Chumi Friedman

Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me here today on the Relief from Grief podcast. Today’s podcast is sponsored Li’iluy  Nishmas Lifsha Ben Yehoshua. Today, Mrs. Chumi Freidman is on our podcast. She’s the director of HUG, which is a program of a time. And it’s the program that works with the parents that are experiencing perinatal loss, and you’re also the director of the grief part of CORE.

Do you want to explain what you are? Yes, okay, so HUG is a program of ATIME that supports couples and families who are experiencing perinatal or infant loss. That means a miscarriage, the birth of a baby, born still, a baby. Being born with a condition that medical science believes is not compatible with life.

So we support couples and families who are going through that. And, at CORE, I oversee what they call a circle of practice of women who are supporters of either those who are dying or bereaved because someone within their life has died. Okay, amazing. So you really work with I guess the full spectrum of grief from losing a little teeny baby, maybe even stillborn to losing, you know, a great grandparent, right?

Right. Basically, yes, that’s the whole circle of life, I guess, right from the very earliest parts of it until, you know, the very end. Wow. So, I guess my question is like this. Are there differences in losing a little baby that’s not even going to live anyways to losing a young parent or a child, even a grandparent.

So it’s interesting. I think there are a tremendous amount of similarities in terms of grief and how grief manifests, I think in the actual loss, one of the major differences is, is that let’s take a perinatal loss. Let’s say a woman who has a miscarriage or delivers a stillborn baby. That child, that baby wasn’t real necessarily to anyone else but her, may not even been real to her husband.

Because of just like the nature of pregnancy, right? So if no one interacted with, with the baby, with the fetus, however she chooses to call it. So then to a certain extent, it wasn’t real to anybody else. And so she’s the only one with the memories. So those kinds of losses are really, to a certain extent, more about what could have been rather than what was right when, when we lose a grandparent or a great grandparent, I was very lucky and I had great grandparents that I knew.

And so when they die, there’s a little bit of mourning of what could have been right. If they, you know, at every Simcha or at every like milestone, if they were alive, But there’s also, you’re mourning the relationship, you’re mourning them and what they were to your life, how they impacted your life, whereas a loss and pregnancy, it’s really more about what could have been.

So it’s more like mourning the dreams of what was going to be. Right. Yeah. So what I thought was going to be, what I thought was going to happen, the impact I thought this person was going to have in my life. And that’s what I’m mourning. And it’s also more lonely because to everyone else, it wasn’t real yet.

So the mother is on her own. Yes, very much so. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it’s very hard to mourn someone that society doesn’t even really think existed. And women will hear that like, but you know, it really wasn’t a baby. Oh, okay. I felt it kick. That meant it wasn’t to be like, it’s a, it’s a very hard space, but the mourning really is what could have been.

But I dreamed could have been so now I have a question that might be a tough one for you. We’ll try it. An argument that I was having with Mr. Glenn Holman he’s working with me and the book that I’m working for parents that lost children. So, when I did the section on losing a special needs child. I was kind of going in the direction that.

That when a special needs child is born, like the parents are also mourning the loss of a dreams of what the child, could have been, what could have been in each milestone, you know, their peers are starting to walk in there or not, if it’s a boy, the option or in the bare mitzvah, that, that kind of all gets mourned, like when they’re born, I thought so I was saying that when, if someone loses a 12 year old son, then a year later, they’re not mourning that old.

There would have been the bar mitzvah now because it was kind of already mourned. Whereas a 12 year old healthy boy dies and a year later, they’re going to be so sad, but you know, the week, month, whatever it is, the bar mitzvah. And he was getting so agitated. He was like, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not true.

That’s not true. They’re still mourning. And I see from your face that you’re really agreeing with him. So, so I think this takes us to something that I believe is fundamental when it comes to grief is that it’s different. For every single person, they’re always going to be similar. But grief is a very individual journey.

And some people may have mourned everything that they thought this child was going to be, when they realized this child was not going to be everything they thought. Right? Right. And for other people, it will be at the milestones. And so even, even when the child dies and, and maybe they have mourned it, maybe they really did , mourn it.

At some point, they may still like feel it when whatever I was going to plan for a bar mitzvah, right, whatever I was going to plan for a bas mitzvah, you know whatever that was going to be, I may be mourning it. And for other people. No, you’re right. May not be an issue anymore because I mourned that not only that I mourned I accepted I had accepted that my child was not going to have the bar mitzvah that everyone, you know, right.

