Tuesday 14th April 2020 was a great day for Grief Probate Journey. We were to be interviewed by The Color of Grief. It was extremely nerve-wracking for my sister and me, but we know this amazing opportunity was for the greater good, so we tried to turn our nerves and fears into positive energy thinking so that we could take part in this fantastic opportunity we were given…
Please see Interview with The Color of Grief: Who we are, our journey, and how we got into the world of blogging – Tuesday 14th April 2020 which covers:
- Introduction/Our Story
- Background Story
- How this opportunity became possible
- Interview with The Color of Grief (Three-Part YouTube videos)
- Conclusion
- Transcript of Interview with the Color of Grief
- Our Final Thoughts
© Copyright 2019 Grief Probate Journey Blog. This topic is based on personal experiences of us at Grief Probate Journey and those of The Color Of Grief.
1. Introduction/Our Story
Tuesday 14th April 2020 was a great day for Grief Probate Journey. We were to be interviewed by The Color of Grief. It was extremely nerve-wracking for my sister and me, but we know this amazing opportunity was for the greater good, so we tried to turn our nerves and fears into positive energy thinking so that we could take part in this fantastic opportunity we were given.
2. Background story
Grief Probate Journey was born in June 2019, the background work for it started before this in around April 2019, however, the official launch took place in June. The months in between were spent creating the page, making it as user friendly as can be, and creating posts based on a great WordPress tutorial we found.
The reason this is being mentioned is that when we were asked to take part in this interview, we were given the opportunity to decide what we wished to speak about which was really nice for us.
As we are still fairly new, we decided this would be a good time to vocally and visually explain: Who we are, Our journey and how we came into the world of blogging.
Grief Probate Journey is now 10 months’ old. The Same as my sister and I are on a journey, so too is the blog. We have said this a few times in previous topics, however, this fact became so much more evident before taking part in this interview.
Something else my sister and I have often said in previous topics is that we dissociate ourselves from our situation, not necessarily by intention. These are our raw true emotions, and because what we went through is so traumatic, we are present, but we are also in our safe block like a bubble (we have mentioned this in previous topics). The majority of our feelings are locked away in a vault, but we’re not totally cut off but as we have numb areas, we put them there as a protection barrier. Another thing we have mentioned is that we feel we are in a Grief road block. We came to this realisation when doing a topic on Guilt and Grief. We are aware these things might not be the healthiest of ways, but it is the way we are handling and dealing with getting through things. Also, because we move from one situation to the next so quickly quite often, we don’t really take the time or get the opportunity to reflect back on thing’s we have achieved.
This blog is definitely something we have never taken the time to do in the way we did before this interview. We decided to go back to the very first posts and re-read everything. The main reason is panic set in and we were feeling like “oh no, what shall we say, what do we really have to say” we knew we had thing’s to say but nerves were trying to take over.
When looking back at the content we’ve produced it was like an out of body experience almost. We produced this content from our emotions and experiences at those moments in time, but looking back it felt like wow, look at the things we have been through. It was almost like an outside looking in, experience.
Doing this also lets us see how the blog is evolving and taking on its own path. We have mentioned that in previous topics, and my sister also mentions this in the interview.
3. How this opportunity became possible
So, we had created the blog, we were producing content weekly (every Monday) we were satisfied the webpage was user friendly as possible, and we were receiving excellent and really positive and overwhelming feedback, comments, engagement from topics published. These things really warm our hearts, fill us with joy, overwhelm us in positive ways and also make us feel like yes, this was a good idea and the right thing to do.
We now wanted to go a step further. Engage in our social media community. Something which I mentioned in the interview which I picked up on when Griefandgrtis: (Randi Pearlman Wolfson: Grief educator and author), mentioned this in her interview the week before, is that until we did this and created social media page’s: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we were not aware that there are communities of people who are grieving that support each other. We felt this is amazing. We wanted to engage in these communities and be involved in this support.
We also became aware through our social media pages, there are platforms out there that support black people and black businesses, we find this inspiring and wanted to become part of this also. We wanted to reach out and engage in this community and explain our cause and what we are trying to do.
