Melissa Hull: Creating a Life After Child Loss | Dear Drew, Grief & Spiritual Growth 🌱 | EP 456

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. There, welcome to Grief 2 Growth. I'm your host, Brian D Smith. And whether you're tuning in for the very first time, or you've been walking this journey with me for a while, I am really glad that you're here. On this podcast, we dive deep into life's most difficult questions: who we are, why we're here, where we come from, where we're going when we leave this life. My goal is always to provide tools, to provide stories and conversations to help us to grow through grief, and not just to survive, but to thrive. Today's guest is someone who embodies the very heart of what Grief to Growth is all about. Melissa Hull is a mother. She's a bestselling author. She's an international speaker, a media host, a master coach, and she's the CEO of Melissa Hull Worldwide. Her journey began with a devastating loss, the accidental drowning of her young son Drew. But rather than letting grief define her, Melissa made the courageous choice to transform her pain into purpose. Her new book is called Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief. It releases actually today. So I'm honored to have her here on the day of her launch. And it's already being called a must-read for anyone who's navigating loss and searching for light. In our conversation, we're going to talk about how grief can live alongside joy, and how we can choose resilience, healing, and even joy without erasing our pain. Melissa, Melissa will share insights on how to integrate grief into our lives, rather than letting it become our entire story. We'll talk about the importance of intentional healing, mindfulness practices to help us to rebuild, and how honest conversations about grief can truly save our lives. So if you've ever wondered how to coexist with love and loss, or how to honor your past while creating a future full of hope, you're going to want to stay with us through the end of this powerful episode. And after the conversation is over, join me on my Substack at grieftogrowth.substack.com to continue the conversation. And with that, I'd like to welcome Melissa Hull.

Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here today.

Yeah, and thanks for doing this on the day of your book launch. I know it's a big day when you, when you go through the process. I think you told me it's like a 5-year process to get to this point.

A 5-year, um, I started writing the manuscript in 2020, and today it's, you know, August 19th, 2025, and today is the publishing date. So it was a 5-year Journey.

Well, I know it's, it's a big thing to get the book launched. So again, thanks for being here today. Um, before we get into all the topics we're going to talk about, first tell me about your son Drew.

Oh, thank you for asking. Um, Drew is my firstborn child. Um, when the accident occurred, he was 4 and a half years old. I was the mother of two young boys. Drew, 4 and a half. Devin, his brother, was 3. And like most moms, I was just you know, a busy mom, two little boys that close in age, that's a lot of energy. And so I was constantly, you know, focusing on my children and, you know, my family. And Drew was the kind of adventurous little spirit that would wake up before the sun. He was just so exuberant to wake up every day and to begin, you know, just having fun. He loved to play. He loved to be outside. And on this particular morning, I was exhausted because his younger brother has asthma. And as a toddler, we would be doing breathing treatments quite frequently, especially at certain times of the year when there are more, you know, pollen in the air, more things to trigger his asthma attacks. And so I had been up giving Devin breathing treatments most of that night. My husband was away on business, so it was just me with the boys. And Drew woke up and, and he came into the room and I remember he was so excited. It was about 4:55 in the morning, you know? And he said, "Mama, mama, the sun is coming up." And that was the rule. That was the rule. He could not get out of bed until the sun was coming up. And so he had me on a technicality. I'm like, "Okay, you're right, Drew, the sun is coming up. I'm so tired, but I'm gonna get up." And I got up with him and he was very specific about his breakfast. He wanted beef raviolis and Um, not, not what I, it was either that or Rocky Road ice cream. And so we went with beef ravioli that morning. So it just seemed like the lesser of two evils. Yeah. So I got him his breakfast and, um, he loved Thomas the Tank Engine. And so I put on his video. I gave him some paper and some crayons and I said, sweetheart, sit here, eat your breakfast. I'm going to go back and check on your brother. And I went back into my bedroom where Devin was, you know, was wheezing pretty heavily. And after an exhaustive night, I just, I laid beside him and I was patting his back just to keep him soothed so he would fall asleep 'cause he was exhausted. And in so doing that, I inadvertently fell asleep. And when I woke up, the house was very quiet, which was never the norm when Drew was, you know, up and awake. So I was, I was immediately somewhat concerned and I, I started to go through the house calling for him. He's not responding, looking for him, you know, in all the usual hiding places, and he's not there. And then I noticed that my back door was open just ever so slightly, maybe about an inch to 2 inches. And I thought, okay, he's outside. So I go outside and I'm looking for him and he's not, he's, he's not in the backyard. And this is when I start to get that, that, that fear in the center of my gut where I knew something was not right. And as I, as my, my panic grew, I ran back into the house calling for him, not responding, ran back outside. And all of a sudden I noticed that my dogs, who we, we had about 4 dogs, um, that were outside as well, and they started running toward me. And they were wet. And I thought, what on earth? We don't have a pool. There's, you know, and then I thought, oh my God, the irrigation canal. And so I ran towards a very large irrigation canal. And in my community, it's very much agricultural. And so we have large irrigation systems and waterways to transport water to the fields. And there was one very large canal just maybe 200 feet, no yards, 200 yards from the house. And then I saw my son's footprints leading towards that irrigation canal. So I ran as fast as I could to it. And when I arrived at the canal, I could see that there was a splash on the side of it. And I noticed that the dirt above this canal bank had given way, and I saw all of my dog's paw prints and Drew's footprints, and I knew he had fallen in. And I dropped to my knees, and I remember begging God to please not let this be the outcome. Please, please spare my son. Help me find him. At this point, um, there was a person driving by. They stopped. I begged them to call the authorities. And they did. I explained my— I have a little boy at home. I needed to go back. I started to call my family, my husband who was away on business, and let them know that Drew was missing. And within 7 hours of those initial moments, they came to my home where I was sitting with my family, and they told me that they had found his body and that he had in fact drowned that morning. And that is how the accident occurred. And that is the moment that radically and forever changed my life. That perfect morning, those beautiful moments that I spent with my son like every other morning, I just— I was sitting in the realization that that was the last time I would ever have that with him again. And it devastated me. And I I just remember thinking, "I don't know how I can survive this." I'm so sorry.

