TRANSFORMED by Tragedy: Sheila Clemenson's Journey from Grief to Growth! EP 376

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.

Hey there, welcome back to Grief 2 Growth, your go-to place for understanding and navigating the complexities of life. And whether you're joining us for the first time or you're a returning listener, I'm your host, Brian D Smith, and I'm here to guide you through these intricate journeys of self-discovery and healing. Today we're honored to have with us Sheila Clemenson. And Sheila is an experienced transition coach. I think she means that more ways, more ways than one. We'll talk about that. And she's a compassionate author of Over the Rainbow. She's channeled her personal tragedy, having lost her first husband Grant to ALS at a young age, into becoming a guiding light for others navigating the depths of grief. Grief. With her extensive background as a former HR advisor, Sheila not only accompanies individuals through the emotional landscapes of bereavement, but also empowers them to find fulfilling career paths and embrace transformative growth in their personal and professional lives. So in today's episode, we're gonna dive deep into the emo— emotional rollercoaster that we call grief. Will tackle the taboo topics in caregiving and explore strategies for trans— for life transitions post-loss. Sheila's insights will undoubtedly light our paths, offering solace and practical advice for those seeking to find meaning, purpose, and self-care during challenging times. And to learn more about Sheila's work, visit her website at SheilaClemenson.com. And after the show, make sure you go to GriefToGrowth.com community and continue the conversation there. So with that, I'd like to welcome Sheila Clementson.

Hi, thank you so much for having me today, Brian. It is great to be here and, um, talking with you and your audience.

Yeah, I'm really interested in talking to you. I know, uh, you're a transition coach. I think you help people in more ways than one, also helping people with career transitions as well as the life transitions that we go through. If you could start by telling me about your husband, Grant, because that sounds like that's kind of maybe what launched you into this, this part of your career path.

Yes, yes. So, you know, we all have our grief journey, right? And it can sometimes start from the moment we're born and when we're younger, and then as we move forward over time. When it really hit me was when my first husband, who was at the time my fiancé, was diagnosed with ALS. We had just bought a house. We were— we just got engaged. We were planning a wedding. I was 26 and he was 32. And he came home one day from the doctor and he said, the doctor thinks that I have one of these. And he had two pamphlets. One said ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is Lou Gehrig's disease. The other one said MS. They're usually— it's a working diagnosis when you are first diagnosed with ALS because it really is only diagnosed as your symptoms start to progress. So yeah, I'm unpacking boxes in our new home and we get this news and I've been with him already for 2 and a half years in a whirlwind romance. He was an international sales guy and I worked for Mazda Research and Development in Detroit in HR. It was just reality hitting you, the carpet being pulled out from you. And we looked at this and it was, you know, denial and shock initially in the beginning, right? Well, I'm sure that they got this wrong and, you know, and we're going to see how things go. And however, as things started moving forward and he started losing the ability to do different things, we knew that he was on this grief journey. We were on this grief journey together. We were on this ALS journey together. I— he said to me, he said, do you really want to marry me knowing what we're going to be going through? And, you know, I might have 3 to 5 years to live. And I said, I've waited for you my whole life. I'm not going anywhere. And so I married him despite that diagnosis and chose to walk with him as long as we could together. And then I walked for him, and I became his caregiver for 4 and a half years. We left Northern Michigan. He fazed out, we both phased out of an early retirement. You know, that's a whole other story and how you can do that. But we moved to Kauai for his last 2 years because he didn't want to be a trapped house cat in the cold of northern Michigan. And we were able to make this happen more realistically than you would think because we moved there 5 years after Hurricane Iniki. And the island had a Category 5 hurricane and we could rebuild with the rest of the island kind of out there at a lower amount of money than you would think. So we were able to go and do that. It was bittersweet, and it was an absolutely amazing place, but of course the best place to be going through the worst experience of your life. And so we spent his last 2 years there. I stayed another 4, and then, um, reconnected with the mainland to do some important work that I'm supposed to be doing that I couldn't do on Kauai. And so it was a caregiver's journey and a griever's journey for a really long time. And, uh, I just, uh, yeah, that's, that's really where I found myself, really, after all that happened. I was really trying to put the pieces back together and figure things out. Mind you, the whole time that that was going on for 5 and a half years, it was anticipatory grief and being in the trenches of taking care of somebody who needed care 24/7, and, um, that brought its own challenges. So, you know, it's, um, yeah, the interesting thing, you know, about that is How Grant was so independent as an international salesperson. He was charismatic. He had a personality that wouldn't stop. One of those people who came into a room that just lit it all up, you know, could make anybody laugh. I used to say he could write, he could have written for Saturday Night Live or, you know, Seinfeld. He was so funny. And to watch the humanness of somebody wither away from this type of disease, which you initially in the beginning, there's a couple of different types of ALS. There's one that moves faster that people tend to die within 6 months. He had the, the slower moving progression that took 3 to 5 years. It initially, you can't move and walk, you know, you can't coordinate your legs, your feet, your arms, your movement, and then it paralyzes you and then starts moving internally. So the internal aspect, once it moves there, it's all your voluntary muscles. So you're swallowing, your diaphragm, you're breathing, you're eating. It's a— it's an incredibly hard way to die. And there are a lot of really hard ways to die. This is one of those. And so, you know, knowing that he would become more dependent on me as we were along on that journey was really difficult. Um, but you know, that resilience piece, that humor piece, that hope is, uh, what we kind of held on to.

