Warrior Moms Retreat Q & A : S2Ep2

Fifty moms stepped into a Georgia barn and turned a hard weekend into a living map for anyone walking through child loss. We opened the floor for questions and went straight to the heart: how do you start a local grief group when it’s just you and one friend, how do you keep it going nine years later, and what do you do when the room is a mix of newly bereaved, step-parents, and moms farther down the road? We shared the simple moves that make a group work—consistent dates, low-friction spaces, private social posts, and the courage to begin small—and the deeper habits that protect the culture: honesty, listening, and gentleness.

Our conversation dug into the story behind our book: why we wrote it from real mom voices, how messy drafts became clear chapters, and how love for our children pulled us through endless edits and publisher hoops. We explored what’s next—possible sibling and warrior dad projects—and how transcripts and short interviews can help hesitant writers find their words. When dads came up, we talked about shoulder-to-shoulder ways men connect—on a boat, at a game, or over quiet work—and how small groups and brief, steady touchpoints often fit how fathers process grief.

Listeners asked about warmth after the fog, rebuilding joy at home, and parenting a rainbow baby while honoring the child who died. The answers were lived-in: a playlist that fills a kitchen with memory, permission to be “stone” during awkward hugs (LOL), grace as a daily practice, and the holding gratitude and sorrow together. 

We also named the engine behind the retreat’s hospitality and for our own grief: ask for help. People want to cook, set tables, and open doors when we give them a way to show love.

If you or someone you love needs a map for the early days—or a way to lead in your community—this conversation offers steps you can use tomorrow, and stories that will keep you company while you try. Subscribe, share this with a friend who shows up for others, and leave a review to help more moms find their way to us.

NOTE: apologies for the quiet parts. I didn't want to delete the questions even when some of them are hard to hear because the answers are important. Thanks for the grace!

"Dream Bird" by Jonny Easton

Chapters

• 0:15 Welcome From The Retreat
• 0:34 Why We Gather In Georgia
• 1:04 Q&A With Veteran Warrior Moms
• 2:45 How To Start A Local Group
• 3:45 Lessons From Nine Years Of Meetings
• 7:03 Grief Has No Zip Code
• 8:27 From Seven Moms To A Movement
• 9:57 Did We Ever Imagine This?
• 12:30 Writing The Warrior Moms Book
• 14:46 Will There Be More Books?
• 16:47 Warrior Dads, Siblings, And Couples
• 18:33 How Men Grieve Differently
• 20:19 Supportive Partners And Faith
• 22:39 Finding Community Support
• 25:00 Reaching New Moms With Care
• 27:18 The Fog, Hugs, And Grace
• 30:31 Finding Joy At Home Again
• 32:53 Rainbow Babies: Holding Both
• 34:13 Closing Thanks And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:08

