Moving through grief is like navigating a winding path, filled with unexpected twists and turns, but ultimately leading to a sense of peace and healing. In this poignant episode, Addie Green unravels her remarkable journey of moving through grief. From the emotional struggle of losing loved ones to the serendipity of new beginnings, Addie’s tale is a testament to the power of love and the indomitable human spirit. Join us as Addie shares her path to healing and the inspiring moments that transformed her life, proving that even from the deepest despair, love can rise and lead us to unexpected joy.

Check out these links to Addie’s books:

• BLOOM JOURNAL FOR WIDOWS: https://a.co/d/00b7LU1F
• MOVING through GRIEF JOURNAL: https://a.co/d/0gh9nDWx
• SMART GIRL MANIFESTING BOOK: https://a.co/d/05QWR9ap

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: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Journey Of Healing: Moving Through Grief With Addie Green

Introduction

Addie, welcome to the widowhood. When you hear that, what do you think? What came across your mind? 

It’s almost like, “How did I get here? I’m in a widowhood.” 

I don’t know what, but widowhood to me means family and connection. Some people, they’re not accustomed to that word. I could see the meaning of that, but it’s widowhood. How did we get here? That is amazing.

The type of hood that we’re in. 

I’m going to read your bio so the audience can learn more about you before we get into this conversation. Yes, I am on the reading glasses team now. Addie Green is a sensual movement educator and instructor with over thirteen years of experience helping women reconnect with their sensuality, feminine energy, and confidence through movement and breath. As a holistic wellness advocate, Addie is passionate about empowering women to embrace their true self and lead fulfilling lives.

 

 

Throughout her career, Addie has hosted and facilitated numerous movement workshops and vision board parties, providing women with powerful tools to create their best bodies and lives. She also creates beautiful handmade waistbands, which serve as a tangible reminder for women to stay connected to their bodies, goals, and intentions.

In 2022, Addie faced a major personal loss when she became a widow. She has since aimed to transform her pain into a source of passion and purpose. She is openly sharing her grief story and offering valuable insight into grief and healing through online platforms. Addie has also authored two journals designated to help grieving people express their feelings and find solace by transforming their emotions from head and heart to paper, as well as a vision board experience work. 

You can find her on social media, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and there’ll be links where you can purchase her journals and her book, I believe right on Amazon. I will give the clean confession that Addie is someone that I found on TikTok and reached out to her. I believe that was from a post that you had on your one-year mark of the passing of your husband, if I recall correctly.

We were approaching one year, and it was around, and we were coming into the Thanksgiving holiday. 

What is your husband’s name? 

Shavondai. Everybody knows him as Sean.

A Story Of Love

How did you and Sean meet? 

My cousin, who ironically enough was widowed four months before me. He was a flight attendant at the time, and she was flying into my city. She calls me and she says, “I think I’m here.” They were at a reserve Air Force base. This base is non-operational. I actually didn’t even know that people flew into that base. It was so weird. I was I said, “You’re right down the street.” 

From somebody in the military, that’s not weird. That’s how we want to keep it. 

Commercial flight, though? I guess it was the layover before they went somewhere else, but they came in. She was going to stay overnight. They were going to head out the next day. I’m like, “I’m here.” She would like, “Come to the hotel.” I take the girls. My two daughters at the time were young and we go and we meet her. We had a fun time. I took the kids home the next day and then she’s like, “I want to get some lunch.” I was like, “Where do you want to go?” “Wherever you want to go?”

She starts naming off all these places. We decided on a place. At the very last minute, she changes her mind. She says, “Wait a minute, you guys have a Chili’s because I have a coupon.” I’m like, “There’s literally one. It’s right across the street.” She goes, “Let’s go there.” I’m like, “No problem.” We go to Chili’s. We sit down at table 10 and we are waiting for our server to come over and over comes this young man. He asks us for our drink orders. He was polite, he had a nice smile, and he was working on his thing. 

He knew how to work tables for tips. Put it that way. She tells me, “He’s cute.” She’s like, “What about him?” I’m thinking, “What about him for what?” like always trying to set somebody up. I was like, “What about him? No, thank you.” She goes, “I’m going to talk to him for you.” I’m like, “Please don’t.” I get so embarrassed by that stuff. The whole time now, I’m on edge for the rest of the lunch because I’m wondering at what point she is going to put me on blast. 

Sometime toward the end of our meal, he brings the check over and then she goes, “By the way, are you single?” He was like, “Yes, I am.” The way he looked a little hesitant and she was like, “I want you to go on a date with my cousin.” I was literally on my phone, fake texting to no one. I can’t believe she did this. I’m busy. He looks over at me. I look up and I smile and I’m like, what do you say at that point? He put my number on the check with all these little ridiculous hearts and that was that.

I can’t remember exactly what he said after that, but it was like, “Maybe I’ll talk to you soon then,” or something that. We got up and we left. As we’re walking out, I’m asking my cousin, “Is he looking?” She’s like, “He’s looking.” I was like, “Oh, no.” We ended up leaving. I’m like, “I can’t believe you did that to me.” I think it was maybe the following day, he called and we ended up talking on the phone for a couple of hours. The next day, he called and we were on the phone at it for eight hours. It was crazy. It was high school on the phone all night. After that, we ended up going out on a first date and the rest was history. 

We are going to get into that history. Let’s back up a little bit. Was this your first time ever fake texting? 

No, of course not. 

It sounds you went there with a default that was your jam. 

With the default on the in-meeting. If something is going on and I don’t want to be a part of it, I am on the phone. 

Comparing Losses

I need to pick that up. Isn’t there something about the walk away wanting to know if they’re looking? What is it about that?

I wanted to know if he was looking at my booty. It was later confirmed. 

By Sean himself, the walkaway. What year was this and how were you when you met him?

This was 2013. This is in January. I may have been 27. 

How did you remember Table 10?

That became a thing for us because he worked there and knew the table numbers. I don’t remember when it ended up coming out, but one day, we were telling our sides of the same story, so he’s sharing the story from his perspective. That’s one thing, Tina. Our meeting story. I loved when we were able to tell that story together because I had my side and then he had his side of it and the way we were storytelling that together, I wish we would have gotten that on tape at some point. 

He let me know that it was Table 10 because it wasn’t originally his table that day. He was supposed to be serving a different section. When he saw us come in, he said, “No, I’ll take Table 10.” That became a thing after that. Even when we got married, we ended up trying to get our wedding date on the 10th because of Table 10.

He was checking your booty when you came in the door. 

It was inside. 

At what point did he tell you that he intentionally took that table over and how far into you guys connecting? Did you learn that? 

Maybe probably was a couple of months in when he shared his perspective of the story. That’s when we first walked in, and he was like, I guess he thought that I was from out of town because he saw people come through that restaurant all the time. He had never seen me before. He was like, “She doesn’t look she’s from around here. She looks different.” He said that he told whoever it was, “I’ll get that table.” According to him, if he said that if my cousin wouldn’t have said anything at all, he was going to offer us a free dessert to try to break the ice to say something. He was like, “No, she did it for me. I didn’t even have to.”

It is amazing how one choice can change the direction of our life. One meeting, one table, 10. When you look at your life, are there other moments when you feel it was one decision changed so much of your life? If so, what does that look for you?

Probably all the time. I feel my family, at some point in life, used to say that I was impulsive. It’s an impulsive decision and I don’t think it’s that. If you know me, I’ve probably put more thought into the decision than what it appears to be on the outside. Even me going to the army, one decision that changed the trajectory of everything, it matters. Those decisions are a fork in the road, and something totally different comes out of it.

It is. Thank you for mentioning the military and for your service. I’m going to say some things that I want you to just, “Huh?”

That I tried.

The percentage of people that never tried, I give credit for that. I’m going to say something. I want you to share what comes to mind. MEPs center. 

Trying to make sure that I was going to meet the weight requirement and sitting in the sauna all night. Trying to make sure that that last little inch was going to be right. 

Boot camp. 

Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. The stick. 

Hot. What time of year were you there?

January, freezing cold and I’m from California. Six degrees when I got there. Never seen anything it in my life. I got pneumonia. 

When I hear pneumonia in basic training, I don’t hear rest. I hear maybe indoor duty, but when somebody says pneumonia, they’re thinking like, “You got to lay down for a week or two?” What happened? 