Our idea was to contact people with our networks explain our story and try to do guest features. As a first step, we thought this was the best approach, especially as we are stil new to all of this. We were really pleased when Black Business UK featured our blog on their page. We were in disbelief but in a grateful way. It was a positive step in the direction of our goals.
Our next idea was to contact our Grief community network and see if someone would like to feature on our blog. This thankfully worked well for us as two guest features took place:
Migdalia|Grief Support: @migdal.ia Thanatologist– topic: Keeping too busy-self-care and Grief
Jane Edberg: @thefineartofgrieving – topic: Hobbies and Grief
Jane Edberg not only agreed to feature on our blog but she also kindly recommended The Color of Grief to us. Once we had worked together and published the topic, we then decided to build up the courage to make the move and contact The Color of Grief. We are so pleased that
- We had the ideas we did
- That we acted on those ideas
- That we were fortunate enough to have positive results on both occasions
Had we not done these things our paths would not have crossed with any of the people we have worked with and the recommendation from Jane Edberg would not have happened which means this interview would not have been taking place.
4. Interview with The Color of Grief (Three-Part YouTube videos)
We wanted to figure out a way of sharing this interview with anyone who might not have an Instagram account or might not have had the opportunity to watch it at the time. Thankfully, we recorded it through a screen recorder app on our phone, created a Grief Probate Journey YouTube channel and uploaded it there. (We were unable to record it all in one go and this is why it is in three parts).
Please see Interview with The Color of Grief: (Three-Part YouTube videos)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
5. Conclusion
We are incredibly pleased we reached out to The Color of Grief. Greg is very welcoming, very knowledgeable, and has a great cause he has created.
“The Color of Grief is a Grief support group that speaks not only to the power and pain of grief but also speaks to the African American cultural experience”.
“The Color of Grief holds a safe space for grievers”
The Color of Grief Social Media details:
6. Transcript of Interview with the Color of Grief
Live Instagram Interview with The Color of Grief (Tuesday 14th April 2020)
Greg opened up the interview by introducing he had a guest from the UK, and we would be talking about our Grief Journey. He also spoke about the pandemic saying he hopes we are all keeping safe using hand sanitiser, wearing masks. He said he hopes we are staying safe and doing well
Greg’s introduction for me (Tara Greene):
He welcomed me to the Color of Grief, he then went on to say:
- Tell us how you got started in grief
- How you got started in our blog
- He asked how we are doing with the coronavirus in the UK
I stated that:
- Keyworkers are working
- The message is to stay at home
- Stay safe
- When going out keep your distance
- Only go out for essential shopping
- Exercising once a day
- We haven’t reached the peak as yet so we’re not sure when the self-isolation might start to die down.
Greg: Then asked:
- What part of the UK I am from?
- What you are doing in grief
- How you got into it
- Highlights and challenges faced up to this point
Greg: Introduce yourselves, the name of our blog, then go into how you got started’’
Tara:
My name is Tara my sister name is Tanya she will join in as well
Our Blog is called Grief Probate Journey and we came up with that name because we were trying to think of something that would relate to what we are trying to do because it’s not just about grief, and it’s not just about probate and it is a journey, and so that is why we came up with the name.
In terms of the blog, the reason we decided we wanted to do it is because throughout the journey of what we’ve been going through there have been so many unknown situations, there have been so many hard times, with every new thing we felt we can’t keep this to ourselves, these are things we thought people should know In the hope it might help people who are going through something similar or know someone that is going through something similar.
Greg: Tell us how you got started – who you lost, the journey through that, how we came up with the blog.
Tara:
Our Dad, he passed away, he was hospitalised in 5th September 2016 and that’s basically where it all started, from that day our life has just been on pause time and everything stopped.