Wow. I just, I, I can't even imagine what that would be like, you know, especially for a young person. You know, you're, you're not even 30, you're thinking we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and to get that diagnosis of, uh, I have a friend, uh, who, who passed from ALS, and, um, You know, everybody says that's the one disease that, you know, you don't want to get that diagnosis because it does seem to be such a cruel disease in the way it takes people. So my sympathies go out to you. I can imagine.

Well, you know, and everyone tends to know somebody who has died from it. They still don't know what causes it. And it's just debilitating, and it takes away your humanness, to be honest. It takes away all of your self-expression. And that's what makes it even harder.

Yes. And then you become dependent on someone. And for, for a man, you know, marrying someone so young, like, that's got to be a very, very difficult thing to go through. What kind of help did you get for, for caring with, for him and Kawai?

Yeah, a lot of people have asked me, you know, well, why did you leave? Why did you leave your support systems? And Grant was a very proud man, right? You know, I want to say that Kauai had been in his life from the time he was 15, and he introduced me to the island. My first day, he took me out there. He proposed to me on Secret Beach. So the island was very special to him. I think when you look at retiring, you know, where do you want to go and where do you want to spend your life? And I think that we always thought at one point we would go to Kauai. We just didn't think that he would have ALS and we would be going there 30 years before our time.

Right.

We decided to go and we were able to create and find everything that we needed to support him in his, in his journey. We were able to hire caregivers. And I'm saying they weren't maybe official caregivers, right? Like, they answered our ad in the paper, they showed up, they could take him to the beach, they could, you know, feed him something to eat. It wasn't in an official caregiving capacity. It was, you know, kind of helping somebody, you know, take care of someone, your husband, while you're going and you're working for our health benefits is what it ended up being. And the island just embraced us. You don't need a lot on Kauai. You need a crappy car because you don't want anything nice because of the salt water. It just kills everything. Flip-flops, shorts, a bathing suit, a beach. I mean, yes, you need to eat and you need a decent place to live. We were able to rent a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home for $500 a month at that time, and that was 1997. So this is well over 20 years ago, to give you an idea of the time frame. But Hurricane Iniki hit in '92, so the island was a Category 5, totally devastated. So you have to think, a lot of people left the island. It was rebuilding. It wasn't like it is now where you're renting the same home for $3,500 a month. You know, we were able to get a place and we were able to find what we needed. And I say in my book Over the Rainbow, I talk about Mother Kauai as a character in my book because we felt really embraced when we moved to the island and supported and supported by the aloha spirit and the people of the island. And I talk a lot culturally about Hawai'i and how the people on the islands, they take care of one another. And so I really did feel like we were embraced in that way. 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 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 in 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. So grief, as you're well aware, is a complicated thing that comes with a whole set of emotions. Can you describe some of the things you went through as, as you went through this process?

Roller coaster.

Yeah.

I talked about that anticipatory grief, right? You know, the shock of the diagnosis, but then the, and the denial, but then the bargaining starts kicking in pretty quickly. And that bargaining piece was, well, I'll give up, we'll give up whatever it is that we've got. We'll start all over again. We'll start all over again if we can just have, you know, another chance with being healthy again. Because when you have your health, really, you truly have everything. So there was a lot of that. Seriously, we would lay in bed and cry for hours. When he was first diagnosed, the unreal feelings, you know, the unreal experience of that diagnosis. And then it became about Grant wanting to finish out his international sales career on a high note and not wanting anyone in the small city where we live to know that he had ALS. HIPAA. He didn't want anybody to know. He didn't want anyone to treat him differently. He walked with a cane when things started getting a little bit harder in the beginning. And he just brushed it off, you know, like, oh, you know, I've got something going on. Maybe I skied my knees out, maybe I did whatever. And he was able to get away with that for a while until his stability became really difficult for him to manage. And after that happened, he ended up falling and breaking his arm. Laying out on some black ice in the middle of a parking lot because he needed to work that Sunday. And one of our colleagues drove by and found him out there. And from that point when he broke his arm and he was in a wheelchair, things just started declining from there. And that was probably 6 months, uh, after his initial diagnosis. So it was a gradual process. But even within that gradual process, it was hard to manage that in the beginning where I was becoming more responsible for him and taking care of him. So it would, it would be, you know, helping him go to the bathroom, then helping him wipe his butt, and helping him do other things, pull up his pants, do different things, right? And so, you know, you're compensating for that slowly over time until you wake up one day and you're like, oh my gosh, like, I don't have a life anymore. And this is what I'm, I'm taking care of him and helping him in every way, which I was going to do anything for him. But at a certain point, you lose yourself and you lose your sense of identity almost going through that too, if you're a caregiver and a people pleaser type. So I want to say the sadness, the depression, the crying, the bargaining, all of that, you know, and just kind of moving through all of those different emotions, the anger that, you know, We've been cheated out of life. And, you know, yeah, you normally hear that this happens to 70-something-year-olds, and Grant's 31, 30, you know, I mean, that he was cheated out of, you know, a long life, right? And that we were cheated out of our life together. It's hard to not feel sorry for yourself and hard to not go to those places too. So, you know, you're just going through all of those emotions.. And yet putting your best face forward every day because Grant didn't want anybody outside of our inner circle to know. And so I had to find a couple of allies with people that I was working with that I could swear to secrecy because I needed 4 hours off a day. And this was before family medical leave. And I was negotiating taking time off work so that I could be there to care for my husband when I was still working. And then we finally, when we moved to Kauai, that's just when we kind of just started rebuilding, and I found some extra caregivers to come in to help support me and us. And then, um, things kind of were a little bit more status quo, kind of, for a couple of years, where he really wasn't able to use his arms and his hands and his legs too much, but he could eat and he could talk and he could laugh and joke and, and do a lot of things with assistance. Then at a certain point, just things started moving more internally. And so we just started realizing then, you know, he was losing weight, and he wasn't able to swallow, and he wasn't able to, you know, drink his smoothies anymore. And so, you know, I mean, you, you start looking at all of that. And for me, I was managing his anger. Because as much as we want to say that we, we try not to hurt the people that we love the most, We too. And the anger that he had, I think, of what he was going through, unfortunately, he took it out on me as his caregiver and his partner more than anybody else. And that was hard. And so we had to kind of endure trying to move through that together. And that part was hard. You know, I lost a husband, he lost a wife. I gained a child, childlike, dependent in every way, caring for him.. And, you know, and that was so hard to experience all of that while you love somebody and you would do anything for them. Sure. So navigating all of that was incredibly hard. And I talk about that in my book. And I think it's really important for people to connect with somebody as they're being a caregiver. When I was taking care of Grant, I read an incredible caregiving book called The Caregiver's Companion. It changed my life. I felt validated. I felt seen. I felt heard. I cried my eyeballs out because I couldn't believe that somebody was saying everything that I was experiencing. And that is the reason why I wrote this book. Yeah, because I wanted to be a hand to hold through this grief experience, and perhaps through a caregiving experience if you're going through something similar.