So I need my piece without a long time ago, so I’m not morning that anymore maybe give me like a little bit of a, of a stock maybe on whuat would have been the day. But I made my peace with this a long time ago. So I think , there’s always going to be that difference in the way, that’s the hard part about grief, right?

Is you can’t tell someone else how to feel. Right. Right. Right. And even, even what seems like maybe the same situation, there’s no such thing. Every situation is so different. Yes. Wow. So what should like people, friends, family know about parents that are mourning a special needs child that’s, you know, Reaching that milestone but not reaching it wouldn’t have reached it but now is really not reaching it.

You know, so it’s it’s an interesting thing, right, people ask me this all the time, let’s say in regards to perinatal loss right so let me deliver to stillborn baby. And now it’s a year later. And so the yarhtzeit of, you know, the, the day that the baby was delivered is coming up. Should I acknowledge it? I don’t, I don’t know.

I don’t know her. Right. Meaning maybe she wants it acknowledged. Maybe she doesn’t want it acknowledged. You know, and I always say like, some of this is about your relationship with someone. If you, if you are close with someone, you should know how, you know, how they want this day to be remembered. Do they want just a text that says, you I’m thinking about you, right?

Or is that too much for them? Is it okay to call and say, I don’t know for sure, but I can only imagine that next week is going to be really hard for you. Do you want to do lunch one day next week? Like, you know, sometimes there’s nothing wrong with saying you’re not me. And I don’t want to presume to know how you’re feeling, right?

, but if you want to share, I would like to know. Right. I’m not presuming, but I’d like you want to share. Right. Right. You know, and I think that’s very much we get uncomfortable as human beings. We get uncomfortable when it comes to death, when it comes to grief. Right. We want to do all the right things, which is impossible.

And so sometimes we do nothing, which just makes things worse. Right. As opposed to saying, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s good here. I want to support you though. I’m here to support you. And so like I said, do you want to do lunch? Do you want to talk? Right. And you’re giving the person like the options because again, Maybe she does.

Maybe he does. Right. Maybe she doesn’t, but her husband doesn’t, but her husband does. And somebody reaching out to the husband is going to make a world of difference in his life because there’s no one. She doesn’t even want to talk about it. Right. But he needs to talk about it. Is he telling that to someone?

Is there such a thing as a husband wanting to talk and a wife not? Yes. Yes. Right. Yes. Really? Right. Those are the other like. Things that we make presumptions about, that he’s not going to want to, right? Right. Sometimes he’s the more verbal one. He needs to talk. Wow. You know, and then we have to, we have to make that space, right?

But we don’t know if we don’t reach out. You know, it’s so hard also because changing the subject a little bit but reaching out and sounding like so cliche. So, when that text came through I don’t know if we ended up talking about what core is or not, but for the listeners. There’s a grief group called core, or under.

I don’t under core. Right. Under core. Okay. Right, right. And when that text came through, I’m sorry, I don’t remember who sent it about her cousin. That was Niftar on Purim and the horrible story and everyone, you know, was truly empathetic and I’m so sorry and this is so hard and there should be only Sun cousin.

No, we’re suffering and. And I couldn’t respond. I was like, I’m sure that every single people, it’s coming straight from the heart, but it sounded so cliche and so empty. I was like, I just, I can’t echo those same words. Now, if I would have known her, maybe I would, you know, I don’t know who she is. So it’s okay that I think you just didn’t say anything, but I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to hear you have to say to that.

So, you know, when I can’t stand, I have very strong opinions about things. What I don’t like is that when someone posts about a desk in any group, I don’t like the BDE. First of all, it’s not E. That’s number one. So if you’re posting that already, it should be BTH, but, but really, we can’t even write out the words.

Can’t even say Baruch Dayan Hametz. We can’t say that anymore. No, no, no. We, we all think we’re a R’ Chaim and we get to do Buha. Like, like seriously, we don’t get to do that. And then. So sometimes I think, like, let’s say you’re in a Tehillim group. You’re in a Tehillim group, and you’re saying Tehillim for somebody, and they let you know, right?

So in that space, is it appropriate to just say, you know, Baruch Dayan Haemes? Yes, right? I would hope that you would reach out to the person who had set up the group, who maybe it’s their relative, and you could reach out personally, and you, right? Right. But it’s also like, what do we say? What do we say in these situations when we don’t know what to say?

I don’t remember what I said in that space. And I also knew that I wanted to say something because I didn’t want her to feel like no one was saying anything. So right. So you do that and then you, whatever. People always say you shouldn’t know from anymore tzar. I don’t even know what that means. Do you know a person who doesn’t have tzar?

