It happened. You can’t go back and change it… What is happening tomorrow, I can’t control it. So all I can control is today. It’s very simple. I just said, “I am there for you.” I said I am going to have my downs and my ups but I will always here for you. I have prostate cancer. I have arthritis in my knees and you know, these things happen. So like I said, I am here for you.
Click play to hear a full interview with Emmanuel below:
You’ve got to take care of yourself before you can take care of someone else. I didn’t take that and use it very well. I wasn’t good at taking care of myself. I didn’t care for myself. It was more about him. You have to take care of yourself before you take care of someone else, you have to nourish yourself. You know you just have to be there for them. They go through all those stages and I think you do a little bit too. The anger and then the hurt, and you know this is going to happen, and then you don’t realize until they are gone. I think you get prepared for it too, so when he passed, I was very prepared so I didn’t even cry at the time when he was cremated. But it creeps up on you as time goes by. The loneliness and then somehow you just get through it.
Click play to hear a full interview with Coral below:
The husband at first was a little bit hesitant to share what he was feeling because he felt his grief wasn’t… He kept downplaying his grief, “My grief isn’t as important as my wife’s. She had to carry our son for 21 weeks and be induced and hold our dead son in her arms. I can’t even compare my grief to hers.” And it’s so important in this organization that we let men know that their grief is just as valuable and just as important and the journey of healing is important.
Click play to hear a full interview with Paula below:
Being a mother is the hardest job, I’d say, in the world. Because sometimes you are by yourself and you don’t have someone else to kind of bring your child up. Obviously, being a teenager, I was not easy to put up with. And when you are young, you want to experience different things. You think that you’ve grown. You think you know everything. Obviously, that’s not always the case. My mother and I, we have had our ups and downs, but some of the things I’ve done as a teenager because I thought I knew better, that kind of disappointed her. I haven’t been the best child, but I am glad that we mended our relationship and that we can move forward. And I am seeing her attitude towards her job regardless of how difficult it gets, it’s what has helped mold me and helped change my mindset when it comes to giving back to the community.
Click play to hear a full interview with Tehillah below:
I used to play the victim role a lot. And I swore the world owed me because I lost my loved one to homicide. So the world owes me and I was going around like that and I didn’t even realize I was comfortable being the victim. And then they showed me my truth. It’s just something I won’t accept because I am not a victim. It is just something that has happened to me. And so here I am, I do a lot of work on gun violence as well within the community. And I can now because I am at a place where I can do that, but I had to help myself first.
Click play to hear a full interview with Michelle below:
One particular client who, she looked so so down, her son had completed suicide, and she looked old beyond her years. She just looked so so depressed. And then I saw a real change in her as the weeks went on. And she was one I encouraged to take the training and she facilitated a group with me and she said to the group, “Heather saved my life.” That to me, was the proudest moment.
Click play to hear a full interview with Heather below:
