You were , well said, and I think the important thing Marshall is
Speaker:that not skip the step of grief.
Speaker:In looking at the accomplishments of the person's life and
Speaker:celebrating person's life test.
Speaker:That's part of looking back, looking at the totality of the situation, but you've
Speaker:got to start by saying this hurts deeply.
Speaker:This hurts in my soul and I can't deal with it myself.
Speaker:I've got to get help.
Speaker:If you try to only look on the positive side, want to fine person
Speaker:this was, what a wonderful wife this was, not to diminish those things
Speaker:in any way, but that becomes your grieving then is very superficial.
Speaker:And you'll never deal with the pain in your soul.
Speaker:So, uh, you got to start by acknowledging I'm hurting, i'm hurting deeply.
Speaker:I'm hurting beyond my ability to deal with it.
Speaker:I need help.
Speaker:That's a great point because I remember how much it scared me when I realized
Speaker:I couldn't deal with this on my own.
Speaker:We tried counseling.
Speaker:We went through 15 weeks of counseling together, Shelly and I,
Speaker:and we both that, that night home, we said, we're not getting better.
Speaker:We need help, or we're not going to make it.
Speaker:I remember feeling, and that's a horrible feeling to be at when you
Speaker:admit to yourself, I need help.
Speaker:I can't make it without.
Speaker:But it's also a breakthrough, Steve.
Speaker:Yes, yes
Speaker:It is that pivot point at which the healing can begin.
Speaker:If I have a serious illness, if I can't make the decision to go to the doctor,
Speaker:then I may not have that illness.
Speaker:I can't push grief down and not let it out.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:And I've said this story before my parents lost two children and my
Speaker:mother after they were both very young and I didn't know either one
Speaker:of them, but my mother, my father grieved them their whole entire life.
Speaker:And my mother asked my grandfather, my father's father.
Speaker:So her father-in-law.
Speaker:Why did this happen, where they lost two children?
Speaker:And my grandfather told her something that still resonates with me, and I
Speaker:really understand it much better after Matt passed and what he said, it sounded
Speaker:sort of harsh, but it really helped.
Speaker:My mother has helped me.
Speaker:And what he said was losing two children is a tragedy.
Speaker:There's no two ways about it.
Speaker:It's your tragedy.
Speaker:But if it happened to the next door neighbor, it wasn't your tragedy.
Speaker:It'd be no less a tragedy.
Speaker:It just wouldn't be yours.
Speaker:You wouldn't have the same feeling, same hurt.
Speaker:And now that you're going through this, it's a lesson for all of us
Speaker:to realize you see somebody down the street, you don't know if it's their
Speaker:tragedy, if it's happened to them.
Speaker:And just try to have some kindness and understanding that unfortunately
Speaker:you have now that you didn't have before, and his whole point was try
Speaker:to be the best person you can, as a tribute to your lost, loved ones.
Speaker:And Lord knows everything you've done through Grief Share is absolutely
Speaker:attributed to your lost, loved ones.
Speaker:And I think Steven Shelley has done the same thing and myself, my wife and my son
Speaker:are trying to do that with Matt because Matt was just an incredible human being.
Speaker:And the way I look at it is.
Speaker:He's not here now.
Speaker:And I got to pick up the mantle that he can't do any, that he can't
Speaker:carry anymore and I got to do the work here for as long as I'm here.
Speaker:And I think what you've done is amazing effecting so many people and
Speaker:it just sort of goes back to why.
Speaker:I think back to Mark, my grandfather told my mother over 60 years ago, and it's
Speaker:just amazing how these things just sort of popped up because hearing you talk
Speaker:like that, it just popped up that thought about my grandfather and my mother that,
Speaker:and I remember that story and I really didn't understand it until Matt's passing
Speaker:Well, and, and you have been used powerfully with this podcast and the
Speaker:other things you're doing to help people.
Speaker:You have taken that thing and channeled it into a very constructive path as well.
Speaker:Marshall and you should be encouraged by that.
Speaker:Well, you're a great role model.
Speaker:I'll tell you that because you've but it's ironic, but for you, we
Speaker:wouldn't be doing this, but for you, Steve wouldn't have done Grief Share.
Speaker:I wouldn't have met Steve, you know, again, unintended consequences
Speaker:sometimes are really, really good, sometimes really, really bad.
Speaker:This is really, really good.
Speaker:How many people you've affected you even know about?
Speaker:And I think at the end of the day, that's the greatest gift that our lost loved
Speaker:ones can, can give to, to us and to humanity because it does feel good and
Speaker:you're honoring them and you're doing a tribute to them because you know,
Speaker:they'd want to do that if they were here.
Speaker:I just smile when I hear you say that because you're articulating scripture,
Speaker:you're, you're articulating that well-known scripture, all things,
Speaker:all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord.
Speaker:And so, uh, we can see how God can take our pain and turn it
Speaker:into something that can be good.
Speaker:Doesn't mean the loss, the grief, the suicide was good, but how he can use the
Speaker:aftermath of that is truly remarkable.
Speaker:That's Interesting.
Speaker:You know, we're coming up on a season.
Speaker:I think you would be important to prepare people for Thanksgiving
Speaker:isn't that far away and right.
Speaker:Maybe it is Christmas and there's a phenomenon that's almost universal
Speaker:in grief called ambushed by greed.