In some manner, shape or form, we live in Galus, we have Tzar. This is like, so maybe it’s saying HaKadosh Baruch Hu should bring the Geula so we don’t have any more Tzar? Maybe, but I also think like, at the moment of the pain, we’re saying you shouldn’t have any more. Like, can we just talk about the pain?

What, you know, I don’t know. I always think, there was a story that I read a long time ago, and I never remember who the Gadol was, about a Gadol Rosh Yeshiva, who was going with a Talmud to be Menachem Avel, somebody. And when they got there, they were sitting next to each other, and I think the Talmud started saying something, I don’t know, maybe something that was going to be comforting or something like that, and the Rosh yeishiva tapped him on the foot, not to say anything.

When they got outside, he said, Shiva’s not the place. Like, Shiva is not the place. Just to be just to be there. Somebody also asked a Gadol, you know, when should I say something before after I say the passuk and the Godol said what all you say is the puzzle. You don’t you don’t speak otherwise, like I and so I think, you know, in this space of we need to feel better.

We want to instinctively make someone else feel better because we’re uncomfortable when somebody doesn’t feel better. So we rush to say things. It’s not bad to say things. It’s not, it’s not bad. So I think, like, before you click send, think about, does this make sense, what I said? And is this, Is this helpful or just like, okay, they’re going to see this and I could not, you know, whatever.

Okay. No more tzar. No more tzar Thank you very much. I’m inside right now. So right. Any more than this. Okay, so what do I do with what I have. Right, right. You haven’t given me the space. Right. I think that’s, what this is about. It’s creating space for people’s grief and emotions and letting them live for however long they want.

But I guess if there’s someone that you don’t really know, if they are on a chat or something, then yeah, so I guess the way is the way to go because what else are you supposed to do? What else are you supposed to do? And that’s fine. Right. Like I said, I would hope if you know the person, but then you’ve reached out privately did I see something? Are you, are you doing something for grandparents that lost a grandchild? So we have done, we did it once, we have a webinar on our a time website. We did a webinar specifically for grandparents. And we have a booklet that we put together. But again, this is perinatal loss, right?

I was gonna say that’s perinatal loss. That’s perinatal loss. I actually saw something just recently. For grandparents, there was something I just saw recently. There was something, right? There was something. Yeah. Toby Klein, Greenwalt, her name is.

 She has An article about what she says that in the grandparent world, they refer to as standing shiva. Right. As, as grandparents, because , you’re not sitting. I have a podcast by that name, by the way, but it wasn’t for grandparents. It’s for in laws grandparents. Right. Okay. Right. So it’s like that space of I’m mourning too.

But I’m not actually sitting in that space, right, I’m standing in that space. But there was 100 percent there was something that I saw just go back and look, I’m working on that section now, I’m like, losing a grandchild. And it’s interesting, you know, the pain of losing the grandchild, the pain of seeing your children in so much pain.

And one grandfather was saying to me. How he had to be so careful to always be supporting his daughter and her pain that he wouldn’t really want to tell her how much pain he was in. So he felt like he was, you know, always walking that fine line. , and like you said, it’s standing shiva, like a grandparent could be like mourning so much and like no one will really know.

You know, and, and it is that space of my child. Is the one who’s in pain. Yes, I’m in pain too. You know, I once had a grandmother say to me, Right, because one of the things we always say in this space is, It’s not about you. Right? When you have to be there for someone else, One of the things you have to remember is it’s not about you.

Right. And a woman said to me, But it is about me. It was my grandchild. So I’m like, you’re right, a hundred percent. And you need to make sure you have support because she or he, right, depending on if it’s a, you know, your son or your daughter needs your support. And it’s really, really hard, especially when you have a child in tremendous pain, that child may not be able to hold space for your pain.

Right. Right. And again, that’s why I say, right, that everybody’s different because some people can, some people are. You know, I have a friend who lost her father relatively recently, and she has a daughter for whom this grandparent was really another father, totally another father. She sat with them. No, she didn’t sit shiva.

But when you came into the room, yes, she was sitting on a regular chair, but she was sitting next to her mother. And it was very clear that to anybody who came into the room, this is somebody who is mourning. Now, could you ask her to do things that you wouldn’t ask, you know, the Avelim to do technically, but there was a recognition of what this man was in her life.

And just because she’s not bound by the same rituals. doesn’t mean the pain is not, it’s there. It’s that intensity. Right. So, so I think that is like some bigger space again, whether it’s a grandparent who lost a grandchild or someone who lost an in law parent, you can have a closer relationship with an in law parent than you have with your own parents.