Diagnosed infective endocarditis which is a heart condition from that there were as many other infections and many other situations that he faced, he was in the hospital for seven months it was a hard journey, he went through so much, so did we as a family our Dad had so many conditions, we didn’t know what they meant, we were trying to make sure our Dad got the best care and the treatment, everything was happening so fast. felt like a hamster on a wheel, as soon as one thing was resolved, something else happened, that was the constant whilst he was in the hospital, every day something new for seven months, it was really hard for us and we can’t imagine what it was like for him as he was in the one who was in the hospital, he sadly passed away in March 2017, and then from there we thought the worst possible thing has happened surely it can’t get any worse than that, but then it did there were more things because it went to the Coroner and there were lots of other things involved around that
Throughout this whole thing the people we were dealing with we didn’t feel we were being treated very well, neither was our dad in certain situations
All of this combined we were like we would like to try and get this out there as it’s unbelievable what we are going through, and top of that our dad has passed away we are trying to acknowledge that but on top of it we are having to deal with all these new situations, that is where we came up with the idea for the blog Which talks about our journey with probate the medical conditions that our Dad had, the fight we’ve had with things that we’ve been trying to do, it was just a way of really trying to reach out to people in case they might be in a similar situation, to begin with, we didn’t know where it might go, we just knew that this is what we wanted to do and we just had to figure out a way of doing it. in a sense it’s like trying to have a platform of all of this information in one space because for us when we were going through it we were trying to find things we couldn’t necessarily find a lot of things on the internet, so it was putting something in one place for people to see.
Greg: Really trying to get things in order beforehand
- Really try to stress before something happens is trying to get things
- We always think we have time to set these things in place
- Come up with will
- Estate
- Insurance policy ho
- where are you going to get buried?
- when are you going to get buried?
Put on back burner before everything hits. Navigate system that is not very friendly
If someone has property or bank accounts, all of that gets held up in court. They decide Who gets what, what is released. It becomes complicated to navigate that type of system
The UK is a little different to the United States when it comes to different laws and different things that go on with how long one holds a body if someone dies the hospital only holds the body for a certain amount of days if you don’t have certain things in place the state takes over.
Greg: What were some of the challenges that you actually faced when you tried to deal with your father after death?
One of the things I would say our dad he was a realist, he would often say god sparing life, god willing, if we said speak to you tomorrow, so he had tried to talk to us about these things, but we didn’t really want to speak about it, so that’s where we went wrong, because had we had these conversations with our Dad when he tried to speak to us (more me than my sister) we didn’t speak to him about it, so then it comes to the point he passed away what do we do now, we found a will it wasn’t signed, where do we go from here, but then every situation is different, for us, our parents were divorced, so that made things and our age, because they had divorced it was left to me and my sister to handle situations, missed out on things because of our age.
Inheritance tax, all the assets he owned, we had to go to his house and find paperwork, it was really overwhelming you don’t know what you are doing, it was just me and my sister, we were the ones who had to do this didn’t know what we were doing we had to find a solicitor, all of these terms were being used, we don’t have a clue, it was very challenging.
Greg: What are some of the subject matters that you really try to tackle to help people?
One of the main things was about inheritance tax so that is giving people information about the estate is a certain amount and knowing how much will go back to the government, also about arranging a funeral, it’s trying to get people to speak to their loved ones now and find out what they have in place, find out what is in their will so that when the time comes there is less to have to deal with, because if you don’t have the conversations in the here and now, then you will be left with all of these things on top of the fact of trying to come to terms with the fact that someone has passed away, so we have things on Probate, selling a property because that is something that could be part of it as well, it’s everything we have gone through, also we took to another level and we have something about making a complaint as that is something we are doing.
We have our Dads medical conditions, the reason why we did that is that infective endocarditis, we had never heard of that, it’s a very serious heart infection that starts from the gums, who would have known that, so this is why we decided to share these things as it could happen to someone else, it was unknown to us but we decided to share it, and also our Dad experienced delirium a lot whilst he was in the hospital, we didn’t know what that was it was really scary to deal with there wasn’t a lot of information for us and we were having to deal with him being in and out of delirium so we have a topic on delirium it’s things like that, we speak about the things we experienced to try and help other people so they can be aware.
Also, speaking about the things we dealt with while our Dad was in the hospital so if someone is in hospital, or has someone who is in hospital and might feel challenged, just giving advice on how we dealt with what we went through and how we dealt with it.
