When Christine McHenry, one of the founders of Warrior Moms of North Georgia, shares her journey through grief after the loss of her son Jamie at the young age of 13, it's impossible not to feel the weight of her love and sorrow. Her courage to celebrate Jamie's life, even as she navigates the heartache of his absence, sets the stage for a powerful conversation. Michele and Christine discuss the complexities of grief, from the rallying support of the Warrior Moms community to the commemoration of Jamie through an annual 5K event that intertwines mourning with the joy of remembrance. This episode is a testament to the enduring love of a mother and the resilience of the human spirit in face of unspeakable loss.
Grief's unpredictable tide, likened to the "grief's strike of a rattlesnake" as Christine puts it, can leave us reeling without a moment's notice. Yet, within this tumultuous journey, Christine reveals the precious moments of solace found in shared memories and cherished mementos of Jamie. Our exchange underscores the poignant reality of a future altered by tragedy while uncovering the strength found in community and the power of storytelling.
Today's episode explores how to balance the weight of grief while leaning into life's beauty and challenges. Christine's story reminds us that amidst the profound pain, there's space for growth, for laughter, and for embracing each moment with authenticity and grace. She wants Jamie to be proud of her, and I certainly know he is.
Christine's message is unwavering sense of honesty about this traumatic grief journey, but also a sense of hope and encouragement, to continue stepping forward, celebrating the lives of those we've loved and lost with every breath we take.
With Love, The Warrior Moms
"Dream Bird" by Jonny Easton
Thank you for listening to Warrior Moms podcast. It is an honor to share about our beloved children gone too soon, and we hope in telling of our losses, it may help someone on their own grief journey. Please note that we are not medical professionals and encourage those listening to seek help from mental health professionals.
We'd love to hear from our followers! Facebook: Warrior Moms-The Club No One Wants to Be In Instagram: WarriorMoms.SurvivingChildLoss
When Christine McHenry, one of the founders of Warrior Moms of North Georgia, shares her journey through grief after the loss of her son Jamie at the young age of 13, it's impossible not to feel the weight of her love and sorrow. Her courage to celebrate Jamie's life, even as she navigates the heartache of his absence, sets the stage for a powerful conversation. Michele and Christine discuss the complexities of grief, from the rallying support of the Warrior Moms community to the commemoration of Jamie through an annual 5K event that intertwines mourning with the joy of remembrance. This episode is a testament to the enduring love of a mother and the resilience of the human spirit in face of unspeakable loss.
Grief's unpredictable tide, likened to the "grief's strike of a rattlesnake" as Christine puts it, can leave us reeling without a moment's notice. Yet, within this tumultuous journey, Christine reveals the precious moments of solace found in shared memories and cherished mementos of Jamie. Our exchange underscores the poignant reality of a future altered by tragedy while uncovering the strength found in community and the power of storytelling.
Today's episode explores how to balance the weight of grief while leaning into life's beauty and challenges. Christine's story reminds us that amidst the profound pain, there's space for growth, for laughter, and for embracing each moment with authenticity and grace. She wants Jamie to be proud of her, and I certainly know he is.
Christine's message is unwavering sense of honesty about this traumatic grief journey, but also a sense of hope and encouragement, to continue stepping forward, celebrating the lives of those we've loved and lost with every breath we take.
With Love, The Warrior Moms
"Dream Bird" by Jonny Easton
Thank you for listening to Warrior Moms podcast. It is an honor to share about our beloved children gone too soon, and we hope in telling of our losses, it may help someone on their own grief journey. Please note that we are not medical professionals and encourage those listening to seek help from mental health professionals.
We'd love to hear from our followers! Facebook: Warrior Moms-The Club No One Wants to Be In Instagram: WarriorMoms.SurvivingChildLoss
With love, Warrior Moms
Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome back to Warrior Moms. I am Michelle Davis Carter's mom, and Amy isn't here with us in the studio, but I have Christine McHenry, who is one of the founders of Warrior Moms, and I'm so thankful that you're here and that we get to talk about Jamie this morning. Hi, Hello, Good about Jamie this morning.
Speaker 2:
Hi, hello, good morning.