Yeah, I want to ask you about the caregiving experience, because I heard you say, I would do anything for him. And I know we feel that way about certain relationships. But there's also the human side of us that we can only do so much. So did you get to a point where you had to call in, you know, full-time care? And what is it like making that decision?

Time for a real quick break. Make sure you like and subscribe. Liking the video will show it to more people on YouTube, and subscribing will make sure you get access to all my great content in the future. And now back to the video.

So hard. It happened gradually for us. But, you know, I had at the end about 5 caregivers. One was full-time, several were part-time. I was there, you know, full-time in the evenings. And when I wasn't working, I needed breaks too. At one point, Grant looked at me and he said, You know, I think that you bit off more than you can chew. And I looked at him and I said, yes, I did. But I'm still here wiping your ass and I'm not going anywhere. But that was true. Yes, it was really hard, but I wasn't going anywhere. And he tried to push me away because he didn't want me to see him this way. Right. I knew that when he was pushing me away, it was because he didn't want me to see him going through this. But he still needed me. And so in a sense, it was him allowing himself to be loved unconditionally and cared for by somebody despite the fact that we were fighting and arguing and not getting along all the time and dealing with the minutiae of day to day. You're not holding my straw the right way or whatever. Yeah, it was hard. It was the hardest thing I hope to God that I ever have to go through.

Oh yeah.

And the fact that I knew that— I knew that I was probably gonna survive it. So what was really hard for me was when Grant would make his needs, all of his needs, the priority. Everything that he wanted and everything he wanted to do, and he would say to me, you know, I'm the one who's dying. Not you. And it was hard for me. I would have to say yes, but I still have needs too.

Right? Right.

And that was the hard part, was to not feel guilty about having your own needs and needing your own space and your own time and not being able to completely fulfill somebody. It's not humanly possible. But I became his person. And at one point in time, we had other caregivers, but he didn't want me to leave the house because he trusted me when he was having a hard time breathing.

Right.

And so, yeah, I mean, I hope that I answered that. It was hard. It was brutally hard.

Yes.

At one point, he pushed me away and I brought 5 caregivers in and I left for 2 weeks and I went back to the mainland and he threatened to divorce me. You know what, if you have the energy, I'm like, knock yourself out.

Well, I appreciate you being so, so open about this because, you know, this is the, this is the human aspect of things, you know. And, and I can only imagine all the anger that you both must have felt at God, at the universe, at whatever.

Absolutely.

Maybe the doctors because they couldn't fix it, whatever. And anger, the thing about anger is it it can get displaced very easily. So you might be angry about the situation, might be frustrated with the situation. And then you take it out on the closest person to you. Yeah, happens to be your caregiver.

And we both did it. I wasn't an innocent bystander. Yeah, I did it too. Right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Mine was more verbal. Yeah, well, I think it's verbally, right?

It's important to talk about that, because then people will then feel guilty about the anger. And all these feelings, I always say that there are no bad emotions. All emotions have a reason, but they can get misplaced. So they get, they get this, and we don't want to carry around things like anger and guilt, and they build on each other.

Yeah. And at a certain point, I went and I saw a therapist because I couldn't take it anymore. And Grant said I needed to see the therapist, that he didn't need to see a therapist. So that's kind of where we were at that particular point in our marriage and in our relationship. And yes, you're exactly right. The anger gets displaced. I was angry at God when he was first diagnosed for 6 months. I'm like, I'm not talking to you. You know, you feel betrayed. You feel left out to, you know, do it all on your own. And, you know, people are funny. They say, well, you know, God doesn't give you more than you can handle. And I say, yeah. And there are, you know, psychiatric hospitals and prisons. So like I say, I don't believe that. I don't know if I believe that, you know.