Hi, welcome back to Warrior Moms. It's been a minute. A thousand minutes. We have not talked to y'all online since May. We've had a lot of stuff going on in our life. We have been very busy planning our first ever Warrior Moms retreat. And when we are right now actually in Eton, Georgia at Marcat Farms with about 50 new moms that are warriors now. Incredible. Our hearts are filled. We have new friends. We have together. We're going to keep going. We've laughed together. Yes. We danced together last night. Incredible. So what are we doing here today? Well, we are going to have a lot of questions and answer session with our lawyer moms. We have some of our original, what I call our original warrior moms that are that were the table leaders at the retreat for all of the new moms. And we're going to ask questions. We're going to have them ask us questions. So who asked the first question? Thank you so much. Debbie Stevens. Debbie Stevens. I don't agree with this long, but um if we wanted to start something like this or similar in our area, demographic on, would you all help us gather the names? I'm going to answer just the first part and then our founders are going to answer that one. So just say Thank you. But just to please, we when you all get your feedback form from us and so forth, there will be a form for you to fill out if you would like our help in um starting up a lawyer mom's group. We have our two founders, we have Christy and Christine. So Christy Howard, Christine McHenry. And we would love to do a Zoom meeting with you so that we can talk through how do you do it? Where do you put the information? What's it feel like? All of those things. I'm going to turn it over to them because they're the ones to start it. Yep. So thanks for the question. And we would love for some of you to start things in your in your region. We're in the we typically meet in the Alpharetta-ish area. So if anyone here wants to start coming to ours, we typically meet the third Thursday of the month. We can connect to you on Facebook. We have a Facebook group and I post the event every month to let you know where it is. But to answer your question, the best is a Zoom. We've learned that we've been doing it for about nine years now, Christine. So we've learned a lot over the years. So I would encourage you to take some of that knowledge from us about what works, what doesn't, some tough situations we've encountered that you have to manage Ruth. There's a lot. So we we would love for you to sign up for a Zoom call and to be able to connect with you that way. Well, and you know, the biggest thing is that grief does not grief does not discriminate geographically. I mean, there's you know, anywhere you go, anywhere you live, if you reach out in your community, you're gonna find somebody who knows somebody who has lost a child. So it's just, you know, reaching out of your comfort zone to contact those people and get together. And then from there, it just kind of grows, you know, word about social media, post about it, reach out to even if you go to some of the local compassionate friends meetings, you know, kind of get contacts from there and then reach out separately. That's what I think helps us. I just want to add thing, and just remember we're two or more gathered, so it can start small, even if it's just a couple of few get together, and God will take care of it. People come to us from from always states and form once once it's out there, they will come. And y'all started with how many moms that very first meeting in a restaurant. There's probably eight of us maybe that first night. About seven of us the first night, and just barely from social media from this Facebook poster here that that people started reaching out to to us and to others that were there. And then we decided to set a certain a I think it helps have a consistent date where people know we're meeting the third Thursday of the month so they can they can plan on that. Now we meet at a home, but you could start at a restaurant or at a coffee shop or church. Yep. So we have nine years. All right. Next question. Last question.

SPEAKER_00: 5:33

Did you envision that this would become such an important tool for moms that really, really need my thoughts?

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

Yeah, so how could you have ever imagined that this would be such they'll always give me the no pressure of situations here? Um I obviously wasn't there when they started it from the beginning, but I have been there for almost six years with them now. And I had no idea showing up at somebody's house would turn into this, um, to having people from different states here, to hoping to be able to do things in other states to help people. Um and I'll be honest, I just had no idea that the sadness of the griefs that I would go through would turn into somebody else's survival guide to be able to help others and hopefully to be able to uh give hope to somebody who is new in their situation, or even to give hope to somebody who is further into their grief than mine, but sees like somebody newer that's able to smile and try to find joy and try to to do things to help others and you know just to be able to help one person is is a blessing to be able to help more is beyond that. So no, I never thought that this is what we would do. That's perfect. Next question. Oh, come on, girl. You got a second part?

SPEAKER_00: 7:13

All right, okay, so you started the break and then you broke this magnificent.

SPEAKER_01: 7:29

The sound went out on the mic. Can you hear me now? She said, Who who wants to take that one? Will you repeating it again just so we can't?

SPEAKER_00: 7:41

Okay, one more time. Here we go. So you girls wrote this magnificent book.

SPEAKER_01: 7:47

Um answered so many things from me personally. Um but what what was the fear in doing that? What was your challenges? Tell us about that and what part of your fate play in this? Jenny? Up to your up to your mouth up here. So I'll have to call that one. Okay, so when this started, someone meant it may have been Christine, said, Let's write a book.

