Transformed by the waves of grief - One widow's story of hope

Well, hey everybody, and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. Losing a loved one suddenly can be such a traumatic experience. In an instant, our lives are changed forever and we find ourselves forced to navigate a new reality without our loved ones in it. And sudden loss the type of loss I experience when my son, Sean passed away feels like a sucker punch. When you get that phone call or hear those sirens or walk into a bedroom, the wind gets knocked out of you and you realize that nothing in your life will ever be the same. Well, my guest today knows exactly what sudden loss feels like. She was going about her daily routine when she learned there was a fatal shark attack at the very time and place her husband and his friends were planning to surf that day. She read about the incident on her social media feed and then came the call that confirmed her worst fear. That afternoon in 2020 changed her for sure. She was, of course, devastated and shocked, and she had to face a new world without her husband and best friend. But she also realized some things about loss that she wanted to change. She saw opportunities in her grief that she decided she wanted to do something about. She's not only an incredibly strong and resilient woman, but today she's also the founder of Through it All, a newly established non-profit foundation dedicated to helping those in grief and equipping churches and individuals with the tools to compassionately walk alongside people after the loss of a loved one. Her name is Katie Kelly, and it's my honor to have her as my guest on the show today. Welcome to Qualified Katie.

Thank you, thanks so much for having me of course.

Katie, let's talk about Ben to get started. Tell us about the man he was, what he liked to do and what was important to him.

Ben was a super special one, very entrepreneurial. He always, every day, he'd be like, oh, we could make a business out of that. He just loved business. He had his own company Shaping Surforts and he started at a young age. Shaping boards were himself and he taught himself through YouTube and then, from that, started shaping for his friends and it grew and grew and then it became an actual custom surfboard brand. Ben was an adventurer. He loved the outdoors. He liked surfing, obviously, but loved backpacking. And, most of all, ben loved Jesus. So that was his faith was the most important and he had a way of meeting people where they were at and loving people where they were at, and I really always admired that about him. We started dating in college. I got married after college and we were living in Santa Cruz, california. It was just a really special time. We were best friends and it was kind of us against the world. We moved up to Santa Cruz knowing no one and we kind of started our marriage as completely like building community, not having jobs, finding jobs, and it just really cemented us together as this little family unit that we had. And, yeah, ben loved well and he always made sure I knew that and made sure everyone else knew how much he loved me. I'm really grateful for that.

So nice. Thank you for giving us that little glimpse into what he was like. It sounds like he was a wonderful husband to you and a man of faith, and then he made you very happy. Super special sounds about right. Thank you, katie. Well, I know how much the two of you love being together, so if you will tell us about those very memorable weeks that led up to May 9th 2020. And then what happened on that day?

Yeah, the weeks leading up to Ben's passing on May 9th. I look back and obviously we had no idea, but I am so grateful for those last few months that we had together. Started out as we ended up, we had a trip already planned and we went to go to Hawaii and we were there for 16 days and Ben, on his bucket list, had always wanted to surf the North Shore and so we crossed that off his bucket list. We got to enjoy Hawaii with the two of us and then, with some friends, joined us, have with you our trip. And then we came back and we ended up road tripping up and down the California coast and Oregon coast and had seen both of our families within the last two weeks. And that last week of Ben's life we were coming back down to Santa Cruz and Ben declared it a mandatory holiday for his work and decided not to work because of 80 degrees in Santa Cruz, and that rarely happened. He wanted to take me on an adventure every single day, so we went paddle boarding, we went on long walks, we went surfing on hikes and actually the day before he passed we like decided this is our favorite hike and we found our new favorite hike and we were able to just enjoy the last few moments we had together, those last week. We really enjoyed the time we spent and having no idea, and I'm really grateful for those last last, the last good and happy memories with Ben. So then main night it was just a normal day. Ben had already planned to go surfing with a couple of his friends who he hadn't seen in a while and he was really excited to go surfing. It was literally just like any normal day. He left I wasn't really checking the time because he hadn't seen his friends in a while and I figured, yeah, he'll probably go out to lunch with them after, and I remember after a couple hours of Ben being gone out surfing, I felt this guttural loneliness inside of me. I remember being like, yeah, ben will be back soon and he'll give me a hug and everything will be fine. And I didn't know. I never felt this loneliness, this deep loneliness, but it was so strong that I ended up going to Target to distract myself and it was during the COVID time. So after I had done all my shopping, I was standing at the checkout line and I mindlessly opened my phone because there was a long line and the first host that came up on Instagram was Fatal Shark Attack, 26 years old, Sand Dollar beach, the beach that Ben was at. I knew that's the beach that Ben was at and I knew that Ben's friends were all older than him and I knew immediately. But I just said, no, ben must have just waited for something horrible. We're going to have to do trauma counseling with him and he'll be okay. But I didn't want to believe it was true. I immediately started calling Ben's phone and Ben's friends phones and no one was answering. And I got a call from an unknown number and I immediately knew I ran out of Target, dropped all my stuff and in an instant my life was changed forever. Ben had been attacked by a shark and the shark severed the worst possible artery in his leg and within minutes of him getting to the beach he ended up passing away. By God's grace, there was first responders right there on duty that were right there and lifeguard that was driving by and everything was done to possibly save him. I'm so grateful that I don't have to wonder.