I was just talking to someone the other day that said that. And I'm like, yeah, it reminds me there's a joke about your spirit guides and you're complaining and they say, yeah, but did you die? And so I guess on one hand, it's like, maybe it's not more than we can handle. But there is definitely a breaking point.

But this is— yeah, but this is what I will say. So no, and I don't know if God really, you know, had anything to do with Grant getting ALS. Right. You know, he got ALS, whatever causes that, that we don't know.

Right.

He grew up in Flint, Michigan. Maybe it was the lead in the water. You know, who knows? Right. I have my own theories about ALS and what might cause it. And I think it's kind of like peanut allergies. I think that there's something toxic in the environment that someone connects with that their system breaks down in a different way than anybody else. And I don't think that they can figure out what that is because it doesn't happen to everybody.

Right.

That's kind of what I'm thinking. But, you know, I just want to say that the, you know, we would have angels just come into our lives. And this is really what I am very spiritual, but I'm not religious. I was the one that was holding the spiritual and the healing light for my husband. I became the conduit. I asked for healing. I connected with a hands-on healer. I connected with Reiki, I connected with a Benny Hinn Christian Miracle Crusade. I'm like, we're going to Seattle. And, you know, I tried to do and bring whatever I could to him to help support him through a healing process. I also recognize that the people in our lives are really earth angels sometimes that come in. And sometimes it was just that one person that came into that store and said what I needed to hear that day. And then they disappeared, and I never saw them again. You know, it's just I felt once I finally kind of forgave God and kind of made peace with some of that, I became open to the universe supporting us in the ways. And so we were blessed with everything that we needed going through the worst thing imaginable. And I want to say that that right there is spirit and the universe coming in and supporting and helping people through really tough times. But being able to ask for help ask for what you need, and being resourceful and resilient while you're breaking down on the other side, because you're not going to be that way all the time, right? I just had a lot of really amazing experiences that helped give me hope that we were going to make it through it, even if he wasn't going to survive it. One of my therapists, she said to me one day, Brian D Smith, she said, Sheila, you can— you guys can make it through this successfully. And it stopped me in my tracks. And it was not even an option that I had considered before I had heard that. And I thought, well, what does moving through this successfully actually look like when you know that person's going to go through the worst experience and die? Well, it does include bringing hospice in the last few months of someone's life. It includes bringing those people in who are going to be champions and allies for you,. Right. And even those spirit guides and those angels on the other side, we have them too, whether some people believe that or not. I do. And I feel like I was never left. I was supported. And we have our army. Grant and I had our army of angels looking out for us and helping us.

Yeah. Some are on that side, some are on this side. Yeah. So did you and Grant talk about what comes after the transition?

So Grant wasn't really very spiritual. He didn't want to go into those places. He sat in his bed one day and he started crying. And I looked at him and I said, what are you crying about? He's like, I'm not going to be able to support you and help you and keep you from all these jerks that you're going to be dating after I die.

Interesting.

I'm like, what? I mean, I was 30 years old, right?

Sure.

Well, I had dated a, you know, some not so good guys, you know, before he— I met him. And, uh, and I looked at him and I'm like, you know, you're probably right. I'm sorry. You know, I know that I'm kind of messed up. Um, and he was just really worried about somebody taking care of me and that he wasn't going to be able to take care of me anymore after he died. And as precious and as beautiful as that was with me caring for him, right, he emotionally wanted to care for me, financially wanted to care for me. And my real dad died when I was 5 years old. He committed suicide and killed himself. And so that was the past that like I kind of came through, right? And Grant became an opportunity to work through my abandonment issues and a lot of my different things. But soulfully, he became someone that I could work through those abandonment issues. But he left me loving me, not because he wanted to, right? And I think on the other side, I soulfully became his caregiver, loving him unconditionally. And he needed that. So I truly believe that we had a soul contract in this life. And that we were supposed to be there for one another, supporting each other, moving through this experience. And so little did I think, well, he had a presence kind of bigger than this world when he was alive. He has a presence bigger than this world after he has passed. And so in my book, I talk about me continuing this relationship with him after he died. And that he made himself very apparent in my day-to-day existence, in the ways that he would communicate with me, and the ways that he still communicates with me. And mind you, he died 25 years ago in September this year. He died in 1999. I have been with my new husband, married 12 years. I've been with him 18 years in October. I have gone through a whole lifetime of transition. And I still have a relationship with my first husband, and he's my best friend on the other side. And my current husband, I'm not gonna say he's real woo woo. But like, he holds the space for my dead husband. And he's held the space of respect for Grant being a ghost in my life, but also a really important part of my life and who I have become through that experience moving forward and how I'm able to show up for people now and my loved ones and the people that I care about, you know, so I talk about the different things that he started— Grant started getting really creative about doing. He could, you know, he could send songs to the radio and turn the radio up at just the right time. I got pennies from heaven. He called me on the phone before we had cell phones that we were using.

Oh, wow.

I talk about these things in the book. And I talk about my experience going and seeing a medium to connect with him and to have a conversation with him after he died. And that I knew in that experience, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was coming to me from the other side.

Wow.

And I share that in the book because honestly, you can't make that shit up.

Yeah.

Things happen and you're like, mm-hmm, how do you explain that one?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I would share it with you. I also want people to read my book to hear that too.

