NATALIE: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Motivation N'at. I'm Natalie, I'm your host, and I get to have two guests on today — a first for the pod — but it's necessary because of the topic we are jumping into, and I couldn't ask for better people for social media to connect together to make this session possible.

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And it's going to be a heavier conversation for some. For others, it's probably going to feel like relief. For others, this is just an educational moment to really learn and hear and explore a topic. And that topic is grief.

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It is one that is near and dear to my heart, one that I'm still navigating through even after 20 plus years from my first major loss. And I'm really glad to have a safe space with two individuals that are doing this conversation regularly. And that's Jessica and Elizabeth, who make up The Grieving Sisters and their podcast, which focuses on all of the components of grief.

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And when I say all, there's like a list — because I pulled the description up and I was like, I hadn't even thought about those pieces. Going through both of you have had loss of siblings. We'll talk about that in a second. But exploring grief, including spiritual aspects, cultural aspects, legal aspects associated — and aiming to provide a compassionate connection and healing space. And it is beautiful. I couldn't think of another way to kind of summarize all of the icky and pretty and yet like weird components of what that journey is like.

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So without further ado, Jessica, Elizabeth, thank you for making some time to sit here today to talk about grief and all of its complexities. I'd love to hear a little bit from you both on kind of how you landed here, why this is passionate, and how The Grieving Sisters podcast even came to be in the first place. Jessica, can we start with you?

 

JESSICA: So with Liz and I, we were childhood friends since the fifth grade. And our siblings knew each other. We always played with each other. You know, we went out, we always had pizza, we went to Sam's and got candy — and we always stayed in touch, Liz and I, either via social media. I'm always grateful for social media, right? That's like one of the positive aspects.

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But I had lost my brother tragically seven years ago, and it was on my dad's birthday. So we were just celebrating my dad's birthday and then he passes. Then my dad passed in 2024, two days before Liz's sister passed. So I'm sitting here trying to get all this stuff together for my dad. I'm in between clients and I open it up and it said like, rest in peace, Natalie. And I'm like... and it wasn't Elizabeth posting it. So I was like, nah, I don't know what they're talking about. I'm going to ignore this. And I mean, Liz, then you can jump in on that.

 

ELIZABETH: Yeah, so like Jess said, we have been friends since we were maybe eight or nine years old. And our siblings were a big, big part of our lives even into adulthood.

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Jessica had the loss of her brother tragically — one minute to the next — and then her father passed away two days before my sister. And we ended up connecting on that. Me and Jess are both the people who are planning everything: the funeral, all of it, everything that has to do with our loved ones. And we connected on that.

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Then soon after, Jess was like, I have an idea. I'm not sure if it's too soon — you've only been grieving for like four months — but I have this idea for a podcast. Like, I don't know if you found any big support when it comes to siblings, but I didn't see that. And I see the same thing. I'm like, I don't see that space. I see that there's a lot of spaces for parents who are grieving, for people who lost someone to cancer, or people who have lost children or miscarriages or things like that. But the sibling space is a little bit more complex because a lot of siblings are close, or aren't close, or are estranged.

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And so many times sibling grief is the one death in your life where people say, "Were you close?" — because they kind of want to gauge how much empathy they should have for you.

Jess really came up with this podcast, and I was on TikTok sharing my grief journey because I had connected with a couple of other people who had lost siblings, just trying to find a space for support. And this just grew into this really beautiful community of honesty — a safe space. We just wanted to create a safe space for other people who were dealing with all sorts of grief.

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Because you know, Jess has dealt with a loss of a parent, a loss of a sibling. I've dealt with loss of a sibling. My engagement ended three days after my sister was in the ground. So there was grief of a relationship. I had lost my job soon after that. We had so many aspects of grief that came up that we said, you know, we really want to be a podcast that can be a safe space for siblings — but also this is how you have to deal with grief in a healthy way. And you can use these tools in any part of your life. Because we always say, if you're not grieving somebody, it's just not your time yet. It's going to happen.

 

JESSICA: Right. And you're always going to grieve something. The loss of a job. You're grieving a loss of a friend. We even have that topic — we haven't even jumped into that yet. Like we have still an abundance of topics to talk about. And you know, you're always going to grieve something. But it's always going to go back to the one that impacted you the most.