I started not feeling well. I was telling them that I wasn’t feeling good. I feel I have a fever, and nobody wants to hear that at first. Finally, they let me go to the infirmary and my fever was 104 that day. I was trying I was doing my best to try to hang in there. I wasn’t trying to be barked at and screamed at, but I couldn’t do it. I’m like, I have to go. I don’t feel good. They let me go to sick call and then the infirmary. It was 104, and they were giving me Gatorade. 

After a couple of hours of them not being able to get my temperature down, they ended up keeping me in the infirmary. I actually ended up staying in there for 5 or 6 days. The company that I was originally supposed to go down to training with, they left. When I got back out of the infirmary, I ended up having to stay at the in-processing part of it all for almost another month until the next group left. 

You had to be recycled. 

Yes, I had to be recycled. I’m happy with the way that that all worked out. I loved my platoon, which I ended up being a part of. I don’t know my battle buddy. It was great. I can’t say that it would have been the same, obviously, had I left beforehand, but the whole point of it, you don’t think that you’re going to get sick and everybody done left you and now it’s not. No, there’s no resting. The moment I came up out of that place, still weak. I know it was still a duty to be done. I was a toilet cleaner in the barracks. 

It’s interesting because even if you had been there a week before the other people came, it’s you knew so much more. It was only a week’s worth of information, but so much happened that week that it’s you can reposture yourself. Recycling seemed to work out better than having to be deer in the headlights trying to figure it all out because it is a lot. Do you still have any connection with anyone you met in the military? 

I do, thankfully, because of Facebook. There are quite a few of the girls from my platoon that we don’t talk to all the time, but we’re still connected through Facebook. My battle, though, is that I’ve actually always kept in contact with her over social media. Even on TikTok, she’s always right there in my comments. I love that girl. 

How did you find social media? What did that look for you? 

In general social media? I guess it’s because I’m a Millennial. MySpace was how I found social media. It started with the chat room. The way that I felt I could express myself was because I was behind the wall. It is what parole does. You’re behind the wall. You feel you can say whatever you want. As a young teenager who was getting onto the internet, I was in there, but MySpace was the first social platform I thought I took to. I loved MySpace. Facebook at that time was only, I think, for college students. If you didn’t have a college email address, you couldn’t even have a Facebook. 

At some point, that ended up opening up to everybody. I remember jumping on Facebook and then Instagram came along. That one was my favorite because it was pictures and I enjoy taking pictures. Years ago, I ended up starting a YouTube channel and I became this vlogger out of nowhere. Sometimes I’d be in the streets of my city and people would say, “We saw your vlog.” My kids’ friends used to think I was so cool because I was on the internet. I’ve always been floating in the interspace. 

You’re YouTube famous. It’s your kids. It’s one thing when you’re children, but it’s like, “That’s my mom. What are you doing on there?” Have your children looked at your social content?

When they were younger, they weren’t allowed on the internet that, , anyways. The babies were little. I started the YouTube channel to document my pregnancy. We had announced that we were pregnant. Every week, I would go on and do these pregnancy videos. That ended up spiraling into a family vlog channel. I would do motivational cleaning videos. We were all working on something in the house. That man used to get so mad because every paycheck, I was like, “Can we go to Home Depot?” It was something that I was going to do. I did a lot of DIY stuff. 

Kids didn’t watch back then. Only every now and again when they were in the videos, they would want to see their part of the video. Cousins would always be like, “I saw you on YouTube.” They would want to see what the cousins were looking at, but I never felt my YouTube channel was made specifically for tiny people. It was my life, but because they were on it, people would watch it too because it was relatable in some sense with the kids. My older girls, they’re on my social media now. They don’t comment or pay attention because my daughter goes, “Mom, you’re on my FYP again.” It’s like, “You’re taking over all the socials.” 

I’m doing what Mama does. 

Sorry, kid. 

Thank you for sharing. I’m going to jump back into the story with Sean. You guys dated for how long and what did proposing look like?

How long did we date? We dated for a year and a half. First things first. 

Sound tea, come on. 

Let me spill it. He was a man who was very old school or traditional innocence. He was nine years older than me. There was that difference there. I took him up a mountain in Palm Springs and we went hiking in the snow that March. We met in January. In March, we went up the mountain, and on our date, he pulled me aside. We were up on this hill looking over everything we had. He says, “I would to know if you would be my girlfriend.” 

I thought that it was so cute because I was like, “Do people still do that? Five times you date and then we were together. No, he very specifically wanted to be sure that he asked me to be his girlfriend. We officially began our dating relationship in March. My brother passed away in July 2013. No more than seven months after I met this man, tragedy struck me. He was there through all of that. That was special for me. The following year, in 2014, at the beginning of the year, sometime, we found out we were pregnant. It was like, we did that together. 

I ended up going on bed rest. My son wanted to come out early for some reason. On my birthday that year in 2014, my water broke. I was out with my friend. She took me. We were getting our nails done and I’m in the pedicure seat and I go to the bathroom and I’m like, “I think I’m leaking.” The whole time, I was getting this pedicure, and I didn’t want to cause a panic, but I was like, “Something’s not right.” We end up going to the hospital. They were trying to say, “No, it isn’t that,” more. It was like, “Let’s do a Fern test.” 

They say, “No, you’re definitely leaking fluid. We’re going to have to keep you here until you deliver.” I went from having lunch to I delivered the boy was not due until January. “What do you mean? I have this on the 12th of November.” They were like, “We’ll have to monitor everything. Obviously, if at any signs of the baby being in distress or any signs of infection, they would end up having to deliver early.” I was in there on bed rest by myself. He had to step up and take care of my other two kids that were at home. 

It changed a lot of things, but my son ended up being born on December 1st. Only a couple of weeks. I was there for about three weeks almost. A week and a half after. When I came home, he was still in the NICU. It was a tough transition from having to go back and forth to the hospital. One night on the couch, I was at home, I was sitting down, our son was in NICU, and I was watching something on TV. He comes over and he kneels down in front of me and he was hugging my legs and I didn’t think anything of it at first. 

He’s like, “I love you, you know that.” I was like, “Yeah.” Here I’m like, “What is this?” I’m thinking, “Is he about to dump me or something?” What perfect timing. Can it get any worse? He says his spiel, which I can’t remember, word for word, but it was sweet. I can remember what I felt in the moment. It was sweet. He was like, “I also have your stuff.” Now, from being in the hospital, all of my jewelry, everything was off because I had to have a C-section. I hadn’t put it back on yet. 

He was like, “I have your ring anyways.” He was like, “I wanted to put your ring back on.” He had given me a promise ring, I don’t know, a while back before that. He put this different ring on and I looked down. It wasn’t my ring. He’s like, “Will you be my wife?” He did a switcheroo with the rings. It was sweet. I guess he had asked my friend at some point, that girl, if she could keep a secret. I tell you, that’s scary. I guess he asked her like, “Is it lame for me to do it in the hospital?” He ended up waiting until I was at home. He proposed it in the room while I looked like a whole hot mess. 

There’s something after somebody watching you give birth. It changes the game a little bit. There are levels of commitment and the growth of love and challenging times are difficult in relationships, but there are also opportunities to grow. They can bring you closer together or they can tell you apart. It depends on how you handle it. Your son comes home safely.

 

 

Forty-two long days of back and forth in the NICU, six weeks. Yes, he finally came home and it was all good. 

Thank you. I want to circle back to your brother, your brother’s name. 

Demetri. 

Was that your first experience with grief very close to you? What was? 

No. Don’t laugh. My first close experience with grief in real life was with a hamster I had named Sugar when I was eight years old. 

Let’s pause. That is such a crucial moment when you lose a pet because at eight years old, for most people, the idea that we don’t stay forever is not something that we’ve had to address. It’s a moment where it can be devastating because a child can go from if the pet dies. What does that mean about my parents? What does that mean about me? What does that mean about the world? That becomes the way that’s handled, which dictates the way a lot of different things go on. A child can feel very traumatic. You can have a whole family when the dog passes and everybody’s been together and it changes the night. I’m not laughing. It’s relevant.

It was my hamster. As far as a person, when I was 13, 14, 8th grade, I guess, I liked a boy. After he liked everybody in the school before me, he finally wanted to be my boyfriend. We ended up dating for two years after that. I don’t even think I was allowed to have a boyfriend. I let my mom know we weren’t dating, but I loved him. That was my first, for the capacity that you can feel at the time have not that’s what it was. 