Of course.

So I'm good with, I'm good with sharing. But the most amazing story that I can tell you about the medium part was 6 months before Grant died, a woman came into my store, my, my friend's store where I was working at the Marriott. I was working in a clothing and jewelry store. I made $8 an hour, but I got all of our full-time benefits.

Benefits.

So it paid for a lot of our benefits that we needed. This woman came in and she was from Michigan, where I'm from, and she said— we just struck up a conversation and she said, oh my gosh, if you ever go back to Michigan, you have to connect with the Reverend Carrie. She's outside of Flint, Michigan, and she is the real deal. She's amazing. Well, 6 months later, after Grant died with hospice and all of everything that happened. I am in Michigan and I'm working on his memorial service. And I open the journal and it says to contact the Reverend Carrie and to make an appointment because I had written it in my journal that day. Hmm. So this is before we had the internet, like you couldn't Google anybody back then, right? So like, I look her up and I call the number and I say, I'd like to make an appointment with the Reverend Carrie. And she goes, Well, she's booked for 3 months. And I'm like, oh, and then she stops. She goes, oh wait, I've got a cancellation on November 4th. And that ended up being the day before I was supposed to fly back to Kauai. And I said, yes, book me. So at the end of my trip, I was going to go to this appointment. I go in, I walk in and I sit down. And this woman very much reminded me of Sylvia Browne. Blonde hair, bob, you know, the one who was on the Montel Williams Show, you know, way back when. I'm kind of dating myself, aren't I? So, so she looks at me and I just start looking at her. I'm like, I really want you to tell Grant I'm really sorry for everything that I did. Like that guilt of feeling that heaviness and that guilt as a caregiver of those things that I said that I regretted that I kept running through my mind over and over again. And she looks at me and she says, he says that you don't have anything to forget. He said the humanness of your experience that you had together, you're far from that now. He's in his spiritual place. And, you know, the humanness, that, that was then, you know. This is, this is love, and this is now, and this, it all is forgiven. And then she looks at me with a really confused face and she Was your husband afraid of going to the dentist? And I looked at her and I said, my husband loved going to the dentist, you know, and I'll tell you about the nitrous and going with his friend who was a dentist and whatever. Um, I go, no, he wasn't afraid. And she goes, well, why is he telling me now I don't have to worry about going to the dentist? My eyes lit up. Up like you wouldn't believe. And I was like, because that's what I said to him a couple of weeks before he died. Grant was— I was— we were worried. The dentist and I were worried about him aspirating, getting aspiration pneumonia because of cleaning his teeth. And Grant wanted to be clean, and he wanted to go to the dentist. And the dentist and I talked, and he said, you know, I'm worried about him aspirating and having a tough time. And so I told Grant, no, Grant, you can't go to the dentist. I'm sorry. And he got really belligerent and mad at me. And I said, Grant— and this is only a caregiver spouse who has been on this journey for 4 and a half years can get away with this. Okay. I said, Grant, I don't want to hear about it anymore. Where you're going, you don't need your teeth. You don't need to worry about going to the dentist.

Oh, wow.

And I put my foot down and that was that. No one knew that. It wasn't anything I would have posted on Facebook. And we didn't even have Facebook back then.

Right.

So when she said that, I'm like, he was very witty to choose those words for me to know that that was him.

Yeah.

And he has been very witty ever since with all of the different songs that he sends me that are very— the lyrics are very appropriate or different things that are happening. And through the process even of writing my book over the last 2 years, he's made himself very present. And so, and that's 20 years, 25 years after he's died. So I want to say that, you know, we can move forward in our journey and build a really amazing life for ourselves. It's sometimes really painful, right, going through that. However, we can bring that person forward with us and choose where we can put them in our life to to have a close connected relationship with them still. And some people don't believe in that, some people do. I think that some people are open to that experience depending on what that might look like, um, you know, whether you have dreams about that person, whether you have actual communication or some kind of experience. That is otherworldly of them. But I think that sometimes we all yearn for that, right? We want to have another conversation. We might want to say some things that even after 4 and a half years of being a caregiver, that we may have always had the, had the opportunity to say. There's still some things that you haven't said, right? And so, yeah, thanks for letting me share that because it's it's powerful. And I think that it's still kind of a taboo subject that people don't want to talk about. And when I decided to put it in my book, I was kind of afraid of putting it in my book, to be honest. And I was like, I'm a well-respected professional and I'm a career coach and I help people rebuild their lives. And I'm thinking, and I'm a business owner, and I'm thinking, what are people going to say about this woo-woo stuff in my book? And I just sat with it. I'm like, I don't care. Because when I started telling people and talking with people about this, people would say to me, can I tell you something that I've never told anybody before?

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

I've had that experience many times. Yes.

Open it up. And yeah, so I think we're having the conversations. You're having the conversations with your guests that people need to hear, and it needs to be normalized. I don't think that it's something weird. And I don't think it's something woo woo. I think that we should start normalizing more of these experiences because they're more real sometimes than people will give it any credit about.