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Obviously for Liz and I, it'll be our siblings. And I always feel like — even for you, like your dad and other things that you've shared with us — it's still a reminder that you can still find the joy in grief.

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NATALIE: And as you guys have had these conversations — obviously with each other, you have this linkage of you both lost siblings, you both lost them suddenly — you talk to such a variety of people who have gone through all different kinds of losses. And I think in a world where we may be trying to very much hold on to our journey or understand what our loss has been, what are some of the themes that you have seen in everyone as they're going through this process?

We all know the stages of grief, but in a sense of — I've been through that too, or I felt that too — even though my situation was much different or doesn't fall into the same category as yours. I'm sure you've seen a few of those.

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ELIZABETH: I think for me, I've understood that anger was a very big part of loss. But at times for myself, it was hard for me to name it. I kept saying like, I'm overwhelmed, or I can't focus, and I'm frustrated. But what I did realize is I have been very, very angry. I went from shock to anger — with like this sadness underneath.

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Two guests in particular come to mind for me. One who was dealing with the loss of her husband to suicide, and then recently we had Bro Revement — which is two men — one dealing with the loss of a spouse, but the other one, Q, he was dealing with the loss of his son who was 20 years old and died due to COVID.

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JESSICA: Rashmani. Rashmani, yeah.

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ELIZABETH: And he just has all this pent-up anger. And it's interesting because when you meet him, he is a great personality. He's a laughable guy. But when he was like, I've been really angry — I've been telling people off, I'm like sending everybody to hell for the past year — it's like, that's kind of what I did realize. A lot of people are very angry, but they're not going to show it. You can see that a person is carrying anger from their grief, but most of the time you're not going to see it.

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So I think it's really taught me to have a bit of empathy. Don't always expect sadness from somebody who's grieving. They might seem perfectly fine — and then go into these pits of anger. I'm working on that, and it's kind of teaching me also to have empathy for others.

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JESSICA: Yeah. I feel with me, with some of the guests — Liz and I are in two different stages of grief. Like, I've been through the anger part. I've been through the whole thing. And just finding the purpose in the pain.

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I think there's been so many people who we have connected with, and some of the stuff that we also research is where they are with their awareness and where they are in their awakening. So for me, it was an awakening. And I had to figure that out, whether it was spiritually — why did this happen? So it was anger, but it was switching over to curiosity. And it was switching over to, well, I want to know more. I'm going to go dig more. Who is God? Who did this to my brother? Why would you want to do that? What are you trying to show me? What lesson am I trying to learn? So just being in that reflective state.

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And I think Rashmani — she was one that was just very reflective, and her writing is just out of control. She's an excellent writer. She knows how to convey her emotions and she does it very well with her children too.

We had a medium on there — Liz, that's not a part of her faith — and she was like, you know what, I know it's a part of what people look for in answers. And I was like okay. I told Michelle, I'm like, hey girl, Liz is not open to this. She goes, and that's the issue — when they say that they're not open to it, that's when they start knocking.

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So after her mom passed, she started to get more into her purpose and using her gifts to help people. And I was like, okay, I can definitely understand that — like now you want to take this and help other people. And this is one of the reasons why The Grieving Sisters was born.

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NATALIE: And I love the component about anger because it's one that — and I'll get the number right — 23 years, it was 23 years in February — that's the one piece I couldn't fully put away. And it was like, I didn't want to be angry, but it was the protection element that kind of sat there. Which is, I'm never going to get the answers. And because I can't get the answers, I'll just continue to hold this little nugget of anger that sits at the heart of things.

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And for listeners, I don't even know if I fully shared with them my losses — which was my dad. And on the same day that my dad died after a cancer battle, I miscarried a pregnancy that had resulted from a sexual assault. And I was 18, I had just turned 18. So I had a very planned loss in a way — he hung on longer than I think anyone honestly expected. And then I had this thing that I hadn't talked to anyone about.

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And I didn't want it. It was like a relief moment. I always joke my dad somehow knew at the end, and he took that — that was his last gift, to take that from me.

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But when I was going through that and people would say, "How are you?" — I was like, I don't even know how to answer that question. Because I can talk about one of my losses, but I can't talk about the other one.