That moment that you realize that your life is never going to be the same again, that— and everything, for me anyway, is defined by before and after that. I always think about, like, was this before or was this after?

Yeah. I very much lived like that for quite some time. And until I made the decision that I wasn't going to leave Drew in the past, that Drew was coming forward with me. And so now it's just— it's, it's a different after, but it's, it's not the same kind of painful separation that it was at that particular moment.

Yeah. Let's talk about that shift, that shift, because there— people tell you to, you know, you have to move on, uh, and I remember that term just irritated me when people would say, yeah, yeah, I'll go a step further, it pissed me off.

Like, it made me mad. It made me feel that Somehow they were telling me that my pain was unwelcome and that my emotions and my longing, my mourning for my son was somehow something that needed to be hurried up and just processed through without really understanding that that's impossible. There is no leaving him behind. There is no getting over this. But there was a pathway to bring him with me that felt much more aligned with the truth, which is I never wanted to leave him in the past. I never wanted to leave him behind. And so I just decided, I'm going to do this my way. I'm going to grieve my way. I'm not going to let people tell me how I should be reacting or what is appropriate or what is even, I guess, healthy. I allowed myself to feel everything, and I welcomed those feelings. Because any time that I tried to stifle them or minimize them, I noticed how much pain I was in. I could not live with that. I could not live like that. And so I just decided that the old model wasn't for me.

Yeah. So how did you make that shift? Was it just something inside of you that said, I'm just going to do it my way, or did you have some assistance or resources?

You know, I did have assistance and resources, but I also was very curious and I explored. I explored very, like, in the non-traditional realms. I've tried everything. I talked to mediums and psychics. I went to very spiritual locations in Sedona, Arizona, where they talk about the vortex and they talk about, you know, I went everywhere. I studied aura personalities. I studied pranic healing. I studied Reiki and became a Reiki master. I studied the chakra systems. I really dove into alternative health, and that led me into kind of a spiritual awakening. I started to then read different books. The Alchemist, The Fifth Mountain, which is also written by Pablo Coelho, was a transformational book for me. And I just allowed myself to explore my grief by staying curious about what would help align me with this idea that I wanted to— I still wanted to live a life of beauty and joy and vibrancy and do that alongside of my mourning and the pain that comes with mourning your child. It is not— there's no way to separate that from this experience. But what I have discovered is that love will always outlast life. And when I held on to the love that we shared in those moments, Yeah. When I went back and I listened, you know, listened to my heart, and I would recall these very beautiful moments, these memories, I realized that was how I could bring him forward. I would talk about him. I would talk about how I felt inside of this process. And I just started writing. I started writing. I used painting, art therapy, as a— is a way for me to process my grief. But writing really became the vehicle that felt like I was helping myself and also staying very connected to my son, which made me feel good. I felt grateful that I had those beautiful memories, and he felt closer to me.

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. I was just listening to— there's a guy named Dr. Parasetti, and I actually, after my daughter passed away, I found his program from the Forever Family Foundation. And this was like 9 years ago I found his program. My daughter passed 10 years ago, and he was talking about the old model of grief that Freud brought up was like grief is, is a disease, basically. It's a disorder. You have to get rid of it. You've got to accept the fact that they're gone, move on, let them go, you know, all those types of things. And that just doesn't work. So it's glad— it's good that you discovered that, you know. And same way kind of I do is like I'm bringing her with me. I can't, I can't leave her in the past.

Stay with us. We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief, most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast, essays on on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

And why would anybody want to? They're a part, you know, they're a part of our legacy. They're, you know, even though their lives may not have continued, their love and their presence can. And I think it's a decision that we make as grievers. I know that I have seen people choose the opposite where they do, they kind of decide that, nope, I have to set them aside and keep them in this you know, in this more tightly held kind of container, where I never wanted that. I wanted Drew to be sprinkled everywhere. And so, that's how I— that's how I lived. I just— I brought him everywhere.

