Navigating spousal loss often exposes deep emotional wounds that require practical tools and a genuine community. Dr. Tina Fornwald connects with licensed clinical social worker, grief specialist, and one of the hosts of GRIEF Ladies, Kelly Daugherty, to discuss traumatic grief recovery and effective healing modalities. Many grieving individuals find themselves stuck on the painful death scene of their loved one, which prevents them from accessing fond memories. Processing trauma first allows you to clear the emotional roadblocks that keep you trapped in survival mode. Kelly shares her personal story of losing her mother at fourteen, navigating life with an alcoholic parent, and finding her calling as a grief therapist. Together, they explore how modalities like EMDR and progressive counting help reframe painful memories so you can move forward with love rather than pain.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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Watch the episode here

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Healing Traumatic Loss And Death Scenes With Kelly Daugherty

Welcome back to the show. Our conversation with Kelly is going to open your mind to the idea you don’t have to stay stuck at the moment the person you love died. Hear me again. Sometimes your memories, sometimes what you’re thinking has kept you in the place in the moment in which they died. The memories of the love and the experience and everything you have are so hard to reach. This conversation with Kelly is going to empower you to think beyond that moment in what is possible for you. Let’s get into this discussion now.

Kelly, welcome to widowhood.

Thank you so much for having me.

“Thank you for having me to the widowhood.” What’s the backstory when you think about it deeply? What comes to mind?

A lot of my clients. That’s what I think about. I think about what I’ve witnessed with them, what I’ve seen them go through, but also the transformations that I’ve seen with them. The ups and downs of grief are not linear and predictable. It’s a bit of a hot mess.

That’s true. Going from there, let’s start with your story and your personal experience as it relates to grief.

Overcoming Early Loss and Unspoken Family Struggles

My mom died when I was fourteen. She died from breast cancer and I was struggling a great deal after that. My sisters moved out shortly after my mom died, so it was just my dad and I. My dad was an alcoholic at the time, so things were not good at home. My mom did it all and my dad just worked. I didn’t have a relationship with my dad to be completely honest. The good news is, my dad recognized I was having a hard time. He basically forced me to go to a hospice grief group for teens.

The way he got me there was, I went to an all-girls Catholic High School and fifteen years old, being a little boy crazy. All it took was him saying there would be boys in the group. That’s what got me to go, but I walked into that room and my life changed. I met an amazing social worker. I knew I wasn’t alone in my grief anymore, and that’s how I had felt up into that point. Doing work with the hospice social worker and then also doing a lot of family with my dad.

My dad did get sober. I threatened to run away and told him if he didn’t get sober, that’s what I was going to do. I was very determined to do that and he did. He didn’t get into AA for about two years after that, but he did. My dad died a few years ago. At the time of his death, he had been sober for almost 30 years and in AA for almost 28 years. Because of that, and because of his push, I’m talking to you. If he hadn’t had me go to that group and hadn’t had me meet Renee, the social worker, I would have never even known what to expect, and what to understand about grief. Renee, after a while, asked me to start volunteering with the Children’s Program.

Slow down. We need to circle back a little bit. Growing up with a father, your mom passed. Was your dad an alcoholic before your mom died?

Yes, for my entire childhood.

That’s something to grieve along with everything else.

Absolutely. When I talked with my sisters about it, they were 7 and 9 years older. The oldest has the most memories. My mom sheltered me a lot. I was still young enough that I didn’t realize what it was all. There were some memories that I’ve worked on in therapy. I’m grateful I have because they were difficult and hard. Especially the last Christmas with my mom. My dad was drunk. There was a situation with the Christmas tree. It was something that always eat and bothered me. When I got trained to EMDR, I was like, “I’m going to work on this memory,” and I did. I’m grateful I did that work because I was able to have a very different relationship with my dad because of doing that.

Thank you. You mentioned EMDR. Can you share a little bit? I don’t want to make an assumption that everyone reading knows different acronyms, modalities and things. I want to always make sure we slow down and unpack.

Reprocessing Traumatic Death Scenes With Clinical Modalities

EMDR is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s like the gold standard of trauma therapy. It’s been around since the early 1990s. Francine Shapiro developed it. It uses bilateral eye movements to help you reprocess traumatic events. Now, it’s been expanded. It’s used for so many different things, but it’s something that, at the core of my clinical work, I do. It’s something I use on a pretty regular basis for people to help them reprocess some of the traumatic events. Especially the death scene that people can get caught up on.