That was 13, 14. We broke up, but we remained friends. Even after I had my first daughter, he would still come around and pop in and check on me. We were always cool. When I was 22 and before his 23rd birthday, about a week before his 23rd birthday, I got a phone call that he had been shot out of state and it sucked everything out of me. It was weird.

Grief is weird. Thank you for sharing that. You’ve had that experience with your friend. How did that experience differ from your brother’s passing? 

I feel the initial shock of learning that someone has passed away is probably very similar. When I found out about Brian, it was shell-shocking. For months, I was sad. It was almost like, “Why am I so sad? We dated when we were kids or whatever.” I was sad about that for a while. I remember I would drive around and play the same stupid songs in my car over and over and over again, and they would make me cry.

I would sit there and torture myself in that way. Turn the song off, but no, I would play them and drive and cry. When my niece knocked on my door the morning that my brother died, she said, “Grandpa called,” which was my dad. She said, “My dad died.” It was almost I was like, “Come again.” I said, “Huh?” She goes, “Grandpa called. My dad died.” That very same, it’s almost ghostly, like numbness. 

She fell into my arms. For her, it was like, but I was on the inside like, “What?” I don’t understand. We saw him two days ago, on the 4th of July. Think about the events that surround leading up to a death. Sometimes, the way things happen is almost surreal because we haven’t seen him. He didn’t always come around that as an adult. My brother was into some wild stuff. 

He didn’t always come around, but this particular year, on the 4th of July, he came over to the family barbecue. We had such a great time. Even when he left, he rode motorcycles. My mom hated that. Even when he left, we said goodbye and I remember very vividly that we watched him back that motorcycle out of the driveway. For some reason, we’re all standing around the driveway. We watched him drive all the way down the street, turn the corner, and then listen to the motorcycle leave and go all the way down. 

It was like, who knew? We were watching him ride off into the sunset. That one was not that you think that your friends are going to die because you don’t think that either. Your friends are your age. We’re supposed to live until we’re old, but your siblings. Siblings aren’t supposed to die. Our siblings said that they were going to be there with us forever. That one was very different.

Thank you. I did not want you to mention that. That’s not give some space for that. Thank you for sharing that. Sean’s on his knees, he proposes, you say yes. Did you guys elope? Was there a wedding, family and friends? What type of ceremony did you have?

I had been married before. I had married when I was nineteen, before I had gone to the army and we were too young, too dumb. We went to Vegas, which was very quick because I was leaving and benefits. I needed a husband on the paper for the BAH and all the things. It was very quick. That man did not get down on one knee and confess his love and beg me to marry him and all of that stuff. It was his mom was like, “Why don’t you guys get married?” I go, “Your mom said we can get married. Do you want to?” Then we went and got a ring and that was that.

The wedding, so yes, I didn’t have a wedding. We got married in Vegas for the first time. It was a few people that were there. My dad wasn’t even there. He was probably like, “What on earth are you doing?” With Sean, we did. We went and looked at different places and we planned this wedding. I planned a wedding. I had my big binder and I snapped into wedding planner mode. Queen DIY. I learned how to make coffee filter flowers and Pinterest became my best friend and I did that. 

I had a binder, but no, yeah, that other stuff. 

The wedding was beautiful and I feel I did that. For the most part, with minimal help, we did it and we paid for it. When I look back at that, I’m like, “We paid for it.” It wasn’t one of those big all $100,000 weddings, but we did that. It turned out we got married at Brand Park in Southern California at the cycle of tea garden, almost a Japanese tea garden under a willow tree.

What do you think when you look back at the pictures of the photos of the wedding? 

Life changes over time. It was beautiful. It’s happy memories when I look at that. I feel that when I look at those pictures of the wedding, marriage is hard, and sometimes, you can grow sick of a person. I mean, you get into your ways sometimes, but I look at those photos and I always feel that was a very genuine happy time and we can’t take anything away from that. 

We can’t. You said marriage is hard. If you had an opportunity to talk to Addie the day before that wedding, what would you tell her based on what now?

Marriage isn’t the wedding. It’s not the wedding. You think that the wedding was hard. I think somewhere along the way, I learned statistically that planning a wedding is one of the number one most stressful things that we do in planning anyway. It’s not that. It’s everything that comes after that. It is we. It is not an I. It is not always you. It ain’t going to always be about him. You two are going to need to be serious and diligent and communicate all the time. 

 

Thank you. You said marriage was hard. What does that mean for you or your experience with marriage to Sean? 

Marriage is work. Maybe hard isn’t the right word, but sometimes work can feel like work. I think that sometimes we can get these thoughts that you get married and things are supposed to be marriage is building and you’re building a nation. When people are out there working away at putting up structures, that’s work. Sometimes, that work can be hard. You’re building something together. You’re bringing 2 lives, 2 people, 2 backgrounds. 

He’s older than me. There were backgrounds. We work together. You have to build that. It isn’t always rainbows. There’s learning a lot about yourself and about another person. I mean, it can be called shadow work if we want to. Even that, it’s a tough space to be in. We learn through somebody else. It can be hard to build sometimes. 

Thank you. You make a solid point. People can often be caught up in the act of this ceremony besides the work of maintaining this relationship. That is where the heavy lifting begins to be able to know these two people from different backgrounds and different upbringings. You mentioned something. Communication is so key. That’s not making sure I told you I love you every day. It’s knowing that when I am not your biggest fan because you have done something I didn’t like, to be able to articulate that in a way that defines how I feel, but not putting you down. 

I encourage you, this one thing doesn’t strike down all the other wonderful things you’ve done. It’s that this thing has me feeling in some way, and I don’t want to stay in my field. I need to be able to articulate, but if you have never been in a space where you were permitted to speak openly and share, it can be difficult because we’re going to get on each other’s nerves when you are close to somebody else. 

Healthy communication and respect are important. I think at the moment, sometimes, if you’re not intentionally that type of communication together, it can be lost in the sauce. I’m not the type of person. Some women are always popping off. I’m not the pop-off queen. I was more or less like, it’s bothering me and I’m not going to say anything because I don’t want to cause any issues. I think that when we do that, it is alson’t healthy because it’s not expressing those things. How else is someone supposed to know anything if you’re not expressing something? Therefore, you have one person who’s oblivious and another person who’s resentful and you can’t meet in the middle because nobody knows what’s going on. 

 

 

What are some things about your marriage that most people don’t know that you may have shown out, and shared already on social media but while you were in the marriage, people didn’t know about it?

We were goofballs. Maybe outside, we looked serious, especially in his family, for instance. I think they saw a power couple. I think our pictures on social media gave Black love and it was, but I’m like, we were silly. It was a point in the beginning when I was asking my friends, I’m like, “He’s handsome and there’s this and there’s that, but my hangup was our age gap.” Everybody would always tell me, “Who cares? What difference does it make?” It was like I never felt it in the relationship because of who he was. It was like he was me. I feel if that’s one thing, he was my buddy. He talked and I talked. We had tea all the time.

Transition To Widowhood

It is cool to be able to enjoy that type of banter with someone you spend your life with. Unfortunately, you are in the widowhood because you’re in the widowhood. If you’re so willing to share whatever you want, as far as what led up to Sean no longer being in this world and what that transition looked like, I don’t want to ask you a lot of questions along the way. I’d rather give you space to share, how you feel comfortable.

I will preface this with it’s hard to know that someone passed away and not have clarity around how. Leading up to all of this, he and I had been in a little bit of a rocky place within the marriage. That’s not to take away from nine years of doing life together. We had reached a point, and I giggle now in hindsight because seven years is one of those spaces where there’s a hurdle there at seven years in marriages, I hear. We were going through our own struggles at that point. I don’t know if it was due to stress or what, but he ended up having a few seizures that year. 

It's really hard to know that someone has passed away and not have clarity about how. Share on X

Back in 2018, it was the first one ever that I knew of, that I was there for, and that I was present for, and I didn’t know at the time what happened. We were on a cruise. He was in sales. I had manifested this cruise. I’m always going to say I manifested that cruise. I put a cruise up on my vision board. I didn’t know how we were going to take it or do it, especially not with little babies. It was up there and then his company ended up running a competition. The top 3 or top 5 sales guys that came in. Their little competition, we’re going to win an all-expenses paid seven-day cruise.

I remember feeling that’s my cruise and he did it. He came second in the competition. We were packing our bags and on my 33rd birthday, I woke up in Cabo on a boat and it was amazing. Also, on that trip, one night in the middle of the morning, he made a loud noise, and then I heard a thud, and I was like, “Huh?” It woke me up, but he was on the floor on the side of the bed and on a cruise ship, there’s not very much room to get around a cruise ship. He was on the floor right up next to the wall but shaking, breathing funny. 