But again, you’re not seen in that role, right? You’re mourner. And that’s really, that’s very hard. And so there is that space, I think, for grandparents, , it’s an extra layer because you’re not only, you didn’t only lose a grandchild, you’re watching your child suffer and you can’t fix it.

You can’t fix it. I, I can’t even imagine such a thing, like all we want to do as mothers, we just want to fix up. We want to fix everything. Right. Right. And so what are we doing here? We can’t fix it. , and we’re not sure. Right. As close as we are with our child. Right. Right. We may not even be sure what our place is in all of this.

Right. Right I don’t want her to think that I think it’s, you know, like the intensity of my feelings. It’s not fair to her to add the extra layer on top of what she’s already suffering. Right. So I think it’s, you know, it’s hard. I think at the end of this, we’re going to discover that there’s no one answer to these situations.

It’s not, it’s not, it’s not clean, right? It’s really not. That’s why, like, again, you know, going back to my book, I keep mentioning it, but like when I write on a certain section, like I’ll ask, different parents, the same questions, and I’ll get sometimes totally different answers.

Sometimes what was such a big issue to one mother or father is like, what? No, that didn’t even like cross. Like that was nothing like that didn’t come up at all. Right. So it’s true. It’s very, very different. Yeah. And, and I think it’s also very interesting that with certain deaths, there are no, there were no Torah guidelines.

What do you mean? Okay. So people sit Shiva for certain family members. And while technically I’m not a Dayan, but technically you could sit shiva for anybody, whatever, anyway, people could, you know, ask your local Orthodox rabbi what the halachas are but shiva is only prescribed, or proscribed, anyway, for certain, for certain situations.

Right. And it’s like in the other situations, the Hakaddosh Baruch Hu says, I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t tell you how to feel. I’m not giving you any ritual, but just because there’s no ritual doesn’t mean there’s no pain. And so for some people, that’s very freeing because now I get to experience my pain in however I experienced my pain.

And for other people, it’s very limiting. I need to have the ritual. I need for someone to tell me what to do. And if I don’t have those guidelines, I don’t know, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do in a space without Black Islands. I mean, I’ve said this to you, when my father was as niftar, my grandmother said to me, I don’t understand.

You can’t go to Simcha’s. You guys can’t go to Simcha’s for a year. You have all these limitations. And what? I get to go to weddings, who, who wants to go to a wedding? I a wedding. I don’t want to go to a bar mitzvah. I don’t want to do all of that. Why do you have this limitation and I don’t? And it, this was when your father was, when my father was Niftar, his mother, his mother, she couldn’t, she couldn’t process that, that parents didn’t have these limitations.

Like, what do you mean? How could that be, you know, and it was a struggle. I mean, we said you don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t want to go like right but that there would be this and I’ve had people express this to me. Like, why would she think I was coming to the wedding? Right. It wasn’t my parents.

But what I’m not mourning, like if you lose a sibling, you only have shloshim, right? Right. And six months from then, are you ready to go to just anybody’s wedding? Are you ready to just, right? Usually not. Right. And yet there’s no, you don’t have those same rituals. Right. Right. I’m not a rav. I’m not here to answer that question.

I don’t know why. I just think that when there isn’t the rituals, there’s, there can be so much more For your feelings and emotions, because no one’s there to tell you how to do it. Except that you have to really be secure enough in yourself to be able to do it. Yes, 100%. And not everybody is. Yeah. I had a close neighbor that married off a daughter the week that my grandmother was niftar.

And it wasn’t really even like really was a step grandmother, but she was my grandmother since I was two years old. I grew up, like I was very, very close with her and I so did not want to go to the wedding. Like I just didn’t want to, but I really felt like I had to, like I just, whatever I saw, I just stopped in.

I really just went and I stopped in for two seconds and said Mazel Tov and like, that was that. But that was a struggle that same week. My sister had a. Was it a classmate that was marrying off a child? I don’t remember. And like, she wanted to go. All her friends were going to be there and she wanted to, so she went and she enjoyed it.

So, you know, , when my grandmother died, so my father had been gone for many years. How old were you when your father, dad, you were like younger? I was, I mean, I was married. I had four kids already, but I was, I was under 30. I think I was 29. I don’t remember, you know, past a certain age, we don’t talk about how old you were.

