As we approach Mother’s Day, today’s episode is a heartfelt tribute to the unseen journeys of grief, healing, and connection. Our special guest, Jasmine Burch, offers a powerful perspective that’s often left unspoken—the experience of losing a parent as a child. At just 21 years old, Jasmine has turned her personal pain into wisdom, using journaling, community, and open conversation to navigate grief and find her voice. In this deeply moving conversation, she shares how she went from bottling up her feelings to building a supportive space—first online, and now through the Widowhood community. Whether you’ve experienced loss or love someone who has, this episode will open your heart and give you the words you’ve been longing to hear. Let’s step into the Widowhood with Jasmine. 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. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   A Journey Of Healing Through Motherless Mother’s Days With Jasmine Burch Our guest Jazzy is a special guest for this episode close to Mother’s Day. You are going to learn a lot from this young lady. She is going to share the perspective from a child losing a parent, and provide helpful tips that you long to hear. Let’s get into this conversation now.     Jazzy, welcome to the Widowhood. When you hear, “Welcome to the Widowhood,” if I could see the ticker tape going across your forehead, what were your first thoughts? My first thoughts originally, because I have before and then now, being more immersed into it, when I first heard about it, I thought widowhood was just for people who have lost spouses. For a while there I was like, “I don’t know if I fit into this.” After being a part of it more and being part of conversations, I think it’s important for everyone in their grief. I haven’t been married, I haven’t lost a spouse, but everyone has grieved someone and to be able to talk about it with other people is a really cool experience because sometimes you don’t have anyone to relate to that. It’s a very big difference from when I first heard about it until now. Okay. Thank you. That means it goes in line with what our intention was. I’m from Chicago, so hood to me means more family and that connection. When my husband passed and I became a widow, my children lost a parent, their brothers lost a sibling, the nieces and nephew lost an uncle. Even though the widow or widower may be the focus of the conversation, everybody else is involved in that. When we do come together and share our different versions of loss from that same person, I don’t know. Tell me what it creates for you when you hear different people talk about that. The Importance Of Community In Grief I think finding a community when you are grieving is super important because with grief itself it’s super easy to get caught in the super dark place and it’s really hard to get yourself out of it. If you have people who relate, even if it’s not the exact same way as you, if you have people you can talk to and who can understand things in a different perspective than you, it can really be super eye-opening. It also helps you within yourself because you’re like, “I don’t feel so alone in this. I don’t feel I have to bottle it up so that I don’t bug other people with it,” or at least that’s how it is for me. No, you make a common statement. How did you go from not being bottled up and feeling you were bothering people to start talking about the person you love and who is the person you love and what is their name? The person I love is my mom. Her name is Dawn. I never talked about my grief. It wasn’t ever something that I thought I could talk about because the adults in my life were never able to be at a place where they could talk about it. We could say her name in passing, we could talk about certain things here or there, but the general topic of her and grief in general just was off the table completely. It wasn’t until I came on tiktok and I found other people that I connected to that I felt super comfortable around. In being in those lives, I got connected to you and I didn’t realize how many people were currently grieving people they’ve lost. While it’s not in the same sense of like they lost a parent, most of the time, a lot of it was I finally have people that if I feel the need to say something because it’s been bugging me because it’s been on my chest at the top of my head. I don’t have to feel the need to shove it back down because now I have people I can talk to. I have people that you know won’t shut me down every single time I say I feel sad or I don’t know how to describe how I’m feeling. It’s a nice feeling to know I don’t have to go to my journals every two seconds to talk about it. I can talk to other people. You said a lot there. How old were you when your mother Dawn left this world? I was 8 going on 9 because she passed the month before my 9th birthday. I have so much I want to ask you but let me slow down a little bit. Going back to being able to connect and