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Hello, Good morning, Natasha.
How are you doing today? How about

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yourself? Absolutely fantastic. I got
to thank you for this book in so

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many different ways and reasons. And
first of all, I wish I would

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have had this book when I was
a kid. But the thing is is

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that I've always grown to love rocks
period. So the Grief Rock to me,

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proves everything that I believe in that
rocks tell stories. So inside the

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Grief Rock which you're presenting, you're
giving us a story, a better way

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to understand the weight of the world
inside of our own hearts. Yes,

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I think it's a it's a good
analogy for for how it feels when you're

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going through grief. What led you
to this, because, I mean,

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you don't use the D word in
this book at all. You talk about

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the grief. You talk you talk
about all the different changes that we all

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go through, especially our little ones. And sometimes I mean when when when

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when my father and my two grandmothers
passed away all within one month, I

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didn't have a book like this that
I could go to and understand what was

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going on. Yeah, I think
that grief in and of itself, it's

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a hard thing to adapt to.
So you know a lot of books talk

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about dying and death, but it's
really the grief sometimes that is hard to

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navigate. And I came up with
the Grief Rock It. Actually, I

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wasn't planning on writing a book.
It was just from my own experience when

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my husband suddenly passed away. It
felt like a boulder just cracked our foundation

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in our house, and I needed
some way to talk to my kids about

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it, to make sense of what
we were experiencing and why everything felt upside

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down. You know, you're talking
about the different changes that you were going

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through. I can't imagine. One
of the things that you went through was

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the way that people around you start
treating you differently, and it's like,

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stop, I'm still the same person. I understand that I've got this weight

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on me now, but we've got
to stop. Yeah, It's really interesting

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how people interact with you. Some
people come out of the woodwork and you're

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like, who are you? If
farrish have you been? And then other

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people who maybe we're close to you
will treat you like you have the plague.

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And so my kids lost some friends
and they were going through grief because

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maybe they weren't fun anymore, or
it was uncomfortable to be around them.

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Some neighbors, you know, would
kind of go inside when they would see

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me, you know. And so
I'm laughing now it's been almost three years,

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but it's very overwhelming when you're going
through it, you know, to

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understand that people are going to treat
you differently as well, and treating yourself

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differently as well, because I mean, when it comes to grief, I

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mean it can get in there and
it can in fact and affect your health

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as well as your welfare. Yeah, there is so many physical aspects of

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grief, and that's kind of what
I talk about in the Grief Flok the

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book, because that was actually one
of the most that was one of the

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harder parts for me to navigate,
was the physical aspects. Like my chest

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physically hurt. I could not eat. Everything tasted like cardboard. I could

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not sleep. My sleep cycles were
all messed up. And that's not an

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adult problem. My kids were struggling
with that too, and so understanding the

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physical aspects of grief and how it
impacts your body, it's really helpful to

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normalize that and say you're not going
crazy. This is a common experience.

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This is what it feels like,
you know, one of the things that

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you covered that a lot, because
a lot of people just say, or

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my father would say, you know, you know, come on, stand

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up, put your big boy pants
on. But I love the way that

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you go. Hey. Look,
basically, you need to embrace the fact

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that this rock is going to be
with you everything that you do, from

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your eating to your sleeping to just
having fun. You're going to carry that

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with you. And as much as
we want to shake it off, you

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know it, just allow it to
be a part of your presence. Yeah,

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there is this societal pressure of this
bad thing happened. Let's move past

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it so that you can be better
again. And really it's about embracing the

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grief because it will find you no
matter what, and it does partner with

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you. It's there on the playground, or it's there with you at work,

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it's there when you're eating, it's
there when you're sleeping, and so

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it is learning how to have a
relationship with this grief, with this rock.

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Sometimes it's a pebble, sometimes it's
the older and it's so big because

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your love was so big and so
understanding that this relationship with grief is partly

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because you love so deeply that you
are feeling this so deeply, and learning

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how to navigate that is so helpful. Yeah, and learning how to hug

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the rock to create the glow.
I can relate with that because I have

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the ashes of my brother and my
mother inside this studio and Is I don't

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mourn their loss. I feel their
presence. And I love the way that

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you you put this or the illustrations
and everything in a way that it allows

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me to accept the grief and that
we can grow from this. Yeah,

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And I love how you put that
because it's so true their their their love

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is always with us and and through
grief, we really we start to realize

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that that the love is still there
and that grief and that that rock is

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there because our love is there and
and so it's not this thing that we

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need to get rid of. We
want to be able to function for sure,

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but that our love is it's going
to be part of our journey as

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well as this grief. But I
don't want is parents to get this book

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when their child is grieving. What
I want them to do is get it

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now so they can prepare the child's
hard And the reason why I bring that

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up is because I read a book
from the donay Lama that was called The

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Art of Dying. I am so
prepared for that moment because I took the

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time as a as an adult to
read about that moment, to study it,

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to accept it. I mean,
how do you feel about that?

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I mean when, when is the
best time to give this to a child?

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Yeah? And I love that book. That's a great book. I

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agree with you. I feel like
if my kids, you can never prepare

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for grief. But if my kids
knew that this is the experience of grief,

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and if it was part of our
education, that you know, along

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with all the other books we have
books on the grieving process because it's going

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to hit every single one of us. It prepares people, and I also

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think it prepares people to be more
empathetic that, Oh, you have a

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schoolmate that is going through grief,
this is what they're experiencing. Or you

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have a colleague or friend, this
is what they're experiencing. We need to

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normalize grief and really talk about not
just the abstract but the physiological aspect of

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grief as well, so that people
understand that it's just part of the human

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condition. We're all going to experience
this. What are some issues that we

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keep missing when it comes to a
child going through grief, because I mean,

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we're not perfect. I mean we
we're just as human as anything else,

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but we're still missing out on some
very important issues, you know.

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I think sometimes you know, as
adults, we have this relationship with grief

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and we start to adapt to it. Kids will resurface their grief through different

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developmental stages, and so, you
know, for me, it's been almost

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three years since my husband died,
but for my kids, as they get

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older one they start to remember their
dad in different ways, and so it

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impacts them. They you know,
when they graduate from high school, it

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will impact them. When they're getting
married and there's no one to walk them

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down the aisle, it will impact
them. And so being cognizant of the

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fact that it doesn't disappear, that
it will pop back up at different times

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developmentally is important. And I think
also recognizing that there are triggers at school.

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There's the daughter and daddy, dances, donuts with dads, you know,

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all sorts of different parent oriented activities
that can be insensitive, and so

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recognizing that they'll be triggers ongoing,
it's important too. Boy, you bring

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up a very interesting point about the
daddy daughter dances because we're mobile DJs and

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we're in those elementary schools with those
dances, and we do not say daddy

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daughter dances. It is a night
of celebration, is what we do,

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because we want to embrace all hearts
that are there. I love that.

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Yeah, I think we need to
do that more universally, for sure.

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Absolutely. Where can people go to
find out more? Because this book here

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is just a seed. You're about
ready to plant a lot more things out

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here in the world that are going
to be connected to this. I mean,

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this is just the beginning for you. Well. I appreciate that.

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Yeah, I mean you can find
the book The Grief Rock where books are

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sold. I have a link to
Amazon. You can go to Natasha daniels

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dot com slash grief. Please come
back to this show anytime in the future,

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Natasha, the door is always going
to be open for you. I

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appreciate that. Thanks so much.