Episode 347: Love Becomes Purpose - Adrienne's Sissy
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
Parent. Sister. Friend. That was the order Andrea established with her little sister Adrienne when Adrienne was just nine years old, fresh into a new life in Los Angeles after their mother signed over custody on the day after Christmas. Andrea was twenty-two. She had not planned any of this. But she looked at her little sister and she knew. And so she laid it out simply: I have to be your parent first, then your sister, and one day when you grow up, I really hope I'm your friend. Adrienne understood. She had a painting made for Andrea's office wall. It said: Parent, Sister, Friend. That...
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Episode 346: Life Grows Around It - Graham's Mom
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
Grief is permanent. But it doesn't have to be all-consuming. That is the quiet, hard-won truth at the heart of this conversation with Wesley, Graham's mom. And it is the kind of truth that only comes from ten years of living with loss. Graham was adopted at five months old, a boy who struggled from early on with questions of identity and belonging. He wrestled with being adopted, with his sexuality, with depression, and eventually with addiction. Wesley spent years in that particular kind of anticipatory grief that parents of children with addiction know all too well, always bracing, always...
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Episode 345: You Are Doing It - Taylor's Mom
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
Some dates just carry weight. April 23rd. The anniversary of Taylor's death. Two days after what would have been Andy's 22nd birthday. When Jam reached out and asked to come back on, I looked at the calendar and knew immediately. There was no one else I wanted in this space this week. If you haven't yet listened to , I'd encourage you to start there. Jam first came on just four months after losing Taylor, her 13-year-old daughter, a girl who rode the special needs bus by choice every single day so she could sit beside her twin sister Morgan, who saved her lunch seat without fail, who never...
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Episode 344: Even Though, We Will - Noah's Dad
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
Abnormalities. That is the word that changed Matthew and his wife Hannah's lives forever. They went in for a routine ultrasound, their almost two-year-old son Walker playing happily beside them in the waiting room, and left knowing that their lives would never be the same, and that their son Noah was unlikely to live. What followed was six months of hurrying up and waiting. Six months of grieving a diagnosis before they ever had to grieve a death. Six months of doctor's appointments and phone calls and learning, in real time, what it means to carry an impossible weight while the rest of the...
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Episode 343: Not Alone - Gwen & Marcy
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
We are not meant to do this alone. That is the thread that runs through every moment of this conversation, and these are the words Gwen chose to close with, because they are simply true. This episode is a replay of our recent live Q&A, a chance to follow up on the four-week educational series Gwen so graciously offered in February while I took a much-needed step back. We talk openly about what that break was like for me, why I needed it, and what I learned from it, including the hard-won lesson that even sacred work can wear you down if you never put it down, even for a little while. ...
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Episode 342: Still Standing - Jake's Mom
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
Before Angie lost her son Jake, she used to say something that I think many of us have said — or at least thought. If something ever happened to Jake, you would just have to bury me with him. Period. End of discussion. There was no way. And then the unthinkable happened. Jake was Angie's only child, her greatest surprise and her greatest blessing. Born in August of 1995, he grew up to be a man of quiet, steady faith — the kind that didn't ask for recognition, that just lived itself out in the way he treated people, the way he loved his wife Hannah, the way he'd get genuinely excited...
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Episode 341: Still His Mama - Raiden's Mom
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
When Samantha first came on this podcast in Episode 282, she was only a few months out from losing Raiden. She was raw and fresh in her grief — and yet even then, just four months into her loss, she reached out to ask me about Andy. She stepped outside her own pain to offer comfort to someone further down the road. I knew then that she was someone special. Fourteen months later, she is back. And the question that quietly runs through everything she shares is one that every grieving parent eventually faces: How do I keep being my child's mama when my child is gone? For Samantha, the...
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Episode 340: Thankful In, Not For - Mikael's Mom
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
In this episode of Always Andy’s Mom, I sit down with Leanne, Mikael’s mom, for an honest and heartfelt conversation about grief, faith, and life after losing a child to addiction. At the center of this episode is a powerful shift in perspective. After her son’s death, Leanne struggled with the words “give thanks in all circumstances.” But when reading the words more carefully, she noticed a subtle difference that shifted her understanding. She began to see the difference between being thankful for her circumstances and being thankful in them. Leanne shares her experience loving her...
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Episode 339: 8:15 - The Moment Everything Changed - Chantal's Parents
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
In this episode of Always Andy’s Mom, Marcy speaks with Jean and Shelly about the loss of their daughter, Chantal, and the grief journey that followed after losing a child to cancer. Jean remembers the exact moment everything changed: 8:15, the time Chantal died. That moment became the dividing line between the life they once knew and the life that followed. Together they share the long and difficult experience of Chantal’s cancer diagnosis, the exhausting treatments that followed, and the heartbreak of losing a child. They also talk about how grief continued to unfold in the years...
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Episode 338: Scars & Seasons - Keyan's Mom
Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom
After six and a half years and more than 300 episodes, I took a month away from the podcast to rest, spend time with my family, and tend to my own heart. When it felt right to return, there was only one person I wanted to talk with. Stephanie — Keyan’s mom — was the very first bereaved mother I ever interviewed when this podcast began. Even before that, she was someone I met in a grief support group just weeks after Andy died. She was further down the road of child loss than I was, and I remember quietly watching her, wondering how she was still standing. Somewhere in that watching was a...
info_outlineDuring one of the first grief‑support group sessions that Eric and I attended in the weeks after Andy died, our Starlight Ministries facilitators led us in an exercise. We were given a black‑and‑white copy of an image created by H. Norman Wright titled “Grief – A Tangled Ball of Emotions.” The picture resembled a ball of yarn, but instead of yarn strands, it had strips winding around the sphere, each labeled with a different emotion.
The exercise was simple. We received crayons and were asked to color in any stripe that represented an emotion we had felt during that week. I remember starting at the top: Loss – yes, I colored it in. Sadness – that one too. Anxiety – I’d been feeling pretty anxious, so I shaded it. Then came Confusion, Panic, and Dismay. I found myself actually feeling dismayed that I was coloring all of these emotions! I wondered whether I would ever reach a stripe I didn’t feel. When I finally arrived at Vindictiveness, I was relieved to leave that one white. In total, I was shocked to discover that I had colored about 90 % of the more than thirty emotions on the ball.
Looking around the room, I was comforted to see that the vast majority of parents had papers that were almost completely filled in as well. While reading the recent podcast guest Michael’s book The Million Stages of Grief, I saw how many emotions had surprised him in his own grieving process. That reminded me of the exercise from years ago and convinced me that it deserved a livestream discussion. Today, we explored several emotions that have surprised listeners of the show.
It is normal to experience twenty to thirty different emotions in a single day. Grief isn’t a linear path but a swirling knot of feelings—each one valid, each one a sign of life moving forward. By naming, acknowledging, and gently sitting with even the most unexpected emotions, we give ourselves the space to heal. I encourage everyone to keep their own “tangled ball” nearby as a reminder that, no matter how full it looks, every colored strand is evidence of resilience and progress.