Well, thank you for sharing that. Because I think it's like 80% of people who have lost a spouse say they've had some sort of after-death communication with them. But we don't talk about it. And I've had the experience many, many times, I've shared something that has happened to me, and people go, oh, let me tell you something that I've never told you. And sometimes it's people I've known for over 20 years. Yeah, you know, it's so it's these— I'm like, would you have never mentioned this before? And we people that are business owners, I interview people like yourself, we're business owners, professionals. I just recently interviewed a medical doctor. And he was being very cautious about why I believe and this may happen, and we, you know, there may be— and I'm like, I kind of called them. I said, you know, the thing is, we allow the materialists to take the, to take the high ground here. We're like, it's fine to, to espouse materialist viewpoints, but when you share something like that, which is pretty much undeniable, that is not a— that could not be a coincidence. As you said, this is pre-Facebook, not that you would have put this on Facebook.

Absolutely.

There is no other explanation for why that woman used that phrase other than she was in communication with your, with your husband.

Yes.

Um, and we need to, we need to, we do need to normalize this because it's not that uncommon of an occurrence. Um, and I'm really, really glad that you talked about the, the guilt that you had, because almost every client I've had has some guilt around the loss, whatever it may be. They're responsible for the death, or they feel they didn't do something right, or they did, or they said something they shouldn't have said.

Yeah.

And I love what she said to you about like, there's not even any need for forgiveness. I mean, it's fine, we asked for it. That's great. But our person on the other side is not holding that against us.

No. And you know, when she said that to me, I just bawled my eyes out. And I felt completely validated. And just, it was another step in my healing process. Us.

Yeah, it's a big step.

It's, it's a huge step.

Yeah, because if you hold on to that guilt, it can, it can so much block your, your healing because you feel like, I don't even deserve to heal, you know. And, and that, and I— a lot of times people also think, oh, it's too late, I can't talk to them anymore, they don't know what's going on. And we do, we do know that, you know, he's still involved in your life. Another thing I want to ask you about, and this is Um, when someone loses a spouse, and especially when they're like, when we're older, we can say, okay, well, that's it, I'm done, I'm not going to date anymore. But when you're in your 20s or your 30s, that's a whole nother thing. You've got to figure out, who am I? Yeah, do I— am I a single person again? Do I date? Do I bring this person into my relationship? So how did you make those decisions?

Yeah, I was a hot mess. Really. I was stumbling around in the dark looking for the light switch in my underwear for years, like, really seriously. And I am very honest about that in the book. I started drinking and numbing myself with alcohol, but it was more the party girl, you know. I didn't stay home and drink by myself, but I went out and I was drinking and I was dating people and picking up inappropriately men. And, you know, was messy. It was messy. And I had an ohana on the island, which they say is your island family. They're the people you adopt as your family who looked out for me. And I don't know if I could have gotten away with doing the same things on the island here on the mainland, because I felt really cocooned and really protected, and people looked out for me. Right. But yeah, I went through 4 and a half years of being with somebody who is sick, and I wanted to be embraced and held and loved and nurtured. And that physical touch is my love language. And I'm not afraid to say that, but it's like, what do you do with that when you're drinking? You're kind of out of control and you're dating a whole lot of people that I ran out of people to date on the island, and I had to leave. I dated all the inappropriate, inappropriate, committed and uncommitted people on the islands. And I was like, I say, the irresponsible and somewhat responsible people on the island. And I wasn't emotionally available. And that's who I was attracting. I was attracting people who were not emotionally available. They were good people, but they weren't available. And so you know, I just say that I was a mirror reflecting where I was.

Sure.

And, and I had a lot of healing that I needed to do. And as much as, you know, I was stumbling around in the dark trying to find somebody that could be of integrity like my husband and hold the space like my husband, I really wasn't ready for that person until I found Shawn 7 years later. Partner. So for 7 years after Grant died, I had some relationships, I had some one-night stands, I had dated people for a couple years at a time, but inevitably they weren't really my partner. And I had to quit drinking before I was going to bring my partner into my life. And so I quit drinking in 2005. I've been sober 18 and a half years, which, if you knew how much I loved drink, you'd be like, holy crap, that's really crazy. And I'm proud of that. But I had to grow up. I had to grow up. I had to move through everything emotionally, and I had to be accountable and responsible for myself. And you might say, well, you were accountable and responsible for somebody for so long. And I think maybe that's why I went off on the other deep end, right? Is it I completely lost it after I was responsible for so long? Overly responsible, almost. So, yeah, it was messy. And I wanted another partner, but it's also finding another partner that can be somebody different. So one of my friends said to me, and he was German, And so his language was really wonderful, and he could speak English really well. But, you know, they have a different way of thinking sometimes, Europeans. And he says to me, you know, Sheila, it's going to be like, you know, your heart's filled with 200 holes, and Grant, Grant filled maybe 150 of those holes. And you're gonna find somebody else someday, and maybe they're going to fill 160 or 175. And some of them are going to be the same and many of them are going to be different. Hmm. And you will find that someday. And I have.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I love the way you put that. And I never imagined you also— we have to find a person who's willing to, you know, frankly, not be jealous of the ghost, as you said, that person that still holds a piece of your heart and always will.