For a person reading and they think, “Children and their parents being alcoholic is something you deal with. The child will grow up and they’ll be fine. It’s not a lot to pay attention to them.” What would you share with them?

There’s a study called Adverse Childhood Experiences. If you look at that study and what it does long-term for children. One of them is to have a parent who is an alcoholic. It can have long-term health consequences. It can also have a long-term mental health consequence. We always say that children are resilient but I like to challenge that. It’s because I’m in an office with like ten other therapists. We all share our space. We all are individual practitioners.

The reality is, all of us have individuals we’re working with who are processing childhood traumas. If they were so resilient, I’m not so sure all of us would have the caseloads that we do. People think that kids are doing okay. Kids respond very differently, especially with grief. Children grieve differently than adults. They grieve through their play. They re-grieve at every developmental stage. You may think that they’re okay. It doesn’t mean they necessarily are. It is important to do the work. If these things are coming up sometimes because of events that we went through in childhood. It impacts our relationships with other people, especially with our partner. It impacts our attachment styles and the way we show up in the world.

Thank you for mentioning that because I don’t think people realize they’re carrying so much from their youth. They may have become an adult and amazingly look like everything is fine. When life starts to crumble and you’re working with someone’s mental health, you’re unpacking all the way back to the root of the item. Not just what is being presented at this point.

Exactly. Especially when it comes to widows. Sometimes, if people didn’t have the best childhood and they didn’t have a safe person, then they meet a spouse, and that person is that safe person to them. That helps them regulate their nervous system. It can keep them grounded. It can keep them balanced. When they die and that safe person dies. The world feels so different. Their nervous system is just dysregulated. I hear so many times with widows, “I don’t have that person to talk to at the end of the day. I don’t have that person that could help calm me down and know what to say.” Their nervous system is dysregulated and that’s why they have trouble sleeping. That’s why they may be can’t get out of bed, or may be having trouble and just being able to move their bodies.

When you think of everything now and looking back at Kelly when her mom passed. How did that impact your life at that moment?

In every which way. I wouldn’t be talking to you if that hadn’t happened. It gave me a view of loss. It’s obviously why I became a social worker and why I got into this field. Also, seeing the growth that I’ve had since that time. What came up for me was when my dad died. Here I am, a Grief Counselor, I’m doing this work, I’m meeting with clients all day long.

Have all the answers.

Exactly. My dad died pretty quickly and suddenly. He was older. He was nine years older than my mom, but he was 46 when he had me. When he went to pick up the cake for my baptism, they asked if it was for his granddaughter. I always knew that this was going to come, but we celebrated his 90th birthday. He was in great shape, and three months later, just declined real quick. Being able to be in this field and grieving a new loss as an adult and another parent shines a spotlight on what it was like for me as a teen.

I honestly did a lot of re-grieving my mom’s death after my dad died. It brought up a lot of those memories and about the relationship I had with my mom. It also changed my view. I’ve always said I’m in this field, because my mom died but it’s because my dad made me go to that hospice grief group. My dad has as much of an impact and why I’m doing the work I do.

That’s so interesting. You’re dead was aware enough to save you. He may have not, at that moment, had the strength to save himself, but he was aware his daughter was in danger. He was aware he could not do it. He sought out what you needed to make sure you were okay. That’s a lot. Not everyone, but men are primarily protectors, guardians, and want to have the answers and solve things. He did all of those things even though he could not do them for himself. That sounds like one of the greatest expressions of love that I could think of. Have you ever thought of it that way?

I do. It’s amazing to me. He was in a hospice group. When I think about my dad and who he was, it amazes me that he did push us in that direction to do the counseling and all. Up until that point, I don’t think I knew anybody in counseling or anything.

What year is this you’re talking about?

My mom died in ’94.

They’re almost very quiet. They’re saying, “They’re seeing a therapist.” It’s that type of thing. I know that you’ve shared some of yours. I know you want to talk about the person that was impactful to you, so now go ahead. I just wanted to go back to your story because if we talk about everything else that happens, it’s important for people to know your why and your motivation. When you’re saying, “I want to connect with a therapist,” and they go, “What do you do about pain?”