Speaker 1:
Good morning. Well, let's just jump in. I think this you know seeing your posts online, christine, you know this time, you know, having you on the studio right in the middle of this time couldn't be better is the wrong word. In the middle of this time, couldn't be better is the wrong word, but it's definitely the time that is probably really heavy on your heart right now. So, before we jump into that, let's just hear about Jamie.
Speaker 2:
Sure, so Jamie was. I always struggle with the current and past tense. He'll always be our 13-year-old son, forever 13. We lost Jamie on a spring break trip. He was on a trip first trip away without us with his best friend's family down in Florida. Friend's family down in Florida and he and his friend were crossing A1A down in Hutchinson Island to get some snacks and they had been several times back and forth and this particular day they were going apparently to get some more combos.
Speaker 2:
You know those pretzels yeah and uh, it was seven o'clock on a wednesday evening and they crossed a1a and, for whatever reasons that we'll never know, um, jamie's friend crossed. He was fine, but Jamie hesitated and he was struck and hit and killed by a, uh, 73 year old driver. It's really hard to digest, to fathom that a kid that was so alive at the age of 13, you know he was gone and on the turn of a dime and it just, you know, horrible. So that whole spring break, you know happiness, relaxation time, time with family time, to get away the beach, Florida it just takes on such a negative connotation oh yeah, when you see your friends posting kids heading to spring break, I bet your stomach just flips.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, it does, and you know it's that. But for me, the whole, seeing the memories and all the events leading up to it again, it's like I have to. I have to live those memories because even 11 years later, I'm still processing it. Years later, I'm still processing it and it will be, It'll be a thing that I'll be dealing with the rest of my life, and that's just the way this grief is and the way that the love that I have for Jamie goes, and it's kind of this paradox that we live in.
Speaker 1:
I know it. We cling to those memories and yet it's, you know it's so painful, Some, some days it takes our breath away.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:
I love how you, you know being. You know I've been in warrior moms, I think four years now and one of the things that I really take from you, christine, is just, you have a fight about you, about that. This pain isn't going to take you down. And you talk about Jamie, you share about Jamie. There isn't a day that I pull up Facebook and I'm Jamie. There isn't a day that I pull up Facebook and I'm you know, seeing Jamie and learning something about him. And you know your, your daughter, emily, as well, and I feel like I, you know, I know a piece of him and he sounded like such a hoot.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, he, he was a, he was a character. I mean, we we always kidded around with Jamie on an adult level, which he had a very advanced sense of humor. Sometimes it would get him in trouble.
Speaker 1:
But he was just that 13-year-old boy, right.
Speaker 2:
Yes, exactly, and he was just. He was a light. I mean, he could be a royal pain in the ass as well. I mean he was very. He was a mixture of so many of my relatives, and particularly my father. My father and Jamie would have gotten along famously, along famously. They both had that kind of sarcastic but yet enduring. They were just very. They loved their people, but they were going after that spring break trip and trying to. You know, I mean, how do you land back on your feet? You're never going to be.
Speaker 1:
Remind me, christine. Sorry to interrupt. Were you there or were you?
Speaker 2:
at home. No, we were not there. So we you know I'm a CPA and so I was doing taxes at the time, and during that time during spring break, you know I could never get away. I mean, it's right in the middle of tax season was invited by three different friends to go on three different trips, and one of them was a cruise and it was too expensive, which of course you know now in hindsight, if we all had that crystal ball you know, we change it up in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, so, so, anyway. So Jamie was invited to go on three separate trips and he chose the trip that he went on. And so you know we felt bad that Emily, our daughter, who was 11 at the time, she wasn't able to go anywhere because, you know, mom was working, dad was working, yeah, and so we felt bad. So we took her up to our cabin. We have a cabin up in the North Georgia mountains and we were up there. We played like Frisbee golf the day before the tragedy.
Speaker 2:
We just had a great time with Emily. We played tennis. We really soaked up that time with Emily and tried to make spring break special for her, yeah, and then so we were the day of the accident. We had hiked all around up in the mountains up there we actually we went mountain biking and we went out to dinner that night. Picture like a very like, very granola, cerebral Appalachian Trail hikers go to this place. There's no, you know, no, there isn't any internet or TVs. Everybody's there with a book or a Kindle and they're, you know, just very kind of peaceful, quiet lodge. And we were at dinner that night at the lodge and that's when we got a phone call that there was an accident and right then we lost signal.