Katie, I'm so sorry for the loss of your husband, ben, and I hate it that you had to go through such a devastating experience like that. Thank you so much for having the courage to share it all with us. I know how hard that is and sometimes sharing the details can feel like revealing something that's sacred. I get it so. Again, thank you. So when you and I talked before, we talked about how traumatic sudden loss can be. Can you just share a little bit about the ways losing Ben suddenly changed you?

sudden loss changed everything about me. I think I was very naive to pain in the world, and I no longer am. I've become a lot more empathetic and compassionate to others. I have far less capacity for everything the tangibles of terrible memory now, or at keeping time and things, but it really did change all of me. But there are some things that I actually really appreciate, which is the compassion side of things and the realization of people going through very hard things that I was relatively naive to before loss.

Yeah, that seems to be very common, that we gain a deeper understanding of other people's pain and we realize empathy for others on a whole new level. That's a good thing, of course, but it's a hard way to learn, it for sure. So how did you cope in those early days? What did your initial grief look like?

Everything went blurry really. After that minute I became very apprehensive of everybody. I had reporters calling me within a half hour, then passing away. So I was just scared of everybody, kind of I kept in my bubble. I also just felt like nobody could understand. I really wanted to not be around. I just felt like this is too painful, it was agonizing. It is agonizing still. I have those days still. It's an agonizing journey that nobody can explain until you're on it. I think I was in shock for the first three, four months and then shock started wearing off and then it got harder and harder and harder. The 9th of every month was extremely hard for me because Ben died on May 9th and it was weird because every night they didn't even notice it was the night, but my body knew and the grief was completely overwhelming and all-consuming. Even Ben's friend who was with him, who was the person in the water with him. He would wake up every night morning with literally sore muscles like he had just paddled for a life. He wouldn't understand. He felt like he worked out like insane, like why am I so sore? And then he realized it was the night and his body was remembering him paddling so hard to get Ben to work.

Wow, that is so interesting about Ben's friend and how his grief affected him physically and you on the 9th as well. I understand that and I went through it myself in those early days. Katie, can you remember and tell us about one of the most emotionally challenging things that you had to get through back then and how did you respond to it?

Moving out of my apartment. I kept it for a few months and then I got the. One of some of the best advice I got at the very beginning was from another widow that had lost her husband and I was asking what do I do with my husband's things? Like I can't even bear to get rid of Ben, or I can't bear to get rid of my apartment, but I'm just blowing money because at this point I can't even stay there because it's too painful. Began she had said there's going to come a time where the things that are comforting right now won't be comforting anymore. They'll be more painful for you. And that's when you know listen to that, but don't do it too soon. Just listen to your body. And that became a marker for me for my apartment. It was great for the first four months to go there and I felt like I was with Ben, kind of. It was this place that it was just me and Ben. It was this space of healing and comfort. And then all of a sudden they walk in at random day, not realizing that everything would feel different that day, and I opened the door and it felt like somebody had just stabbed me in the stomach and all of a sudden I looked around and I said all of this is just a shell of my old life, a shell of the memories that won't ever be and that's so painful and more heart-wrenching than it was comforting at that point. And that's when I listened to that feeling and it said okay, I'm ready to let this go, this apartment, although it was the most, probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, going through Ben's office and the half written notes that he had left right before surfing and he was going to come back and finish working on that and it has said, and lost it. There's no explaining the gut wrenching tragedy of it and I like that short.