And Melissa, how many years has it been since his passing?

25.

Yeah.

It was 25 years on May 19th. Yeah. So, he passed May 19th, 2000.

Yeah. So, that's the thing, you know, they do have an impact on us, you know, going forward for a very, very long time. Time, and, and we can choose how we allow that to happen in our lives. And you chose a way that I— that seemed— that doesn't seem, but it does stuff work for you. I'm curious, what were your beliefs before Drew's passing in terms of the afterlife? All the stuff you got into, were you into that before?

So I was, I was brought up, um, in the Mormon faith, and, um, my, my husband was brought up in the Seventh-day Adventist faith. And so We ended up at a Catholic church with our kids. Go figure. So we kind of, we had a broad kind of acceptance of different religions, but for us it was, it was more about establishing faith in our family, the practice of faith. We wanted our children to go to a particular school. And so we started attending the Catholic, the Catholic service. And then Drew ironically decided that he wanted to try a different church that he heard about in his preschool class, he wanted to go to Sunday school with one of his friends, Nathaniel. And so we ended up at a non-denominational Christian church when the accident happened. So I have kind of like a broad, you know, sampling of religious background, but I've never been necessarily attached to a religious practice, but to very much a spiritual practice. You know, I've always felt very connected to God, if you will, or the universe, whatever feels more appropriate for your listeners. But I really felt a connection to the afterlife. I always have. And so I wasn't— none of this was foreign to me, but at the time of the accident, it really didn't feel like it was enough for me. All of the and I understand why people say things like this, but he's now an angel in heaven, or this was God's plan. None of that landed well for me because again, it felt like, while all of that might be true, it still didn't alleviate the immensity of this pain that I felt. It was oppressive. I remember I, it had a physical presence. I could feel this pain in my body. It was hard to breathe. I noticed that I would be pulling for my breath, like, or I'd hold my breath and then gasp because I didn't even realize I was holding my breath. Everything about life afterwards changed for me, even my breathing. And so my connection to God and these sentiments that people, these platitudes that people would give to me did not offset that at all. And so I was very concerned about what life would be like at that particular moment because I did have the knowledge. I, you know, trust me, I turned to the church, you know, after the accident. I prayed ceaselessly for God to help me, to help me carry this. And it didn't seem like nothing seemed to really be hitting that, that, that my heart in a way that it felt like it was lasting or meaningful until I received a letter from a woman I've never met. She's a mother that just heard about my story in my community and she wrote me a letter and she told me about her experience of losing her daughter to an accident when she made, you know, they were, it was early, they were getting ready for school. She left her little girl by the car. She'd forgotten her purse, so she ran back in the house. And for whatever reason, her daughter had run into the road and was struck by a car. And she told me that— she said, I know that the temptation to blame yourself for what you're going through is there. She's like, I know the should-haves, the could-haves, and the would-haves that are circulating in your mind and holding your heart kind of hostage. She said, I want to encourage you to remember this. That joy and beauty can coexist alongside this pain, but you will have to choose to find it, and you will have to choose to find it every single day. That is the path towards, you know, living life beyond this experience. And this is a few months after the accident. That letter and her words were the turning point for me.

Wow. That's amazing. You know, we never know the power of the words, that we speak to someone are going to have?

No, we don't. Because we don't ever really— I don't know that we really think about it. I don't know that we really think about the impact that our words can have until you're the recipient of words that change your life. Yeah. And that was that moment for me. And that's when I realized that the power of communication and the power of sharing our stories and being vulnerable was something that I wanted to— I wanted to also embrace. I wanted to serve and to make a difference if I could by talking about my experience in the most honest, real way because that's what connected me to her story. That's what I think meant more to me than any one time when anyone said to me, "He's an angel in heaven and God has him in this, you know, was God's plan." Her words meant more to me than all of that. And you would think it would be the opposite, right? That God's got him, he's in heaven, he's safe, he's loved, he's protected, and he'll be there waiting for me. It was ineffective. But this idea, or the story, of another woman's, another mother's tragic loss, and her honesty about the guilt, and her honesty about the regret of making that decision to run into the house just for her keys. She needed the keys for her car. Changed her life forever too. And that was the one strand of hope that I needed because I was not doing well. I was not sure that I could survive this. I was very much contemplating, you know, not continuing. And it was very, very bleak. And so her words, I give her credit for saving my life because in that moment, it— that's what it felt like. It felt like I was given this absolute gift from a perfect stranger. And she remains a perfect stranger. I don't know who she is. She wrote a letter and signed her name. And it's just the craziest thing. But 25 years looking for her, I've never found her.

Oh, wow. Wow.

Yeah.