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was incoherent. I’m calling his name and I’m tapping him and his eyes were open, but he’s not responsive to me. I had no idea what was going on. I ended up calling the ship 911 for an emergency. They ended up coming up with a wheelchair. By the time they had gotten there and helped get him up and into the wheelchair, everything was back. He’s like, “Where are we going? Why am I in this chair? What’s going on?” I’m trying to explain to him what had happened. 

He’s like, “I’m fine.” We go down to the ship infirmary. They look at a couple of things. He ended up getting a lot of splotchy, red spots on his chest. They couldn’t explain what any of it was. They sent us on our way. He said his legs felt weak that next day for the next couple of days. I had no clue. You couldn’t tell me that that was a seizure at that time. I had no idea. A few years later, in 2020, it happened again at home. We called the ambulance, and they ended up coming. By the time they got there, they started asking him a bunch of questions. 

He’s lethargically answering them, but he’s always mean with the EMTs. “What is all this stuff on me? What are we doing?” Macho with this attitude, but you passed out or something. They take him again to the hospital. This time, it changes his life. They took his license away because if you have an episode of unconsciousness, unless your doctor clears you, they will revoke your license and stuff, but still no explanation. They did CAT scans, they did all this stuff. Nobody’s able to tell us anything. Come 2022, I had left. 

The kids and I came to my parent’s house for spring break for a week. The day that we got back, he picked us up from the bus, and we did the Greyhound or whatever. From Vegas to Cali. I like to ride the Greyhound because it’s easy, it’s clean and it’s a straight shot through. He picked us up and on the way home, he was asking me something and I was trying to ask him questions and he kept forgetting what he was trying to say. He’s like, “I can’t think of the name.” He’s having an issue, trying to think of whatever it is that he was trying to say. 

We make it home, and we get out of the car. We start bringing our luggage in. He tells me, “No, I’ll get your suitcase.” He goes inside or I go inside. He goes back out to get my suitcase. All of a sudden, I’m like, “Why is he not back inside of the house yet? What is taking him so long?” I go outside and he’s down on the ground, convulsing. He had fallen over the suitcase onto the ground. We had a brick pathway. I tell my daughter to get something for the back of his head. A construction worker happened to see what happened from across the street and ran over like, “Would you like me to call the ambulance and stuff or whatever?” 

They came. He starts to come, too. Once again, he’s wondering why he’s all strapped up. I looked at him and I said, “It happened again.” I’m in the hospital now at this point. We need to know what’s going on because this is now becoming unacceptable. I’ve read that if you’ve had three or more seizures within a specific timeframe, it’s considered epileptic. What are tests that we can run to figure out anything that’s going on here because this can’t keep happening? He has a career and he has children. This is scary and it’s not safe. 

When it comes to seizures, there is no determining of that. We can test after, but there’s nothing. There is no known cause for a seizure. Anyone can have a seizure at any time for any reason. They said stress could cause it, too. Now I’m troubled because I’m like, “We’re having our own problems. Somehow, I’m stressing him out so much that he’s having seizures.” That was not a good space for me to be in either. Clearly, this keeps happening to him. He had another episode after that at a customer’s house. 

The customer called me and let me know that they had called that he was at the hospital. No answers. They ran every test. They did a CAT scan. They did EKGs. They did brain scans. They kept him overnight for three days, clean as a whistle. “You’re a healthy 46-year-old male.” What’s going on? What is this? He came out for my birthday because I was with my parents at this time. He spent my birthday with us. He and the kids went and got me gifts. We all went out to Olive Garden. The next morning, he says, “Can I come to school with you guys?” 

I was like, “Yeah, sure.” I homeschooled. He came and we went to the library. We all went to breakfast. He did the whole school day with us. We all went to the park and the kids were able to show him their tennis and they played and he was like, “I got to get back to the airport. My flight leaves at whatever time.” That was on a Monday and he left. That Thursday, we get on the phone. We’re talking about Christmas. What are we going to get the kids? He’s on Amazon ordering up our daughter this dollhouse that he saw. 

He’s like, “I’ll ship it to you and then I’ll come and put it all together.” We were on the phone for a long time that day. Ironically enough, that weekend of my birthday, his grandmother had passed away about a week before that. He got to see all of his family during the weekend that he was here for my birthday because they had all gotten together to meet up about their grandma. He made all these rounds and saw people that he hadn’t seen. That Thursday, we had been on the phone for hours. I was like, “I’m about to leave the library. It’s 3:30, I got to go. I’ve been on the phone with you since 10:00 this morning.”

He was like, “I got to see if I have to go to work. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.” Tomorrow didn’t come. At around 5:00 something in the morning, I got a phone call from his sister’s best friend. They live right across the street from one another. I didn’t answer the phone the first time. I don’t know what I was doing. I didn’t answer. It was early in the morning. Why was she calling me?

I didn’t stop to think, “It’s an emergency to me.” That was a blood dial for sure. Five calls back, I answer and she’s like, “I’m sorry to tell you this. Shavondai passed away.” I was like, “What?” She’s like, “Shavondai passed away, Addie. I’m sorry.” I was like, “Wait a minute. Who told you that? What are you talking about?” It was weird because I was giggling and it wasn’t funny. I was giggling like, “Girl, what the hell are you talking about? Get off. Why are you calling me on the phone in the morning? What are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense.”

She said that they were going to head up to Vegas. Did she want me to come and pick her up and pick me up that she’d be there in about twenty minutes? I said, “Yeah.” I hung up the phone. I was confused. It was like, 1) I was sleeping and I woke up. 2) I was on the phone with you all day yesterday. You were fine yesterday. I was confused. I felt out of it. I felt out of my mind. I went to go and tell my parents. I don’t know how to tell anybody that someone’s dead. I’ve never had to say those words to anybody before. 

I sat down in the middle of their floor and I said, “Shavondai is dead.” I can remember I was rocking back and forth. I was rocking myself. Ironically enough, they didn’t have much to say. Their comfort was very minimal. My mom tried to come over to see what was going on and stuff. I said, “Somebody’s coming to pick me up and I’m going up the hill. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Please don’t tell the kids yet. I don’t know what’s going on.” I came back to my room and I went to the bathroom and I fell apart. That was the news on the early morning of November 18th. 

Thank you for sharing that. I know sometimes it’s something we can rattle off. Sometimes it sucker punches us. Sometimes, it sticks in our throats. I don’t take it lightly when people take the time to share their journey. We know sharing our journey can help encourage someone else, but it costs money to do that. It does cost. I want to ask. Now this is the third person to leave this world. How does Sean’s departure from this world look different from your brother’s and from your friend’s? 

His departure felt different. When my hamster died, I was devastated. When Brian passed away, I was also devastated. Of course, my brother is my sibling. I love him. That’s my brother but something about this loss, it took me to much differently than the sibling loss. My heart had to hurt for so many more people in this one because I have four children. On top of that, he said he was having these weird feelings and he had broken down to me a couple of weeks before and was like, “I don’t know, I’m feeling weird. It’s waking me up out of my sleep and I don’t know who or what, but I feel deaf.” I don’t know how to take that because I’m like, “You say you don’t know what or who. Is it me? What do you mean?”

We always go, “What did I do?” It oftentimes has nothing to do with us, but since we’re in such close proximity, that is such a default. 

As he’s having these feelings, his brother suffered a stroke. He thought, “Is my brother going to die? Shortly after that, his grandma. I remember telling him, “You give me chills because you said it. You said you were feeling some way.” I never asked after his grandma passed away if he still felt that. I always wonder, “Was he feeling that for himself?” He started saying, “I’ll love you.” We would get off the phone or whatever and he would say, “I love you until I can’t.” I have text messages. “I’ll love you until I can’t.” What is that? 

“You can’t breathe? What do you mean?” I don’t understand what you mean. 

Where is this coming from? It’s not to say that there was anticipation, but he was having these weird seizures and then he was calling me saying weird stuff. I was already scared for him. It was so confusing. We got down there to the hospital and that was a joke. They weren’t telling me anything. When we got there, they said that he was already gone. They had already sent him out. How? 

When we told you we were on our way and that we were coming from California and that we would be there, we flew down the freeway that morning. We got there in less than three and a half hours. You’ve already removed him from the hospital and sent him to a mortuary with no consent from anyone. No one in this hospital is able to tell me what’s going on or what happened. You’re telling me that I need to request medical records. I was furious. 