You know, those of us who have experienced sudden loss know that it's really really hard to process. In fact, I think you told me before that some experts say that you should actually add a few more years to the grieving process when the loss is sudden and traumatic. But since you weren't with Ben when he passed, did you ever struggle with questions about his final moments and if so, how did you come to terms with all of that?

The week Ben died I felt like I had to go to the beach. I had to go to that place because it had this terrible cloud over it and I knew if I didn't go then I would be scared, get more scared of it as time went on. So I went to the beach a few days after Ben passed away. I also felt that was his place, the last place he took his steps. Last place he was Ben. I was sitting on the beach and it just so happened to be some random guy in his family walking along the beach and he came up to me and he said hey, are you, Katie Kelly? And I said yeah, I had a feeling it was you, which is crazy. This beach is huge. And he happened to be there for whatever reason. And he said I was the last person to hold Ben.

And I just want you to know he had so much peace.

He asked to give me a hug and he told me as much information as I wanted to know and he assured me they did everything. He was an off duty first responder that happened to be on the beach that day. It was a moment that I needed and it's such a provision, honestly.

And.

I'm still in contact with him today.

Wow, what a blessing and, honestly, what a gift that you were able to meet and talk with him and get that clarity and the peace you needed about Ben's last moments here on earth. How wonderful for you. So when we talked before, you told me how it seemed like all the resources and information you found about being widowed seemed to involve widows with children, and you were in your 20s when Ben passed and you two didn't have any kids. So tell us about your perspective on being childless and how that seemed to almost isolate you in this community.

Yeah, when Ben passed away, I was 27 years old. It was, for one, very isolating, being that very few people go through this in their 20s. But when I was reaching out trying to find anyone that could understand and still to this day I very rarely find anyone who hasn't had kids and that was extremely hard for me because everybody that had kids would say they're the only reason why I'm still alive today, they're the only reason why I get up in the morning and I have responsibility. And I looked at that and I said well, what's my reason? There's literally no reason for me to be here anymore, and that was so crucial for me to find somebody that knew loss and new widowhood without kids, because it's a whole other grieving process. There's two sides to it, both challenges. I'm grateful that I didn't have kids in those moments because I could lay in bed and I could grieve when I wanted to grieve and grieve how I felt like I needed to. In the days following, however, it looked like for me, but it also left me without a piece of Ben and without this reason to keep going and so being very challenging.

Well, I very much appreciate you sharing all of that because I believe there's probably somebody listening who knows exactly how you feel in that category and that's helpful and we'll get more into that and how you're persevering in the process. But back to Ben, okay, I know when you described your relationship it was like fairytale almost. You guys were so good together and you were just starting your life. So what do you miss most about being married to Ben and then think about what steps you're taking to heal and move forward.

Being married to Ben was really fun because we were friends before we dated, before we got married, and so I miss the mundane, honestly. I miss those inside jokes and the random quips of going back and forth, and just the day to the day of sharing life. I miss having a companion to go do activities with. Ben and I both love the outdoors and going backpacking was one of our favorite things to do together. So I really just miss the day to day, honestly, and his perspective on life. And we were very different and our marriage was definitely not perfect, but we were very different people but we were learning to make it work and choose to love one another through all of it.

Well, I've talked to other widows, male and female, that are older and been through that. Maybe the kids have grown up and people miss different things and different stages of their life. But I think the important piece that I would love to hear you talk a little bit about is how do you combat that when that comes at you, when you realize I want to go hiking but Ben's not here, or I just want to go get a cup of coffee. How do you combat those feelings of loneliness or whatever however you define them?

That's a good question. I think every situation and every time that those feelings come up which are very regular, honestly, I think it happens differently, but I'm very grateful for the friends and my family that have come alongside me. I think it's very important. It has been very important for me not to isolate myself, to be in community and reach out and say I'm struggling. This is hard and more often than not, those people do show up. Every time, honestly, they have shown up and I'm really grateful for the friends that I've had in that space. But it still doesn't take away the loss. It doesn't, you know, and it still doesn't take away the loneliness. But I would say journaling has really helped me Journaling and processing. I also have a journal with Ben's name on it. Somebody gave me a journal with his initials on it and I chose to just start journaling to him and so whenever I wish I could talk to him, I journal it because it's like actually able to get it out and, instead of just fencing in my head, I've been able to actually write it down and do something with the pain that I'm feeling and saying, man, I wish you could be doing this with me right now, or I wish that I could be telling you this or telling you about my day or remember when we did this kind of thing and although it may sound crazy and he probably doesn't see those, I don't know, but it really has helped me process and just get those feelings out.