You know, it's— you know, as you were saying that, and the honesty is so important because there couple things I find that holds people back as we're going through our grief process. More than— I mean, there's lots, but shame is one. Guilt is one. So we feel like we're the only ones to have these feelings, and we hold them in. And I had a moment similar to yours. I remember I was a little bit after my daughter passed, and I was on the road to see my other daughter. She was in college. And my wife and I were listening to this podcast. And this woman said, after my daughter passed, I was standing on the street corner, get ready to cross the street. And there was a bus coming along. And I thought about stepping out in front of that bus. And her saying that, I was like, wow, I've had those feelings too.

Yeah.

But I'd never heard anybody say it out loud before. So I rushed back and I got her book and I read her book. And that was one of the turning points for me, was like, these feelings that we have are very normal. Um, those feelings of not wanting to go on as a parent, you want to be with, with your child. Even though you've got, you know, a husband and another child here. So you're— there's this tearing between two different worlds.

Absolutely. Um, that is when I realized that love will always outlast life, and that, that is a— that if we allow it to become a gift, is truly a gift. It— gratitude for the time that I had with Drew, even though it was just 4 and a half years, was everything to me in the moments when he wasn't there. I held on and I clung to those memories and I cherished them in such a way that they sustained me. They gave me the strength to endure what I didn't think was possible to endure. And in time, I started to see that this grief, this pain was the mirror reflection of the depth of our love and just how beautiful that in and of itself was, because at least it gave me, like, this, I guess, reason or explanation for why it did hurt so bad, why it was so hard, because it was that significant. He was that incredible, that special, that vibrant. And so then all of a sudden, grief started to become like this, like, "Well, hell yes. Yes, this is really terrible." because he was so incredible. And his, his, his absence is hard. It's hard to become accustomed to that. But the memory of him is where I really started to find and discover that I never had to leave him behind. I always could bring him forward. And I let that be my truth. I just let it be my truth. And when people— and trust me, I'm still talking about him 25 years later. 25 years later, I had a lot of people say, isn't it time to, like, maybe talk about something else? And I thought, you know, and I considered that, that, well, you know, maybe, and then I thought, no, no, no, it isn't. I'm not going to put him on a shelf. I'm not going to accommodate everybody else's, you know, level of comfort in order to make my grieving process fit them. I need to do it this way. And I just, in a respectful way, in a mindful way, I always held true to that. That was my truth, and I was going to hold on to it. So I've been writing about grief and bereavement for over 10 years. I've been speaking about grief and bereavement for about 8 years. And I've now published my book, Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief. I feel like I'm just getting started. 25 years later. And so I've just come to understand that grief is something that we have to honor. And that relationship is very personal. It's as unique as the person that we've lost. And we are the creators of what our journey with grief will look like. And so I chose to embrace it and to understand it and to make it a teacher and not not this problem. It was not a problem that I could solve, but it is something that I could grow from. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about making that, that shift from, you know, to— from what we, you know, people are that are, oh, this is terrible, this has happened to me, which of course is true, to gratitude, you know, for— to like my, my daughter's pictures. We have an Apple TV, so our screensavers are pictures of our family. My I love looking at it because I tell her we had, even though we only had 15 years, we had a great 15 years. But it takes a while to make that shift also. And you talked about, and I think it's important as we're having these conversations, sometimes people can go, oh, I just lost my son or daughter or husband or whatever, I'm never going to get there. But let's talk about the, the process that you went through because it's 25 years later.

Yeah. I will say I started with very nonverbal ways of kind of wrestling with my grief. I painted a lot, and I used color and form to put onto a canvas what I couldn't put into a word. I could create the black void on a canvas, and it could feel very tenebristic and chaotic. Which is how I felt on the inside. I first gave permission for my emotions to just be felt and then to be seen on a canvas. That for me was very much a first step into processing all of the— all of the emotions, all of the thoughts, all of those ideas that I'll never recover. And I put it down on a canvas where I could see it, and it felt good to me to be able to do that. So I began there. And when that That was one form. Another form of what I would say transition was when I gave myself permission for 15 minutes every day to only think about the good, to look at pictures of him where he's smiling, where we're there together, and to remember all of the beauty that he brought to my life. And that is what really shifted my pain into a sense of gratitude was in the remembrance. It was going back and reconnecting to those moments, knowing that I won't have them in the future, and crying. Oftentimes, I would be sobbing as I would look at these pictures, but I was also smiling. I was smiling at the memory, and that was a very transformational practice for me. But it's something that I dedicated my time to every single day, and I would And if I needed to repeat it, if I had a particularly challenging day, I would repeat that process as often as I needed to in order to remind myself that there was also good here. There was also a life of amazing vibrancy here. And I never wanted to forget that. And that's what— that's what helped me make that transition when I didn't think that anything could help me. That's what ultimately did.