It is a Journey of everything we are going through and what we are experiencing along the way.
Greg Swapped over to my sister Tanya
But gave a brief on what we had spoken about
Calling in from the UK subject matter and the topic is universal. You should be preparing yourself beforehand even there in the USA it has no different dealings in either UK or anywhere else in the rest of the world, you need to have your ducks in a row
Tanya:
Greg gave Tanya the opportunity to introduce herself, and what the journey has been like for her
Tanya introduced herself:
Tara has said a lot about what we have been through, it has been horrendous, maybe that is not the best word to use, it’s been a hard road, it was like a whirlwind, like Tara said, when our Dad had to go into hospital it started with one thing, one thing after another spiralled into lots of different things. We couldn’t believe how things went, how he was treated, the way we were treated it was hard, it was difficult.
Greg asked, give an example, of what you mean:
Do you think it had to do with your race, do you think it had to do with because you didn’t have anything in order, or so much red tape you couldn’t navigate your way through it?
It was a mix of things, with regard to when he was in the hospital, we probably came over as though we were a nuisance because we were constantly trying to find out what was happening with him, why things are not happening it kind of started from there, and then it continued to spiral from there, every institution that we came up against, it’s like we were being a nuisance like we were pushing too much get things done in a sense.
Greg: What has been the toughest challenge for you during that whole ordeal
I think like Tara said we’ve gone through all of this, we’ve had to deal with all these different situations and it sort of has put a block on actually going through what has actually happened to our Dad and I think the hardest thing for me is just knowing, having those little brief moments of realising of what it must have been like for him, we can say what it was like for us, but it’s hard me thinking what it must have been for him and all of what he was going through.
Greg: How did you support each other, what were some of the things you might have done, did you guys lean hard on each other, did you take an independent path, were other family members involved, or were you and your and your sister left to hold everything?
We had support from family friends, as what Tara said, because he had infections, it wasn’t that simple to be going and visiting him, you had to have apron, masks and things like that, so what is happening now is quite scary and quite worrying as it’s slightly familiar, what’s happening now, so mainly me and my sister and my mum we were all sort of supporting each other because I had young children and at that time I had just not long had my youngest I couldn’t be going to the hospital so much so it was mainly Tara that was there and we would talk, we would discuss, we would video call things like that, that was the way I had to be part of it because I couldn’t actually always be there physically so Tara was there a lot in the hospital while my Dad was going through everything.
Hearing Tanya speak about this has brought back the memories of our Dad’s time in the hospital. Because of the various infections our Dad had, he had to be taken off the main ward he was on and was quarantined, and isolated in a ward on his own.
We advised anyone who wanted to visit him that they would have to wear protective gloves, an apron, wash their hands before entering the room, wash their hands after.
In honesty it made us feel like we shouldn’t even touch our Dad. It was extremely difficult, sad and trying times.
Our routine before entering our Dad’s room would be:
Firstly peep through the screen to see if our Dad was talking to himself, if he was this meant he was in Delirium and we would gear ourself up and brace ourself to handle whatever we might face.
The next things would be:
Take off our coat, and handbag put it into a black bag, wash our hands, put on gloves, put on the apron and then enter the room, we would try to limit the number of times we left the room as each time we would have to do the same routine.
On one occasion on a ward he was on I had to wear a full gown, mask and gloves, to say this was surreal is an understatement, extreme surreal, sad and difficult times.
Greg: How much do you contribute to the blogging, are you contributing also with the blog, and tell people where they can find your blog info?
Tanya:
My sister does the main bones of it, but we come together, we discuss what we want to talk about. It feeds from what people are looking at, how people are engaging, we expand on what people are having an interest in going further into that so Tara does the main writing of it, but we both come together, and I put my input in and we go through it that way.