So I think that's really good. I like that, and I like that it's his name on there too. Yeah, yeah.

And being outside in nature has really helped me as well. It's like the world is bigger than me and, yeah, there's so many things like serving other people have been a big one to shift my perspective of every there's so many people that have problems just like me.

So when you were kind of describing Ben, before one of the attributes, you said he loved Jesus, which I just thought was so cool. So I know that you two were both involved in your faith community. So how are your emotions, your grief emotions received in that community and responded to by people of faith?

I had a surprising amount of people that were very understanding. My friends have not tried to push me out of grief or my family has really tried to understand and come alongside and support me. But the faith community as a whole can sometimes struggle with holding this tension of both deep pain and hope and it's sitting in the uncomfortable faith and suffering and can also make people really uncomfortable. So I think I've seen that just naturally in the faith community it is sometimes really hard to go to a church with really praise music and sit there and be like I feel so different than people right now. But at some point I think it's so important to be still involved in a faith community because that is, they can hope for you, they can pray for you when you don't have the capacity to pray and have the capacity to believe. Even I said so many times in my journey God, I believe, I hope, my unbelief, because it is hard and I really have had to work through the questions of my faith and relearn to trust God. I think it's been easier for me because naturally I'm an extrovert and so I have the benefit maybe of being able to reach out and to share about my feelings and what's going on. But when you're not super open about struggling or talking about it, it can be really hard for a church to come alongside and they don't know what to do or you get kind of lost in the cracks because they don't reach out necessarily all the time themselves.

I think you make a really good point about the church being there to hope for you and pray for you when you don't have the capacity to do it for yourself. I also found that to be super comforting, and I think it's great that you address the struggle between pain and hope, because that can also be hard. It seems like people just want you to get better, which I understand, but when someone just comes alongside you and decides to just be present with you and you're suffering, that's really a way of showing God's love that is just unmatched, I think so. Since we're on the topic of faith communities, you told me when you recognized a need, you were prompted to take action and you actually started a foundation called Through it All, and it's a peer-to-peer support program, right? Tell us more about that.

Yeah, Through it All Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to equipping churches and individuals to walk alongside people in loss. I saw a lot of my friends who I had grown to know through losing Ben, who were also widowed. They were widowed a few like a month after Ben passed away and I watched them walk through the journey to you and the friends that they saw were friends, didn't show up for them and I was heartbroken because the amount of pain and agony that I had experienced and I had been fortunate to have friends that came alongside me and just to not have people around you to walk the journey with you. I don't know how anybody would get through it and I was thinking about it, praying about it and asking God like, how do you provide community, how do you provide support? And I really felt like God kind of inspired the like. That is why I created the church and that is why the church exists to come alongside through, like, the ups and the downs of life and the pains and the joys. So how can we help the church? So one of my friends who had just lost her husband she had buried her husband and then two days later gave birth to their fourth child and she was just drowning in work and overwhelm and taking care of a newborn baby also her other kids and I saw that she needed babysitting but the church that she was going to wasn't providing it. And I ended up. I had reached out to their church and said, hey, you guys probably have resources. Are you providing this for her? And they'd said, oh, we would love to. She just haven't asked. And I saw right there that is. The problem sometimes is it's your grieving of a lost, of a loved one. You already feel like a burden, so you're not going to reach out for help and a lot of times you don't even know what you need because you're completely in the wrong place. And so you need somebody to come and say, hey, I'm doing this, I'm going to do this for you, instead of other people waiting for you to say you know the whole, let me know what you need. You're never going to, you're never going to reach out. And so that's where I saw this peer to peer support program to be a need in a church, as well as for someone to come alongside and advocate for that person, say, hey, I see that you could use, like yard work help or somebody to help you organize your house or babysitting, or somebody to help you come alongside and decorate for Christmas, because your kids still want to celebrate Christmas, but you can't even bear a lot to decorate this year. And the church can then come alongside and support and be at the friend and family that they want to be and they want to support and they want to love. Sometimes they just don't know how does it operate in real time? So I brought up earlier that I was able to talk to a widow who had no kids and it really helped me. That really was the turning point for my grief. I at the time felt completely alone, completely isolated, like nobody could understand and people would say you're going to get through this, but I'm like in my head I'm like you don't know, you've never been through this pain and this is painful. So I was talking to a friend. She ended up connecting me with this other woman who was 50 at the time but she lost her first husband at 28 and had no kids and then suddenly lost like my own. We talked for hours and hours and hours. I came over to her house one day and I was able to ask her those hard questions that no one else could understand, no one else had the answers to, and she gave me ideas of what she did. I for the first time saw hope that there is life outside of grief, there is life outside of this utter agony and deep pain that I was experiencing in the moment. I think that's so important to have somebody to be able to look at and say, oh, this person has done it before. It's impossible. And that is kind of where, through it all, connection the program called connection. So it's a peer to peer support program of one person who is like three, four months past their loss and then pairing someone. That's around four to 10 years outside of the initial loss that they experienced, and when you pair them together, they're able to walk alongside each other, just be a companion and be a support and say, like you're not crazy, I felt that too. These are ideas of what I've done. Or let me pray for you, let me just be a friend, and I think that in that they advocate for them to their church, but they also are just a companion that walked alongside and says you aren't alone. And we're going to get through this together.