Yeah, absolutely. And Shawn has shown up in a really big way, and he is— he's responsibility at the top notch of his game. You know, double type, my double type A person, military background. He was in Persian Gulf War. He was in the Navy. He was on the fire department as everything from firefighter, EMT, and division chief for 21 years as a volunteer job. And he had another full-time job when it was a volunteer department. So here I attract this, you know, and he's on the other side of it. He's the emergency guy. He's dealing with death, life and death on the other side. And I'm the one that's, you know, on the other back end. Right. And it's like we're this perfect balance for each other in that place. But he gets it in so many ways. And, um, and he just has always held space for him in like the most amazing way that it's really awesome. And, um, I feel very blessed that I was able to find another person, another amazing beloved in my life that can hold the space for who Grant is. When he read my book, I said to Shawn, I said, Shawn, there's going to be some things in my book that you don't know. He knew all of these other things that I'm sharing right now, but he didn't know all these mystical stories. He didn't know all about the dreams. He didn't know about all of these things. I didn't tell him everything. I kept a lot of this for myself. Sure. And so I told him that it was in there. But I said, so, Sean, when are you ready to read the book? And about a year before I was done, I asked him this, and he said, I want to read it when it's completely done, when it's completely edited, but before it's printed. I'm like, okay. And he kind of rolled his eyes when I talked about it. And he's like, Sheila, you know, not everybody needs to write a book. You, you need to write a book. Good luck finding time with that. You know, he would say these things to me, but he knew I was serious and that I needed to do this. So finally I said, Sean, the book's ready. And this was a year later after that. And he looked scared and he's like, oh, he's like, well, I'm not going to start reading it until I go on my business trip next week. Week. And I'm in a camper van all by myself. And I'm like, okay, so he's a real man's man. And so he took my book. And he let me know one night, he started reading it when he was out to dinner, sitting down. And he's like, I kind of got a little teary-eyed. I had to stop reading the book. And I had to excuse myself. And I'm not going to read that in a public place anymore. I'm like, well, that's probably a good idea. Because my book does make grown men cry. And I'm proud of that. So he read it. And my husband goes to bed at 9, 10 o'clock. He's an early to bed kind of a guy. He stayed up till 1 in the morning reading it. I told him before he read it, I said, Sean, you do not need to tell me whether you like this book. You do not need to give me a critique, or you do not need to tell me anything about it. I need you to know what's in here because you're in here, and I need you to be okay with what is written about you. If you want anything changed, you need me to know. And so he says to me— I got a text message this long the next morning— and he said, oh my God. He goes, who am I married to? And who, who are you? Like, this book is amazing. And how is it that you married me? And I mean, I was bawling because I was just, wow. And he said to me, he goes, there's only two things I want you to change in this book. One, and they were both fire-related because he's a firefighter. And he goes, one, only two people died in the Marshall Fire, not three, because I talk about that experience in my book as a loss. And when we got married, there was the Estes Park fire, the Estes Park fire the day we got married. And he said, and it wasn't 4 miles away, it was 3 miles as the crow flies. That's what I told you that day. And I'm like, okay, that's what I'll put in there. But he did look at me afterwards and he said, you really went woo woo in here. And I go, I told you I was gonna put all that in here. And he goes, I go, I go, that's okay. And he goes, Yeah, it's okay. He goes, I think that it's, it's all awesome. And so I was just, okay. So as much as he's that guy that like isn't going to talk to people about those things, he's talked to me about some of those things, interesting, his own experiences. So yeah, it's—

Well, that's interesting. And I love, I love you sharing that. I appreciate it very much. Because again, it goes back to that. And this is a, this is a man that you're married to, that you're sharing the most— we think the most intimate parts of your life with.

Yeah.

But there's this little piece that we hold back because we're like, even he might judge me, right? He's going to think I'm woo-woo.

I was terrified to let him read this book. Of everybody, I was most worried about him reading it and felt most vulnerable with him. And it has been the best thing that I could have ever done for our marriage.

That is awesome. Yeah, I, I've got goosebumps you just saying that. I think it's It's so important that we be our authentic selves with everyone around us. And again, these are the most— to me, this is what life's about. This is the most important thing. And this is the thing that we hold back on, you know, because, because I'm a business owner, because I'm a serious person, because I'm, I'm saying, I want people to think I'm crazy, right? Right, right, exactly. Well, again, thanks very much for doing this. So now you've Um, you've made your, your, your, you know, Grant has made his transition and you, you make a career change. So tell me about what it is you're doing now.