unknown: 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:27

So we're like, okay, well, hey, let's write a book. Um, we found that a lot of the books were not based on mom's experiences. So we wanted to tell like the down dirty of you what it's really like to hopefully have other moms get that it's not the package of brief is page one, two, three, four, five. So we wanted everyone to get there. So we started on writing chapters, um, and we started very basic. They were very little short uh chapters. And then as we grew 20th year, we started off with 23 moms, and it's 14 that were able to, you know, get through it. It's a hard, it was hard, so hard. Because going through editing, numerous, numerous edits, um, reading, rewrites, Rayann. We had retreats writing at Christine's house when we had them at um Ray Ann's house. We just wrote and wrote and wrote. So it was hard. It was blood, sweat, maybe not blood, sweat and tears. Yeah, some of us probably fell down and maybe request some blood. I don't know. But uh probably me, if I had to guess. And Michelle has a master's in creative writing and is our guide then. She is the one that led us through it, got us through it, went through the um process of how it should be, you know, organized in the chapter, so it's easier to read, I think, um, because you know what you're expecting. And then we went through the process of having divided publishers. So you have to go out and you have to do exactly what each publisher does not want the same information. So we have to do that. But I just think it's it was the love for our children, is what did it. And I put the models. I was terrified. You know, like, oh my gosh, what can I tell somebody? What can I actually do to help somebody? And hopefully I didn't.

SPEAKER_02: 10:28

Okay, I'm Rebecca and my daughter was inboard. And my question, piggybacking off of the book, is is there a two? Is there a second one? Because what about not just um new moms coming in? Because I'm not necessarily a new mom, we did the podcast together, but any moms coming in. What about what we have to offer for our story as well? Can we do it too? Can we do it three? Can we can we continue this journey?

SPEAKER_01: 10:57

I'm bringing this microphone straight over to this show to the spirit of the organization and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think we need to give her a breath, give her a beat for sure. But yes, I will have to say I actually don't need a beat. I am kind of the energizer for you can just. But you know, my husband always wonders, you know, are the other men doing uh how are the marriages doing, you know, because men tend to agree different than witness. Um so so my husband did write a book. I called the Dreamer's Guide to Life. Uh it's a that was a long time to get it from there. And it's kind of his perspective um when we lost our daughter. So what began like a quiet time, musing, meeting with people, he wrote down what he was healing, asking the questions to God, you know, how could he got help? And um it just became a book, a little book. So um it's available to you through Amazon. I'm sorry. Bana, this is not about us, this is about God's work through us and all of us, husbands, everybody. So please plug away. And one one other yes, no, that's what I was gonna say. And when we send out the feedback form, we will send out table names and contact information, book information, all of the all of the good stuff. And one of the things that we did in the podcast is we um did a sibling series, so a lot of the siblings have asked, please, please, can we have a book? Our publishers have asked, is there a warrior dad that's coming out? Um that's an interview with um Jeff Durham. He um was on our podcast. It I mean, Amy and I learned so much just from that. If a man writes a chapter, it'll be short. Well, and what's what's amazing is the um the podcast tool that we use creates a transcript. And that was um a couple of us um you know created our first format of the chapter from the transcript. So um even if the dads don't necessarily write it, we will ask the questions and we'll have the transcript and you go from there, and that could be how we help y'all as well. So we'll see. All right, next question.

SPEAKER_02: 14:10

Okay, here and I'm taking back in again. That's neat.

SPEAKER_01: 14:13

Because it sparked an idea. What about a warrior dad's retreat?

SPEAKER_02: 14:20

How do we support how do we support a warrior dad?