You read the book, did the study, and have the diploma. You’ve graduated, but can you resonate? You may have not been a widow, but what do you know about these modalities that you’re sharing with me? How do you know this will work? Will you have patience or are you checking a block? These types of conversations. It’s like an interview going on with someone that may be reading, going, “That is somebody. Maybe therapy could help me in this experience that I’m having.” I know from our conversation, the other part is the inspiration. Go ahead. I sold you down a little bit.

That’s okay. When I walked into that room at the hospice in Long Island, the social worker was there, Renee. Renee was amazing. Not only did she connect, all of us teens, and I felt supported. I had a ton of questions. I wanted to understand what I was going through. After every group, she sent me home with another book. I would love to know now, like, did she run out of books to give me. I wanted to understand it.

I wanted to know if what I was feeling was normal. I used to cry myself to sleep every night after my mom died and thinking I was the only one going through this. To know that I haven’t changed everything for me. I also did some family counseling with my dad with a psychologist, Margaret, who should have won a medal because of having to deal with me and my dad. It was not always easy. Sometimes I sit in session, and I’m like, “This is what I put Margaret through.”

I want to circle back to, “I’m not sure if people understand the power behind knowing I am not the only one going through this.” There’s so many times I speak with people, and they go, “I don’t want to go to therapists. I don’t want to just cry in someone’s office or I don’t want to sit around a lot of other people that are sharing their story and crying.” The thing to minimize the power in what’s going to happen in those scenarios, one may cry but it’s not a crying fest. There is so much more. Could you speak to the person that has turned down the idea of a group or seeing a therapist because they have minimized what the interaction would bring for them?

In my personal opinion, sometimes group counseling is even more effective than individuals because of that connection and because of knowing that people get it, especially niche-specific. I love doing groups that are like young widows groups. That’s very specific. Similar types of lost experiences so they can connect. Unfortunately, sometimes we compare our grief. My grief is worse than theirs. Even though we say not to do that, it happens in grief groups all the time.

You’re talking about someone that’s grieving a parental loss versus a spouse loss or a child loss.

What happens in grief groups when you’re able to come together. You may not want to talk and you don’t have to. Sometimes, it’s just listening. You can get just as much out of a grief group by listening as you can by sharing. For those people that are like, “I can’t talk in front of a group.” You don’t have to. I have one woman I work with. She’s the first group. She’s like, “I don’t remember any of it. All I did was cry. I don’t think I said anything,” and then she’s like, “The second time I went through it again and I took away different pieces. Every time I do it, I take away different pieces and I learn new things.”

What I think is so powerful is people assume that what they’re feeling is not normal. It’s like, “I think I have dementia. I can’t remember anything, Kelly. What’s going on?” I’m like, “That’s your grieving brain. Let’s talk about that and normalize that,” then they’re like, “Oh.” They’ll share that in a group. They always say, “I’m going to say something crazy, but,” that’s how they always start it. The entire room shakes their head and nods in agreement like, “I understand. I get that.” My mind is blown. It validates them and it helps them understand that what they’re feeling is normal.

When people talk about family and friends not showing up the way they used to. They have that validation like, “It’s not just me,” then they connect. I love individual counseling and my practice builds on that. For somebody to be able to sit next to somebody and get it is so powerful. What I’m always amazed by is a lot of my clients are in individual or group with me. They’ll go to a group. They’ll hear other people’s stories and then they’ll come in and be like, “That was so hard to listen to. I felt so awful for that person. It makes me so sad.”

That same person they’re talking about will come in and say the same thing about them like, “Their story got to me.” It changes their perspective of loss. Sometimes, when we’re grieving, we have like this tunnel focus. We’re so narrow-minded. We’re focusing on what we’re experiencing and then to hear other people and being like, “I have so much empathy for them. I can’t believe they’re having a deal with this. I want to give them a hug or whatever it is.” To see that change in perspective is so powerful. I love that because I chuckle when they’re like, “Oh,” and then the other person will come in and say the same thing about it.