Yes, so how many career changes am I on at this point? Um, the average they say is 14. I'm probably there. Um, HR background, 25+ years. Um, you know, and then transitioned, you know, with caring for Grant and, you know, doing retail sales. And then I I moved from Kauai to the mainland to help my mom build a Visiting Angels franchise, home care for seniors, because of that caregiving piece and the HR piece and the marketing piece that kind of brought it all together. And then I moved up to Denver after taking the coaches training program with CTI, Coaches Training Institute. And I got a grief recovery certification from the Grief Recovery Institute as well. But I talk about all that because I kind of brought together what I really wanted, and which was helping people rebuild their lives, moving forward through their grief process. I did grief wellness coaching. I started a grief wellness retreat place on Kauai when I lived there. And then the economy tanked in 2008. And I had to get a regular job again, because I couldn't sustain my business. So I went back into HR and I worked for Boulder Community Health, a hospital up here, for 9 years. And I did HR advising, all the different kinds of things in that area. And after, at a certain point, I was really burned out and I left there going, what do I do? And I said, I help people connect with their meaningful purpose and their careers and what they're doing, how they want to spend their valuable time in this life. Life. And so I got a career development certification and I started my own career coaching business. The interesting thing is, is you would think that my book would have been the career coaching book, but no, it— I was called to write this book. And every single time that I asked about writing this book and I said, God, why am I writing this book? Why am I doing this? I would bring in a client who needed help moving forward professionally, who was experiencing a significant amount of loss and grief in their life, whether it was a divorce, the death of a best friend, the death of a child, the death of a spouse. They're like, I need to support my family. I need to put my best face forward, and I need to try to move forward from this, although my life is in shatters, right? And so I started going, this seems to be the niche that is calling to me. Whether you've lost your job of 20 years and you were just given a box to pack up and then you're leaving and you're having to define who you are, or the worst aspects of death and divorce, right? And so I'm realizing this really finesse niche for myself that is this helping people through significant losses and helping them to forward with purpose and stronger and better and more resilient. And that doesn't mean that we're not emotionally basket cases and trying to figure out where we're at. I think that we need more help with that, too. And so I don't try to be a therapist. I'm not a therapist. I really work with the moving forward piece. But I work hand in hand sometimes with therapists who are supporting people. So I have a grief— I have a companion journal to the Over the Rainbow book that I really help people with the self-care piece and just helping them move forward and taking care of themselves, processing some of that, but then getting to a place when they want to dip their toe in to seeing what this new life looks like, which often there is the professional component before there is even the personal component because we all have to pay our bills and we have to put food on the table. And so sometimes it really comes down to helping people figure out what that next professional career step is going to be. And then their work-life balance, it's a career design, lifestyle design that goes together for us to really live into the life that we're really wanting to piece together and to move forward into. And sometimes it's dipping your toe and sometimes it's jumping off the deep end. It just depends on where people want to be.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, it's, it's, as you said, it's a much-needed thing. And, um, grief— we can have grief over any type of loss. It could be, as you said, loss of relationship, a divorce. It could be the loss of a job. It could be the loss of a person. It could be the loss of a pet. There's, there's all kinds of losses that cause grief, and there's some things that are very specific about certain types of grief, but there's also some things that are very, you know, common. And how do I move forward? How do I—

what's my next step?

I have to, as you said, I have to get it, pay bills and stuff. But also that self-care piece I think is really, really important. So I'm glad that you've included that in the journal.

Yeah, I call it radical self-resourcing.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, because we really do. We put ourselves on hold a lot of the time, and then we don't even know how to take care of ourselves anymore. And I say, you know, when we're in the grief wilderness, and I borrow that term from Dr. Alan Wolfelt, who is based up in Fort Collins here. We don't know how to navigate some of that because we've never been here before. And taking care of yourself includes these strict boundaries. And sometimes it's boundaries of steel around the people who are not going to support you in your life and the people that you really— who are toxic, that you really shouldn't be around. And sometimes it looks like taking care of yourself in a totally different way than you've ever cared for yourself before. Because short of dying, which is the most selfish thing we'll ever do, grieving is the next selfish thing that we should be doing for ourselves to help us move forward so that we can assimilate back into society in whatever way that we want to do that and do that dance with our communities and who we care about?

Well, you just said something I think that— well, you've said a lot of things are very important, so I don't mean this was— but something you just said, I really want to emphasize about that self-care aspect of grief. Because again, we talk so much about moving forward, and I was just reminded when you said that because I was talking with the client, um, just a couple of days ago who's just been through massive loss, displaced from their home, father's passed away, all kinds of stuff going on. And this person was so concerned about being productive they're like, I'm not as productive as I should be. I have all these things I know I should be doing, and I'm not doing them. And I'm like, when we're in grief, that's the time for us to be selfish, to use that word. We have to take care of ourselves first.

And we sometimes we have to let those other things go for a little while.

Yes. And if you don't give yourself permission, and I say, we have to give ourselves permission to do that. It really sets us back in healing through our grief. And I don't care what anyone says, you have to move through it to get to the other side of it.

Exactly.

And there are plenty of things that we do to numb ourselves and or to being a workaholic and being overly productive and not going into those emotions is one way. But you will inevitably find yourself sitting in it at some point.

Yeah, yeah, it's not going to go away.

You can run, but you can't hide.

Exactly.

All right.

Yeah, it, it will catch up with you. Sheila, um, anything that, um, that you would like for me to have asked you that I didn't? Anything that we missed, do you think?

No, I love the conversation. I think that we touched on so many different things that are so important. I just want to say that, um, you know, that my book is really— it is a book about grief, but it is a book about love. And I want to say that there's humor in it. There is connection in it. And, you know, sometimes the response that I'm getting from some people is, I'm not ready. I'm not ready to read it. And I'm like, but you're already grieving. Yeah, there are things in it. There's self-reflection, and there's exercises that may help people. And people who are grieving have told me that it's helped them. But the interesting thing that some friends have shared, and other readers, is even if they're not grieving the death or the loss of something, reading it has helped them to hold the space for people who are grieving better. And that piece was not expected. I did not expect for people to tell me that it was a resource for— to help support people in grief. So I just want to say the book really is for everybody. Be.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, again, remind people where they can reach you and remind people the name of the book.

Yeah. So the name of the book is Over the Rainbow: From the Depths of Grief to Hope. It's available on Amazon. You can also find it at SheilaClemenson.com. And also with my transitions coaching, it's Transitions with an S coaching coachingserviceswithaness.com. And those are the two places that you can find me.

Awesome.

Well, thanks for being here so much.

I appreciate our time, and thank you for this opportunity to connect with people who really need it.

Yeah, have a great rest of your afternoon.

You too. Thank you.

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