SPEAKER_01: 14:27

What yeah. What we have found is that men do, as we all know, men do grieve differently than women. So it is one of those things, Mr. Mike. No, I mean, it is not a bad idea, but we've even heard about warrior dad groups or couples groups or something like that. And I know that, I mean, a lot of us and our husbands, they just I don't know how you are with your husbands, they just grieve differently. And I know that there's been opportunities that we've done that we've tried to create that. That does not mean that there's other men out there that wouldn't do it, but I know that I'm talking about about my husband, he's in the room. So, but it's just they might do small groups and stuff like that, but they just we learned that they just kind of grieve differently. I was gonna ask with me being divorced from the person I caused my grief. Oh, excuse me. Somebody who wasn't there but has been with us and loves us. Emily, do you want to take this one? And then we can give it to Robin, too. So my husband did not know my son there, and we were just been married for five years, and my son died 12 years, 13 years ago. Um, but he just surrounds me with love and supports me, and he didn't know him, but when I cry, he helps me. Um, when I want to talk about him, he listens. And Susan, that's amazing. And I'm very, very lucky. Um, Bart is basically the very same way. Um, but one of the favorite things that Bart tells me, and um, that Bart posts on Facebook when he talks about them is he usually ends with, I can't wait to meet y'all in heaven someday. Right, next question. More of a statement. I'm Cindy Lockhart, and my son was Adam. He died at the hands of a drug dealer when he was 42. So six years ago, um, we lost him, and he left behind young adult children. And one of the things that my husband does, it's not a big group of man, but he's a fish guy up here at like a punk. And when he hears of other men in the area who have lost children or why anybody, not just wise, but are going through something. He invites him out to fish. And he said there is more ministry that goes on in this boat than fishing. Although they do come back with a bunch of pitch. So there's other things that I mean, things that we can do. Um, and you know, um it might be that you know, your husband or someone grabs another gun says, Hey, let's go to the football game. Hey, let's do this, hey, let's do that. They are more that well one or something. Yeah, they are definitely like that. Right. Yeah. So he does a lot of that that kind of thing. I'm not doing his born, I'm gonna say that's how he's found. And it's down that's helped him a lot too. You know, we'll come back with things that you know that he's going to someone else. So there are other things that we do. They will not give me a bit reflected that much. Well, and one of the audience, new warrior moms, just pointed, um, we are currently in, um, like Amy said, at Briar Patch Farms, and we're inside of a barn, and up to the left of the panel of Warrior Moms is a boat that hangs from the ceiling with scripture on it that's Matthew 4.14 and says, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. So what a cool connection as you were speaking. Thanks for sharing that. Okay, next question. Somebody has Lily Gilmore. Hello? How I've had such an amazing time. I've been I have such an amazing time. How do I get to I would like to be one of these women to help uh at your next event? Okay, can you hear me? My name is Lisa, and I lost my son, Keaton, in 2020. And uh I joined this wonderful group, this wonderful group of ladies, and went to several of their meetings, and then I think it was a God thing. He just spoke to me and he's like, you know, you you belong with these women, but there's also other women in your community that you know that you can reach out to, also. So I went to Amy and Michelle and Christine and all these ladies, and I said, you know, how do you guys feel about this? I would like to start a Warrior Mom's group in Deloniga. And they were so supportive, uh, you know, and so I I made it my New Year's resolution that I would start the January 1st, yeah, three years ago. And now I have had to take some breaks while we were working on the book and some time off, but the women understand. Um, I stood at my front door and cried when 16 moms came. And uh just the first meeting, and I only had a two-bedroom, one-bath cabin at the time to meet in, so I've had it expand. But yes, uh, they're still coming and they're bringing friends and other moms, and sometimes we meet in a restaurant. Um, but I mean, I think it's just a God thing that He gave me. He planted that seed that I got from these women to take it back to my hometown and you know serve others, and that's what I think how this can grow and it can go into that direction because I still love to get together with these women every chance I get, but I'm also helping other moms. And yeah, so we'll have more information on all of that later, too. I think that hi.

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

Um, my name is Liz Coins, and uh I want to thank all of you. I'm I'm a good stepmom. Um, so thank you for including me um this weekend.