You make me remember my journey in that. The therapist I originally met with, I can’t remember the timeline, but in the beginning, it was just her and I, and then she introduced me into a small group with other widows. I remember one being a year out in different timelines. I was the newest widow. I feel like they’re just sitting there talking about this and having conversations. Hearing them speak about different things in that process gave me the sense of going, “This is what it looks like,” and similar to yourself. I was devouring books.

I wanted to understand because I thought grief was just being sad and then you wouldn’t be sad for a while. Not understanding how it impacts your mind or how it impacts your body. All the other different things and then our children. Having that didn’t change made it not happen, but understanding this is part of the process allowed me to relax and give myself to it instead of trying to fight it.

Also, probably giving me hope. Being able to see them talk about it and seeing where they’re at and how they’re maybe able to move forward with love rather than that pain. It gives hope to people, and it helps them understand. There’s such power. I’m a big believer in individuals. There’s a need for individual counseling too, especially if the death was dramatic because you need to work through that trauma.

When you say traumatic, somebody will go, “They die,” and that’s traumatic. What you’re saying in this context, what type of death are you referring to? Is it suicide or what traumatic means to the individual?

Exactly. That’s going to be different. I put my dad into a hospice and twelve hours later, he died. I knew that this was what was happening. I was prepared. His final moments were not peaceful. It was not a good death. It was scary and hard. It was traumatic to me. People may think, “They were dying. We knew. We had this anticipatory grief.” It doesn’t mean that those final moments are always going to be peaceful. If there’s a suicide and overdose loss, it’s about how is it for you. Is it traumatic?

In the social work world, in the therapy world, we always talk about little Ts and big Ts, little traumas and big trauma. What may be a little trauma for me could be a big trauma for you and vice versa. It’s all about how you perceive it and how your outlook and how it impacts you. My dad died in Florida. After he died, I wound up going into assisted living, where he had only been for a month. I grabbed some stuff and got it out of there. I was like, “What am I doing down here? I can’t be down here by myself. I have to go home.”

My sister found me on a flight. I was on a flight. Not even ten hours after my dad died. I was like, “I want to be home.” I started having flashbacks on that plane that night of my dad’s moments. That’s when I knew, “This is not happening. I am going to see somebody.” I saw somebody the very next morning and I processed that. Those are not the way I think about my dad now.

The ability to not be captured, haunted, or stuck in only the memories of their death is important. It blocks the ability to remember the years of everything else. Some people feel like that’s what grief is supposed to be. They’re like, “I’m supposed to be stuck right here and only remember that. That’s what society has taught me. I am now supposed to be in this place shrouded with only this.” What would you say to the person that’s reading and going, “I may not have to be. What are you talking about?”

I had a woman. She came in. Her son died from suicide. She found him. She said to me not too long ago. She said, “That wouldn’t be the image that always came to my mind. I always thought that that’s what I was going to focus on because in the work we do, that’s not the way I remember him.” People don’t have to stay stuck with that. Unfortunately, the way our brain works, it’s like Velcro to the bad and Teflon to the good. Let’s not remember the good.

We get stuck on that death scene. That is our brain. It is the way our brain works. As wonderful as it is, it is out programmed. We’re like on the first computers. We need to upgrade our brain. We don’t have to stay stuck on that death scene, on that ending. This woman, her son, was nineteen years old. She had nineteen years with him, but it was going to be that ending. Now, she’s been able to shift that focus from that and ending to those nineteen years with him.

What about the person that says, “Am I honoring them if I don’t stay right there?”

Shifting Focus From Final Moments To Enduring Memories

Honoring them is celebrating their life and remembering the good. Keeping that connection and the positive memories, what we learned from them, and how we grew from them. I didn’t want to stay stuck on those last moments. My dad lived 90 years. I had 46 years of my life with him. I was lucky. That was not how I wanted to remember him. I wanted to remember the good. I wanted to remember him in his storytelling and us going out to eat at his favorite restaurants and him spilling food all over his shirts or spilling a drink. Every restaurant we went to, he always spilled a drink. Those are the things that I’d rather remember.

That is beautiful. When you talk about the work that you do, can you explain some of that powerful and meaningful work that allows someone to see more of what this person they loved that is stuck in those final moments? It’s just a blip of the relationship they had.