Bringing me back into the interview to close
Greg:
Greg Likes that we are putting out practical info that people can use because it’s really really important to get your affairs in order, it’s known we don’t like to talk about death or dying or any of that stuff, but it’s definitely important to get your affairs in order have some of the hard conversations around death and dying and even though it becomes uncomfortable, it’s practical and its preparation prior to the passing. You want to make sure that you have your ducks in a row, so you want to make sure that some of the things that Tara and her sister tried to navigate, and didn’t have things in place, good solid information to remind you to get your affairs in order.
Greg: Give people your URL where they can find you and your blog and information
The URL is ww.grifeprobatejourney.com it is on WordPress we also have a Facebook and Instagram page and Twitter page. All the information is on the blog, so you go to Grief Probate Journey and click there, all our other information is there as well.
Facebook Instagram Twitter, if you go to the website blog page, our follow us information is on there as well. The name is Grief Probate Journey for all of the different media platforms.
Greg: so, all people need to do is go to griefprobatejourney.com that will go to your blog and you have your social media links on your blog that is great that sounds good.
Greg: Where are you at today with corona, you just finished writing a blog around the Coronavirus tell us a little bit about that.
With our topics some are written in advance, one we had for Monday 23rd March 2020, that is the day the UK officially went on lockdown, when all this started happening it felt like we are doing our blog to try help people and we have a message that we are trying to get across.
Now this worldwide pandemic is here, it didn’t feel right to continue with those topics and not address this issue, it has come from nowhere it is affecting everybody worldwide, it didn’t feel right to not speak about it. so I tried to write something it didn’t come, then I watched the news or something and then I just started writing, in the same sense we try to help people with information with our grief, it was anything I could find on Coronavirus and the things people have shared with me, links on how to help the homeless people, links on mental health and wellbeing, home-schooling tips it was something to put together in one place for people during this period because it’s really overwhelming and can cause a lot of anxiety and unknown situations so that’s why the coronavirus topic came about. And then the topics that followed after that have been a mix of my feelings and how people who are going through this might be feeling that are going through this during this time because in a sense with coronavirus it is a new type of grief because everything is different, even though we are going through grief, it is not something we are personally experiencing but still wanted to try and put something out there to support people that are going through that now so that is why the topics have been related more to what is going on at the moment.
Greg:
Grief is looking different. Ritual and grief has changed so dramatically, dealing with distant grief, loved ones cannot be with the ones who are passing away at their bedside, cannot even do the normal things they would do like holding a church service, or synagogue, or whatever faith-based or denomination they are from they cannot do that particular practice as it is considered a gathering, because of the physical distance cannot get together to hold a ceremony or ritual to help with closure, that was one of the reasons why I even started this Tuesday live is to give people a platform to talk about where they are at how they are feeling about all of this
Anxieties around it, people losing loved ones behind coronavirus, I haven’t known anyone personally but thousands of people around the world, feeling some type of way, in reference to how do I deal with grief when I cannot even get closure difficult to navigate, I’ve been really trying to give people space here every Tuesdays 4Pm the EST United States. I have been trying to hold a platform, an open mic if people want to chime in that platform, as well as giving guests to come on and share their hope and experience and what they have to offer as we try to navigate this uncertain world we are living in at the moment.
Question: Does Writing help with how we feel
It does because in that situation with coronavirus when it all came out, it was like wow, this is such a big thing, its surreal affecting people worldwide, it came back to feeling like what can we try to contribute towards this, through these topics it did help us, it made us feel better to know we tried to do something to help towards it.
Greg:
Writing is very therapeutic, I have trauma-informed training around people who have been through trauma, that is one of the tools I try to use to help people to navigate and get through is to journal. To journal is very therapeutic, you can see it, look at it ponder it, and look over what is bottled up and what is going on the inside.
Tara:
We started this because we wanted to help people, and then it started going into other things we made the Facebook page, and then we realised, I think Grief and Grits mentioned she realised there is a community of people of grieving which we didn’t know, we came to find this out through being a part of Facebook and Instagram.
Because of this we wanted to reach out to those communities and tried to share together, and that is where we had the idea of maybe trying to be a guest feature on people page, or they feature on our page. And through that one of the people Jane Edberg: The Fine Art of Grieving featured on our page and recommended us to you and that is how this connection started and we are happy that happened otherwise this wouldn’t be happening now.
