Hello, Good morning, Natasha. How are you doing today? How about
yourself? Absolutely fantastic. I got to thank you for this book in so
many different ways and reasons. And first of all, I wish I would
have had this book when I was a kid. But the thing is is
that I've always grown to love rocks period. So the Grief Rock to me,
proves everything that I believe in that rocks tell stories. So inside the
Grief Rock which you're presenting, you're giving us a story, a better way
to understand the weight of the world inside of our own hearts. Yes,
I think it's a it's a good analogy for for how it feels when you're
going through grief. What led you to this, because, I mean,
you don't use the D word in this book at all. You talk about
the grief. You talk you talk about all the different changes that we all
go through, especially our little ones. And sometimes I mean when when when
when my father and my two grandmothers passed away all within one month, I
didn't have a book like this that I could go to and understand what was
going on. Yeah, I think that grief in and of itself, it's
a hard thing to adapt to. So you know a lot of books talk
about dying and death, but it's really the grief sometimes that is hard to
navigate. And I came up with the Grief Rock It. Actually, I
wasn't planning on writing a book. It was just from my own experience when
my husband suddenly passed away. It felt like a boulder just cracked our foundation
in our house, and I needed some way to talk to my kids about
it, to make sense of what we were experiencing and why everything felt upside
down. You know, you're talking about the different changes that you were going
through. I can't imagine. One of the things that you went through was
the way that people around you start treating you differently, and it's like,
stop, I'm still the same person. I understand that I've got this weight
on me now, but we've got to stop. Yeah, It's really interesting
how people interact with you. Some people come out of the woodwork and you're
like, who are you? If farrish have you been? And then other
people who maybe we're close to you will treat you like you have the plague.
And so my kids lost some friends and they were going through grief because
maybe they weren't fun anymore, or it was uncomfortable to be around them.
Some neighbors, you know, would kind of go inside when they would see
me, you know. And so I'm laughing now it's been almost three years,
but it's very overwhelming when you're going through it, you know, to
understand that people are going to treat you differently as well, and treating yourself
differently as well, because I mean, when it comes to grief, I
mean it can get in there and it can in fact and affect your health
as well as your welfare. Yeah, there is so many physical aspects of
grief, and that's kind of what I talk about in the Grief Flok the
book, because that was actually one of the most that was one of the
harder parts for me to navigate, was the physical aspects. Like my chest
physically hurt. I could not eat. Everything tasted like cardboard. I could
not sleep. My sleep cycles were all messed up. And that's not an
adult problem. My kids were struggling with that too, and so understanding the
physical aspects of grief and how it impacts your body, it's really helpful to
normalize that and say you're not going crazy. This is a common experience.
This is what it feels like, you know, one of the things that
you covered that a lot, because a lot of people just say, or
my father would say, you know, you know, come on, stand
up, put your big boy pants on. But I love the way that
you go. Hey. Look, basically, you need to embrace the fact
that this rock is going to be with you everything that you do, from
your eating to your sleeping to just having fun. You're going to carry that
with you. And as much as we want to shake it off, you
know it, just allow it to be a part of your presence. Yeah,
there is this societal pressure of this bad thing happened. Let's move past
it so that you can be better again. And really it's about embracing the
grief because it will find you no matter what, and it does partner with
you. It's there on the playground, or it's there with you at work,
it's there when you're eating, it's there when you're sleeping, and so
it is learning how to have a relationship with this grief, with this rock.
Sometimes it's a pebble, sometimes it's the older and it's so big because
your love was so big and so understanding that this relationship with grief is partly
because you love so deeply that you are feeling this so deeply, and learning
how to navigate that is so helpful. Yeah, and learning how to hug
the rock to create the glow. I can relate with that because I have
the ashes of my brother and my mother inside this studio and Is I don't
mourn their loss. I feel their presence. And I love the way that
you you put this or the illustrations and everything in a way that it allows
me to accept the grief and that we can grow from this. Yeah,
And I love how you put that because it's so true their their their love
is always with us and and through grief, we really we start to realize
that that the love is still there and that grief and that that rock is
there because our love is there and and so it's not this thing that we
need to get rid of. We want to be able to function for sure,
but that our love is it's going to be part of our journey as
well as this grief. But I don't want is parents to get this book
when their child is grieving. What I want them to do is get it
now so they can prepare the child's hard And the reason why I bring that
up is because I read a book from the donay Lama that was called The
Art of Dying. I am so prepared for that moment because I took the
time as a as an adult to read about that moment, to study it,
to accept it. I mean, how do you feel about that?
I mean when, when is the best time to give this to a child?
Yeah? And I love that book. That's a great book. I
agree with you. I feel like if my kids, you can never prepare
for grief. But if my kids knew that this is the experience of grief,
and if it was part of our education, that you know, along
with all the other books we have books on the grieving process because it's going
to hit every single one of us. It prepares people, and I also
think it prepares people to be more empathetic that, Oh, you have a
schoolmate that is going through grief, this is what they're experiencing. Or you
have a colleague or friend, this is what they're experiencing. We need to
normalize grief and really talk about not just the abstract but the physiological aspect of
grief as well, so that people understand that it's just part of the human
condition. We're all going to experience this. What are some issues that we
keep missing when it comes to a child going through grief, because I mean,
we're not perfect. I mean we we're just as human as anything else,
but we're still missing out on some very important issues, you know.
I think sometimes you know, as adults, we have this relationship with grief
and we start to adapt to it. Kids will resurface their grief through different
developmental stages, and so, you know, for me, it's been almost
three years since my husband died, but for my kids, as they get
older one they start to remember their dad in different ways, and so it
impacts them. They you know, when they graduate from high school, it
will impact them. When they're getting married and there's no one to walk them
down the aisle, it will impact them. And so being cognizant of the
fact that it doesn't disappear, that it will pop back up at different times
developmentally is important. And I think also recognizing that there are triggers at school.
There's the daughter and daddy, dances, donuts with dads, you know,
all sorts of different parent oriented activities that can be insensitive, and so
recognizing that they'll be triggers ongoing, it's important too. Boy, you bring
up a very interesting point about the daddy daughter dances because we're mobile DJs and
we're in those elementary schools with those dances, and we do not say daddy
daughter dances. It is a night of celebration, is what we do,
because we want to embrace all hearts that are there. I love that.
Yeah, I think we need to do that more universally, for sure.
Absolutely. Where can people go to find out more? Because this book here
is just a seed. You're about ready to plant a lot more things out
here in the world that are going to be connected to this. I mean,
this is just the beginning for you. Well. I appreciate that.
Yeah, I mean you can find the book The Grief Rock where books are
sold. I have a link to Amazon. You can go to Natasha daniels
dot com slash grief. Please come back to this show anytime in the future,
Natasha, the door is always going to be open for you. I
appreciate that. Thanks so much.