Speaker 1:
I mean just we just heard there was an accident and Jamie was at the hospital.
Speaker 2:
There was an accident and Jamie was at the hospital and and then you know, trying frantically to get in touch with somebody. So we actually went to the front desk at the lodge and asked to use their landline, and that's when we called the father of Jamie's friend, who he was with on the trip, and he had just gotten there to the hospital, and that's when they pronounced Jamie dead. Right when we got on the phone with the doctor oh gosh, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I mean just the and then you're not anywhere near home to get there, yeah how far away is that driving?
Speaker 2:
uh, from from the north georgia mountains to miami, probably about oh, they were 16 hours, oh my gosh, and it was mean, it was just that dichotomy I will never forget of the cerebral calmness of that you know lodge versus the entire McHenry family screaming and running around like idiots.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And people just staring wondering what the hell is wrong with these people?
Speaker 1:
What is happening, yeah?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, just awful, awful, awful, oh my gosh. And just that night. We decided not to go back that night because, like I said, by the time we got the call it was around nine o'clock and it was pouring rain up there and we were up. You know, to get up there you had to drive on these, regardless of the weather condition, treacherous roads, and so we waited until the next morning. And that just the waiting, was just oh my gosh, yeah, awful, awful unbelievable.
Speaker 1:
And then you know you. You have this journey still ahead of you, on so many different levels and layers, and yet, at the same time, your brain can't believe any of it no, and, and that's I mean.
Speaker 2:
it was like I felt like I was in not a sitcom, because in no way was it funny, but just kind of like a drama and it was just trying to visualize, you know, this kid that was so full of life and that we weren't going to see him was just, I mean, it just seemed impossible. Yeah, absolutely impossible.
Speaker 1:
And then you have your daughter, your 11-year-old, with you too. Yes, to walk her through this path that you don't. You know there's no road map. Yeah, you're trying to navigate. You know something that's just the unthinkable. You're, you're trying to navigate. Um, you know something that's just the unthinkable. And then you have your 11 year old with you.
Speaker 2:
I mean it's just Right and if you know, I felt so bad for her um when we got the news. You know she was of course Jim and I are just completely losing it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And Emily was running around saying my brother, my brother and this, you know, that's where you know you meet the kindest people. On this journey, I remember, you know, based on Jim and I having our own meltdown, this family, who was at the lodge with these two boys who were about Emily's age, you know, they sat Emily down and they were talking to her and asking about you know her brother and asking her to tell stories about him and just oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, stories about him and just yeah and um, you know, of course. Then you know I felt I had to snap out of it and focus on Emily, but the um, yeah, it's just, it's a very, very difficult, difficult road and I knew it was going to be based on my own experience. I was six when my older brother, kevin, drowned on a family vacation Again, you take this what was supposed to be a fun time. We were camping up in upstate New York and my brother accidentally drowned in a pool that was put in by the campground owner the year before because there were so many drownings on the Delaware. So you know, I saw my parents go through this road with me as their only surviving child. Oh, my gosh. And you know, of course it was a different, a different grief journey for them back back in the seventies.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, different generation Talk about.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, people didn't talk about grief back then. They just kind of was something you dealt with on your own. But you know now I'm so thankful that we have the Warrior Moms and that we have vehicles like Facebook or other open forums, like these podcasts, that we can talk about our grief because, you know, each one of our journeys is completely and absolutely its own. You know experience, but together we we grieve. We know, we understand.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Deep, deep pain that just you can hardly explain what it feels like.
Speaker 2:
Yeah you can't, and you know the fact that we are here in year 11 and I mean it's, it's still an everyday part of my life.
Speaker 2:
It is, it will be for the rest of my life, as Carter will be for you, for the rest of my life, as Carter will be for you. I mean, it's just to let go of it or move on, as society expects you to do, is to let go of that love. I mean, our love for our children is always there, regardless of whether it's two weeks, five days, you know 3,740, whatever hours which.