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And I know folks that have gone through more complicated loss situations — situations people don't always understand. Suicide falls into that bucket, drug overdoses — they're looked at historically with stigma, get different responses around grief. And that, I think, creates a little bit of the — do we identify with each other? And should we identify with each other when we're talking about one loss versus another? Or do we get into the grief Olympics?

JESSICA: I think it's very easy to do that too. It's like, well, I lost my brother. Well, I lost my father. I lost my dog. Don't do that. Not the dog. Come on. You know? I get it, it's your child too, but come on. Not to a human life right now at this point.

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NATALIE: Well, and I think part of holding space — even when you're the one experiencing grief too. So as you two went through something very much in the same timeframe of each other, how did you each navigate having space for allowing the grief from one of you to the other? And it not becoming just a trade-off of, I'll give my part and you give your part — or was there really a moment of just, I'm going to receive, and at some point it'll be my turn to exude and you'll receive for me?

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ELIZABETH: I think for me, Jessica provided a lot of guidance in the grief walk. Because I would feel like I was going crazy at times, and she would let me know that it was normal.

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We always coined this term of a grief tunnel. It's like in that first few instances — first couple weeks or months of you dealing with a loss — you are totally in this tunnel where time doesn't make sense and you're trying... the whole world keeps moving, but you feel like — my God. I remember going to the gym for the first time and everything was just so much the same. And for me it was like, my life is completely wrecked. My parents are inconsolable. I've lost my only sibling. It was tragic, it was violent. I went to the crash site. She lost her husband in the wreck. It was these two families just trying to grasp at — managing this entire thing. They were both in the Navy for many years, and the Navy wanted to celebrate them, and it was all between all of these people wanting to celebrate their life but also us falling apart at the same time.

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I would just feel like I was going crazy at certain times, and Jess was just like, yeah, you're in this grief tunnel. Eventually you're gonna find your way out, and it's not gonna get easier, but it will get a little better to navigate.

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So I think for us it was like — also, I don't think I recognized her loss as a friend in the way that I should have. Because you really don't know what it's like until it happens, especially when it comes to your younger siblings. Because you plan for your grandmother. You don't really plan for your parents — but you know eventually they're meant to go before you. Your grandparents are to go before you. All of these aunts and uncles and older people in your family — you understand death in the sense that you know it'll probably come sooner for them.

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You never, ever, ever imagine that your younger sibling who's just starting their life out is tragically going to lose their life in an accident. Or even for Jess — her brother choked to death at work. It was the most freak accident. You can't wrap your head around these things.

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But I think us having the support system of being like, I get it — I would have some days where I'm just like, I can't stop crying. And I would always — she's very busy, she has a toddler, she's an entrepreneur, she has her own career — and I always try to remind her on those tough days, like hold space for yourself. Be easy on yourself. It can get very easy when you have kids — cause we're both moms — to sort of wrap ourselves in our parental duty and not really make space for ourselves.

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I have two teens. They're not typically as needy as toddlers, but there's other things. I always say, small kids little problems, big kids big problems. There's always these sorts of things we're trying to figure out and navigate.

But I think we do a good job of reminding each other — be easy with yourself, be soft with yourself. When the kids go to bed, do something you want to do. And lately I've been trying to talk to her about more things that are not pod-related, just to have that break. Like, we have our mission, but we're also human and moms and grieving people.

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NATALIE: So one of the things we were chatting about is the component of life having to go on. You both talked about having to plan the funerals and the memorials. I'm interested in your insights on — does society give us space to truly grieve, even if there are things you can't really avoid in some instances?

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JESSICA: Absolutely not. I mean, for me it was the workplace. My brother passed, and I only used four days out of the five days of bereavement because there was just so much work that I had to do. And there was some politics happening, and I was just like, I'm not in the headspace to talk to people. Be lucky I'm even showing up to work at this point.

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And it's like they just wanted me to get back to it immediately. I've discussed this with Liz — there were some friends that expected me to be the life of the party. They were really holding on to the old me. And I shared this a couple of times in a few episodes — she said to me six months into my grieving, listen, death is the inevitable. Essentially, like, get over it. And she was my best friend. But when someone says that to you — it's like, you have no idea. And eventually you will have an idea, because you have a sibling, you have parents. The day's gonna come. But don't come over here with that.

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But yeah, no — society doesn't care. They just want you to go back to normal.