Yeah, that is very— it's very powerful. I, I've found, and for me it's been 10 years, and it took me about 5 years to start to turn the corner on things. And people talk to me about gratitude, and I was like, what are you talking about? You know, what do I have to be grateful for? It's— I think that's a natural reaction. But I love that practice that you have of, of looking at Drew and remembering how special he is and the impact that he had on, on your life, you know, doing those, those times that he was here. And, and, and again, that shift is kind of subtle at first. People, you might cry a lot because you're thinking about what you don't have, but eventually you get to the point where you, you start thinking about, we had great times together.

Oh, absolutely. And, and let me say this clearly, I am not trying to say that was an easy— an easy process. I struggled. I was, like I mentioned earlier, I was very, very suicidal. I did not know that I wanted to live after this. I felt completely responsible for the accident. I didn't think that I was worthy of being Devin's mother. I felt like maybe I would mess it up and harm him inadvertently. I was very, very hard on myself. And so inside of that practice, I also discovered a forgiveness and a recognition that there are, you know, parents, we love our kids. We strive to give them every good and wonderful experience to keep them safe, to raise them well. That is our intention. And nothing about that wasn't true that day. All of that was true that morning. I was up being the kind of mother that I wanted to be. I was having the kind of morning that I loved with my son. And I had no, I, no reason to believe that this morning would be any different than any other morning. And that's when I started to recognize I, I cannot control everything. And, and I was a loving mother the day before the accident. I was a loving mother the day of the accident, and I remain his loving mother 25 years later. That is my truth. That is what ultimately helped bring peace to my heart, is understanding that we all make decisions that have unintended consequences that we don't know. We don't know what's going to happen from moment to moment. If we did, you know, we would— I'm sure we would all pick very different lives. You know, we would, you know, we would live differently. But since we don't, we— We do our best. We do our best and we make the best decisions in moments, and we hope and we pray that we're making them and that everyone will stay safe. But accidents happen and nothing is— this life doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I had to allow for that truth to also be a part of this healing journey, that sometimes we make decisions that have unintended consequences that we can't undo. But it doesn't mean that we should punish ourselves for the rest of our lives.

Thank you for sharing that. And I, I'm always kind of hesitant to bring that up because it's such a vulnerable place for people, that, that guilt that we hold. Um, but I can tell you, after working with all the people that I've worked with— parents, spouses, etc.— it's almost universal. We find some way to blame ourselves regardless of the circumstances of our loved one's passing. And, you know, as you said, we, we can't predict the outcome of everything that we do. You know, on any other day, you would have gone to sleep and, and Drew would have been fine and been watching TV when you woke up. It just so happens that that was the circumstances of that day. And but there we do want to have this illusion of control, uh, I think. And I think that's one of the reasons why people beat themselves up so badly, because we want to feel like if had made this decision, then this would've happened. And we never know that.

Right. I often hear, I should have known. That's a very common thing to hear. I should have known. I should have— or I feel like I missed something. I should have done this, or I should have asked this question. And I think to myself, that's the invitation to the kind of circular discussion that leads us We become spinning tops. We're just spinning in place. We're not gaining any trajectory. And so I understood that that kind of thinking would anchor me to a past and into a line of questioning that would never have a satisfactory answer. And I was going to have to make that decision that I would never have the answer I'm looking for. God was not going to write me a letter and say, "I did this for this reason, and you don't know, and you don't understand, but hold on." because someday it'll make sense. That, that wasn't coming. And so I had to decide that even though I didn't have answers and I didn't understand, that I still had choices. And those choices were going to either align me with a life of becoming better and allowing growth, or it was going to stifle me and I was going to become bitter and stuck. And I knew that. I knew that in my gut, in my heart. I knew I had a choice to make. And I chose to embrace the way Drew did, which was to live it boldly, to live it fully, to be curious about everything. And that's what I— that's what shifted for me. I got very curious about what my life could become, even though I had lost my son, and what he and I could do together, 'cause I was bringing him with me.

Mm-hmm.

So how—

and I know there's not a moment when that shift is made, but—

if—

how long do you think after you— did you start, start to make that shift that, that, uh, I'm not going to hold myself, you know, responsible for this? Because I totally agree with you, it is a choice. And, and people here listening to this might think, well, no, it's not a choice, but it is. We get to choose. And it's not easy, it's a hard road. But when did you start to kind of come out of that?