At my point of my career, I’m trained in a lot of different trauma modalities. I tend to do it probably early the most therapists, but I also know the way trauma is with grief. We can’t even tackle the grief until we’ve dealt with the trauma. After I see people a couple of times, build that a little bit of a report and do an assessment. All that good stuff that we have to do for insurance. I work on the death scene with them. I honestly do that with the majority of my clients. Even if they don’t think that death was traumatic. They are still stuck on that ending. Even if they didn’t witness it, they’ve created a mental image in their mind of what they think happened.

Their loved one dies in a car accident. They didn’t see the car accident. They were not there, but they’ve created an image of what they think happened and what it looked like. We’re going to work on that even though that’s maybe not an accurate representation of what happened. We’re still going to process that. I used different modalities. One of them was called Progressive Counting. That’s what I usually start with. In my opinion, it’s the easiest and the fastest. It may not be easy while you’re doing it. I always tell my clients, “We’re going to do this, and you may hate me during the middle of this, but it will work. I promise.”

I had a girl in my office. She was discharged doing well. She had a bit of a traumatic loss with one of her pets. It was bad and sudden. She’s like, “Kelly, I need to do a little work on this.” She came in and halfway through the session, we’re processing, then she goes, “I signed up for this? What was I thinking?” By the end, she’s like, “It’s like watching a movie in my mind that I’ve seen 100 times and it doesn’t give me that gut feeling anymore. It’s not making me feel like I want to throw up anymore.” This is what you can process. Honestly, the majority of the work that I do, one or two sessions, we can make significant progress in that death scene.

Image of trauma and grief, can you explain how they are different?

Trauma is that perceived sense of maybe safety. Our sense of safety is threatened when we go through a traumatic event. It’s overwhelming. It can cause flashbacks. It can cause nightmares and people to be easily startled like hypervigilant, then we have grief. Grief is the normal feelings associated with the loss. That’s the sadness, anger, loneliness, and fear. The trauma, in my opinion, is what Karyn and I, in the GRIEF Ladies show, we talk about the roadblock emotions. Trauma is a bit of a roadblock.

Why Trauma Work Must Precede Traditional Grief Counseling

It can keep us stuck. It can keep us stuck in that ending. Grief, that’s missing them. That’s that sadness. That’s feeling it, but the trauma can get in the way. We have to process that trauma. That fearful, scared, that bad memory that you’ve created in your mind, so then we can get to the grief work. What the research says, “If you don’t do the trauma work first, you’re not able to deal with the grief.” Even though I’m not a fan of this diagnosis, the research does say that it can lead to prolonged grief disorder if you don’t do the trauma work.

Thank you for mentioning that. There’s two things. I want you to share a little bit more about the show that you supported and things that you guys talked about where they can find that. Not paying attention to one part, how it can morph into something else in our life if we do not deal with it. Whichever one you want to address first.

Suicide loss is so compounded. There’s so many layers there. It’s like an onion. You have to keep peeling them away. When we get stuck on certain things, Karyn and I will reference the roadblock emotions that sometimes are anger. Anger at yourself. They could’ve, would’ve, and should’ve. Anger at the doctor’s anger, and other people. Sometimes, these are a bit of a distraction because we’re okay with anger. We can fuel ourselves. It can motivate us. It can keep us going. We’re so good at beating ourselves up.

I’ve read a statement that 85% of us are to other people than we are to ourselves. That number is low. It’s like 99% of us are nice to other people that we are to ourselves. You have the anger and the guilt. You might have fears. The fears especially for widows. What I see so much is the fear of the future, what you thought was going to be your future. The fear of having to do these things that you never knew you had to do. When my mom died, my dad didn’t know how to boil water. He did nothing.

My children and I had this conversation, and I think everybody does. They were like, “What if I had passed and dad was left?” My daughter said, “Dad will still be in the house.” I was in Iraq with a laptop paying our bills. I was literally in Iraq. I left the house in January. I returned home in June. The Christmas tree was still in the corner. I came home, and I was like, “Look at that dust on. Don’t say anything. The kids are alive.” He made it work, but it was interesting.

You probably know this more than myself that women make the home, most of the time. We’re better at knitting in community. We hover in groups. Men isolate more, and networking for women has a way of helping us where I can handle that differently, the grief and all those things come together. Not all men, and not all women, just statistically speaking. That has an impact on it.