Greg:
There are Good connections in the community, just like when I introduced you to The Grave Woman. I’m hoping those type of things continues to roll and inspire each other to continue to hold a brave space.
Question: I also really wanted to know what made you actually decide to start writing and to share because it is very brave
Tara:
The best way to explain it is that from the moment our dad when into the hospital to the time he passed away and everything that happened it was literally one thing after another it just felt like things were just continually getting worse, it felt like how is this possible that things are continuing to go this way, in that moment we knew wanted to do something about it, but we were so much involved in it that we couldn’t.
When things slowed down a bit, that’s when we were like let’s just do this, also when you speak about grief it can be a conversation stopper, you’re out in social situations, it’s not really ideal to be talking about these things, so that’s another reason we thought to have a platform if we are speaking to people then we can direct them to it.
Even though we are doing this, the way we dealt with it is like it’s not really happening to us, it might not be the best way to deal with it, it’s like we are not associated to what is happening, that’s how we are able to deal with each new thing and move on.
So, with writing this, it was like “oh” you are writing about yourself, people might actually read this, but because it’s what we wanted to do, we just went ahead and did it.
We are happy we have done it, because through comments and feedback we get from people we can see it is making a difference, its overwhelming in a nice way, to know that it is actually making a difference to people, so we are happy that we did it. We question it all the time, and think should we have done it, should we continue, it this the right thing to have done, but we do feel it was the right thing to do and we are happy that we did do it.
Greg:
I am glad you did it too. I’m glad you are out there, and people can relate, never know when you first get into it, you never know cause you think people won’t want to know, people might think to get over it etc.. but there is a whole bunch of people who can relate. If you just build it, it will come. Whoever can relate will gravitate
Question: Does grief change as years pass, sorry if it sounds strange, I have not lost anyone close
Greg:
Grief for everyone is different, just like fingerprints who we are and our fingerprints, our fingerprints to who we are as human beings are totally different.
People deal with grief differently, no one grief the same, grief is personal, cannot compare somebody else grief, to someone else grief that is like trying to compare fingerprints will not get same match individual.
For me with the Loss of my mum 2018 haven’t got over it, will be two years in July, it has not passed learned to get to a point where it is incorporated in my life where it becomes manageable have times of dips of ebbs and flows, might have tears and some days have really good days where I think about her, I was laughing with my sister the other day on the phone we were talking about certain situations with my mum how she dealt with certain situations and just her humour, how she showed up as a woman as a mother, and we sat back and laughed.
I have learnt how to navigate it there are times I dip down and cry, I will never get over my mother’s passing, the tears are not as much but still come maybe those times will be more spread out than in the beginning. As far as getting over it, or does the grief pass, from my personal place, for me my grief will never pass I learnt how to incorporate it into my life.
Tara:
I agree with everything that you said, for us from our personal experience because of the circumstances under how our Dad passed away it had a big impact for us, so in terms of acceptance, because he passed away in 2017 and we still haven’t really fully acknowledged or accepted it, I think maybe it’s being channelled in some ways through the blog and also we have a complaint we are doing. We don’t know when that point will actually come, we get feelings it comes and then it goes, but we haven’t fully accepted it because of the nature of the circumstances, but I do agree it’s not something that will go away, you have to just manage it because it changes the person that you are, that’s how I personally feel, you are never going to be the same after something like that, so you have to learn to become the new you. Take each day as it comes, feel your feelings day by day.