We don’t remember years anywhere, but anyway and I remember when my grandmother died. So the only person sitting Shiva was my aunt who lives in Israel. My husband and I had plans. We had a vacation plans. And then, and then my grandmother died, like she was niftar on Shabbos, and we were supposed to leave Sunday to go on vacation.

And so we canceled the plans that we had, but one or two days in, I said to my husband, I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I can’t go to work. I can’t have normal life. My grandmother’s gone just because I’m not going to Israel to be with my aunts who’s my life can’t just be normal. So we did we went away for two days like someplace where there was like nothing to do but just Right.

That change of headspace. Right. and then, like, there is that, you know, Simcha’s come up and things and you’re like, but I really don’t want to go. Right. I don’t want to. Yeah. Halachakly I can, but okay. So what? And then there are people like you said, you know, about your sister who, okay, but but I want to, cause first of all, you know, even from the perspective of, I want to share in someone else’s Simcha, that’s wonderful.

I want to be with people who maybe have memories. Right. Of the person that I lost. Right. And I get to share those memories. Right. Whereas if I don’t go, who am I sharing the memories with? Right. Like sometimes there’s that space because there’s no Shiva. So it’s not like people are going to come and they’re going to share the memories with you.

Right. Right. And I do think, by the way, that that’s such a gift. Like I know we said, you know, you go to Shiva house and you really don’t talk. You wait for the Avel to talk. Come. I just think it’s a gift to the Avelim sometimes. Come with a story prepared. Like, if you’re going to be menachem aveil somebody, and you knew the person who was niftar, maybe you won’t tell the story, because maybe there won’t be that space for it.

But come with something to say that, that they’re going to appreciate. I remember a friend of mine set Shiva for her father first, whether it was a few years later, but, and I walked in and she said, literally, I sat down and she said, tell me a story. Wow. Story about my father. Wow. And I struggled because I was on the spot.

I wasn’t expecting it. Right. And I hadn’t seen her father in, I don’t know, 40 years. And then going back to elementary school to have a memory, but she wanted that. Right. She wanted that. And I realized afterwards for her, it was a gift. It was a gift to hear. Tell me what, you remember. Right.

You know, and, it can be. And again, maybe you won’t have the space. To share a story, maybe not, maybe it won’t be appropriate, maybe it won’t, but if you have something in your head that you can say, if they put you on the spot like that. I once went to be , Menachem Aveil and she was sitting shiva for her mother, who was a very big important person in the community.

And. The house was packed and everyone is coming over to and telling her about, you know, her mother and what she did for them in the like Askin capacity. And finally I went over to her and I said, she was just your mother like she was your mommy who gave you potato kugel on Friday afternoon. And afterwards, when I met her in the store, like a few weeks later, whatever, she was like, you’re right.

She’s my mother. It was like the perfect words that was obviously couldn’t come prepared with, but it was like, Ringing, listening to everyone talking about. And, and, you know, and I think very often we all go to Shiva houses and we cringe at what is taking place. That’s a whole other podcast and all of it.

But but I think, yeah, like, Don’t walk into a space that’s filled with pain, maybe not, but usually is in some manner, shape, or form, and just think like, what, so what am I doing? What am I going to say? What am I, who’s going to be there? How am I going to play this out? Sometimes you don’t have to say, and it’s better to not say anything, sit there for a few minutes and then, Right.

Oh, I have to say the Passuk and walk out the door, right? Especially if it’s a mob scene. So then what? And I always wonder, like, people go to be when they stay for an hour. What’s happening in there for an hour? Unless you’re close to somebody, right? One of my brother in law’s sat shiva for a sister.

And he tells this story. This guy came in and it was just him and his siblings. The rest of his family was sitting in Eretz Yisrael. So it was just a few of them. Together. And Guy didn’t say anything to any of them. He just sat there, I don’t know, 15, 20 minutes. And then he got up and he said the passuk and he left.

And they all, like, who was that? Who, who was, they had absolutely no clue who it was, and he said, and other people came, they clearly did not know their sister, like really didn’t know them, and said things that were just, why are you here? Right. You know, whereas the first guy, okay, maybe he should have said who he was, but at least he came, whatever his, you know, feel, and then he left, he didn’t say anything.

Listen, grief is uncomfortable. Other people’s grief, our own grief is uncomfortable. It is. So what happens to me sometimes, I’ll walk into Shiva House and, you know, if there’s a family sitting there and I know one family member, and they’ll be like, Oh, and they’ll turn to their, you know, sisters, mothers, whatever.