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ELIZABETH: Not only that, but me and Jess have talked about how if you look at your company's bereavement policy, the chances are they give you more time for jury duty than they do for bereavement. It's typically a work week for jury duty — five to seven days — and bereavement is typically four days.

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And in my case, I lost my sister and my brother-in-law at the same time. So it was two memorials, two funerals. Not only that, but their bodies were in North Carolina. We're all from Jersey. So it was like we had to do the transport, and that's not consecutive days — it's a couple days here, a couple days there, a couple days after. I mean, it was a total — when my sister had passed, I didn't bury her for three weeks.

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They give you some time off, but I can't lump grieving and the logistics together into four days. It's going to be spread over a month, if not longer. We have an episode on grief in the workplace, and I wish I could have printed it and sent it out to the entire company. Because it's true — people just don't get it.

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JESSICA: No, you're in survival at this point. Go, go.

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NATALIE: Well, and even the rules on who you're allowed to use that bereavement for. So often — when my stepdad died, my mom had not married him. And so I'm trying to explain what this loss is. I questioned, am I allowed to use bereavement time for this? I was like, I don't have anything that shows we're actually related or even through marriage. We shouldn't be in a world where if you've gone through a loss and you said I've lost someone — I need time and space.

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JESSICA: Yes. I need some time. Yeah.

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ELIZABETH: Also accommodating work from home. So many companies have made it seem like it's not viable — and COVID proved that it was. If I can get my work done — yes, maybe it's really hard for me to get up and brush my teeth and get dressed and look work-appropriate — but if you can just allow me to open a laptop and work from home for a week, just so that if I need to cry in the middle of the day, I can.

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Sometimes it'll hit you in the middle of the day. So many times me and my mom have been working and we'll get a call from the attorney or from the car insurance agency or whatever is related to the vehicular death. You're not prepared to take that phone call. But if I'm home, I can have that phone call in peace, and if I get emotional, I get emotional, and I can come back to the laptop.

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I really do feel like all companies should have a bereavement policy where they give an adequate amount of days and an adequate amount of work-from-home accommodation. Because by the time I get ready, get in the car, drive to work — I see a hundred trucks on my way to work, which is how my sister passed, being hit by a truck — and then I'm expected to just be in sales. In what world?

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This is what my therapist said. She was like, you need to find a job where you're not doing this sort of driving. You're not on the highway, because you're traumatizing yourself on the way to work.

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JESSICA: Impossible.

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NATALIE: Well, that — and like you said, it hits you out of nowhere. It could be you're halfway through your day and something comes up. Songs, anything like that, you know, and it's just like — nope, I'm done for today. And right now it's like, well, do you foot that in sick leave? Do you take personal time? How do you even navigate being able to step away for your own sake — to be a better person in the long run by giving yourself the grace and the space to just feel what that is at that time.

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JESSICA: Yeah. And I also think — if you want a worker, if you want a worker bee — do you want them at 110%? Because you want them performing, right?

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ELIZABETH: Yeah, from a productivity standpoint, this person is not going to do good quality work if they're being forced to be here. And honestly, if companies implemented these kinds of policies, how often are people even going to use them? These kinds of deaths don't happen every five minutes.

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I have a friend whose both parents got cancer at the same time — her mom got a breast cancer diagnosis, her dad got a throat cancer diagnosis — and she's trying to be there for both parents, and her job was not understanding. And it was like, I'm sorry that you have to accommodate me, but the odds of this happening with another colleague are slim to none.

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It's like maternity leave policies. Not everybody takes them. Not everybody has kids. But the policies exist so that if the worst happens, or things need to happen — this is life. You're not working with robots. You're working with actual people.

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NATALIE: So we were talking about the role of society not really giving us space. We're getting into then holidays. And Liz, for you, it's really new, right? So you're going through your first round — first Christmas, first birthdays, first New Year's, all of those pieces. What's it been like?

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ELIZABETH: It really is. And I think what we've tried to do is — there are certain holidays we're just like, we don't want to participate in. So for us, because it's so fresh, Thanksgiving doesn't work. We just kind of don't make it a really big holiday.

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But for Christmas, it's a huge holiday for us, especially Christmas Eve. So what we've done this first year — and we have a whole episode on grief and the holidays — is we implemented something. I typically host, and I told everyone to bring an ornament that reminds them of those that we lost.

