11: The Grief Marathon

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges, and loss, and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two.

Can help us do so.

We will cover different topics, ranging from interviews to recipes to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. Honored to be able to share her.

Light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now let's dive in. Hi, friends, and welcome back to Greek Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Duglecki. I am so excited to report to you as a Boston Marathon finisher this week. Full disclosure, this episode is a little bit late because Marathon Monday really kind of throws off the week, especially when you're running. But it has also inspired this sprint episode where I'm going to talk about grief and the marathon and four ways in which they're really similar. Last year, I actually gave a speech with Boston Children's Hospital talking about the similarities of grief in the marathon, but one really big distinction between the two that I want to address as well. So without further ado, we will dive right on in. So for those of you who don't know, the Boston Marathon is one of the most challenging, if not the most challenging marathons in the world. It's one of the major marathons, and it is for those of you not familiar with the running world. It's 26.2 miles. It starts in Hopkinton, which is actually my hometown. I grew up eating fried dough and watching the runners go by. It was kind of one of the only things that came to my town, which was so small it didn't allow any chains in it. So, you know, no Dunkin's, no McDonald's, none of those things were allowed at that time. So when the Boston Marathon came in and you had 20,000 runners, it was pretty exciting. And that fried dough truck was definitely a staple in my family's routine. Fast forward. And in 2014, when my daughter Layden and I were at the hospital at Boston Children's Hospital, we had a discharge date to go home. And I actually have a video of Leiden from that day, and she's kicking her legs. And we were sending a video to her uncle T.J. one of my three brothers, the oldest of three boys, and he was coming to visit, and we were so excited. Leighton loved her uncle tj. She literally melted. She locked eyes with him and did not unlock eyes when he was there. It was as if I was not there, which I'm perfectly okay with. I. I'm glad that she was able to experience and feel that level of love from her uncle. So we were making a video, and in the video, I said, we're kicking our legs for the marathon, or something along those lines. And right after I took the video, I looked at Leiden, I'll never forget, and I said, leiden, next year, we're going to cross that finish line for Boston Children's Hospital. And I have this vision in my head, and I really just saw us crossing that line. And it was. You know, it was a dream, and there was no doubt in my mind it was going to happen. Now, as most of you know, we never left that hospital together. When I left that hospital, it was without Laden. She lost her battle there in June of 2014. So the marathon was in April. We actually never left. We were there until June. And there are some undiagnosed and unanticipated complications with her case, which ultimately took Leiden's life. So I'll never forget over the summer, obviously, very broken. It was really hard for me to even get out of bed. I remember very vividly, you know, just kind of rolling out of bed and dreading another day and putting on the same clothes that were on my floor that I had worn the day before. I remember being hunched over, even trying to shower, like, standing up tall. I talk about this a lot in yoga, but when we're shocked or scared or afraid or hurt, we hunch our shoulders forward. And I didn't just do that occasionally. After Layden died, it was my permanent state. My shoulders were hunched. And I remember thinking, I've got to honor my promise to Layton. And I was going back and forth, like, do I have to honor it? I don't know. And I realized, of course I have to honor it. We're crossing that finish line. And I began taking my first steps. I was accepted to be a runner on the Boston Children's Hospital Marathon team. Miles for Miracles. And going to that first team practice, I was so intimidated. And I thought, what if somebody asks me my story? Like, I can't share my story. My story is a sad story. I mean, we're running for, you know, people who have survived. And that first year, when I introduced Layden, one of the staff members, she worked on the nursing staff team at Children's, was actually also running that year. So I felt like there was someone there who knew Layden like, knew Layden when she was alive. You know, didn't. Didn't know Layden as somebody who had passed or my daughter who didn't live. She knew Layden as a human. That was a huge source of comfort for me and really gave me kind of that strength and resilience to go and show up for the team runs. And I remember holding her hand when I first shared Leighton's story. And I can still feel that brokenness inside of me saying it. You know, I get a little emotional right now. So that first year I trained, and, man, it was one step at a time. And, you know, that is one of the first parallels for me between grief and the marathon. When you start training for the marathon, you don't start at 26 miles, right? You actually don't even get to that until marathon day. You have to pace yourself. You have to build in recovery days. Some days you have to push yourself and work harder and get outside of your comfort zone physically. But then you've got to follow that up with some rest. It's the same thing for grief. You can't start at a point like, I couldn't start with a podcast. I had to start by just saying, I lost my daughter. That was my marathon at that moment. And in time, you know, you build up and you build up to wherever your finish line, quote, unquote, is. And with that, in grief, sometimes you need to push yourself and get outside of your comfort zone. It is