Oh, this is her story. She lost ABCD. And then they all turn to me. Really? What happened? Oh my gosh. And how long and how much I’ve had and all the questions. And it used to be that like, I started answering, but I felt so uncomfortable. Now I kind of realized that it’s, Their own distraction, but like, it’s not like, I don’t want me to be the center.

Like you said before, it’s not about me. I’ll try to like bring it back to them, but it’s, uncomfortable, but I think it’s more uncomfortable to answer than, you know, suddenly I’m sharing my story with the whole crowd. Right. And then you’re the center of what’s happening in that room. And maybe that was their point.

Maybe they don’t want to be the center. Maybe they’re uncomfortable with it, but yeah, there has to be a way to shift the conversation, right. Of like, tell me about your mother, tell me, tell me, right, I think also once the door has been open, sometimes people need to talk, right, they want to talk about the, the person whom they lost, and nobody gave them that opening because we’re talking about other things like, I don’t know, the doctor and what’s going on in school if you know somebody from like, right, just give them space to them.

Right. and it’s interesting because sometimes you could say that to someone, tell me about your mother and you’re putting them on the spot. Like almost, they don’t know what to say. And if it’s the fourth, fifth, sixth day of Shiva, it’s like, so sad. Like you should just be spilling out stuff and like, I feel so bad then, you know, yeah.

And then also sometimes you’re stepping in it because the relationship was not good or right. And I really, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. I have nothing to say. I have nothing positive to say. And I don’t want to say anything negative. It’s bad enough I’m doing this, so let’s not talk about it.

It’s hard. And I think we go back to that space of we are all so uncomfortable. And, and I think that’s why one of the prescribed halachas, I don’t know if it’s again proscribed or whatever, is you don’t talk unless the aval opens up. His or her mouth, and of course just sit there, be quiet, and then say the passage and go home.

Right. And you, you did what you were supposed to do, and that’s, and that’s it. And if you really want to say more, hear more, you really could call after Shiva. That’s the, you know, that whole other space of also that a loss happens, any loss happens. And so the Shiva, you know, for the most part, I think most people are feeling like there’s a community around them, you know, in some manner, shape, or form.

And then what? Right. Days pass, you know, a friend of mine said this just recently, she’s an availist, and she said. Like, I don’t know, people meet me and they’re like, Oh, hi, how are you doing? Like how am I doing? My father’s dead. What do you mean? How am I doing? I’m not doing okay. Right. That’s because they’re, I’m going to work and doing everything that I have to do, but I’m not okay.

Why doesn’t anybody say, how are you? You know, like not in that, like, Oh, how are you doing? But just in that space of, I know it’s been a few months. What are you doing? Yeah, but also like not when you meet them in the grocery store. No, that’s the worst while they’re taking care of their kids. Right, right, right.

You know, I always remember a woman who had reached out to me once and she had lost her child at six weeks. It was a, since, since that. sids. So they had, they set you up, right. Her and her family, they set you up. And then she said, for sure by the solution, you know, after the shloshim, it was like this baby didn’t even exist anymore as far as the rest of the world was concerned, like even her own family, like we don’t exist, we’re done, we move on from this.

And so there was one neighbor who she was not even really close with, who at least once a week would text her. Hi, are you doing today. I’m going to the grocery. What can I pick up for you? Really? And she said it was unbelievable. Like not somebody who she ever said more than hello and goodbye to, and she said, and that person made more of an impact in her life.

When this happened, then her own family did. Wow. Said everybody else was so uncomfortable. She’s like, I wanted him. He’s a part of our lives. I,  want to talk about him. , whatever memories I have, , I’ll share. Nobody wanted it. Nobody wanted to hear. And this one person saw her pain and validated it each time she reached out.

Did she ever ask what her story is? How she became so sensitive? I don’t think she did. No, no. It was just like, okay. You know, like, I know there’s somebody. Wow. And, and, you know, and other people don’t get that somebody and they just, suffer through. Very sad. One woman told me she lost her baby. I think it was less than 30 days, but maybe closer.

I don’t think she sat shiva. Maybe it was around. I don’t remember exactly, but like 13 years later when her nephew who was like the same age as having a bar mitzvah, she said, I can’t tell them why I’m going to Israel now, but I’m going to Israel. I just can’t be here for it. And it still hurts. And it was very eye opening for me when I started, like, talking to parents that lost babies and, you know, such little babies and everything, like, it was very eye opening.