Speaker:And it's these trigger points.
Speaker:It's if you've been married for 50 years, and you had a favorite little diner
Speaker:and you went out for Saturday brunch every Saturday, and you happened to
Speaker:drive by that diner while it might be five years, it might be 10 years later.
Speaker:But that scene, that event, that moment can trigger a deep wave of grief.
Speaker:Now, there are a lot of triggers like that, that are going to be concentrated;
Speaker:Thanksgiving through Christmas because every family has these traditions.
Speaker:They have
Speaker:these things that they do that are unique to their family related to
Speaker:Thanksgiving, Christmas, all of the holidays that are woven into that season.
Speaker:And so I just want everybody listening to be aware that those events are
Speaker:probably going to trigger waves of grief in you, and you may not see it
Speaker:coming the smell of a fresh Christmas tree, uh, the carving of a Turkey.
Speaker:Maybe it was your husband who carved the Turkey every year.
Speaker:He's gone and now it's your son in law who's doing it.
Speaker:What a great loss that is to some people and not, not the fact that the curve, the
Speaker:Turkey is being carved by somebody else.
Speaker:But the symbolism behind that right now has been just gone.
Speaker:My friend is gone, my wife is gone, my relative is gone, my
Speaker:son or daughter is gone.
Speaker:And so we actually have a separate program called Surviving the Holidays,
Speaker:which people are encouraged to attend.
Speaker:It's unlike our Grief Share program, it's a standalone event.
Speaker:It's a single session and everybody can come whether or not you
Speaker:participate and share or not.
Speaker:And you can learn about what to anticipate with holiday grief, how to
Speaker:deal with it, how to survive with it.
Speaker:And how do I even look at the holidays with a little bit of hope?
Speaker:So, uh, keep an eye out for that, uh, that program as well as Grief Share.
Speaker:We certainly will.
Speaker:We look forward to every year, so Steve we want to thank you for coming on
Speaker:today and sharing everything with us.
Speaker:You have no idea how many people you have inspired and how much
Speaker:they have used that to help others.
Speaker:And for that, we would like to say, thank you.
Speaker:Absolutely, you've affected our lives and again, I think it's a testament
Speaker:to you and your lost loved ones that you've taken the pain of loss and made
Speaker:it such a positive force in the world.
Speaker:And you know, I'll say this, you know, I've talked many times that when the
Speaker:anniversary of Matt's passing, we went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and
Speaker:put prayer notes for my mother and my father, my son, and my best friend, Ted
Speaker:from Buffalo that passed a few weeks after my mother and Ted passed and
Speaker:just standing there where you know for thousands of years, people have been
Speaker:standing on the same site, dealing with grieves called the Wailing Wall for a
Speaker:reason because people go there to grieve and I just realized we're all here for
Speaker:such a short period of time, whether it's my mother that lives in 91, my father
Speaker:lives in 93, or Matt that lived at 32.
Speaker:And it's what you do with that time is what counts.
Speaker:Some people could live a hundred years and not do what Matt did in 32.
Speaker:What Jordan did in 11 or what your daughter did in 27.
Speaker:And I think they ask what.
Speaker:We have to be thankful for, and then take that as our gift that they gave
Speaker:to us, that we got to give to others.
Speaker:And you've absolutely done that.
Speaker:And I can't thank you enough for doing it.
Speaker:Would it be all right if I invited everybody listening to attend a group?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely
Speaker:We would love to have you, if you are grieving.
Speaker:And by the way, the grief may be very old.
Speaker:We've had people with an event 20 years ago, a loss 20 years ago or 30 years ago
Speaker:that they've just never worked through and they felt it hanging over their audience
Speaker:of their life, or it could be very recent and it's really easy to find a group.
Speaker:GriefShare.org, griefshare.org and right there on the front page,
Speaker:you can enter your zip code or your postal code or your city and state
Speaker:and search for groups near you.
Speaker:And then you can make a decision.
Speaker:Well, do I want to attend a physical group?
Speaker:Do I want to attend a virtual group and join online either is a possibility,
Speaker:but we would really like to invite.
Speaker:And, uh, have anybody who feels they would be helped by a group to join us.
Speaker:Wonderful, highly recommended.
Speaker:I absolutely recommended it.
Speaker:We had Shelly on before we started recording and she said, Grief
Speaker:Share the reason we're still here.
Speaker:And for that, we'd like to say thank you.
Speaker:Well, the two of you are a great inspiration.
Speaker:Obviously you have taken your grief now you are helping others.
Speaker:And I want to thank you for that.
Speaker:Well, thank you for all you've done.
Speaker:Yes, thank you and we'd like to thank all our listeners for listening in on
Speaker:today's session of Hope Thru Grief.
Speaker:If you'd like to check out Grief Share, Steve had mentioned the
Speaker:website it's griefshare.org, and you can find a location near you.
Speaker:Thank you for joining.
Speaker:Thank you everybody.
Speaker:Have a good...thank you.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you for joining us on hope through brief with your cohost
Speaker:Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.
Speaker:We hope our episode today was helpful and informative.
Speaker:Since we are not medical or mental health professionals.
Speaker:We cannot and will not provide any medical, psychological,
Speaker:or mental health advice.
Speaker:Therefore, if you or anyone, you know, requires medical or mental health
Speaker:treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional, immediately