Speaker 2:
I actually calculated, it'll be for us at year 11. I mean it's just, it's awful and it's, but I feel like you know, the acceptance of knowing that it's always going to be there, that pain will never go away. It's kind of part of being able to focus on the rest of your life. You know, that's just my the way I go.
Speaker 1:
I go yeah, when you think about those you know dark days, where you know the grief, especially in those first several years. What were things that that helped you?
Speaker 2:
if you had to, you know, tell it a new grieving family, what, what did you do that's helped um, you know, just keeping their memory alive every day and telling stories, and whether they make you laugh or make you cry, I mean, and they will, they absolutely even the funny stories still make me cry. But you know, just, um, it's so hard because those first, the first year, the first two years, you're in such a fog and almost a denial.
Speaker 2:
Like you feel like they're going to walk through the door at any point, because they are, you know, they're like for Jamie. He was so full of life, like for Jamie he was so full of life.
Speaker 2:
And but also, you know, emily, our you know surviving children. Their world has been completely torn apart and they're often overlooked. So focus on on your other children. You know they're. They're in a lot of pain too, and you know they won't express it as much, particularly in front of their parents, because they don't want to make them more upset than they are. But you really have to focus on your child.
Speaker 2:
We had the opportunity of getting Emily involved in a support group for kids here in Atlanta, and it was a support group for kids who lost either a parent or a sibling, and in most cases it was a parent. So even on that level, I think Emily had a hard time connecting, but regardless, it was a kind of a safe place for her to go and talk about her loss with Jamie, and so I'm thankful for that. So you know, use all, use resources that you have available and just just focus on getting through the day to day. We also, I think, another thing that is really it's really really been helpful for us is Good grief, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:
We started a foundation to honor Jamie and to kind of pass along. He was an avid lacrosse player. He loved lacrosse, everything about lacrosse. So we started a foundation and we host a 5K every year in his memory. This year will be year 11. And it's still going strong. Thank God for that, because for us, as grieving parents, it's also our outlet and our way to kind of continue to love and care for Jamie. This foundation provides that and for that I'm so thankful. And we also got Emily very involved in helping us. You know plan the 5K and so I think in a way it was cathartic for her.
Speaker 2:
It was cathartic for her.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, a way to celebrate her brother.
Speaker 2:
Because, of course, you're sad all the time, but there's a way to come together with friends and have this positive focus on Jamie. Yeah, and that's the biggest thing, is that everybody listening, or whoever's walked this horrible journey. I mean, we're all given a choice and that is to either let it completely consume us and swallow us whole or you know we still have our lives to live and you know we're all only here once. And even though we've got this tremendous, tremendous, indescribable weight I mean that you don't know, you can't even describe unless no, god forbid you're in this club. I know, even though we've got this weight that we have to carry, you know it's so important to be able to live your own life and try to find that. You know that happy place, but also knowing that that pain is never going to go away and I think the acceptance of that, like I said before, is part of getting to that happy point.
Speaker 1:
Yeah absolutely. And I watch you in your posts and I you know, of course, celebrating Jamie, but, like you said, living life. I mean, tell a little bit about all the things that you do. I think that kind of feed you as a person and and feeling you know that you're involved in life.
Speaker 2:
Well, I'm a little, I'm kind of all over the place with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:
You are. That's what's amazing.
Speaker 2:
But I, like you know, I, I like to myself and I don't know, find different things and, like I, kind of learned how to play the guitar. You know, define the word play, but I'm getting there, I'm getting better yeah.
Speaker 2:
It's fun, it's a challenge and it you know it gives, because that's the thing I mean, even though this horrible, horrible thing has happened to us in life and we it it is defining of us, but at but at the same time, you got to find other things that define you and make you who you are, other things that define you and make you who you are, and you know whether it's finding a new hobby or I don't know, it's just because it is so easy to let it swallow you whole.
Speaker 1:
Do you remember in those early days, like did you tell yourself, like you have got to get out of bed, like what was the voice, like where does that come from? That you just decide, Like do you remember?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I just those conscious choices For me, like the bombardment of just the people and the you know I mean I was very thankful. The people and the you know I mean I was very thankful, don't get me wrong. I was very thankful that our community, my relatives, my family, my friends, they all form this bubble of care around us.