My parents were traditional. My dad was the worker and my mom was the caregiver.

I stayed home for quite a bit of time, too.

She did everything. I say that like I think we ate at Wendy’s every night for a year after my mom died because he didn’t know how to cook.

Now, how that type of food, that environment, the shift in your life, in all of those things, and now relating that to widows. You’ve gone from maybe your children are adults, or maybe you didn’t have children. The person you’re cooking for is no longer there. Trying to say, “I’m going to cook a meal,” and it’s for myself. Every aspect of your life is different.

People are like, “I’m not going to make a crockpot meal for just me now.”

I’m going to eat that for two weeks.

People are like, “I’ll just eat cereal for dinner every night because I don’t want to cook.”

I cannot count the amount of bags of popcorn I ate for dinner because I was like, “It’s just me.” Tell us about your show.

A few years ago, I led a collaborative grief book called The Grief Experience: Tools for Acceptance, Resilience, and Connection. There were 25 of us that wrote it together. Much more manageable than doing a book on your own.

I’ll have to share with you about my book.

I had to find 24 authors to help me write this book. Some of them I knew. Some they’ll tell you like, “I don’t want to do it, but Kelly twisted my arm.” I had to put it out there. I put it out on social media, and LinkedIn. Karyn Arnold owns Grief in Common. She said she literally joined a Facebook group the day before then I posted the next day about the book. She’s like, “This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” so she reached out to me. We had a Zoom call.

We both worked at hospice throughout our careers, so we already had that like connection, and we just clicked. We wanted to continue to do things after the book came out. She came up for the book launch. I just love Karyn. She’s an amazing person. She’s one of my grief friends. Somebody that I can talk to about grief. That’s been a good support to me since my dad died. We decided to start a podcast. It’s called the GRIEF Ladies.

Building Daily Routines Through The G.R.I.E.F. Framework

We built a grief framework. It is based on the word grief, so grounding. Looking at like, are you eating? Are you sleeping? Are you moving your body? These things that are so important, especially in those early days of grief when you just don’t want to get out of bed and not eat popcorn for dinner, then rebuild. Creating routines and structure, even if it’s something small.

Whether it’s going to your counselor once a week or you’re going to your group. These small things can help because things feel so out of control and so different, so creating new routines and then eyes interacting, which is about how do you deal with everybody when they stopped showing up, say those stupid things, and look at you and go, “You’re still sad?”

Why do they always tilt their head when they do it?

I call the puppy dog look. How do you deal with the change in relationships? The E is evolving, and that’s dealing with some of those roadblock emotions like the anger, the guilt, the fear, the jealousy. Also, how your self-esteem has changed. It’s like, “I don’t know how to do this now. I don’t know how to jump-start a lawn mower. My husband always did that.” You’d feel that lack of confidence. F is for finding. F is multiple layers. Finding out how you move forward. We always save moving forward with love rather than pain.

Also, finding who you are. Who am I now? This new identity. How do you find ways to stay connected to your loved one that continues bonds? How do you celebrate their life? How do you keep maybe rituals and do things like that and keep that connection and feel that connection? That grief framework we build.

Each week of the show, we go over a different letter of the show with our different guests to go through to look at what it looks like and how are we sleeping. We brought in a couple of sleep experts to talk about different modalities that may help because what does our brain love to do at night? It loves to ruminate. It’s like, “I have to do this. I don’t have him for this or I don’t have her.” If we’re not sleeping, everything’s off.

When we talked about this conversation, what are some takeaways that you want the readers to have?

First of all, your grief is valid. That’s always important to start with because people may feel like their grief is being discounted by others. It’s real. There are things that can help you, especially if it was a traumatic loss. Seek out counseling. Somebody that is trained in traumatic grief. Not all grief counselors are trained in trauma. They may be trained in grief, but not necessarily trauma. You want to seek out somebody that has those credentials and that is trained, in my opinion, in an evidence-based model, something like EMDR that we talked about. Progressive counting, accelerated resolution therapy, and Brainspotting. Those are all good evidence-based things that I use, and I have been through. I can tell you they work.

You don’t get stuck on that end. You can remember their life. You can remember the love. You can even sit with it and try to feel that and connect with that because it is possible. It’s not easy. There’s no timeline with grief. This isn’t like, “In three months, you’re going to be there.” It’s going to be different for everybody, but there are people that can help you. You don’t have to stay stuck on that ending.