I did not realize, like, the pain , that it really causes and that it stays forever. It’s like losing a child. It doesn’t matter that it was only a baby. It doesn’t matter. We have had women Who have walked grandchildren down to the chuppah and who in two, three minutes can be crying about. , the stillborn baby that they delivered 50 years before.

It’s so incredible. Yeah. And, it’s so interesting. We were just talking about this in a meeting that I was in right before we did this podcast somebody was saying that her and her, whatever her husband likes to go to cemeteries, he likes to go to old cemeteries and, you know, out of the way cemeteries and, and you see like, you know, old graves.

Old kvarim, even you’ll see a mother and a and a baby really child’s buried together. Well, listen, before the chevrah kadisha took care of this people always ask, you know, like certain things that I don’t want to get into different halachos pertaining to to loss and how different communities navigate this space.

But a lot of people will tell you, I’m going to tell me where the baby’s buried. Right. A hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, when we were an agricultural people, we lived in the shtetl, we lived on farms, we lived, you know, we ran the inns. Think about it. What happened to the babies or the children? A woman could have had eight to 10 pregnancies and two living children, right?

Into adulthood, two children survived. Where were, where are they buried? in the backyard. Really? And again, some places they were buried in Simpson. You know what, if you didn’t live near their main city, if you were the only Jew in town renting from the, from the poretz, right? Where did you bury?

You buried it on your farmland. You Wow. So people always knew I had a very chashuv rebbetzin and tell me that her mother had delivered a stillborn baby. And the baby is buried next to her grandmother. Grandfather, the Rebbes kever. Really? Yeah. And she told me that every year , on what would have been the baby’s birthday, right?

Which was babies technically been on quality art site, but right, her mother would go out to the cemetery. Wow. Her mother was an incredibly hush of a Rebbetzen. And I said to her, do you know how lucky your mother was? So she said, yes, I know. I used to go with her. Really? She said, I know. So at one point, death was a natural part of life.

And with everything that that came with, whether for good or for bad or healthy or unhealthy in terms of how people dealt with their emotions at one point, death was a lot more real to us. than, than it is today, unless you experience an actual death of someone that you love, and then it becomes more real.

But nowadays, it’s like, how can we make this better? Like, let’s, let’s just like, fix things. And we’ll take, and, and I, I plead guilty because we do this. I tell parents who have to bury the baby, the pregnancy is more than a certain amount of weeks. So we need kvura. And I always tell them, no, I have the forms.

You fill them out and then you leave the hospital and you don’t have to worry about this. Like this is the one thing I can take off your shoulders. And I’ve had fathers say to me, I don’t want anyone taking this off my shoulders. Right. This is my child. I, I want to do this. Right. And then other people are like, Oh, okay, fine.

So we leave the hospital and, and it’s over. Do any parents ever tell you, but I want to, I want to tell you what the name should be? Yes, yes, yes. And again, that’s community dependent. In some communities , I tell people that if you can, if you want, but then they may ask their rav and their rav may say no.

You know, so again, like in various communities, there are different mahalik, you know, for things. But yes, very often parents want, they want a name, there’s a name that, that means something to them that they want. Right. And I, I had a father say to me once, well, I don’t want to give him a name.

But can you please ask the Chaevra Kadisha what the name will be because when I say Tehillim, , I wanna know, I want to have a name to say Tehillim, yeah, and I said to him, you can choose the name if you want, he’s like, no, I can’t, I can’t do that. So did he find out what the name is, the Chevra Kadisha?

Yes, yeah, we did, we asked the Chevra Kadisha, and, but he couldn’t bring himself to name the baby, like that, he couldn’t, he couldn’t do that, but he wanted to name was. Wow. So interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess like we said in the beginning, everyone is different. A hundred percent. It’s a journey.

It’s a grief journey. So it’s going to be different for every person.

Yeah. So I was thinking that Moshiach should come and then no more people will die. Is there no more death once? I don’t know. I think there’s like, there’s the part before Moshiach, then there’s like, I don’t know, like when does Techiyas HaMasem happen. And then when Tchiyas HaMasem happens, does that mean no one dies anymore?

That’s like a whole other, I know when I was talking to someone about the name of, of my book and someone mentioned something like, or something like that. Not gonna use it, but Right. But I was like, but that’s not even comforting, like could be many years later . Right, right. I, we always have this conversation like, what does it mean?

Like, you know, the rombam talks about what things will be like when Mashiach comes like, okay, what does it mean? Right. I don’t know. No, I always think to myself also. Shouldn’t we want him to come for the purest motive of glorifying the name of HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the world? Because, like, that’s what life will be like. You know, that, you know, for sure, will be a continuous, being Mekadeish Shem Shamayim. So shouldn’t we want Moshiach to come just for that reason alone, as opposed to the fact that we’re dealing with so much grief now, and there’s so much illness, and there’s so much tragedy.