Speaker 2:
But I was like I've got to, I got to get my space, I've got to get out, you know. So I would get up and I would go run on the greenway, which is like this outdoor nature trail by us, and I would, just, I would run and be with nature. I used to take the kids for walks on the greenway so it was like I just had my time and I would get all my. You know, that greenway path saw me crying hysterically and I would just listen to Jamie's music and just get, you know, get all. I'd scream. I'm sure the forest thought I was nuts.
Speaker 2:
But just to get out and and get up and get just you know kind of work through the emotions and then get back and then be there for Emily, cause I knew she was suffering too. I mean, that's the. That was, that was really hard and I felt so bad for for Emily, you know, cause I I knew myself that and and I was only six when I lost my brother Kevin, so I own, I had a very limited memorable amount of time with him, where Emily had 11 years, right, and that's difficult. I'm so thankful she had that time with him, but then, you know, you think about the rest of her life without him.
Speaker 2:
And you know it just, it sucks, it all around, sucks and it always will. And you know it, just it sucks, it all around, sucks and it always will. But you know you have to find that. You have to A accept that this happened and accept that you're never going to be the same person and that the pain is never going to go away. Person and that the pain is never going to go away, but then also, b choose to live your life the best that you can and you know and find that joy does exist with that pain.
Speaker 2:
I mean, it's hard and it always will be always, always, especially, you know I, I think about Jamie's friends now and I, like he had a really tight knit group of friends from you know, like anywhere from pre-K all the way up to you know, some of them join the circle, quote, unquote, and like middle school, and they, those boys, are still very, very close. And now you know, you see the weddings and it tears, you're happy for them, but it just freaking tears at your gut.
Speaker 2:
I mean it just tears because you know Jamie would would have been there and that Jamie will never have a wedding Right, and that's, you know, just again, the acceptance of that, of knowing that, no, he'll never have a wedding, I'll never have grandchildren through him, but it's, you know, I know that, and it's a hard, hard pill to swallow, but it's one you have to, you, gotta, and then live your life in full, despite or in spite, despite whatever the you know, in spite of our loss, to live life the fullest that you can, because we're all only here once.
Speaker 1:
That's so true and I, you know, the first time that I came to the Warrior Moms, I think just speaks to how you and Christy created this community. I mean, when you walk in I kind of tease about it, but it sounds like I'm coming into a monthly wine club.
Speaker 1:
It's loud laughing and hugs and telling silly stories, and then you also could look around and you have, you know, two moms sitting there and crying, and you know holding memories close and sharing with one another, and it is so just apparent that that is part of your purpose, that you have found through this really helping teach us. How do we do that? This really helping teach us. How do we do that?
Speaker 2:
How do we live in the end, you know, of being both incredibly sad and finding great joy, right, and that's I mean some of these women are, you know.
Speaker 2:
I mean like, look at you and I, michelle, I mean I everybody had heard your story on the news and as grieving mothers, you hear these stories and you feel the first thing. I mean, of course you think about the kid, but you think about the parents and you're like, oh my God, those poor people. They are in for a long, difficult journey and that's what I thought about with you. And so when you came to the first Warrior Moms meeting, I mean I was like, oh my God, how is this woman here? And yet you and not to turn the interviewee tables, but you are such a joyous person and we all heard what a horrible, horrible story that was with the shooting. And so, likewise, I am in awe of you and tell our stories and not feel like we're telling our other non-bereaved friends who have kind of I feel many of my friends have kind of gotten tired of me talking about Jamie.
Speaker 1:
I mean but I always will.
Speaker 2:
And I always want to talk about Jamie.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I'm sure they you know of course they love you and love Jamie and want to hear it. It's just without really understanding that it is part of our fabric, Like we have to share because that's all we have Exactly and you know people do the best to kind of. You know, nod and listen and be a part of it.
Speaker 2:
But they don't. They don't know, and you know it's a horrible initiation to actually get to know, yeah, and we don't wish that upon anybody. But so the thing about Warrior Moms is it's a safe haven, your mom's is. It's a safe haven, it's a place where I can tell and you know, like I, it takes a lot for me to cry and you know, I find it's such a an outlet of emotions when we go and we hear other people's stories, because we know we can connect that way. Yeah, so I'm thankful that we have this group and you know, like that one meeting that we had when was that? A few meetings ago? Where there were.
