Grief & Happiness

What would you write in your own obituary?Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you’ve ever felt a sadness you couldn’t name, episode 468 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Author Angela Ricketts shares how her son’s rare, blinding eye disease left her grieving for years before she recognized it as grief. After losing her father, she turned to clay and made Sight Stones, showing how joy and sorrow can live side by side.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:56) How Sight Stones and Angela’s book fund eye disease research(02:48) Kai’s rare diagnosis and the disease that blinded her grandfather(04:45) Realizing a mother’s fear was grief after losing her father(06:00) How the creator of Seeds of Happiness inspired Sight Stones(09:09) “Never Lose Sight”: choosing your focus when it’s hard to see(16:43) “Share my story”: how Kai’s openness helped strangers open up(22:52) From “the stuck place” to the happiest time of her life(25:58) How music became Kai’s outlet as his vision fadesAngela “Annie” Ricketts is a St. Louis entrepreneur, artist, and author, and the founder of Sight Stones, a nonprofit funding research into inherited retinal diseases. She co-founded Better Life Home Cleaning with her husband, Matthew, in 2008. When her son Kai was diagnosed with choroideremia, the rare, progressive condition that blinded her grandfather, she returned to the clay worry stones she made as a child with her potter father. Each stone has a hole to look through and carries the message “Never Lose Sight,” also the title of her new book, with a foreword by John O’Leary. All proceeds from the book and stones fund research.Angela shares a grief many people overlook: a mother’s grief over her son’s fading sight. She had no word for it until she lost her grandmother and father and felt the same weight. Clay became her way through, and a chance meeting years earlier with Mark Borella, creator of Seeds of Happiness, led to the studio where her volunteers now gather weekly. She talks openly about the “stuck place” she reached and the message each stone carries: we choose what to focus on, even when we struggle to see. Kai’s choice to share his story has led strangers to share theirs, and music has become his outlet. Today, Angela says, joy and grief live side by side, and she is the happiest she has ever been.Connect with Angela Ricketts:WebsiteInstagramFacebookYouTubeBook: Angela Ricketts – Never Lose SightLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness Alliance

Are you on my way forward, never to go back to the lonely, isolated place you have been dwelling?Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you’ve tried to comfort a mother who lost a child to suicide, or lived it, episode 466 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Jackie M. Baker shares why suicide grief lasts longer, how shame and “what ifs” isolate parents, and how journaling healed her. Saying yes to help and finding beauty in brokenness helped her laugh again.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:43) Meet Jackie: pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of two(01:19) Losing her son to suicide and the journey to Messy Mourning(08:46) Reading her journal aloud to a grief counselor to release her pain(12:27) Finding beauty in her brokenness, one sunrise at a time(13:37) Saying yes and offering grieving friends practical help(17:32) Leading GriefShare and the pastor who urged her to grieve openly(21:09) Back at work as a nurse practitioner through grief fog(29:16) Free suicide loss resources, from laments to “things that help, things that hurt”Jackie M. Baker is a writer, storyteller, and pediatric nurse practitioner based in Vancouver, Washington. After her 23-year-old son, Sebastian, died by suicide in 2017, she began writing through her grief, which led to her debut book, Messy Mourning: Hope for Mothers Grieving the Loss of a Child by Suicide, a companion offering honest reflection and hope. Her work covers grief, faith, motherhood, and healing, and she writes on Substack. Jackie also leads a GriefShare group at her church, supporting widows, widowers, and parents through loss.In this episode, Jackie tells Emily how Messy Mourning came to be. After losing Sebastian, who struggled with bipolar disorder and depression, she became an empty nester within six months and took a creative nonfiction class. She wrote a memoir first, then started over on her writing coach’s advice. Finding little written on suicide loss, she saw that this grief often lasts longer and carries extra shame, guilt, and “what ifs.” Jackie explains how reading her journal aloud to a grief counselor released grief the body would otherwise carry, and how she looked for “beauty in my brokenness” daily. She also learned to say yes, accepting offers of help and taking a youth pastor’s advice to keep meeting with her church group of girls so they could see her grieve and keep living. She closes with free resources from her website, including a “things that help, things that hurt” list and songs of lament.Connect with Jackie M. Baker:WebsiteInstagramFacebookSubstackBook: Jackie M. Baker – Messy MourningLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