He asked for it.

It was piling on and then they said that we did not qualify or something for an autopsy because they worked on him at the hospital. Everything surrounding this was confusing and unclear. It added to all of it because here I am. I now have to jump into this mode of business almost right away. I can’t even say what happened with Shavondai. 

There are so many pieces to that, Addie. I want to circle back to something you mentioned, if you’ll allow me. You mentioned that you were living with your parents. Whatever difficulties you guys were having had caused you to leave the marital home. Friends or family people may know that then he passed and you and I have talked on TikTok and had lives and do TikTok lives, not lives living together, but a conversation where grief is complicated. It does not take away from one’s grief. I would want you, if you would, speak to the person their spouse has passed and the marriage was not in a good place and they don’t feel they have the right to grief. 

At his memorial, someone said to me, “I didn’t know you guys were separated.” I smiled, but my first thought initially inside was, “How is that relevant? You’re separated. I don’t hate him because we were separated. I talked to him every single day.” I did not expect that in the possibility of ending a marriage, a whole life would be taken out. That’s totally different. It reminds me of people who say, “I understand because I’ve been divorced before.” No, we were going to co-parent. We were co-parenting. He was here every weekend. 

He was on the phone with his kids almost every night. We were on the phone almost every day. Who knows what possibilities would have happened down the road? Marriages go through their waves all the time. I know people who have been married and divorced to get right back married to the same individual. Life isn’t lost because the line of communication is still open, and reconciliation is always still a possibility when a person is alive. All of that got taken in an instant. To the person who may not have been in the best place in their marriage because we aren’t always. 

There are people who you get up in the morning, you had an issue the night before, you get up in the morning and it’s you might not even say goodbye to each other that morning because there are times when we can be irritated with each other. You don’t expect the person to go out and never come back. It’s different and it hits different. We are very much allowed to grieve. I was on the phone with him the day before. It doesn’t stop the relationship. In this case, it wasn’t. I won’t even say that because even if it was, it doesn’t matter what’s happening at the time because they’re still alive. 

 

 

Someone made a statement to me once that no matter what state it was in when that man passed, it doesn’t erase nine years of history. It doesn’t erase eight years of happiness. It doesn’t erase two children. It doesn’t erase the days, weeks, months, and years of memories. It doesn’t erase the home that we built. It doesn’t erase what we poured in. Your friends that you may fall off with or that you don’t speak to for a long time, that’s a separation. As someone who, you might have noticed, I saw people at the memorial, he hasn’t seen you in years. 

That was a separation. You weren’t talking or communicating for a long period of time. That didn’t stop you from being here to grieve. That didn’t stop you from being here to show your respects. That didn’t stop you from feeling sad about all the memories of what it was. People like me grieved twice because there was the grieving of the initial, what we thought the relationship was, and that already felt it was breaking down. You died. 

Just disrespectful.

You were like, “No, I’m not going to do any of it.” You left. The disrespect. 

The dark humor in the grief community is phenomenal. 

If I didn’t have it, honey, I don’t even know. It just, you have to. On Father’s Day, I giggled. Forgive me. My girls were driving, my older girls. My daughter’s nineteen. I told her, “Today, I identify as a father because one of my baby daddies is a deadbeat and the other one is dead.” We cracked up laughing and it’s like, “You only get it if you get it.”

It’s a game changer because I’ll say for the grief community that I interact with, whether it’s on TikTok or Instagram, whatever social media platform, having that community gives you a space where you don’t have to explain or validate your position. You can be and know that there’s somebody in that community that will get it. 

I realized how important that was until you got in it and met those other people who were able to be right there with you. 

Finding Community And Support

How did you start meeting people and community, or did you feel we started getting in, and what did that look like for you? 

I had already started sharing what was going on because, as a YouTube blogger, I had subscribers that had watched our family for years and so when he passed away, first of all, when you think that people are not watching your social media, your subscribers, they’re watching. They notice everything. They notice the subtle things. They notice all the things. I had already had people DMing me like, “I noticed you weren’t in Las Vegas anymore in your last few vlogs. I noticed you didn’t have your wedding ring on in your last vlog.” 

They notice. How is he going to die and I’m not going to come back? I plan to vlog again, as this is a part of what I do. I enjoy vlogging. I enjoy the creative artistry of vlogging. That’s what I like to do. I am a videographer. How am I going to come back to the vlog, live in life like nothing ever happened? I have to address this with the people I’m somebody. I have to address this. 

People need to know.

People have to know. I shared that initial vlog and then I was filming the whole process of this all. I would set up my camera and when I cleaned out that house, I filmed it. When I got that moving truck and we came back across states, I filmed it. When we got the urn, I filmed it because that was my outlet. I was talking to my camera in a room by myself, but I was talking to my internet friends.

Granted, on YouTube, it’s a different community than TikTok. You get comments and you get people and I have my good and faithfuls that have been around for a long time. When I took those very same videos and brought them to TikTok in a reflective way, here I have all this footage of me sitting here crying, which probably seems odd. Why are you recording yourself crying? I love the people who are like, “Why are you crying on the internet?” I am. 

I still do. I was able to go back in a reflective way with those videos and talk about them in a space where people were very responsive to them. The comments were there, the views were there, and other people with the same situations or similar understandings were there. It felt very community-like. You had a lot to do with that. The first time I ever sat with anybody else grieving anything was when you held space for us on Thanksgiving.

I joined that Zoom. I very intentionally knew what I was going to do the moment I saw the link. I said, “I’m going to hop on. I don’t even know who the hell these people are. I’m going to be there because I was on an Airbnb by myself with my family, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.” We had a whole family that came over to my mom and dad’s house. I felt thrown into that because I live here. I didn’t have a choice but to say, “I don’t feel it this year.” 

That wasn’t my choice because you all are having company. I’m going to excuse myself because I don’t feel being surrounded by this company. I got an Airbnb and I was surrounded by you all’s company that morning. It was to be in the presence of other people who feel what you feel or similar. We’re all different, but it’s comfort. Maybe it can’t be explained.

Being in the presence of other people who feel what you feel is a comfort that can’t be explained. Share on X

Thank you for sharing that. Community is underrated as far as how important it is. You had been communicating via messages for someone like yourself, but now actually interacting with people. I have seen how you have become more engaged, more directly having conversations, jumping in alive, and obviously doing your own work for yourself. Let me say this, how does being in a community impact your grief? 

It’s helpful. Talk therapy is powerful and everybody can’t afford a therapist. Everybody’s not going to go to a therapist. I’m not knocking therapy because, by all means, the grief space is something that a lot of people do and will require a licensed therapist to help them through that. 

It could be an economic scenario. Somebody may want to go but may not have the means to go, and you know I am a team mental health therapist, a coach, or somebody else because you’re in uncharted territory. That’s a given.

On top of that, not all therapists are going to genuinely understand your grief. That’s where I think I am with it. I’m team mental health. I have also always been that like, I’m going to DIY this too. I’m not all fit in a position where therapy has been an option. I haven’t always had insurances covering therapy or something that but I am the type of person who has always worked on self-improvement in whatever way I can. You asked me before about my brother’s death and that was very impactful because when he died, the one thing that I can recall that he said to me was to live your life because you can and stop living your life for other people. 

My brother was on drugs. He had a long with being an addict and was in and out of NA and it caused a lot of stress within the family. In a sense, I didn’t always see him often because you stay away as the black sheep, but he always hung out with me. He always, whether he went home and stopped by Mom’s or not, would come and see me because I won’t be doing all this. I feel they think I’m weird, too. He said, “Live your life because you can.” When he passed away, I felt that was a spiritual awakening. There was an emergence because I wanted to know what was up.

At that point, all the questions, the very deep, very hard questions would come up for me. I’m a question girl. I love journals, and I love the idea of questions because when a question is asked, our brain works to formulate an answer. As you formulate those answers and you hear yourself or write this stuff down or speak these things out more and more and more, you can get clear on your answers. He passed away and I hosted my first vision board party that year. He died in July. In December, I was like, “If I’m changing my life, everybody that I know is changing their life right along with me.” 

I had done this work and I had been listening to these self-helps and needed to know why we are here. What does purpose mean? What is a purpose? How do we get to that? Life can’t be this. We are not here to live. In his case, some people would consider screwed up life only to die and have nothing and be nothing. There’s no way. That one vision board party changed everything. I started doing these envision life parties, and for anybody that wanted to host one, I was like, do you guys want to do a vision board party?