Speaker 2:
Oh my God, there must've been 30 women in that room and you hate it for every single one of them, Right. But you know, it's just, and warrior moms, even though we're, we have, like I said, we have our own separate individual stories, individual loss, individual way our children died, you know, you get in that room and it's just.
Speaker 2:
It's like, okay, I can, I can talk the way I want to talk now I can you know, be my, I can talk about Jamie and not feel bad about it, Not feel like people are like oh my God, here she goes again. You know, because they will always, always be a part of us for the rest of our lives. You know, my husband and I, we do. We talk about Jamie on a daily basis and we laugh.
Speaker 2:
We laugh and we cry and we mourn all the stuff that he has missed. We hate that, hate it, but at the same time we have to it's like Dr Seuss, you know be glad that it. What's the saying? Be glad and be happy. I don't even know.
Speaker 1:
I can't remember it either.
Speaker 2:
I'm trying to be happy that it happened and not sad that it's over. You know, and that's a difficult thing to do Right.
Speaker 1:
To cherish the time you did have. Yeah Of course we do, and that's what is, I think, so powerful when we all get together. Is you do see that just this, the beautiful people you know really finding the light and, you know, trying to remember that, okay, they, you know we're thankful they were our children, but gosh, also, this grief is deep.
Speaker 2:
It's very, very deep and you know I think about my parents and you know my dad would always say to me, of course, you know, I was six, kevin was eight, and throughout my life you know my dad would say, oh, do you know what today is? And I knew, but I didn't want. I'd be like, no, you know, I didn't want to open up that door because I felt like it made my parents really sad, right Now sitting and standing in their shoes. I know they were sad and they just they wanted to talk about it and I feel bad that I never allowed that for them because I didn't really, I didn't really know, I know.
Speaker 1:
And we don't as humans, and I think you had posted it somewhere on one time, like if you don't understand why I have to keep putting pictures thank your stars? You don't understand.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, that's exactly right. And when I you know cause I do, I post the same stories, the same pictures. But it's kind of like when I get up in the morning, that's one of the first things I do. It's kind of like my meditation time with Jamie.
Speaker 2:
I remember the memories, I post the stories and then I peel back another layer on that giant onion of grief that we never get to the center of in this lifetime. But it allows me to then be able to go about my day and focus on the here and the now.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Do you think that carving that time really does allow you? I mean control, maybe is the wrong word, but a little bit where you have this space for sadness and talking to Jamie. Does that help you have less sort of triggers throughout the day? Or?
Speaker 2:
um, maybe I think it I think it right, I think it does, um, but there's always those rattlesnake moments the rattlesnake grief I call it where, like you know, you're in publics or kroger and all of a sudden you're walking down aisle five to get potatoes for you know a recipe you're making that night and his favorite song comes over on the Muzak or whatever, and it's just you know and it people don't realize how it brings you back to day one, or, you know, to happy memories, happy times. I've got like an entire playlist of Jamie music and you know all the songs that were popular when he was 13, that he loved.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Which now seem listening to them. They seem so dated and you know they'll only continue to get dated, more dated. But it's my connection to him.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And it always will be. I mean this, you know.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. It just it sucks, it sucks it really does.
Speaker 2:
There's no, you know, this type of loss, it's just out of the ordinary. It's not the sequential. You know you're supposed to bury your parents and not your children and all the dreams and and the future. Like when Jamie was hit by that car, I always think of the world and fate and how, in an instant, it was rewritten. You know the girl he was supposed to marry, the kids they were supposed to have and like boom, it happens and yeah and other yeah other stars align and uh, and that's a really difficult the what ifs, what haves, that's awful to live with.
Speaker 1:
Yes, Well, I want to just end with tell us one kind of like description of Jamie so we can kind of feel that 13-year-old what's something? Or even just like a photograph, something you've posted recently. Maybe when you think of him that just brings you back.
Speaker 2:
Oh, my God, I'm trying to think of like one particular thing, but you know one of the. This is crazy. So I was Jamie's room, which we're still in the house that Jamie was born and brought. Well, he wasn't born in the house, but brought home from the hospital and lived all of his life in this house. So his room, even though we changed it up, it's still pretty much a shrine with all of his stuff in there.