important. Otherwise, we're not going to grow. We're going to remain really captive to our grief. So you do. You have to push yourself. You've got to have some of those really tough days, but you've also got to nurture yourself and have those recovery days. And I think it's so important, it's so powerful for me to make that connection in both grief and the marathon, right? It's a balance. It's a dance of the two. But that prevents us from getting injuries, right? And in grief, those injuries can be actual, like, emotional breakdowns, maybe physical injuries, right? In marathon training, it could be more burnout or physical injury. So it's really important to recognize these two things that play really well together. The second thing, and I'm going to digress before I get into the second thing. I trained for that marathon. It went well. I actually did have my own injury, so I did a lot of my training on the elliptical. And I'll never forget, I watched the super bowl, and I watched all the 30 for 30s with Tom Brady over and over and over when I was on that elliptical by myself, sometimes for four hours, because when you're cross training a long run, you have to add 30%. So if I would have been running outside for three hours, I had to add a whole other hour to that. And I'll never forget. But, you know, those moments made me stronger. And I just remember watching Tom Brady and his grit and just thinking, like, I'm going to bring that grit to my grief. And, you know, not TB12. But I definitely have to work to bring that grit and to show up. And that's, you know, so true. And I compare athletics and life all the time. I mean, last episode we had Teddy Johnson on here. There are so many parallels. So the second one is another play on that parallel, is that you do it with your team, right? And for me, that first marathon, that first teammate that I trusted was Ryan, one of Layden's nurses that I referenced, who was running her first marathon. She was my safe place. But as I got to know other people and make new friendships and share my story and learn how to say that I lost my daughter and that I was a bereaved mom, and to have a place where we honored her birthday and to have a family that called me Layden's mom. I'll never forget that. My teammate Regina, calling me Layden's mom. And I think at this point now, this was my fifth marathon with Children's Hospital. That's how I'm known. I'm known as Layden's mom. So your team gets you through. And I've talked about this in other episodes. It's really important to know, and if you didn't listen to it, go back and listen what your teammates are going to offer. Because not everybody was going to be my safe place. Not everybody was going to be comfortable calling me Layden's mom. Not everybody was gonna be able to run and hear, like, allow me to process what happened. I mean, I had teammates who let me just talk out loud through her story, and not everyone could do that. And that's okay. But that's where it's my job, right, as a bereaved mom, to position people in a place to succeed. And I think that holds true in life. I practice that in life, and for me, life is grief. But you don't have to be grieving to be able to practice that. And so every year it's developed. So that was 2015, was the first time I crossed that finish line. And I did so carrying Layden's ashes. There's actually Pictures of me reaching down into my sports bra and people don't know it looks pretty funny, but I'm reaching to grab the ashes that I was holding out. And I remember crossing the finish line and looking at one of the really kind volunteers there and said I was so out of breath. I said, I ran for my daughter and I was bawling and she looked at me and said, you, father would be so proud. Well, I think he is proud. But I ran for my daughter and then continued on down to find my family. But this year it wasn't that different. I crossed the finish line my fifth marathon with Boston Children's Hospital. I crossed folding Laden's ashes, which I took out of the, you know, my sports bra. I carry through my sports bra for 26.2 miles and when I crossed, I hunched over and started balling again. And so that brings me to my third parallel between grief and the marathon. And that is that it doesn't get easier. And I think this is a really important one for everyone to hear and just kind of let it sink in. It doesn't get easier. And so for the marathon, a lot of times people would say, ah, this is your fifth one. You've got this down. And I think to myself, it's still 26.2 miles. Like, where is this shortened? And Heartbreak Hill, have you seen it? Because it has not gotten any less steep. And so the marathon, it really doesn't get easier. Grief, it doesn't get easier. And I think that's a really widely misunderstood thing. Grief does not get easier. Say it again for the people in the back, it doesn't get easier. So if you are grieving and you are wondering why it doesn't feel easier, it's because it doesn't get easier. What happens in both your fifth marathon and in your fifth year of grief? Can't believe this is my fifth year coming on. It is that you learn how to train for it. You learn how to train for it. So with the marathon, that means that I'm much better with my fuel. Anyone who follows me knows I've got my matcha balls down. I've got my green juice down, I've got my recovery smoothie down. My mom said to me, you are a well oiled machine. I know what I need to succeed. I know when I need to take rest days. Everyone's training program is a little bit different. I know how to push my speed. I know the corpse, that's a huge one. I know the course. And so with grief, it's the Same thing. It doesn't get any easier. Loss is still lost. Laden is gone. I want her back. Nothing is ever going to change that. But what changes is that I learn how to navigate through. I know what I need to get through really hard days. I know that sometimes not knowing what I need and communicating that is okay. I know what I'm going to get out of my teammates. Very similarly, grief and the marathon, I