I would say It happened in increments. And then there was maybe an epiphanal moment where I recognized that when I was in service to others— because immediately after the accident, I started talking about water safety education. And I went to preschools. And I focused on the most vulnerable, which are youth under the age of 5, in particular, boys. And in my community, um, there are over 200 miles of open irrigation canals that, you know, run alongside many developments. And as Yuma has grown, so has, you know, people have gone, they purchased, like developers have purchased farmland and they're developing them into communities. And I knew I had a unique opportunity to take my story and to bring it to the forefront and educate people about water safety from a very unique perspective, which was irrigation canal awareness. And being in service was something that helped me understand that I could make a difference, even though it wasn't a difference that I— or I didn't feel like I necessarily would have chosen this, but I could still do good. And Drew's life could still hold meaning and value if I could allow myself to serve. And service is where I began to understand I had choices. I had some unique opportunities. And every single time I went to a preschool and I looked into the eyes of these beautiful children, and I would remember my son's beautiful, bright eyes. I knew I was doing something of value. I knew that those— and trust me, I'm still in the same community that this accident occurred in. And every now and again, I'll bump into one of those children that I talked to 25 years ago that are now parents themselves. And they will say to me, "I never forgot what you said." And they were 4 years old, 4 and 5 years old. "I've never forgotten." I, my kids, I, you know, my kids are in swimming lessons, or, you know, I remember writing an essay for the essay contest that you sponsor and remembering Drew. And so Drew lives on in a way that I could never have predicted back then.

Right, right.

And so again, that was the choice. And it begins with choices like that. Sometimes it starts off as service, but it eventually becomes an awareness that there are choices that we can make that do help, that help to bring more gratitude into our experience. And then we realize that grief and joy can coexist, that pain and beauty can coexist, but you have to allow that. And that's the choice. You have to allow to— you have to allow for that experience to to culminate and germinate and then care for it and it will bloom. I promise you it will bloom, but it's an intentional thing and it's a practice. It's something we have to revisit and dedicate ourselves to in order to see its fullness.

Yeah, I think that's wonderful and so beautifully said, you know, because this concept that life is bigger than grief, it doesn't, you know, there's this idea, I think, we talked about earlier with Freud's concept of like grief is something we want to get rid of. We want to get over, we want to move past it. It's a, you know, it's a pathology. So you— how would you— or how would you describe what your grief is like today versus what it was like in the early days?

So for a long time, grief felt like a punishment. It felt like a problem that needed to be solved. And what I've come to really understand is that grief is not a problem that we solve. Grief is the shadow side of love's brilliance. And grief is our soul's beckoning. It's calling us forward to attach and to hold on to the love that remains. Love is just like energy. It cannot be destroyed. But the more we focus on the pain, the more pain we'll experience. The more we focus on the love, the more love we will experience. And so I made the choice to align this experience with all of the love that I could just pull from all of those memories. And that is what grief is like for me. Grief is an experience that has led to some of the most profound growth and discoveries about who I am as a person, what's important to me, what I value. It simplified my life in a way that I can't even begin to really put into words, but it made things very clear what was important and what wasn't anymore.

Yeah. What, one of the fears that people have when they lose someone is, I'm going to forget them. And, and then I think sometimes people will actually hold on to the pain thinking, well, the only way I can bring them forward with me is to hold on to this pain. So did you ever experience that, like, what if I forget about Drew? Did you ever have that fear?

I did. Um, I, I never wanted to forget anything. I wrote Drew a letter every day for the first year after his passing. And I wrote him a letter. I call it my year of magical thinking, where he wasn't dead, he was just off on this adventure, this spiritual adventure where he couldn't send me a postcard, but I could write him letters. And he loved Peter Pan. He loved Peter Pan so much. So, in my mind, he just became like a Peter Pan figure, a boy who would never grow up, but would go on and live these wonderful adventures. And I would talk to him as though he were in Neverland. And I would write to him about the experiences. I remember one day in particular, you know, Yuma is a very sunny place. We grow a lot of agriculture year-round because we have great weather for that. So on a particularly rainy day, there was thunder and it was lightning. And I thought, I wonder if that's him up there just bowling, you know, because Drew loved the crash of bowling pins, you know. He loved all of that sound and just the, you know, when he had plays with trucks, he would just, the crashing sound he would make. And I thought, huh, I wonder if that's him up there just letting me know he's having a good time. And so I just remember thinking about things like that. It was a present-day experience that I was still going back and remembering how he lived. And I would write about that. And so, I found that even in my writing, I was connecting to him, and I was not forgetting him at all. If anything, I was reinforcing all of those memories. And then, I made decisions at Christmastime or Thanksgiving that all I wanted was somebody to tell me something that they remembered about Drew, and I would just ask for memories. "Just write me a memory. That's the only gift I want. Just give me the gift of your memory of him." And that was one of the most beautiful experiences, um, maybe of my life, to hear the love that other people had and have for him in those tender moments, you know, Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, graduations, you know, all of it, because he was going to graduate his preschool class and go on to kindergarten that next year. Just his teachers wrote to me and His classmates' parents wrote to me, and it was such a beautiful way of recognizing just how impactful that his brief 4 and a half years of life were, but how meaningful his life was to others and to me. And that's how I held on to him. And I just go back and I revisit them. I have all of them and I just keep them in a box and every Christmas they come out or every Thanksgiving. We'll add, you know, something that we're grateful for, and Drew's always included.

Wow, wow, that's amazing. And for people, I'm, you know, we're recording this on video. For people that listen to podcasts, I love the way your face lights up when you talk about Drew. And I think it's, it's really important for people, again, having that fear early on, thinking, oh, what if I forget it? And I remember thinking that, you know, you know, uh, I don't want Shayna to fade into my memory. I thought— and again, it's been 10 years and she hasn't faded at all and never will. So I wanted to alleviate that fear for people that might have that.