Speaker 2:
But, it's also become out of necessity. You know the place where all the gift wrapping goes where the vacuum cleaner the ironing board. It's just, that's just the way it is.
Speaker 2:
So, you know I'll go into Jamie's room and grab something, and not even I mean, of course I think about him when I'm in there, but you know, then I go out and do my thing, and the other day and this is typical Jamie, and I swear to God I felt like it was a message from him and so I was looking for I think I was looking for ribbon for a friend's party that I was going to, I was looking for ribbon for a gift and I open up his desk draw that I've been through so many times, just with this accumulation of his stuff, and there on the bottom I found and I just started laughing I found his fart machine. Oh, my gosh laughing. I found his fart machine, which he thought was hysterical, and he brought it to school. He got in trouble for it and it just it made me laugh and cry at the same time.
Speaker 1:
And.
Speaker 2:
I thought, oh my God, April and this is just last Tuesday and I was thinking, oh my God, April 1st is on Monday. I'm going to have to bring that to the office.
Speaker 1:
Yes, maybe make it a whole week or month of you carrying it around.
Speaker 2:
Yes, Because that's just, he was just funny and I mean again, that's kind he was. He was just funny and you know I mean again his little logical humor.
Speaker 1:
But he, he was just a funny, funny kid, oh like the, the text messages that you share online between y'all, and you know his facial expressions. The silly, just ridiculous. You know pictures he would send you just so alive. Just hilarious.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, the um, the pictures from this week 11 years ago were popping up and um, like there's this one picture I posted. I had texted Jamie. I kept saying call us, call us. You know he was having fun and he'd send one word answers. You know, like of fact it came up this morning a post where I had texted him and I was like, do you feel guilty? Your mother's at home slaving over tax returns, you're in paradise, something like that. So he responds, not with any words, but with this picture. So he responds not with any words, but with this picture, and it's him with all these palm trees and he's kind of got this smirk on his face like, yeah, I feel real guilty.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, real guilty, hey Mom. Yeah, here's my guilt, nope yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:
I love it.
Speaker 1:
Well, thank you so much for really guiding us and sharing your journey and just always so honest. I know we look to you for just how walk through this, this life, and I can't thank you and Christy enough for that.
Speaker 2:
So oh, michelle, well, you do a. You do a great job of honoring Carter yourself. I mean, it's it's really difficult and I thank you and Amy for doing these podcasts and hopefully helping a lot of people out there, you know.
Speaker 1:
I know it's amazing. We just can't even believe. We pulled up our numbers this week and now we're in 27 countries. Wow, I know. So, hello from all over the world.
Speaker 2:
Hola, oh, what's some other I?
Speaker 1:
know we need a whole less Bonjour.
Speaker 2:
Do we need subtitles for some of our?
Speaker 1:
I know.
Speaker 2:
Wow.
Speaker 1:
It's absolutely amazing and we're so thankful that this is helping in some way.
Speaker 2:
Yes. And to all your women who are in this horrible club out there. You know, please just keep on keeping on and and uh, you know yeah, just tell your story and always your child will always be with you. I mean it's. I wish you the best in navigating this horrible path and living your life who Jamie was of.
Speaker 1:
you know Jamie would want you to laugh and be silly and and all of these things and you think about you know, you tell us that you know if, if, if he can see this world that you're living, you want him to be proud and not to be like, oh my gosh, mom, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, get out of bed.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly, come on. You used to make me get out. You know, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:
Come on, you used to make me get out. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I played a tennis match on Thursday. And there's another warrior mom who has not made it to our meeting yet and she's a friend of mine on Facebook. I never met her in person until Thursday. She recognized me and it was her first time in three years getting out and playing tennis. Oh wow. And I told her. I said your son would be so proud of you getting out there and trying and living life getting out there and trying and living life.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and it's that balance of honoring your grief, right Of giving yourself grace and, like you said, finding the space to scream in the forest but then also digging in. It's both of those things, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you for carving that path for us and joining us today. Well, thank you, michelle, and keep on keeping on. Thank you.