They’re like, “I thought in a year I’d be good.” Everyone’s counting with me in the first year. Why are we excited about this one year if it’s not a timeline?

The second year is harder than the first year for so many people.

Can you talk about that?

Surviving the Second Year Reality Check After Spousal Loss

The first year, as you said, everybody remembers it. They can, and they check in with you, the first Christmas, the first holiday season, the first birthday. The second year comes around, most of that has stopped. Unless you have that good friend that puts it in their phone, on their calendar, and remembered. The second year becomes the reality, like, “This is my new normal and I don’t like it.”

The grief fog changed.

It’s interesting. I had this conversation with a Medium. I was at a podcast event. We were chatting before the podcast. She’s like, “Kelly, I see people at 8 or 9 months. Why do you think that is? That’s when people reach out to me.” I said to her, “It’s because that’s when some of the fog starts to lift.” You don’t remember anything in those first 6-7months. I tend to think it’s between 6 to 9 months, some of that grief brain, that fog starts to lift, and you’re like, “Crap. This is real.” They go to the Medium because now they’re like, “I want a message from them. I want to know what my sign is. I want to stay connected to them.”

The second year, you’ve gotten through the first. You had all that anticipation. For the majority of my clients, leading up to these days. These anniversaries are harder than the actual day. It’s always that anticipation. Some people have what I call the grief hangover. It’s the day after. It hits them because they had all the anticipation and then it’s exhausting after, then they’ve gotten through it.

In the second year, this is your norm. There’s no more first. The support has changed. As much as I wish that wasn’t the case, it is, for a lot of people. Not all. You find your grief friends who understand and get it, but it’s just different in the second year. That’s why for some it’s a lot harder than the first year, and people think, “I’ve got to the first I’m good,” then they’re like, “Why do I feel worse, Kelly?”

They’re still dead.

It didn’t change. I remember a client. She got a card during the holiday season. It was like, “I hope next year’s better,” and she told her, “Is it because my daughter’s not going to be dead next year?”

Let’s switch to the last question. For the person supporting someone grieving, what would you share with them?

Concrete Actions For Supporting Bereaved Loved Ones

Show up. Remember the dates. Remember these things. Reach out to them. Don’t just ask, like, “How are you and wanting you to be okay,” because that’s what they want to hear so they can move on. Sit with them. Even if it means sitting in silence. Bring up their loved one’s name. Say their name. We want to. My mom was Ileen. My dad was Tony. We want to say their names. We want to remember them and share memories if you have any of their loved ones. Be there. Do something.

Don’t say, “Let me know if you need anything.” Do something. Their grass is getting to be two feet tall. Go over there and mow that lawn. Show up. Be there. I had a friend. When she became a widow, I would text her all the time. Half the time, she never responded to my text message, and I didn’t need a response. I just wanted her to know that she was on my mind and I was thinking about her. People want to know they’re not being forgotten. Invite them to things. They may say no to 100. Don’t stop inviting them.

I give my guests an opportunity to be the host and ask me questions. This is not going to be a hard shift for you. You’re probably like, “I can do this on a spin.” Any questions you may have with me?

What do you think helped you find meaning in your grief?

No one has ever asked me that. Multiple things. One, my husband and I had a great deal of conversations about him leaving this world at a young age. I didn’t like him for it, but I loved him for it when it happened. We discussed what my life would look like afterwards. There were a lot of chronic heart conditions in his family. He was certain. I didn’t realize how valuable and important each one of those conversations would be.

I didn’t have to wonder about what Mark thought or what I should do. I knew all of his wishes when he passed. I knew what he thought about my life afterwards. I didn’t have to carry guilt or shame or a lot of things that I hear people trying to move forward in their life have to deal with. The next thing was my siblings and my friends showed up years ago when my husband passed, and they are still ever present. I am not the person that has the story of, “Where did my community go?” My community has held fast.

I am amazed because I thought everybody had that type of support and love. I found out that that was not the case how much of a unicorn I am with that. When I say friends, I’m not confusing the word acquaintance with friends. I’m talking about the same people the night that Mark had that heart attack and drove from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Delaware, where I was, stayed true. I have remarried, and they’re not going, “Why are you still talking about Mark?” There is no change in that.