I love that program. That's such a great idea and, in your right, that's a huge need. I remember talking to somebody right after Sean passed away too, and I was just in that hard, hard early time where it looks really dark, like you described, and it was a family member said oh, you should talk to our friends. Their son also died when he was 18. And I remember they connected us and we talked on the phone and I said how long has it been for you? And they said eight years, and I remember that day going eight years. I can't do this for eight years, yeah. But at the same time it was hopeful though, because that connection showed me that I could do it for eight years, and now you know I can be that person for somebody else. So I just love that you've set it up for people to have that connection. It's so important.

Thank you, yeah, and this is what the podcast is doing too.

Yeah, thank you. That's the goal. So, katie, when we talk about church and church community, that's one thing, but what role did your personal faith in God play in your grieving process?

Faith played a huge role for me. I can honestly say I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for my faith. Faith gave me hope that this life isn't all there is, and that was crucial for me to know that this pain that I was in currently and still am in is not all I have to hope in. And this isn't. This isn't all it is, and I think that changed my whole perspective. And being a widow without kids that didn't have some sort of current purpose Kids to get up for, I knew that I was here for a purpose because I was here and God was still God, and if I wasn't supposed to be here, god would have taken me out by now. And I think that's the only reason why I'm alive today honestly, because why survive such pain if that's all I have to open?

Yeah, it's interesting how you can develop sort of an eternal perspective after losing a loved one and how purpose almost reveals itself to you as you continue to walk in faith. So good. So, katie, you've really shared so much good information throughout this story and I just want to summarize it all here because I think it bears repeating. You said that, as hard as loss can be, it can teach us to be compassionate and have greater empathy for others. You shared about how grief can reside in our bodies and how we can recognize and expect these reactions at different times in our lives. You talked about how other people who've been through similar losses have much wisdom to share and that it's helpful to connect with other people to know that we can make it through the tough times. You advised against isolating and encouraged seeking out friends and family for support when you feel overwhelmed by your grief. You told us you journaled when you miss Ben and that it was helpful to get your thoughts and feelings out on paper instead of letting them fester inside you. You recognize the benefits of getting outside, being in a faith community and serving other people as a means of taking your mind off your circumstances and seeing the beauty in others and the world around us. Katie, what other lessons have you learned from your experience that you can share with someone listening who needs hope right now?