I think it's really important for, for people who have, have, um, I guess, a longer period of time inside of this journey to really speak to people at the beginning phases, because there is a lot of fear and there is a lot of confusion. And I know that you You cannot give them all the answers. I cannot give them all the answers, but we can give them our wisdom and we can share with them the insights and the things that help us to stay connected and to dispel some of those fears because they will never forget their loved one. They won't. That's impossible. I understand it's a concern that we all go through, but write it down, preserve it. You know, we have phones everywhere. Audio record yourself, you know, remembering something, have it transcribed, put put it into a book, you know, just ask people for their memories and bring it all together in one place. And then, you know, experience that over time. It's amazing how much you'll remember. And sometimes it'll jog other memories. And write them down. Just write it down. Preserve it. For sure.

And for me, I actually made a shift where it's like, you know, again, we talked about like, they're still here. We're going to see them again, or we're going to see them again. I still have a relationship with Shane. I I still talk to her every day. So that's— I'm not going to forget her because I talk to her every day.

That's one thing that I really love that you shared that because it's one of my mainstays. I've never not spoken to Drew. I swear to you, I feel a connection to him outside. You know, I go outside and I really feel that's where I talk to Drew. I talk to him about the hummingbirds that come into the yard, or I talk to him about the of the flowers that I planted, 'cause he loved gardening. Sunflowers were one of his favorite flowers. And I just remember, and I talked to him about the things I'm doing, and I've said several times, "This is Drew's life and my journey after." That's what this book is. And so we even did that together. So his voice is all through this book. And my memory of him is all through this book. And those conversations continue on, I promise you. I talk to him all the time.

Yeah, I think that's great. At least it is for— it works for me, you know? So, that fear that I had that I was gonna forget Shaina is like, well, you know, and her pictures are all over the place. You see the picture on the wall behind me. It's on my Apple Watch. I've got her picture on that every time I look at it. And, um, you know, we can keep our loved ones keep those memories alive in our heart. We can keep them here in our heart. And, you know, with all the research that you've done and all the research that I've done, I know that my daughter is still with me in a very real way.

Absolutely. And I love that you do know that. And in my heart, like, I have a lot of empathy for people that are not quite there, that really wrestle with that question. You know, my faith has definitely been foundational in this evolution, but I did have to work for that. My relationship with God definitely did— I struggled with God for a time, but I've come to understand that Drew is infinite. You know, Drew's love is infinite and everlasting. And I love that knowledge because it allows me to live in this life knowing full well that he is here with me. And that I will be in that same sphere, realm, heaven, whatever, at some point, and what a beautiful reunion that will be. But I live this life fully, because that's how I know he would have lived it.

Yeah, that's, that's such an important point. And, you know, you mentioned you had some faith background before, you and your husband, you know, and then you with the Catholicism and Mormonism stuff, Seventh-day Adventists. Um, but for a lot of times when we lose someone, especially a child, it's like, it's not enough. Now I need to know. So when I tell people that, you know, they say, Brian D Smith, do you really believe this? I'm like, I don't really like to use the word believe, you know. It's like, do I believe in gravity? Do I believe in, you know, the internet? It's like, there's so much evidence. And you've had experiences. You said you you're, you know, if you do Reiki, you know there's energy, that this, that these things are real.

Yes. And, um, back before I, I really relied on my faith, I, I really dove into science. And there was a book by, um, David Hawking, Dr. David Hawking, called Power Versus Force. And it is the study of, or his study of, the map of consciousness. And I really, I did, I just looked for evidence of connection and what emotions are, you know, and what does that mean and how does it impact our bodies and how does that impact our thinking and our connection to, you know, to our loved ones. I read Joe Didion, "The Year of Magical Thinking." And then I went on to read other authors who talked about grief and, you know, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. I looked in places like that before I really came to understand that what I was searching for in science, it gave me a lot of facts and very, you know, studies. But when I turned to my faith, that is where I felt a peace that I really could not understand. It surpassed, like that peace that could wash over my pain. And truly give me an internal tranquility and that sense of deep connection, that connection that is not about physical form, it's about spiritual, soul, soul connection. That's where I found him. And that's where I remain today. My faith practice is my own. I have my own relationship with God that doesn't necessarily fit a religious box, but it is very real. It is very vibrant. And, um, and, and cherish it.

That's awesome. So Melissa, with the launch of your book today, yes, what are you hoping to see your book do?