Make a list of the good attributes you had when you were young, and consider how that child in your past can bring you joy today.Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've wondered how unspoken grief shapes those you love, episode 464 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Author Audrey Hyams Romoff, daughter of a child Auschwitz survivor, shares how her family's silence reached her daughter. A joint trip to Auschwitz broke it, showing how honesty and kindness can keep trauma from the next generation.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:53) Audrey's background and her memoir on four generations of women(01:21) Her mother's childhood in Auschwitz and the silence passed down to her daughter(09:22) How a trip to Auschwitz with her daughter changed their relationship(11:56) Why the crowds at Auschwitz gave mother and daughter opposite reactions(15:25) Writing a grief memoir without tying it up in a pretty bow(17:23) Why the circumstances of a death shape how grief lingers(19:44) How her mother and grandmother carried the same trauma so differently(32:30) Why "survivor" marks the start of a new battle, not the end(34:07) Small kindnesses and her Aunt Sheila's motto: just show upAudrey Hyams Romoff was born in Montreal to a mother who was one of the youngest children to survive Auschwitz, and grew up in a home that looked polished while that history played out within. In Toronto, she founded OverCat, a communications and influencer agency, consulting for brands such as Victoria's Secret and Estée Lauder and stars like Jennifer Lawrence. Cosmetics Magazine named her a top public relations executive, and she chaired communications for the Fashion Cares AIDS fundraiser. Her memoir, The Undertow of Grief: Navigating Intergenerational Trauma, follows the Holocaust's impact across four generations of women.In this episode, Audrey shows how unspoken trauma is passed down. She describes her mother's refusal to face her past and the loss of both parents in 2008, when her mother ended her life and her father died alongside her. After learning her daughter, Lindsay, had hidden her own grief to protect her, Audrey traveled with her to Auschwitz for PBS NewsHour on the 80th anniversary of its liberation. She explains why her mother rejected the word "survivor," why Audrey sees survival as the start of a new battle, and why her book offers no tidy ending. Grief and joy coexist, she says, but grief never leaves, and she closes with a case for small kindnesses and her Aunt Sheila's motto: just show up.Connect with Audrey Hyams Romoff:WebsiteInstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInYouTubeBook: Audrey Hyams Romoff - The Undertow of Grief: Navigating Intergenerational TraumaLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

Hawaiians see the ocean and sky together as one, and they call that Lani, the Hawaiian word for heaven. Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've ever wondered how one small idea could turn grief into a mission that helps hundreds of children, episode 462 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Guest Stephen Greengo turns a hospital memory of daughter Harper into Tiara4Harper.com, sending a tiara to a child at Children's Mercy Hospital for every one sold. Funded through his own concert security shifts, Stephen shows how one act of gratitude becomes a lasting legacy of joy.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:56) Stephen's background and gratitude behind the tiara business(02:21) Harper's hospital memory and the vibrating chair that shaped it all(04:55) Ten years after Harper's passing while still believing she's watching(06:08) The discovery behind it — 60,000 women search for tiaras monthly(07:32) How a tiara lets women feel like a princess, guilt-free(08:32) Growing the mission from 50 to 127 tiaras donated(10:43) Turning everyday encounters, like security shifts, into marketing(14:29) How listeners can get involved with Tiara4HarperStephen Greengo is a Navy veteran and Kansas City dad whose daughter Harper was born on January 10, 2014, and passed away from Sandhoff disease, a rare genetic disorder, just eight days shy of her second birthday. Rather than let grief take over, Stephen turned that loss into a vow to keep Harper's light alive, and that vow became Tiara4Harper.com, a mission-driven tiara business built entirely around her memory.In this episode, Stephen focuses on the business itself: how a hospital memory of Harper finding joy in a simple vibrating chair, paired with his observation of how often women buy tiaras for everyday occasions, became the blueprint for a company where every tiara sold sends a matching one to a little girl at Children's Mercy Hospital. He speaks candidly about running the operation on his own, funding it through security shifts at concerts, partnering with union halls for bulk donations, and reaching 127 tiaras donated to date, all while working toward donating as many as possible by November 18, National Princess Day. Guided by his philosophy, "Lift Where You Stand," Stephen frames the business as both a way of honoring Harper and a model for turning grief into consistent, small acts of service.Connect with Stephen Greengo:WebsiteInstagramTikTokFacebookLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief