Okay. And welcome back to the Meekaluv Podcast. If you are new here, welcome. And if you're an old listener, welcome back. Today we have a really special guest. In fact, my first guest on the podcast, we have Danielle. And the fun story is, is Danielle actually reached out through the budget mom. and when I looked up her TEDx talk, it resonated with me right away because it's part of my story as well since last April, when I lost. my mom very suddenly. And so when I saw that this was a topic she was also familiar with, of course I had to have her on the podcast. As much as I don't, I wish this wasn't part of my story. I feel like it happens to more people than we expect or maybe have in our lives. You know, we never, I feel like when we're younger, we never really think about our parents not being there. because we're kind of, we feel like for me, I felt like I was invisible. Like nothing like that could happen to me. And then it did in a very unexpected way. So Danielle, share a little bit about your story on how you also came about this topic. Yeah. So similarly, you know, I never thought my parents weren't going to be around. You know, it's, so I lost my mom in March of 2016. You know, one day I was on the phone with her talking about work stuff. And the next day I found out she was in the hospital. She had collapsed and she had been sick and I'd called her to see how she was doing. And my dad was like, she's in the hospital. She ended up having the flu. that turned into like a pneumonia. They had to put her into a coma for about a week and she wasn't able to come out of it. And honestly, years later, it really reminded me of how COVID patients were when they were going into the hospital and a lot of respiratory things. And it was just out of this world. Within six days, I was talking to her and she was gone. I... Honestly, my world was upside down. It was my dad and I have a younger sister who's four years younger than me. And I felt like I was trying to hold everything together. And I really wasn't helping myself out very much during that time. So a couple of months later, you know, I was trying to get through and then my dad's dad passed away and he was really a central rock of our family. And so I had given the eulogy at my mom's. funeral. And then I was asked to give the eulogy at my grandfather's funeral three months later, because I'm the oldest of 12 grandkids. So I have seen a lot of family things. And then just over a year later, I was at a wedding down in North Carolina, and I'm based in Boston. And I got a phone call from my dad's police station. He was an active police officer at the time, saying that he was in a motorcycle accident, that I needed to fly home right away. no one would really tell me what happened. I was kind of stuck in an airport waiting to get home. I was escorted by police to get up to the hospital. and I knew on my way home, like this, it's happening all over again, because it was just being taken so seriously. and then he ended up, passing due to his injuries about a day later. So within 18 months, lost both my parents, both so quickly. The added stress of my dad's was that he was very well known in the community where he was a police officer. Over a thousand people came to the wake. It was broadcast all over in the news. So the eulogy I gave for his funeral was there was a camera in the church. And their media was like calling me and following my sister and I. So we had a police detail. So it was, I could not control a thing and I couldn't help myself. because all I was doing was managing everyone else. So it was 18 months of a whole lot. And about, yeah. Yeah, and we're a pretty close knit family. Like I said, 12 grandkids, we're all within 15 years of each other. So we're all really close. That was really hard. Yeah, and a couple of years later, I was able to... My undergrad institution in Massachusetts was starting a TEDx event. And I'm like, you know, out of all the things I've done in my career or things that I've done, you know, that I'm really passionate about, I'm like, this is something that is so unique, but also so universal that I could tailor something to be helpful and channel all the grief into something good. So I was able to do a TED talk a couple of years ago and, I've really enjoyed sharing everything. Yeah. Daniel, what is your background? What do you currently do for your job? Yeah, so I work in student affairs at a college in Boston. So I focus on student conduct behavior. So a lot of, there's a lot of emotion behind that too, a lot of mistakes and challenges and everything. And so I work at a pretty big school doing that. But my background is in psychology and I have a counseling based masters and I'm actually doing my doctorate right now. in education focusing on how people manage conflict with one another. So it's all kind of connected. Yeah, yeah. Very, yeah, it's been fascinating to review. So obviously, I mean, the inspiration behind your TEDx talk, it's called cleaning up the grief process and the death of your mom. And then your dad's so closely behind the death of your mom. That was the inspiration behind that talk. Okay. And what led you to focus on? this concept of cleaning up the grief process and why is that important? Yeah, I honestly, I consider this like a message from above from my mom. She was always so good with words and puzzles and relating things. And I'm a big reader. I love to write. I love to dialogue. And I was driving home from work one day and this was back in late 2020. So still like pandemic time. So I was going back and forth and I'm like, I want to focus on it. Like I want something and what... One of the parts of doing a TEDx talk is you get to take TED classes. So there's actually like a seminar series of like, here's how you develop your talk. So the cadence and the storytelling and one of the things that was talked about was utilizing some sort of acronym. And I was like, okay, I really think I can latch onto that. I really think that's something that's just a good way to... memorize things. So I was like, all right, what are those some of the things I'm thinking about? And I had thought of the first couple words, like, we need to talk about it. We need to communicate. We need to have empathy. And as I was driving, I just had this, this vision of someone holding a dustpan while you're sweeping. And I'm like, that's it. Like, you know, someone is helping you through this. And I think that having that be there, it, Honestly, the secondary thing was, you know, the moment and I realized my cat just woke up. I apologize. I'm going to kick him out. My goodness. So I was thinking that I really, I really had this feeling of. when you're in the shower and you're just washing everything away and the calmness that comes from that. And I'm like, how do you get that? And my biggest thing was like, you need help doing it. which is why my, my talk is yes, it's focused on grief and that's a very personal thing, but really like what, what is the outside looking in? How can the people that are in your life going through grief, how can you help them? So the dust pan and cleaning was really, the visual that I could lock into that I felt like would be the most universal to how people kind of latch onto the story. true because I feel like when my mom died and everyone in my life knew that me and my mom were really, really, really close. We had a bond that I felt was very unique between mom and daughter. We were more like best friends. I talked to her multiple times a day. She was my rock and she was kind of like my therapy session too because I call her every night and I felt like she was the only one in the world that I could vent to. and say the things that I did. Like I felt comfortable enough to trust that she would never judge me and that she wouldn't, you know, and so she was my counselor. I went to her at night and just kind of vented and got all this stuff off my chest. I didn't realize that though, until after she was gone. I remember telling my husband out of everything, I miss our nightly conversations because having that outlet in my life and it no longer being there. I can definitely tell it's changed me. And I feel like because everyone knew in my life how close me and my mom were, no one knew what to say to me. Like my pain was so deep and it showed that I was like struggling that, I mean there are days where like I didn't even care what people saw. I would scream at the top of my lungs because I felt like the pain was so deep I didn't know how else to deal with it. And I still have those episodes in my life. But of course, everyone around me is like, well, like, how do you even begin or even what to say to someone when they are like that? Right. I mean, I had so I was blessed. I had so many wonderful people in my life that, you know, brought us dinners and, you know, were there for me to talk if I need someone to talk to. But I felt like in that moment, there was nothing that could help me besides having my mom back. Yeah. I felt. And side note, a little craziness to my story is I felt like, and I felt like this in the beginning when I met my husband, we met for a reason. I instantly fell in love with my husband the moment, and I'm not just saying that to be cheesy, the moment he walked out, like through the gym doors, I fell off the treadmill. Literally flat on my face. Like that's how struck and bad, like I was just like, It was like this beam of light over his head. I'm like, this is the guy for me. Like this is who God put in my life. Instant love for the man. And I found out later that his dad died in the same hospital in a very similar way with the exact same autopsy results as my mom. And I knew in that moment God gave me Christopher because he knew that. he would be the only one that could truly understand what I was going through in that moment. I knew out of everyone in the world in my life, Christopher understood and having him there, especially like right after it happened, meant everything to me. Just having his presence, being around someone that I knew understood how I felt. That helped me the most, I feel like. So in your TED Talk, you discuss, this idea of grief clutter. Could you kind of elaborate on what that means and how it affects individuals who are kind of navigating this grief? Mm -hmm. I think, you know, everything that we do is a piece of clutter and, you know, people talk all the time, if you have way too much going on, you can't be productive, you can't live the life you want to. And I really think that manifests really well in grief as well, where you're dealing with, you know, depending on the situation or who you've lost or even if it's not the grief of a person, you know, losing a job, losing a friendship, you know, moving and having to start over. There's so many things that we're grieving the loss of the life we thought we were going to have. But I think with it, how many things are we trying to hold at once? And how many things are we trying to do alone before we realize, like, I can't do this alone anymore? So I'm thinking, after my mom died, we were going through all the finances and my mom was meticulously organized. And my dad had no idea. Like he, he, was in law enforcement for 30 plus years. He handed her his checks and said, manage our life, like make sure that we can do everything I'm going to provide you keep it organized. So he had no idea. So I'm digging through, you know, records and, and everything. And I was managing that. My younger sister was in her early twenties at that point, cause I was mid twenties. so I'm trying to help her. I'm trying to help the family. Everyone is like, how's your sister and your dad doing? you're fine. I'm not, but I'm not. So I'm trying to help manage everything. And then when my dad died, I'm now the executor of his estate. I have to manage, like, and he didn't have a will because he was in his mid 50s. So he hadn't, you know, finalized things yet. I'm going to court because, you know, his accident was caused by someone. And there's, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't hold everything at once. I can't be, professional Danielle, personal Danielle, buying a house Danielle, selling a house Danielle before the pandemic starts because we sold our family home. All of these things that I'm like, I can't focus on anything. I am not able to be a hundred percent myself in any of these places because I have way too much. And the biggest lesson I learned between my mom dying and my dad dying was that piece of, I can't hold it all. I was holding. everything in after my mom died. I was living alone. I spent a good chunk of my early career living on college campuses, like being a hall director. So I was working where I lived, going, taking the elevator up to my apartment and staying alone. And then just like managing things from there. But I wasn't versus by the time my dad passed, which it was only 18 months, so there's not a ton of time, but I was in therapy. And the biggest thing was I need to talk. Like I just, I need to not stay silent and try to bottle it all up because other people don't know how to react. I'm just going to say it. Like I'm going to say that I'm not having a good day. Actually, similarly to you, my partner lost his mom when he was younger. So he knows, and he's able to really connect with me and my sister because of that. I'll just say like, I'm having a bad dad day, you know, as simple as that. And he's like, all right, I get it. Like, what are we going to do? or is it we do nothing and it's just an acknowledgement that that's where I'm at. So I really, you know, when you're sweeping everything up, it's gotta go somewhere, but someone else is holding that dustpan to continue with that visual. Yeah. Okay. And how do you suggest that people, how do they identify their own grief clutter? Is it just a matter of that recognition of I'm holding too much? Hmm. I think so. I think it's going to look different for everybody. You know, I am very lucky that I have a really strong support system. I just need to start using it. You know, I, but some people don't and I, yeah. that's part of trying to remain like for me, I know I have a sister who's about one year older than me. And unfortunately we don't have a relationship, but we both are extremely close to my mom. And it was one of those things where I had to let my sister, do some of that, like, especially when it came to like her funeral. I lost my mom when I was 29 weeks pregnant. And mentally, I could not literally could not. I had to let my sister step in and do all of that planning because I was not in a mental place that I felt was healthy for my baby one, because I was constantly worried, like, is this affecting the baby is, you know, because Yeah. like I had an OB appointment the day after my mom had passed in the same hospital. I was literally like right across the room that she had passed away in. They had their OB, the OB ward was right across. And you know, my husband's like, you don't have to go. I'm like, no, my mom would not want me to miss this. Like she would not want me to miss my baby appointments. So we went, but I remember going and I remember asking the OB, can the baby feel any of this? And she was like, what do you mean? I'm like, no, I just lost it and I'm bawling. And I'm like, because the pain is so deep. It is so bad. Like I don't understand how the baby couldn't feel this. Like she's like, no, you know, like your baby's fine. We did a full, and we did a full scan and check up that even though it wasn't planned just because I was so worried. And I feel like, Addressing that grief clutter, knowing my mental state, knowing what I could hold on to and knowing what I had to let go. Help me even if it was letting go and and allowing help from someone who's not really in my life. You know that was hard for me as well, but knowing that it needed to be done. Now your TEDx talks it emphasizes the importance of creating space. For grief. What are some practical ways that individuals can create this type of space in their lives? I think there's two sides of that, but how you create space for yourself going through grief and then how you create it for the people in your life that are. So I think in terms of us, you know, going through grief, I think acknowledging it and having those, you can't hide it, right? Like I, mother's day just passed and I'm sure, especially since it was, you know, it's still very, very early for you, but even still it's been eight years for my mom and. My sister and I went to the cemetery because she just had a baby in August and it was her first full Mother's Day. So I wanted to celebrate her while still acknowledging what we don't have. And I'm getting married in just over a month. And with both our moms being gone, my dad being gone, there's a lot of loss. And I'm very nervous that even waterproof mascara won't help me on that day. But. Yeah. You know, it's, I think I switched from being, I was angry for a while that like, how could life, how could, you know, I grew up Catholic, so how could God do this? I was holding onto a lot of it and I needed, I'm like, this is not, this isn't productive. It's not helping me feel better. It's not helping the other people around me know how to help me. if I'm just angry and closed off. And it took me honestly, probably a couple of years after my dad died to really let go of a lot of that anger. And I think just honestly, like the acknowledgement is such a big piece of like, I'm not okay. I am not having a good day. The five stages of grief is not linear. Like I can go back to being upset. And like, no, like there are days where I'm still bargaining of like, like, why can't I have them back? Like, why can't I pick up the phone? Why can't I do these things? And I just, the biggest thing I did was start talking and taking up that space. I am not the person that wants to go into a room and share all my stories and talk all the time and take up a lot of attention. But with this, I'm like, yeah, I'm struggling. Like I, I need you to know that because you're my people. I'm not okay today. And I think the biggest thing that I've gotten in return is sometimes silence is all you need to just sit and be like, can I just come over? After my mom died, a couple of my friends came over. I was asleep on the couch because I just couldn't handle anything. And they brought over, I think it was Gatorade and double -sided tape because I haven't been eating and I needed tape for the picture boards at the wake. And I'm like, cool. like, you're there, like, cool, I'm gonna go back to sleeping now. But it was such a sense of comfort of, you don't need to show up and have these grand gestures. And yes, like meals and things is awesome because you're taking away some of that clutter of I need to cook, I need to clean, I need to do these things. But I think, you know, as long as there's acknowledgement from the people in your life. And they're not trying to make it about them of like, my God, like it's so hard for me to see you this way. Yeah, that doesn't help. Cause that's just making me feel worse that I'm making you feel a certain way. But like, I just need to be with you. I need to feel seen in the way that I am without needing to put on a face because especially in American culture, you get what? Three days of bereavement leave and you're back at it. Like, yep, I was definitely over that after three days. Absolutely not. Like. And I would definitely say I'm still in my anger phase. And that I think part, the grief process, I think that's the thing that surprised me the most because I am not an angry person. That is not my personality. That's not who I am. So having this resentment and anger fill me was... for me very scary because I found myself saying things to myself that I would never say. For instance, I don't know what it was, but when my mom passed, I had so much, I'm just gonna come out and say it, because it's true. I had so much anger and resentment towards my husband's mom, my mom -in -law. And that sounds freaking horrible, and it's not her fault, obviously. But for some reason it was like, why the heck do you get to be here? Like why, why do you get to have play dates with your grandkids and why do you get to make all these memories? I would, I, you know, be walking downtown and I would see a drug addict on the side of the road. I'd be like, why? Like why do you get to be here? And my mom's gone. You know, like I, I, and I still, I still, still am dealing with this. And like I told my husband, like I feel so bad, you know, because it's not your mom's fault. But for a long time, like I didn't even talk to her because I like I don't even want her around me. Like I just want my mom back. My mom. Yes, yes, yes. And so I felt like, you know, my grief process and I know everyone's journey through that is different for me. It was the anger and is the anger even still today. That's really surprised me. But it's also. realizing that grief is not something like you said is linear, that's just something like you go through these stages and then it's done. Like there are times where I'm like giving my son a bath and I'm literally just bawling and I have no idea why. I could have got like a half glance of you know my mom's picture and in the nursery or something would remind me of her or a lot of the times. It's me looking in the mirror. Like, I'll get out of the shower. Like, I just cut off 11 inches off my hair. I have the exact same haircut my mom did. And I just recently took off my lash extensions. And so I look like my mom now more than ever, especially like as I get older. And sometimes I'll just catch like a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And it reminds me so much. I look so much like her. And I always say that's like a blessing and a curse because every day I'm reminded. that she's gone, but every day I'm also reminded that she's in me and that is such a blessing. So it's like, I am still very much like my mom just passed in April, we just hit the one year mark this year. So I'm very much fresh on this grieving journey. And like you said, it's not necessarily having these big elaborate like conversations that are really impactful and powerful where you realize all these. miraculous stuff, you know, sometimes like for me, it's just sitting across from my husband just in silence. And just knowing he's he's there. Yep, the support is there. That's all you need. Yeah. Okay. And how has your perspective on grief on your journey evolved over time? And what have you learned from your own experience or from working with others with who are going through the grieving process? Yeah, I think, like I said, I'm less angry. There are still moments where I get very frustrated, but I think I'm definitely less angry and more in a phase where I just want to celebrate the stories. Honestly, the amount of times my sister and I are cracking up laughing over the random stuff. My dad was like the biggest personality in the room. like was nicknamed officer friendly, would say the weirdest stuff, like listen to Les Mis soundtrack on his Harley, like none of it made sense, but like he was just like this character and my mom was this silent, would roll her eye sarcastic, like look at him go again. And the store, my God, like the random things, the things they would say and it's just hilarious, especially when we start to do them now. And we're like, my God, like my family is a very big Portuguese family. My grandparents were born in the Azores. My dad was born in Canada. So like it's, it has like this old tight knit, like just big celebration. And I, I've wanted to focus on that. I'm still allowing myself. I think that's the biggest thing is like, I don't have to be in one place where when we were at the cemetery, where we're sharing these stories, but then tear up. because we realized that that means that there's no new ones. And that's hard. Figuring out how we want to celebrate, share and have a memorial for our parents at my wedding and then realizing that there's a reason for that. And I think I've tried to have this duality of like, it's okay. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to smile with tears. Yeah. it's, it's okay to allow other people to feel those things. I think I was very protective of my grief at first where like, you don't understand, you don't have a right. you like, don't talk to me. You don't understand what I'm going through. When in reality it was like my aunts and uncles who those were their siblings. Like, of course they understand. I think I've let go of it and opened the door a little bit for us to. to have it be more of a collective experience versus an individual one. And I think that's helped some of the anxiety. I think that the wedding is something that I've been talking about a lot in therapy and with my close family where, you know, my dad has a best friend that he'd had since they were in their twenties and we, I grew up with his kids. And so he's walking me down the aisle and even my uncles were like, yep, that's the only choice. and that's gonna be rough. But in like such a good way, yeah. I feel like the milestones every single time, like you hit milestones, right, and not having them there, that grief is brought back up. You know, like even, you know, I just ran my first 10K and my mom wasn't at the finish line. You know, it's like little things like that where it's like so catastrophic in that moment, you know. My son and my husband were there and that was amazing. And I... I remember I saw this quote that says, and I'm probably not gonna say it word for word, but it said, when you are grieving someone that you love, you're not grieving that they're gone, you're grieving the person you would have been if they were still alive. And I'm like, holy crap, that is so true, because I think about like, I feel like, right, if my mom were still alive today, I would have veered on this path. And with her, gone, I went and veered this path, right? We do that. The people in our lives shape us. They change our lives. And so obviously with her gone, my life changed. So I'm always thinking about like that path that I would have been on if she would have been here. And that extends down to my kids. What life my kids would have had if they would have had her in their lives, you know? And that's something that I feel. is one of the most tragic things about losing a parent is when they have grandchildren. And I, cause my mom, my mom ended up retiring just a couple of weeks before she had passed. And she did that with the sole purpose of being more active and playing a more dominant role in my new baby's life. In fact, we got her social security check two days after she passed her first check. Mm -hmm. So knowing though that that's what her she was intending to do what she was wanting to do and her never reaching that I'm Trying to navigate all this all these milestones all these realizations down the road is so It's so hard Okay, I think my last question is what advice Would you offer to someone who is currently like me? You know eight You know, we have a, your parents passed about eight years ago, mine just a year ago. You know, what is some advice you would offer to someone who's kind of currently navigating this grief process? I'd say don't hide. People, we need to be able to normalize that grief doesn't last as long as your bereavement leave. And just because the world keeps going and our jobs keep going and the school year keeps going doesn't mean that what we're experiencing isn't shaping every single second of our lives. That there isn't a second or a minute or a day that goes by that I'm not thinking about how I felt in that airport terminal. or how I felt in that hospital room. Like there is, I think about it every day. And I think by not hiding it, by sharing, by even like just telling those stories of like the positive things that were like, my God, I said something that was just like how my mom would say it. You know, we're still like, we're keeping them alive. And I think we're relinquishing a little bit of that control where we can't control one, how we're gonna grieve because it's just gonna show up. Like you said, like it's one minute you're fine, the next minute you're crying and you have no idea why and that's, that's fine. Let it pass. my first, this makes sense. My first tattoo, is the words delicious ambiguity. It's the end of a Gilda Radner quote. and the whole thing is about, you know, some poems don't rhyme, like how like life isn't perfect. You can't control