SPEAKER_01: 21:18

My group leaders are Corby and Laura, and I absolutely adore them and love them so much. Um they started a group, my stepson passed away a year ago. He he's like a son to me. I have two boys of my own. I'm using them. Was like it's I it's horrible. Um, and I thank you for allowing me to be here and including me. I thank you for starting the group. Um I wanted to say that they opened it up to husbands and wives to go. And my husband, it he went the first time, it it was good, but it was like, you know, if where there are more women than there are men, then he felt like, you know, so he he didn't go back, and then if I went back, he felt that it was okay, so you see the dynamic very quickly. Um when this retreat came about, I signed up because I thought, well, then that'll take the you know, we're just so no, this is just ladies only. Um, I'd like to say when that happened, um, yo, my husband is getting on an airplane right now, heading to LSU. He bought a plane ticket there just on faith, and he um reached out to the Singhakai chapter guys, and they're gonna have him speak tomorrow night. And y'all, he wouldn't have done that. He just it this is because of you guys doing what you're doing, it inspired other people. And I, because I came with this, he was like, I he said, even if I go there just to be, and so I want to thank you for that. Um, and I want to circle back, Jenny, something that you had said about the stages of grief. And I uh one of the books I read was a guy named Um, I can't remember the name of it right now, but I I remember this part. Um, Neil, he was a brain surgeon, and he when he looked up on when the stages of grief were created, it was from a study that a woman did based upon, yes, based upon like a specific group of like cancer patients who were told they've got this amount of time left. And she wrote, based on that, and then all these things came from that afterwards, and it was like, Where this isn't okay. So I just wanted to say thank you because of that with the um getting to what my question or my statement is this. We are in a uh a barn, we are out on a farm, we are with people who are absolutely incredible. People have made food food for us for breakfast, lunch, dinner, they have served tables, they have done so much. How do you find the community support to do? I mean, this is absolutely incredible, and there's so much love. So thank you for letting me even be here. And and how do you find the the support? I'm gonna say one word. Thank you, Jesus, God, our father above us, he loves us, he loves people, and he creates community for us if we're just open to it. And just ask. Yeah, it's asking for what you need. And you know what? I keep going back to Amy and Mike in this whole barn. Mike says, Jesus, use it as it is, use me. Our intentions here are good, ladies. Mike's intentions are good, Amy's intentions are good. Our intentions are good, and we just want we're sad, y'all. We're sad, but we're happy. We're happy we have each other, and we're thankful we have each other, and just opening up, just opening yourself up and telling your story, and I think that's what the whole weekend's been about. And I'm supposed to let them answer. Four questions. So four questions left because we have Allison and we have Pam, Rayanne, and Courtney. Somebody who hasn't okay. I was just curious, what what do you find is the best way to reach out to other women who have shared a loss that maybe you don't know them directly, like know of them or know them to a friend. Um, I'm reading. My um son died in 2017. He was hazed to death joining a fraternity um in college. Um, we miss them all the time. But um I think the biggest thing, honestly, through social media, I mean, I met Christine no, Christine, right after. Um, kind of accidentally, it was our community had connected me with her just through you know messaging on um Facebook. And that's how we kind of started. And then I also in our community landed up meeting other moms. And a lot of times it was just through texting. I found that, and I think that's a big one, is reaching out to moms that you find out something's happened to their son or daughter. And I say, like, you don't need to call me, and I won't call you, but if you want to text with me or message me, I'm here at any time. And I find that's easier. It was easier for me. Um, it's almost like you're getting a lot of your feelings out and you're talking anonymously a little bit, but at the same time, they're understanding what you're going through. And so I just in our community have landed up meeting so many more people. And I just think social media is a big thing. People will reach out to me. Um, our Linda was in our group. Um, uh somebody, a mutual friend had reached out to me when her daughter died, and I just reached out to her. He's like, please, will you connect with her? Can you find out about this warrior mom's group or give her the information? So a lot of it's just through that, and then reaching out, giving your information and like please reach back out to me, and I'm here for you at any time, kind of thing.

unknown: 27:51

I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_01: 27:53

Three more questions now. Who's got one more? Listen, I was told when I was a kid I should have been a news reporter because I could or an interviewer because I could ask all the questions.

SPEAKER_02: 28:09

Um sorry, not sorry. So um again, I lost my Emily um over a year into this process and coming out of the fog. Everybody knows about the fog. You get that first year of good fog, and then you come out of it, and then you snap out of it, everything is crushing.

SPEAKER_01: 28:28

It's crutching.