I started asking on Facebook for magazine donations, and I had people drop magazines off at my door. For seven years, I would do one every year outside if people wanted me to come and host one for them, their families, or their kids. For myself, every year in December, my friends and the people around me knew that they could look forward to her having that. Yes. I love that it’s right there out in the open where you can see it and have it at the forefront all the time.

That’s how big that thing is. That’s the bad science project. One of those.

I love it because it’s so important. That became such an important work for me. That being said, I’ve always been about it can’t break me. I can’t let it break me. What do I have to do? Being in a community is helpful because talking about things helps and talking about things with people who understand helps. I watched my brother. I used to drop him off. 

He used to get on my nerves because he couldn’t drive. No vehicle and stuff. He would always be, “Addie, can you take me to my meeting? I need you to take me to my meeting.” My mom would be like, “Can you take your brother? Why can’t you take him?” It used to get on my nerves, but I would get him to those meetings. Even with that, being in that community is important when you’re struggling with something. They share a lot in those A meetings. 

They’re very impactful. When I was standing for my first marriage after it fell apart, group council, I found a ministry that I became a part of, faith and marriage ministries, and it was being around that group of people who were also experiencing similar circumstances that we can vibe here and we’re lifting each other up. They say that misery loves company, but positive company is company. We might be in misery, but an empowering company is a good company. The community becomes so important because of the sharing. It’s the sharing that brings validation and a feeling of less loneliness at a time when you feel probably the most alone. 

 

Returning To Work And Passion

You mentioned about not allowing yourself to get stuck and trying to understand how to get through this, not over it, not away from it, but get through it. How did you return to your work and your passion, the sensual movement, and all those other different things in the throes of Sean’s passion? 

At first, there was nothing. I was down for the count. Some days I still feel like, damn it, I’m down for the count. Leave me alone. Time out. With the central movement, it’s weird because about a year and a half before his passing, I had started going hard with that again because 2020 came and put me down for the count. I can’t teach classes. I can’t have people here even though we can do the online thing. I’m more of a women’s circle gal. Having the room filled with people is a different energy to me than trying to bring that same energy online. I feel that sometimes, we’re not always 100% paying attention online. You could be online, but if the TV’s on over there or if something’s going on over here, you’re not fully engaged. 

We know when our camera is not on, we are mixing. 

Even here, if your camera is not on, I was like, “I’m not going to neglect this.” My biggest thing with that was I have been teaching central movement for years. It didn’t matter why people came to the class or why people came to the practice. It’s on it’s yoga or Pilates. People come for many different reasons.

It is not. I’m going to say that you guys, you guys need, y’all need to go check out her videos because it is sensual movement. I’m going to say that. I think you need to do yourself a favor to find my girl on YouTube, TikTok, and wherever she has this ad. 

We put together a class for us widowed ladies.

I’m going to take you up on that. 

No, I’m serious.

I am, too. You know I have events. We’re going to talk about this after the show, but I want you guys to stay tuned. I’m not sure if it’ll be on Zoom or something. We’ll do a TikTok live or maybe both, but noted. Yes, ma’am.

It looked very intimidating. 

It looks very sensuous. 

Do you know that tapping in and tuning in, the biggest thing is it’s about slowing down. It’s about slowing down. It’s about learning how to slow down because we do the foundational moves from Pilates, yoga, ballet, and bar. That is what it’s derived from. Yes, when you take a head circle from traditional fitness to slowing it down four times the speed, it feels different in your body and it looks different on the outside. 

Do a central movement head roll. Since you did the quickie wicky, I want you to show your version. 

You have to slow it down and you have to inhale and you’re moving and inhaling and then you’re exhaling, but it’s so slow that you can feel everything that’s going on in your neck, every sensation. We invite the element of touch because, as a widow, even for sure, we understand how important physical touch is and I’m not talking sexual touch, physical touch in general and you can physically touch yourself. We can comfort ourselves sometimes. 

I know some widows who live alone who have not been hugged, who have not been touched because their spouse died. Feeling sexy for your own dang-on self. You’re permitting yourself to do that. This is going to be so cool to do this.

It’s so powerful. It unlocks so many levels. That’s why I say it doesn’t matter why people come to the practice. Some people want to lose weight, some people are trying to connect to their feminine side, and somebody told them about it. The people stay because you reach this point of connection. You slow down and you start breathing. For me, it was I’ve been showing people how to slow down and come into their bodies to move through certain things for a long time. Now, I am the one that is down for the count. Maybe I should use my own medicine. That’s what I do.

I practice central movement because it has always been a feel-good medicine. Getting to yoga is the hardest part, but no one leaves yoga and they’re like, “I wish I wouldn’t have come.” You don’t have an attitude of, “I wish I wouldn’t have come after yoga.” When you leave yoga, you feel refreshed and you feel loose and you feel you’ve let something off and you feel happy and namaste and you’re ready to tackle, even if it’s the next hour and your body, if you can’t afford therapy, there are other tools, our body, and our breath. Sometimes, it is all it takes to initiate a space of healing for yourself. 

Sometimes, our body and our breath are all it takes to initiate a space of healing for ourselves. Share on X

You say you say breath, I’m breathing all the time. What are you talking about and what difference to that breathing?

Intentional breath, breathwork. You can say meditation there. They go hand in hand. I wouldn’t necessarily say breathwork and meditation are the same, but they think they’re stepping stools. One is with the other, but to breathe very intentionally, Tina, because you are breathing all the time. You’ve been breathing this whole time. You probably haven’t paid one thought or attention to your breath because it’s automatic. It happens, but we take things that are automatic and happen for granted.

They’re too easy, but if I were to have you close your eyes for one second and roll your shoulders back and sit up nice and tall and straight, and take a deep breath in through your nose and hold it at the top and hold it and hold it and then open your mouth and very audibly let that breath out and allow your shoulders to fall down, relax. It feels weighty, it’s different. There are so many different types of breathing and different styles of breathing that can help regulate our blood pressure differently. 

One thing about Shavondai was when he would go to the doctor, they would always try to tell him that his blood pressure was high and he would always want to roll his eyes and stuff because they would immediately be trying to put him on some type of pills. “Your blood pressure was this over this today. Do you have high blood pressure? Why don’t we get you on it?” 

He would be like, “I’m not taking anything.” This one nurse came in one day and she was like, “I’m going to come back and I’m going to take your blood pressure. I want you to do something for me. I want you to take about twenty deep breaths when I leave, slow like this.” She showed him what to do, and she left the room and came back. His blood pressure was down to a perfectly normal range. 

The way that we breathe, the way that we sit even, but the way that we breathe when we’re erratic, our breath gets heavy when we’re under pressure, under stress, we have shallow breath. We don’t breathe at the full capacity of our lungs, usually ever, until we get intentional about it. That’s regulating, that helps with anxiety, that helps with stress, that helps with lowering cortisol, all of these things that are heavily increased when we experience grief.

I’m going to read this statement, and I would like for you to expound upon it. “She also creates beautiful handmade waistbands, which serve as a tangible reminder for women to stay connected to their body, goals, and intentions.”

In 2018, I had one of those I’m down for the counts again in my life, but I think that this is a part of self-improvement for me. I always have these evaluative, I know that’s not a word, but I always have these moments of evaluation where I’m looking at things and I’m looking at my life and I’m a firm believer that if you don’t like what you are looking at, change it because you can. It might take little itty bitty steps, but you can change it. One day, you’ll look out at that same view and it’ll be totally different because you can change it.

If you don't like what you're looking at, change it. It might take small steps, but you can change it. One day, you'll look out at that same view, and it'll be different because you can change it. Share on X

I was down for the count for about two weeks because I felt I wanted to hear from God. I don’t want to make any moves. I don’t want to do anything else. I want to hear what I am supposed to do and where I am supposed to be headed at this point because I need to know. My Lord, you need to show me something. I’m going to be quiet and sit still. Stillness. That’s the key. I’m going to be still until you say something. I did, I didn’t do anything. I felt a bum. For me, if I’m not doing something and I know that that’s not true, but if I’m not doing something, I feel very useless.

I have to always be doing something. I was like, “No, I don’t have anything to do because I’m doing things in vain. I’m not going to do anything.” I didn’t. For two weeks, I momed. That’s it. I’ve always been a stay-at-home mom, but I’ve always had a side hustle or I know that I’m purposed to do things. I know that I am called to help people. I can’t sit around and do nothing, but anyway, I did. One day, I was on the couch, I was lost in the scroll and I happened to see on Instagram these waist beads.