Like, that’s why we want him to come? Because. Life is not comfortable for us now, or should we have, it’s like, why do I want Shabbos to come? So I want Shabbos to come because, oh my gosh, Shabbos is a gift or because, oh, I need a break. I want it to come because I want to go to sleep. I have to be honest.

You know, I always say like, there’s so much loss, it’s not, I don’t know, maybe it just seems like there’s more loss today, maybe we talk about it, I don’t know. And I always think to myself, if this is part of a plan to bring this to a close, then okay, let’s do it. Right. Painful. And it hurts. It’s really, really hard.

But okay, you know, there’s like the light at the end of the tunnel, you know, if there isn’t, I don’t know. Anyway, but hopefully there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, which us. Slowly making them soon. Sooner than later, please. So any like anything that we forgot to say that we should say before we finish.

No, I think, I think the most common question we always get like in any situation is, I don’t know what to say. I think I told you this that. That’s, you know, I heard someone speak about what it was like to sit Shiva for her child and that people were coming and saying there are no words, there are no words, there are no words.

And finally she said, yes, there are, you just don’t know them. And, and when we don’t know what to say, I think, either don’t say anything. Right. Or say, I don’t know what to say. Right. I just don’t. Please know that I’m here though. I come here either my physical presence. I’m here with my physical presence or because I’ve reached out and I’m saying that I care.

I can’t make this better. There’s no way I can make this better. I want you to know that I’m here and I’m listening. And if you want to talk, I’m here. I’m here to listen. I think that like, you know, that it’s like a certain level of vulnerability to say that. And people are just so afraid of that. It’s so much easier to say, I’m here and I’m going to fix you up and I’m going to make you feel better.

And I’m going to walk out if you’re feeling like I did my duty. Yeah. But it’s the vulnerability and the honesty that really helps. And really when someone is in a very raw place, they don’t, they don’t need to be fixed. They need to have it. You need to have it recognized. Right, because if we don’t recognize the pain and a little bit, I remember speaking to somebody once whose family had gone through like a really, really bad divorce, really, which is a whole other kind of grief, but really, really bad divorce.

No one in that family and that larger extended family dealt with that pain and what it was like, and then years later, it was some sort of like family reconciliation, but really wasn’t dealt with either. And then the family made a simcha and what it was like so description was like all the years there had been a wound.

That had been covered up. It had just like the bandage was just, we put on another bandage, we put on another bandage, we put on another bandage. We never dealt with the actual wound itself. We just kept covering it up and covering it up. And now, it was as if somebody had ripped all the bandages off and there was a wound.

It wasn’t the same wounds because it had been years, but it was ugly and it was scarred and deep and, and now all of a sudden it was like, what is going on here? Like what just happened, right? When someone is in pain and we don’t let them, we don’t give them space for their pain. We don’t validate it. We don’t honor it.

We might be creating a situation in which they can’t. honor or make space for their pain. And so then all we’re doing is putting a bandage on top of a wound that really needs to be stitched. It really needs to be dealt with and it’s not at some point that’s going to come off. Wow. And so really the healing places is let’s deal with it now.

Let’s Let’s validate your pain. You know, it’s, it’s awkward. It’s uncomfortable. I get it. Life is awkward and uncomfortable, right? It has to be fixed all the time. And there’s, you’ll, you’ll never be able to fix the person, but if you want the person to sort of fix themselves or get fixed first, validate them and give them that space and give them that space.

Cause again, if I, I can be the kind of person who can validate myself, that’s great. Some people are capable of that. They have enough. Seven feelings of self worth and self compassion. Some people can’t. Right. And if they can’t get it from someone else, they’re incapable of doing it for themselves.

Right. They may not even realize they need it until there’s an explosion of some sort. Right. It could be five years later. Yes. Right. And all of a sudden it’s wearing its ugly head because I never, I never dealt with anything. So, okay. So I think the main takeaway message over here is to please be vulnerable.

Don’t say things just to say it and we can’t fix people. We could just validate. Yeah. I, I don’t think there’s a greater gift that you give to somebody else or to yourself by validating what they’re thinking and they’re feeling and, and creating a space in which that’s acceptable, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

Right. It’s okay. If you’re uncomfortable, this is about them. Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. Amazing. Thank you so, so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.