Greg:
Not only do you learn how to manage it, and you go through day to day how to incorporate it navigate those feelings, one of those things like I did and you did for some people grief motivates people to do some of the things what Tara and I are doing
The Color of grief actually came from, even though me as a professional I deal with grief for other people because I’m an interfaith Chaplin I was always exposed to death dying, challenges trauma, different challenges on a spiritual aspect but when it hits home it’s a whole totally different level. All the certificates, all the thanatology and ordination all goes out the window when it hits home, what I tried to do was use the grief as a fuel, it hit home all of that stuff that I used to help other people, that went out the window this is personal, how can I take my personal hurt pain sadness and turn it around to be able to let it be relatable for somebody else who might feel the same way I’m feeling and going through the same experiences that I’m going through that I can help to support them so that they don’t feel as though they are unique in their circumstances or that they are alone in their journey, and that is the reason why you and your sister have done what you are doing. Is to put that together as this an experience I had and I didn’t have anybody around me at the time, or I wasn’t in that frame of mind that I could go to someone. I wanted to make sure I have something to be there for someone else so that they do not find themselves in the same situation that I was caught up in.
That is kind of how The Color of Grief came out. Number one when I was grieving thank goodness I had the presence of mind, in the area that I live in the United States there weren’t grief counsellors, because in my mind a surgeon doesn’t operate on themself, let me not try to tap into myself, because then I’m going to mess myself up, so I need to find someone to talk too.
I then when I wanted to do that I wanted to talk to a person of colour, the reason why that was important for me. I did not want to edit how I felt.
I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable or talk about things that the person really couldn’t relate to on a cultural level and I would have to sit up there and backtrack and explain and go through this whole mired and gyrations, I didn’t want just theory, I didn’t want just textbook theory how to get over my grief, I wanted real interaction that was relatable.
Even though grief universal might be fine, and that is true grief is universal, but also grief from a cultural context is totally different, there might be things in my family that we do around death that someone that who is of non-African American wouldn’t be able to relate to and so I didn’t want to feel like I had to be edited.
What I did was I created a general page, of The Color of Grief where anyone can join in we can talk about grief universal, but on my Facebook page, we have a closed support group that specifically deals with the cultural context of grief from people of colour, African American community, brown people indigenous people. We deal with issues that are not only death on the level of losing someone or grief, but we also deal with how grief shows up economically socially, trauma, all those types of things talking about all of that in context culturally, because like they say in the 12 step fellowship programme “it is best that one addict helps another addict because it’s very therapeutic, they both have the universal experience of drug use so they can relate, and they know what that’s like”.
I always use this African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child, if it takes a village to raise a child” my question back to that is always, if it takes a village to raise a child doesn’t it take that same village to heal one, I so got to go back to connecting to my grass roots to who I am so that I can get my healing on and so I can move through the process and not have to feel like I cannot show up authentically transparently and I have to go through an editing process and I didn’t want to do that, so I created space around that and that came from the grief of me grieving my mum. I hope it’s been helpful for folks, and hopefully, The Color of Grief has shown up in a dynamic way it’s been able to reach out even across cultural or even general and I’m hoping things like this when I hold space for people to share their story what they are doing around grief and all of that type of stuff and I’m praying somebody is hearing, somebody is listening and even if it helped at least one person, I’m happy about that.
- The interview came to an end. Greg thanked us for our time
- Opened it up to others:
7. Our Final thoughts
We are extremely pleased with the way in which the blog is evolving over time. We now have a YouTube channel, we never anticipated or saw this as something that would happen, but it’s a pleasant achievement for us.
With all of our previous topics aside from our personal story the links and YouTube videos included are not our own personal experiences, but relevant to the particular topic. Now for the first time, the YouTube video included is ours. It’s a very surreal, but rewarding accomplishment.
We look forward to the future hoping to see us continuing to progress in other great ways. We are also extremely pleased about the connections made so far, one of which made this interview possible. We hope these connections continue to grow within the community we have become part of and that we all continue to grow as we move along our journeys.
We wish that people are staying as safe and well as can be during this pandemic. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones during this time, and we pray for the speedy recovery of those who are survivors of Coronavirus.
We would like to say a HUGE MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone who supports, follows us, and what we are doing. Your support is invaluable, we truly appreciate it and we truly appreciate you all ❤
We would like to say thank you to anyone who has taken the time to check out this topic and we wish you a safe and blessed day, week, weekend ahead and beyond.
Grief Probate Journey 
9 thoughts on “Interview with The Color of Grief: Who we are, Our journey, and how we got into the world of blogging- Tuesday 14th April 2020”