I was like, “Those are cute. They reminded me of belly chains because when I was a teenager, we used to put the little belly chains on and they were super cute. I started looking into them. This was completely one of those things that I was led there. I didn’t know what I was looking at, why, or why I was even attracted to these, but I was very attracted to them. I started doing some research on them and finding that I’m a firm believer that God always leads me to the right people. I am always being connected with the right one at the right time.

I found one person on Instagram and I was like, “Wow.” I had had my share of reaching out to people as someone in their field as a beginner asking for help and assistance. I feel women can be mean sometimes, especially in the pole dance industry. When I was first starting my movement studios and all that stuff back in the day, no one was going to help you with anything. People, hoard information as if there’s not enough room for all of us to win. I learned a long time ago that nobody will help you. 

You’re going to have to figure it out, but I do my due diligence. I didn’t reach out to anybody. I did my own research. I did everything but my waist beads. They’re beads. This is one I happen to have right there. This one has a citrine crystal on it, and they’re made with glass seed beads and stones, and these are traditional tie-ons. It’s an African tradition and different African cultures wear waist beads. They’re not made to be seen in certain cultures. They’re worn under your clothes but are permanent body jewelry. Once it ties on, it’s on. 

You wear it all the time. Here in America, we like to show them off. You probably walk around and see women wearing waist beads all over the place. I love summertime because I got a bunch of them on. The premise of this was a communicative tool as well because when you were on your period, you would put on a certain band that would let your partner know, “Not this time.” They were made to accentuate the hips and the waist, so it was a very sensual tool. They were beautiful, to be adorned in this body jewelry. 

What I noticed when I started deciding to tie them on other women was that once these beads got tied on and you looked in the mirror, you saw beauty in a belly that maybe 10 minutes before you got to me, you were pinching at, talking about it being rude to yourself in the mirror, having that negative shower talk when you get out of the shower and you, “My pants don’t fit, mushroom top.” We pick ourselves apart as women and hear this simple piece of beautiful jewelry you can put on and wear and you feel better. 

On top of that, it’s a tool because when you eat too much, you expand. When you’re allergic to things, your body expands. When you put certain things like gluten and stuff in your body, it expands. We don’t always recognize this right away. When you have these beads on, let me tell you because mine are cutting off my circulation now. I know I’ve gained some weight, and they’re so tight that every day I say, “I’m going to cut them. I’m going to cut them.” I’ve had my weight tracking bead on since 2018 when I started making these. I’ve had it on for five years. It’s tighter than it’s ever been, Tina. 

Life is tighter than it has ever been.

I’m not bigger than I’ve ever been in tenor. 

Sometimes, you have to eat through your feelings. Sometimes, I don’t recommend a lot of it. Sometimes, people drink through their feelings. We’re talking about coping skills, healthy and unhealthy. Sometimes, we are lethargic and we can’t maintain our regular workout routine. The idea of leaving home because outside of this house, the world is going on and in my life, everything has shut down. The idea is that I can’t take a shower because those kids need to eat, and I’m responsible for doing that. You get them all to school and then sit in the car and cry because you don’t want to go back home to this half a life you don’t have. The beads will be okay later, but you only have enough energy to do this or that part. That’s about all we can do and that’s enough sometimes.

Even watching them because, once again, it becomes a part of intentionality. For me, I always have to be extra. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to try to do it a little better than the person before me. I feel I started learning about color psychology, how colors affect us, and how being in or around or wearing a lot of a certain color can have an effect on our mood and our attitude. In learning about the colors, I design beads very specifically with certain color blends, or when I get clients, I will ask them in three words, let me know what you’re looking to call into your life at this time. 

Maybe that looks strength, happiness, and peace. You’re talking red, yellow and blue. Now I’m going to design you a very specific bead with the colors for that, which you’re looking to call into your life. You’re circling this around your belly. You’re tying this or your core to wear every day as a reminder of that, which you’re looking to bring forth birth. We get intentional about the way speeds. 

Tina’s Space Of Grief

I know we’ve covered a lot and then sometimes people go, “I don’t think I can talk that long. What time is it? That can go far.” Is there something that you have a question for me that you would want to ask? 

What did you do, Tina? I think you started managing your space of grief. How did that birth into all of this work and this nonprofit that you have and that you’re doing? What did that incubation look like for you in that dark space? Things are born out of the dark. What did that dark space look like for you?

The first thing that I did start is seeing a therapist. Mark and I have been together for 32 years and we were on vacation and he went into cardiac arrest. I came home from vacation by myself. We made love the night before. It’s nobody’s business. I’m like, “Who does that? How disrespectful you are, sir.” Proper goodbye and everything, but what? I remember thinking, “Where’s the manual for it? Where are the instructions? Where are the details?” Before we had children, we read the book What To Expect When You’re Expecting. 

A friend sent me a book, I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye, by Dr. Pamela Blair. I had no idea how instrumental that book was going to be for me, learning how to not lose myself in this. I started seeing a mental health professional every week for months. She moved me into a group with other women. I did not want to be at home. Both of my children were adults. They are now in the military. Now I am in this house by myself. I’m driving home from work to this house, sitting in the driveway crying, not wanting to go in because there is nothing waiting for me but sadness.

I’m going to lean into it, girl. I remember sitting in the house and I was mad at everybody. I was mad that Mark died. I was mad that Katherine and Alex left me in the house alone. I remember God saying, “What are you going to do? You are in the house by yourself. You’re here. Do something.” The house was a museum to everyone else. I changed my son’s room into a guest room because people were coming to visit. I changed what was our game room downstairs to my exercise room. I changed what was my daughter’s bedroom into my study and my prayer room because I needed to live. 

I remember one day coming home and I was thinking about eating dinner. I thought about the plates that I was going to use, which were the plates that my dead husband and my dead mother-in-law liked and that I could never stand. I went to the store and brought some more plates because I was like, “I’m not doing that.” I started looking at every place to stop running and start leaning in. I remember not wanting to go to the grocery store we went to because there were so many memories of Mark. 

I thought, “If I stopped doing everything that we did together, I would have no life left. I’m still alive.” I read the book, but I need to talk to other widows and widowers. I looked at my phone book and like, “Dang on it. That person’s a widow, that person’s a widow, that person’s a widow.” I called them and they were like, “I’m so sorry.” They pulled back the veil and told me all the things that was in my head that I was afraid to articulate because surely I’m the only one out here, this cuckoo from Cocoa Puffs, dealing with this. 

When they validated that, I knew I still had to do the work myself, but I knew that I wasn’t wrong in this journey. I have been blessed to have an immense network of committed family and friends members. I have not lost one friend and not one family member has told me it’s enough. I realize that’s a bit of a unicorn because as I speak to other people, very shortly into the timeline of losing their spouse, people start disconnecting, becoming disingenuous, and not wanting to hear and understand.

I was like, “How awful for someone to feel they are alone when they need people the most.” I realized if this is not a place you’ve traveled to, you don’t have the emotional bandwidth or tools to understand. If you’re able to listen to a conversation between two people speaking, it may give you the ability to step in for a friend that you didn’t know how to ask those questions, but you can be the silent person. There are people that listen to the show, and they go, “That’s helped me support my family members who’re going through that because I would never want to ask them that.” 

There was a family member who had lost a spouse and I spoke with them and I felt God’s charge to step in and create space. You mentioned something about how often people gatekeep. We don’t have time for that. My husband died. There’s something I can share that is going to help. For you to tell me that you showed up to that grief support group that I had, and you had been on social media, you had connected with people, done different stuff, but you needed somebody to be present, somebody to be who they represented themselves to be. 

Not somebody trying to get something from you or do something else but to genuinely hold space in my lowest moment and tell me there’s another day coming. I’m still writing my journey. It is powerful and encouraging to me that I am serving humanity in the way I know God has charged me to do because nobody should be alone in doing this. This sucks. This is hard. This is difficult. This is pain unimaginable that you can’t articulate to express to anyone. There is no amount of verbiage that I feel does it justice, but when you’re in this space with someone else who says, “I lost my spouse. It’s been two years.” 