I have learned a lot of life lessons. I would say a lot of them have to do with grief, because I knew nothing about grief before Ben passed away and it's been a huge learning curve for me. But I've seen that Feelings are just feelings, are never final, and that's been a huge one for me. I felt like the feelings that I feel today may be different tomorrow and it's just one day at a time and one day at a time. Sometimes it's just 30 minutes at a time and you just gotta get through that 30 minutes and then it goes okay, let's get through the next 30 minutes. That first year, that's what it was like, and the best analogy that I have heard Grave described as is through waves. At the beginning the waves are 100 feet tall, crashing into you and you feel like you're drowning. You are drowning, you are grabbing onto anything Maybe it's a memory or a photo or anything just to hold on to whatever you have left and you're just fully surviving. And then later, as time goes on, eventually those waves maybe become 80 feet tall or 50 feet tall, come a little further apart, but there's always gonna be waves. There's always gonna be huge waves of grief and eventually you learn to kind of expect them. Maybe it's the snald coffee or the holidays coming up, a birthday coming up, but I think Ben being a surfer, when he was teaching me how to surf, he would always say when a big wave comes, hold your breath and let the wave wash you this way, and that Don't fight the wave and don't try to go to the surface, because that's gonna leave you exhausted and you'll eventually you actually will drown because the wave will always spit you out. The other side and I have seen that as so practical for griefs as well is the waves will always keep coming, but there will always be a break in the wave and, yes, maybe, and that's where, like living one day at a time or 30 minutes at a time, like okay, we just gotta get to the next day, and maybe the next day is really hard, just gotta get to the next day and eventually, actually, that wave will lighten up and you have life in between those waves. You know, along with that, I have this analogy that I felt like really was inspired by God, honestly of sea glass and being that waves, air like grief, sea glass is like us. Before Ben passed away, I was glass bottle. I had an identity. Like glass jar, holy oil or whatnot, like I had an identity, I had a basic idea of where my life was going. I had gold, I had dreams, but they all revolved around Ben. They all included Ben in them, and a minute that he passed away, my life was immediately shattered into a mine pieces and it felt like it would never be put back together again. And honestly it won't ever be the same, you know. But that glass bottle, let's say, gets washed around in the waves, tossed and turned and gets thrown in the storms and in the saltwater and all the elements of the ocean. Eventually that glass bottle gets little pieces of glass, get smoothed and polished and end up on shore. And I'm not saying I've ended up on shore, that's for sure yet. But it goes to show that a piece of sea glass still has a purpose. It's different but it still has purpose. And that's just like all of our lives. We go through loss, we go through any sort of grief and our identity has completely shifted. And yet it doesn't make our purpose better than it was before, but it's just different and our purpose can still be beautiful. And that's like piece of sea glass. And I think that God really showed me that he hasn't abandoned any of us, he hasn't forgotten us and he still has purpose for our lives. Our identity may look a lot different, but he is faithful to carry it through and carry us in it in the midst of brokenness. I also kind of feel like within that sea glass analogy, within that wave analogy, we can't choose the part we play in our situation, in our circumstances in this life. We can't choose it, but we can choose how we let it transform us. And so I've seen that, as I can't choose my circumstances, but what I can control is how I allow it to transform me, and I think that's the defiant can be the defining moment in our lives.

Yeah, well, those are wonderful analogies all of them, and I love the fact that they all had to do with the ocean and the beach, because of Ben, because it's just like meant to come from him. And yeah, with the sea glass, you're right, I mean it does. Grief molds us and shapes us through the storm. You're right, we can't choose it, but it can still be beautiful. I love the way you sum that up. When I think about someone losing a spouse, what kind of things, from a practical standpoint, could you offer up? Is there anything practical that pops into your head that you think about? How to help someone divert their time or energy, or what if they're afraid?

Yeah, I found that serving is very helpful to me, getting my mind off of myself, off of my own problems, and seeing that the world is so much bigger than me and that other people are struggling just like me. I've also found that, as hard as it is to find gratitude in things, what can I be grateful for? In naming those things, sometimes it's very small, like a cup of coffee or making my bed. I think at the early days I found that it was helpful just to do one thing productive in the day and then I could call it a productive day, and a lot of times that was just making my bed and that was good enough. It also helped me not get back in it immediately after I got out of it. But I think finding that one thing to just be able to succeed, making small goals to help yourself succeed in a day of I did this one thing and I was productive in that.

Yeah, those are great practical tips Serving, finding gratitude and doing just one productive thing, just small steps that we can take to move forward in life, that take the focus off what we can't control anyway and just do good. Thank you, I love it. Well, katie, at this point I just wanna thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast and share yours and Ben's story. It's been so nice talking to you and getting to know you.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

So, for those of you listening, if you've experienced a sudden traumatic loss, you know how it can turn your world upside down. You might feel confused, angry and depressed right now, and that's okay. That's how it feels in the beginning. But, like Katie said, feelings are never final. The way you feel today may not be the way you feel tomorrow and, like the bottle she talked about, that's tossed around by the waves. Eventually it emerges as a polished and beautiful piece of sea glass. It has a new purpose now, not necessarily better, just different. You can merge from the waves, my friend, and you'll be stronger from having survived the storm. So don't lose hope today. Keep the faith and one day you'll be able to help someone else with the lessons you learned in your loss. Thanks for listening.