mean, they don't get easier, but we learn how to prepare for it. We learn how to prepare for it. And then the last thing that was really evident to me this year is that we have the choice when we're navigating through in what energy we bring. And this is a really hard one. This is a really, really, really hard one, because for me, and maybe for anyone grieving, this might elicit a reaction you might not like. And I understand that because I wouldn't have wanted to hear this either in the earlier parts of my grief journey. But we choose what energy we bring to our grief journey. We choose what energy we bring to our marathon. And so I realized I had the choice of being just completely broken, angry, resentful. As I've shared her case, her cardiologist termed Laden's case a catastrophe. The layers of that, not easy, right? So I had all this anger, hurt, sadness. And I felt like if I carried anything but that, it meant I didn't care. It meant I wasn't hurting. Like, I worried that if people didn't see me in pain, they would think I didn't love Layden. I'll never forget a friend of mine, Erica, wanted to do the ALS bucket challenge. And this was shortly after Layden died, and she was trying to cheer me up, and I was just. I was lost and in a zone, in a funk. And she was like, oh, let's do the bucket challenge. And, you know, you put it on Facebook, whatever. And I looked at her and I was like, erica, I can't have anybody see me smile right now. Fast forward five years. I don't love Leighton any less. I don't miss her any less, right? But I've learned that I can bring what energy I choose to it. And for me, it's that use of that word. And we talk about it a lot, that word. And so I am broken. I am sad. I misladen. I am pretty angry. I wish my daughter's case wasn't a catastrophe, right? And I am grateful. I'm choosing growth. I want to honor her. I want to shine her light, and I am so happy and proud that she chose me to be her mama. Because even if it doesn't make sense right now, it's a gift. And on the marathon course, it's very similar. And it. It struck me while running this year because I actually slowed my pace around mile 13. I was running pretty quickly, and the heat really kicked in. It was a tough race for many with the changing temperatures, and I thought I could push and struggle, or I can really just kind of bring a new energy and enjoy the ride. And I realized this is challenging, this is hard, this is tiring, this is hot, and this is amazing. Look at this route lined with these amazing people. Look at these signs. Look at the amount of people saying Laden's name. Some of them were pronouncing it incorrectly because it was on my bib. It was fine. I didn't care. I look at the spirit of this city, and again, I could have chosen either energy, but it's the use of that word, and. And so I think that's really, really helpful. Powerful. Now, there is one very profound among many others, but one really profound difference between the grief journey and the marathon, and that's that there's no finish line to our grief journeys. There's no metal handed to you when you cross a certain point, right? And so, for me, I don't attach to really physical, tangible things. So I got my medal, and my race didn't end at that finish line. I went right down to Layden's tree, which is about 0.4 miles past the finish line. So I did about 26.6 miles, and I went and tied that metal right on Layden's tree. And it's three days later, and it's still tied there. I don't need a medal. I don't need a finish line. I run for Laden, and I run for me as a mom, and it allows me to share her light, to spread her joy, to spread all of these incredibly powerful lessons she taught that I feel privileged to be able to share as part of her legacy, her growing legacy, even if her life isn't here. But I think it's important to recognize whether you're grieving or whether you're supporting someone in grief. We can make all of these analogies to marathons or whatever, it may be right to teammates and all of these things, but there is no finish line. So you've got to pace yourself. You've got to lean on your team. You've got to learn how to train for it. You've got to take rest when you need to there's no one handing you a medal, telling you what a great job you did in your grief journey. But what you can learn is learn how to do that for yourself, right? How to look yourself in the mirror and to say, you are still showing up today. You are broken, you are hurting, you have emptiness and you're still showing up for this world. And in my opinion, that is way more powerful than any freaking metal that could be handed to you. So thank you so much for sharing in this journey, for helping this be a part of the intangible metal of my grief so that I can shine Layden's light and shape her legacy. Because as her mom, there is nothing more important to me. And I so appreciate the ways that you all help me do so. For those of you local to Boston, so many of you have stopped by the tree. It is in the Boston Public Garden. The medal is still up as of now. We'll see. I'm waiting for some, you know, intoxicated late night someone to grab that and claim their own marathon prize. Which is fine. That's fine if that happens. But for right now, it's up there. And so many of you have visited and you've taken pictures. I love that. What I love more than anything is hearing how you share her story. Right? And you share this story of grief and strength and because the more we share, the more we can learn. And we are all in this together. Like we are. Whether it's your grief journey or your life journey, we are all in this together. I appreciate you sharing this podcast. If this resonates with you, please go ahead and subscribe. Leave a little review. All of those things allow us to spread Laden's light even more brightly and I thank you for that. Have a wonderful weekend, friends. Next week I have an exciting guest on she will be talking more about spreading Laden's light yoga. Her own incredible story and I can't wait to have her on the show. Talk soon.