Your mind is like a Rolodex that thinks, “Two years.” You got your brain back. You start thinking. It could be a little bit of an ish, but it’s a range that that happens. You don’t have to qualify. To give that gift to somebody., it’s never the superpower I wanted. As you said, in your own, she has since aimed to transform her pain into a source of passion and purpose, openly sharing her grief story and offering valuable insight on grief and healing through online platforms. We are sisters in that scenario.

I love the ability where you say, “I’m not going to get stuck here.” I know that it is difficult to say, “I’m not going to get stuck here because Mark is still dead.” That’s not changing. There are no takebacks. There is no, “This is mine.” That is so permanent, but I do know the narrative I have told myself has changed my perspective and outlook.

On the one-year anniversary of Mark’s passing, we were in a hotel on a military base in Delaware, driving past that installation shook my world. I had to go stay there at the one-year anniversary because I had to take my power back because every time I drove down the highway past that I was incapacitated driving and I was like, “No, I’m coming for you because you’ve been coming for me.” I took all the cards that people gave us on the day of his funeral. I went back. I tried to go to the restaurant we went to and I cried and I wept but when I left that room, I never had a problem driving down that highway because I can’t be crippled. 

Life is too short, and I want to live it, but at the same time, I understand that some people want to stay in that space. I understand that fortunate our society equates how long I’m sad and horrible and miserable with how much I love my spouse. That is not an equation that is realistic. Oftentimes our society does not give women the validation of power to continue thriving and living a life because their spouse died. If you love them, how are you still doing that because I didn’t die?

You mentioned communication. It is so important to talk to your spouse about what happens when the inevitable happens because one thing, we are not going to stay here forever. What happens when one of us is not here? Mark and I had those conversations. I didn’t have to think twice about knowing that I would get to continue living and that my husband would be pleased with my decision to do that. The more that I’m able to show up in spaces with people, men, and women, the more we have a men’s only grief support group that meets on the second Thursday of the month because we know men won’t talk about their feelings. 

If they don’t, it’s inside bubbling and it needs to come out. It’s better to come out in a safe space. There’s a gentleman who actually became a widower in 2017 myself and he leads that group. The opportunity to serve humanity because I have a full-time job. Nothing I get from this, but knowing that I’m doing what I know God has charged me to do and help people. 

That’s awesome. 

It blows my mind because I’ll tell you this: Our content right now is across 99 countries and has over 3.4 million views. 

You and I never thought. It’s like, “Look at the reach from being open and willing to share either.” I agree. I feel rewarded when somebody can say, “Thank you for sharing that because that helped me. Thank you for sharing that. I thought that I was the only one who felt that way.” I don’t know. It pumped you up a little bit. It feels good because I started sharing because I didn’t have anybody to talk to, but if it’s helping you, then yes, because then that’s helping me. It makes me want to keep on sharing and wanting to find. I agree. At least I don’t think I’m going to have to Google what to expect when you’re grieving book. We might need to throw that thing in motion if it’s not already. I’m like, “Is that already a title?”

It sounds like Chicken Soup For The Soul. We could do that.

I need content and put it on because there isn’t. Yes, there are books and we can find a small section of things on the shelf and maybe more recently, maybe especially probably since the pandemic, people have taken it upon themselves to write more and put more into the space. There is no manual, and a lot of what I have researched and learned and heard being in these spaces with other people and then looking up statistics and stuff is real.

This is not just like somebody died and how you go on back to society. It is a real shock to the body. This is real stress. This is a real sickness that people incur because these are real broken hearts that can cause a higher rate of death amongst widows. Death is not a joke. It’s that video I made. Grief is like a medical emergency and we don’t see it that way.

Grief is like a medical emergency, but we don't see it that way. Share on X

People think your person died. I know you said the 32 different things that way grief impacts your body. All these different things are laid up. By nature, I’m a high-functioning person. I’m a retired army officer. I’m a project manager. I’m used to doing stuff. When Mark died, I woke up and was like, “I now also have a superpower that I can stare at pain.” No offense to all the men, but when you ask a man, “What are you thinking about,” and they say nothing, I can do that. That is not something I was able to do. My cognitive was impacted by Mark’s death for me to go and read and find out about grief.

The cortex messes with the fact that your body is supposed to produce things to protect it and you go into fight or flight. This is real. 

Knowing that, let me know when I was staring at the pain, my body was like, “This is what my healing looks like.” That validated it for me. That gave me permission. I started getting little memo pads since I couldn’t remember anything. I wrote it down. I was like, “We got to reboot every day like Dog Day afternoon. Let me write down the stuff I’m supposed to do because I’m not remembering like a normal Tina.” That is super important. We could go on and on. I’m not going to do that to you. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about in this conversation that you feel we didn’t cover or wanted to make sure that we addressed? I want to pull us back, or we could go down that rope and be like, “I’m going to pull us back up.” 

I don’t think so. I was open to wherever the conversation went. 

Final Thoughts

I say thank you for myself. I say thank you to every reader, for the widowhood, being transparent, and being willing to have this conversation. I’m going to let you wrap up this discussion with our readers. 

I will end on this note with everything that we’ve said. I made a post and it was in regards to something that I had heard from a pastor. I don’t think he’s a pastor anymore. His name is John. He spoke about grief and how we liken grief to a journey, but that grief is more like a language. When we go on a journey, we pack our bags, and typically, a journey means that there’s a destination or an endpoint. We’re going somewhere, but with grief, there is no final destination. 

 

It’s been many years since my brother passed away and we’re coming up on July the 6th and every 4th of July, it’s still a strange day. The feelings that we feel in the beginning won’t always be as intense. It won’t always impact us as deeply as it does in the beginning, but it’s all a part of a process and we are still here, and because we are still here that process is a part of your progress toward your purpose, whatever that ends up looking like.

I had a vision board book that I wrote back in 2018, and it’s this process that pushed me to go ahead and put the book on Amazon. We don’t know where it’s leading. Maybe journey is not the right word, but when we learn a new language, we have to study it. We got to be in it. The only way to grasp it is to start hearing conversations, watching movies, and listening to the language being spoken.

As we start to learn and adapt, we can speak that language and we become fluent. That’s what he was saying. The goal of learning a new language is to find fluency, to gain fluency so that you can hold the conversation. I like that because it takes the pressure off of, “Somebody who died. I’m on a grief journey now,” because that gives us this destination that we think we’re supposed to be at. 

 

 

We have a societal five stages of grief that you have to be in this part of your journey and in that part of your journey. It’s not a journey unless you want the journey for the rest of your life because that’s what we’re going to be. I feel grief is supposed to be all of this love that we hold for someone else, and then you’re always going to grieve for someone else because you’re not ever going to stop loving them, no matter how many years it’s been. If grief is love, then you love them forever. You learn to adapt, you learn to grow, you learn to move through, you learn how to be in it and it will get better. On that note, that’s a wrap. 

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much, Tina. I appreciate you having me here, validating me, hearing my story, and allowing me to share it with your audience.

 

Important Links

• Addie Green  
• TikTok – Addie Green  
• Instagram – Addie Green
• YouTube – Addie Green
• What To Expect When You’re Expecting
• I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye
• Chicken Soup For The Soul
• https://YouTube.com/playlist?list=PL0MKlNwXUO5S1WCXYba1wVZ27o6givEOk&feature=shared
• BLOOM JOURNAL FOR WIDOWS: https://a.co/d/00b7LU1F
• MOVING THROUGH GRIEF JOURNAL: https://a.co/d/0gh9nDWx
• SMART GIRL MANIFESTING BOOK: https://a.co/d/05QWR9ap

 

About Addie Green

Addie Green is a sensual movement educator and instructor with over 13 years of experience helping women reconnect with their sensuality, feminine energy, and confidence through movement and breath. As a holistic wellness advocate, Addie is passionate about empowering women to embrace their true selves and lead fulfilling lives. Throughout her career, Addie has hosted and facilitated numerous movement workshops and vision board parties, providing women with powerful tools to create their best bodies and lives. She also creates beautiful handmade waistbeads, which serve as a tangible reminder for women to stay connected to their bodies, goals and intentions.

In 2022, Addie faced a major personal loss when she became a widow. She has since aimed to transform her pain into a source of passion and purpose, openly sharing her grief story and offering valuable insights on grief and healing through online platforms. Addie has also authored two journals designed to help those who are grieving to express their feelings and find solace by transferring their emotions from head and heart to paper. As well as a Vision Board Experience workbook.

Though she is not entirely certain where this new path is leading, Addie is committed to answering the call of service to others, using her experiences and expertise to support and uplift those in need.