SPEAKER_02: 28:30

So I was like Olaf. I loved warm hugs, I felt warm hugs. Um, and after Italy, um, I cannot feel those. And and I I know you know how I feel about that. Like you cannot feel those you want, but you don't want. Like you want to touch people, you want to to give them comfort, but more more than anything, they want to give you comfort, right? And they come up and they hug you, and you're just kind of like a stone. So that place where your heart connects with people. Um, and I I'm gonna be using very hotter reference, the muggles, the the the people that haven't experienced grief, those people that don't understand that, um, that want to comfort you and you want to help them.

SPEAKER_01: 29:18

How do you get back into that warmth feeling? Because I can I can feel that warmth feeling here, but we can relate. I can look at you and I see your pain, you can see my pain. We can talk like we've got it, like you know it. But those other people, it's awkward and they they're they're sorry and so many sorries. So, how do you get back to where you're you're feeling like you're connected with the people who don't have grief? Wonderful. Um, yeah, I'm Allison and um we lost Alex in 2019. Um, and I am a hugger. Um my biggest thing is just I will end our text with type hug. Um I think the biggest thing is that you have to give yourself grace. That's my that's my word is grace. Because grief uh is like a snowflake. No grief is the same. So just give yourself grace. It's just as simple as that. But one day it comes, but you have to allow yourself to get there.

unknown: 30:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 30:40

I like I personally feel like there's a big divide between my friends who get it, like we do, and the ones that don't. And they I mean for them, it's fortunate that they don't. They never will until God forbid they join our group. So you just kind of have to, they they mean well, they're they're well-wishing, but if they're you know, some of their placated responses and oh, how you doing? You oh you I'm not good, but you know. Hey ladies, come on, back there, back here. Okay, so uh I've been to warrior mom several times, and um the one thing that uh I enjoy so much is when I come out, I'm always smiling, I'm always laughing. Um I don't do that at home. So I wonder, number one, are y'all able to do that at home, the the joy that you guys have when we're together? And how how did you get to that? What what helped you to get to that? Pam, I'm coming for you, babe. Love you, ma'am. Oh yeah. My son was Trevor. He died three years ago. We created a spawn time, and all of his friends added, oh, Trevor's favorite songs. So 24 hours of Trevor's music. So I just crank it up at home when I'm cleaning, cooking, working out the gym, I listen to Trevor music all day. So that's what I'm right. Last one is for Courtney. You got a good one for her. Hi, my name is Melissa. I lost my daughter, Michaela, in 2024. Um she was sitting in the passenger seat on I-75. Um, I'm just curious for Courtney, what it's like having a rainbow baby. Does it help to heal your heart or does it also help amplify the greed?

SPEAKER_03: 33:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 33:17

She was at Orange Table, so um Miller is my angel baby, passed away when he was two in 2021. Um, 2023, we were blessed with our Earthside baby Brewer. And to answer your question, it's a daily struggle because it's Brewer did Brewer knows Miller in heaven. We talk about Miller all the time. We also try to balance that. Um, Brewer is the best thing that's happened to me since. Um he's sassy, he's the same as Miller, then he's different. So it ebbs and it flows, and I I'm so grateful to have him. So very good question, but yeah. All right, wow, that was really incredible. We could keep going, couldn't we? There's just so much wealth and knowledge and heart and love on this stage. Um, and I know they if if we could sit here all day, they would pour right into you, trying to gift the hard days, the terrible days, all of that. Um, but before we um finish up, the first two questions we'll get to say your names and your child's name, your angels. Almost within uh accident. Thank you. Hi, my name is Debbie Poche, and my child uh is Brett Pochet.

SPEAKER_00: 34:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 34:51

Well, ladies, thank you for joining us on our warrior moms podcast. Let's give a round of applause to our warrior moments. My partner in front of the last year. I can't do this without anyone. Oh, okay. Um, well, thank you for joining us um on our warrior moms podcast. And you can find us at www.voyearmoms.me. You can get our new book on Amazon. Um, and hopefully it sounds like we might want to have more retreats. So um stay tuned online for that. So thank you again for joining us. We have loved today.