it. Just let it be. So there's. like deliciousness in that ambiguity. And I got it because I actually lived in downtown Boston after the, during the marathon bombing. So I lived like a couple streets behind it and I could not control anything that happened, but I just had to rest on like, okay, life is going to give me whatever I need to, to be able to handle it. I can't, I cannot expect myself at this age, at any age to always know what's going to happen next. Right. I have surrounded myself with people and systems, or at least my own wherewithal to get through it today. I am definitely at fault of this, of planning too far ahead and be like, well, what about this? What about this? What about this? And assuming what that answer is, and that's my worst trait, and I get ahead of myself. But I think it's good for today. That's it, you know, and... telling people like, I'm good for today. Maybe not tomorrow, but I'm good for today. So make sure you're, are you still there? You know, and checking in. Yeah. Yeah, that's great advice. I don't have any advice because I'm still going through that, you know, and it's one of the ways that I've dealt with this pain is I stay busy. I mean, if you know me in my personal life, I never stop moving. Never. Because I'm too scared to sit in that pain and I don't know how to sit in that pain yet. I don't know how to sit still in that. because it's so painful, the realization that she's never coming back is something that I can't mentally handle. And I don't know if that's the right way to handle things is by working myself to death and having 1 ,000 hobbies and never sleeping. But for like you said, it's good enough for today. Tomorrow, I tackle a little bit more. And every day, and I... And people always say like the grief doesn't go away, that your life is just enhanced and that grief doesn't no longer touch every aspect of your life because your life hasn't enhanced in a way where it's bigger now. And I try to remember that and I, because right now I feel like it touches every aspect of my life. I feel like the grief is so big that I have nowhere to hide, you know? And I think, yeah, like you said, I think my biggest advice is, learning to say out loud, I'm not okay, and allowing people to be there to help you. So... on its own is its own superpower. You know, whether it's one, being able to say that you need help because that in itself, I think we're all very bad at. But also I feel like as we move forward and as you know, even you become more comfortable and I continue to become more comfortable with what grief looks like and what it looks like for me, I then can relate to someone else. and I then could be that person for someone else and then they then can be that person for someone else. But we can't do that if we don't say anything. We can't do that if we don't ask for the help or if we don't help that other person or even just check in. We're not going to be able to be in a better place where we feel like we don't need to block it out and we can live with it instead of alongside it and trying to keep it on a parallel path because at some point, it's going to catch up to you. Yeah, I think it's, it's put me on a different path for sure, where I feel like I handle things differently. I just think not that my life is better for it, because I definitely miss my parents every day. But I feel like I've learned a lot about myself and how I relate to other people in a way that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. Yeah, very. Like life is short. Like I thought, I mean, I knew I always kind of lived on that line between like, you know, life is short, spend it all and save for retirement. Okay. I was like always on that line. I leaned more toward life is short, spend all your money. But of course, as a finance expert living in that, being in that space, I know I have to save for retirement. But after my mom died, I feel like it's those life experiences, those things that happen, that really, it totally shapes our relationship with money. That is the perfect example, going from this place of, I need a sage for retirement. no, FOMO, FOMO, life is short, spend it all. It's those experiences that kind of drive us one way or the other across the line. So, okay, so Danielle, this is kind of the time I give people. to promote anything, their websites. I don't know if you have anything like that. I will definitely drop a link to your TED Talk in the description in the show notes of the episode. Is there anything else you'd like to share or promote? I would say I'll send you my LinkedIn page. I definitely connect with folks talking about empathy and grief and emotional intelligence and conflict. I also promote that absolutely if folks want me to come in and train or speak, whether it's in the education space or in any sector, K -12, higher ed, et cetera. I would love to come in and talk about it. Down the line. And this is after I'm done with my doctorate program. I, my plan is I want to be able to write a book, to talk about the experiences and, and have that be just to continue the conversation. I want people more than anything to know that the door is open to talk about the things that are hard and whether it's the death of a loved one or just a massive change in their life, you are allowed to be rocked by it and know that at some point the waves are going to settle. and yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. And I know you're going to be an amazing author and your book is going to be freaking awesome. So if you want to get a hold of Danielle and reach out, I'll go ahead and put her information in the show notes. But thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a great conversation.