My book was written with the intention of, of being that letter that I once received from Teresa. Um, this book was written for the person who needs a Teresa today. Um, it was written to let somebody know that they are not only seen, but they are held and they are cared for. And then ultimately, I hope to inspire them to also make that choice to look for the path that allows them to create a life alongside of this experience, but to still build towards a life of joy and fulfillment and meaning because I am a— I'm living proof that it is possible. It is possible. And I want my example to just be that glimmer of hope for that person who's really struggling the way I was that day when I received that letter and be that thread of hope that will carry them through to their journey. You know, 25 years later, who knows, maybe they'll be the one to write the next book or they'll be the one to, you know, create a new foundation that supports other grievers. I just believe in the ripple effect of of putting more love out into the world, hope out into the world. And I want to see those ripples of change and that intention carried through. I hope that Dear Drew reaches every person that it can benefit.

Yeah, I think it's awesome. And you're definitely, you know, you're doing that and you've walked the talk. You've given us an example of what we can do And, and as you said, I love the way you're not sugarcoating things. You're not saying this was an easy thing. And, and that's, that's an important part of it too, because I think for people to realize it's possible, they've got to know that you were where they were, that you didn't just wake up. Absolutely.

You know, no, no, it was messy. Let's just be honest, it, it can be messy at times, but, you know, mess can still become masterpiece.

Yeah.

And whenever I get really— when I remember when I would get really discouraged and really concerned about up, you know, is this even working? Is all this, you know, practice and all, is it working? And I remember having this very vivid kind of— I'll call it a daydream, but I was shown all of these shards of glass, all of these broken colorful pieces of glass, which is how I felt. I felt shattered. I felt scattered. And then I saw this image of a kaleidoscope, and I thought, oh, I get it now. All of these fragments, all of these things that have made me feel like I've lost myself or that I'm no longer this whole and complete person, when you put them together and then you put them in a tube and then you put light through it, what you see is magnificent. And we don't know that until we've journeyed down this path of grief. We don't know that all that broken glass all of that brokenness will someday become something so beautiful that we will want to share that beauty with everyone who is now on that same journey we were, because we now wanna give from that overflow. And that's what this book really is. It's my ability today to give from this— this wellspring of joy that is not fabricated. This was earned. This was intentional. This is a practice. This is just like going to the gym in working on my physical body, I worked on my heart. I allowed my heart's voice to become louder than the pain, to offer me more vision for a future than the pain did. And inside of my heart's voice, that's where all the beauty really arrived.

Yeah. And I want to emphasize a point you just made because I was talking with a client the other day and we were talking about some shifts that she has made and some insight she's had. And she said something like, well, I was really blessed to have this. Or I said, no, this is actually an intentional choice that you made. You get to choose how you feel about things. There's, there's a set of events that happen, there's an objective set of events, and then there's the story that we tell ourselves around that. So you, you've chosen to do this, you've chosen to make these decisions, that you've chosen to look at it this way. You have gone through the pain of going practice, it's not like it just happens. Like, we have a grief event and we grow. It provides us the opportunity to grow, but it doesn't just necessarily generate growth.

I always say you can be a gardener, but until you plant the seed in the ground and you water it and you tend to it, you're not— you know, you have the intention of being a gardener, but until you actually garden, you've got— that's when you actually become the gardener. You have to plant these ideas and understand that it will— they need time to germinate. They need sunlight. They need water. They need the right conditions, the right time of year. You know, there are conditions in seasons inside of grief that we will have to weather, but the intention to continue on is the point. Because the blooms will eventually blossom. They will emerge, but you have to make sure that you're taking care to care for those intentions. And those practices eventually give way into not just knowledge, but embodiment. And then it becomes a way of being.

Yeah.

When you've learned to master it and embody it and to make that choice so routinely that this is the effect. It's the default. It's not that I have to think about this. And it's— I wake up in this state. And when I'm not in this state, that's now the abnormal. When I don't feel this deep connection to Drew and to loving life, that's when I know, okay, well, what's off? And I go and I do the check-ins. And I still— all of those practices that I started with my grief journey, they sustain me today in just different ways.

Awesome. Awesome. So is there anything that you would like to talk about that I didn't ask you about?

I am a very big advocate for water safety education, and I really truly believe that it's not just a seasonal conversation. It's a year-round discussion. It is the number one cause of death for children under the age of 5 in accidental death. So I hope that everybody will take time to look at their surroundings, especially if you're vacationing and going to new places. Make sure that you're paying attention to things like decorative fountains, open water systems, lakes, streams. It does not take much water and it does not take much time for a drowning to occur. So if anybody would like free resources about water safety education, my website, I offer those resources free and there's videos and conversation starters for for parents to have with their children about making them more safe and educated about water, water safety and drowning prevention. And my website is melissahull.com.

Okay, melissahull.com. That'll be in the show notes also. Remind people the name of your book.

It's Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief, and it is available today. So I'm very excited to offer this book to the world.

Yeah, I know Drew is very proud of you and the work you've done on yourself and what you're doing with the world and putting this out there and continuing his legacy, you know, even these many years later. So, Melissa, thanks for being here today. It's good to meet you.

Good to meet you, and thank you so much for having me today.

All right. Have a great afternoon.

Thank you.

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