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So instead of going through a holiday pretending that this person doesn't exist, or finding a moment where you're getting really upset because you're like, I just wish this person was here — it's like, hey, before we open any of our gifts or before we eat, some portion of the night we'll say, let's all open the ornaments and put them on the tree. And it becomes sort of like a decorating moment.

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And I said, don't say what ornament you got or why you got it. Because something that was special between me and my sister could be very special between my aunt and my sister, you know? So that's just a really good thing to implement.

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And then there are holidays like New Year's Eve where she was the life of the party, and without her it's just not the same. So we're not going to pretend that it's the same. It's kind of knowing your capacity, and then when you do have capacity for it, trying to make the moment special.

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NATALIE: And this was a little later in our conversation, but it fits perfectly here. Collateral Beauty — with Will Smith — has been one of the movies that I cry ugly, ugly tears every time I see it. But that component of there can still be beauty. It's not always these deep moments of being in quicksand. You see the butterfly and you're like, oh, that reminds me.

I remember one of the episodes you guys talked about the power of numbers, and that hit me because my dad was born on 9/11. He died on 2/11. And I'm like, 11s are always everywhere. There's moments of that. And sometimes I've battled with a little bit of shame and guilt about it, like, I shouldn't find comfort in this.

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JESSICA: We love it. Give it to me every time.

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ELIZABETH: We love dark humor. We love that.

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NATALIE: So — what is it? Have you used some of those coping mechanisms along the way and felt good with it, without having to explain? I always crack a joke sometimes about someone with cancer and I'm like, no, I lived with it for three years. I sat there and watched it. It does depend on the audience. But how do you uncover those moments where it's okay to support each other in — we're not gonna be sad right now? Like, hey, you're not sad, I don't need to be sad. We don't have to have someone sad in the room during this component. Have you found instances where that provides some relief, some coping along the way?

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ELIZABETH: I think keeping the jokes that you had with the person who passed — that's a really important thing. Both of our younger siblings were like —

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JESSICA: They were clowns. Yeah.

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ELIZABETH: Goofballs. They were so silly. They just were really funny. So I think keeping those inside jokes, or sharing stupid things they did, or funny things they did — I feel like for me, my sister's friends are becoming more and more comfortable sharing funny moments. And I'm always like, oh my God, thank you for telling me this.

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When you know somebody who's grieving and you have a funny moment with that person — don't be afraid to talk about it. Definitely be like, oh my God, one time this happened. Because stories you didn't know — a funny mug they used to use that you didn't know about — I went and I found a mug from my sister's cabinet when I was cleaning out her house. And it was like, "Are you a scientist?" — and it was a checklist, and it said yes, no, and then the last one was "bitch, I might be." And I found it so funny because she was a doctor.

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I ended up posting a picture of it, and one of her colleagues was like, she used this mug every day at work. She had it during clinic. It always made us laugh. I didn't even think she used it — it was in the back of her cabinet — but I guess it was a mug she used every day.

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And I'm like, thank you so much. I always wonder if I should post certain things about her. And then when these stories come up or these little funny instances, I'm like, I'm so glad you guys are telling me this. Because it doesn't have to always be, let's cry over these people. Let's celebrate who they were at their core.

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NATALIE: Well, friends, you may have noticed there was a lot of goofiness with the little tech pieces on that initial conversation with The Grieving Sisters. Just wanted to let you know — they're coming back. We're not done with this discussion just yet.

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So if anything resonated with you today — up through when we were starting to talk about dark humor and how we grasp those stories that others can tell us about the person we've lost, but we may not have gotten to experience that side of them — well, you'll want to stick around. We've still got a couple more things to chat about. Jessica and Liz will be back and we will wrap that discussion up.

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But in the interim, they've got so much on their page and on their pod. So if you're looking for a specific discussion point or component of grief to dive into, go check them out. All of their info is down in the show notes.

And there's nothing wrong with struggling with loss, by the way. We're going through it. We're all in different stages. We may be all grieving different things — but nonetheless, do remember you're not alone.

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I hope you'll come back not only for the next part of this discussion, but for other episodes to come. That's the point of Motivation N'at — taking all of these different, maybe feeling disconnected hot messes and understanding the high potential that they have in our lives, and honestly in the lives of everyone around us.

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Thanks again. Can't wait to chat soon.