Also, it has been my faith in God. My faith in knowing and what I have believed in has been my comfort. We live, and we die in that reality. In the combination of all of those things together, have been the thing for peace. You talked about different rituals. One of the things that I have done that has been helpful is just going for long walks. I still do it now. It’s an opportunity. I remember getting frustrated and going, “I need to get out of the house,” because we had a home. Both of our children were there. Our son went to the Navy in November. Mark passed the following March. Our daughter left to go into the military in May.

I went from Thanksgiving with the house full of all the happiness to, what the? Leaving the house and going for long walks. I moved the elliptical machine into the front room. I was like, “If I’m going to be up then I’m going to be grinding.” One of the other things talking about the house is realizing I live here. Everybody else left, so I need to make it how I like it. Mark’s recliner was right in the front room. I come, and my brain says, “Mark should be in that recliner.” I moved it to the basement. I wasn’t ready to get rid of it, but I started noticing how repurposing things in the house. I shifted my mind to see something different.

Painting and moving the furniture around. Changing one bedroom into something else and doing something. I remember my daughter coming home from the military. She was like, “What does that smell?” I was like, “Candles.” She said, “I didn’t know you like burning candles.” I said, “Your dad didn’t like it.” You pick and choose to make things happy sometimes. If I’m going to be here, then I’m going to be happy. I’m going to enjoy it. Making those steps to make it my life and be okay with that. I know it often goes back to the conversations that my husband and I had that, to some extent gave me permission and the freedom to live.

You made me think about so many of my clients and so many of the things that I’ve heard them say. Thank you for sharing that with me and all of us. To see what you’re doing and being able to get this information out there to others is a huge testament to what you’ve been through, your grief, and to your love for Mark as well.

Thank you. I would like for you to close out this conversation with any final words. Also, tell people how they can reach out to you, how they could work with you and connect and where to find your podcast too.

The GRIEF Ladies show. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We also have a GRIEF Ladies Facebook Community, which is a private community. We also offer free workshops from time to time. We are having a book come out. I’m sending it to the editor. I’m super excited about that. You can also check out the Grief Experience book. My website is KellyDaugherty.com. That can get you everywhere, including my private practice, as well as Center for Informed Grief, where I do a lot of training for therapists to help them become more grief-informed because there aren’t enough of us out there.

That is a mission of mine, to help therapists become more grief-informed. Again, wanting to acknowledge everybody’s grief. Grief is a hot mess. There’s going to be moments of sadness. I would encourage you to sit with that sadness. Make some plan to grief time because when we try to put it behind a wall and behind a wall, it’s going to start oozing out at some point. Make some space and time. Reading a show like this can be your plan to grief time while you’re maybe out walking there. There is a lot of benefits to making some space and time for your grief, to honor it, remember your loved one, and talk about them and know that they’re supported out there. You are not alone.

Thank you, Kelly.

Important Links

• Kelly Daugherty
• Kelly Daugherty on LinkedIn
• Kelly Daugherty on Linktree
• Center for Informed Grief
• GRIEF Ladies Facebook Community
• The Grief Experience: Tools for Acceptance, Resilience, and Connection
• GRIEF Ladies on Apple Podcast
• Grief in Common
• Karyn Arnold on LinkedIn

About Kelly  Daugherty

Kelly Daugherty, LCSW, FT, is a licensed clinical social worker, Fellow in Thanatology, the study of death, dying, and bereavement, and an author with more than 25 years of experience supporting individuals and families navigating grief.

he is the founder of the Center for Informed Grief, where she provides training and resources for educators and mental health professionals who support grieving children and families. Kelly also maintains a private practice in Malta, New York, where she works with children, adolescents, and adults experiencing grief and loss.

Kelly is the co-host of the GRIEF Ladies Podcast, where she and co-host Karyn Arnold answer real questions about grief, loss, relationships, and identity while sharing practical tools people can use in everyday life. Their conversations are grounded in the G.R.I.E.F. Framework, which also shapes their workshops, resources, and online community supporting people navigating life after loss.

Her work is grounded in her Celebrate Their Life philosophy, which encourages people to stay connected to the people they love while continuing to live forward.