Guiding Through Grief - A Mother's Journey

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Dinky Smith. Dinky is an author, a grief guide and she's still an active realtor and she has a few other little side jobs she does. She's quite a busy woman and we're really honored to have her join us today to talk about.

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Her experiences going through grief and how it's kind of shaped her life differently than she probably had intended before that fateful day. So welcome to the show, Dinky. It's so great to have you here.

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Thank you, Jill. I'm very excited to be here.

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So do you want to start off with just telling the audience your story cause it's it's pretty much where the whole thing begins.

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Yep.

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It was my birthday, May 14th, 2011, and we had all the kids over here, all the grandkids, and the house was just bustling with laughter and food.

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Food and TV or noise. Anything that you can imagine. And when it was time to go home, everybody was heading out the door except for the residents of the dungeon, which is, you know, my basement. And there were five living down there at the time.

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And three adults and two of my grandkids.

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And my daughter Lily was getting ready to head home, which is north to Denver from Colorado Springs, and her daughter, Dyra, 12 years old. I really wanted her to stay and spend time with her cousins. So she my daughter, Lily.

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Agreed to it and it's like yay. So then I told her I'll bring her home on Monday. No problem. And.

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We did our I love yous and see you later. And I I got to hold her because I would always give her a big hug and sing. You are my sunshine right in her ear. And she said, mom, you're singing, right my ear again. And I said, I know. I just want you to get the message and anyway.

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She headed out the door, left her to her daughter here, and her daughter ran downstairs because it was going to be fun and the laugh. The laughter continued, and my husband and I went to bed.

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And about 4:30 in the morning, the phone rang and I ignored it because I.

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I was sleeping. I enjoy my sleep. It rang again, my husband said.

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Get up and answer the phone. So it was sitting across the room and I got up and it was my brother, he said. Can I talk to Rick? And I said sure, so.

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I didn't have any problem handing the phone over to him. Well, he got up real quick, went outside and he came back.

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In.

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And he said.

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I need you to wake up and pay attention.

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And he said to me, something's happened to Lilly and I said, is she OK? He said no Lily died.

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And it was from that point on that I I didn't know who I was anymore. I started screaming, I started crying. And you know it. I I dropped to my knees.

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Then I I said it can't be Lily. They've got the wrong person. And my husband said no. They've got her ID. It's her. So, anyway, what had happened is a drunk driver went turned the wrong way to an oncoming lane of traffic and started.

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Going down a very long exit and people were calling saying, you know, there's somebody coming down the the exit the wrong way.

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And the last guy said you don't need to, you know, hurry, because this driver has already killed somebody.

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So it was driver headlight to driver headlight and my daughter was killed instantly. It the impact made her her entire organs and.

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Everything else just Jelly and to make a Long story short.

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I I lost a 31 year old adult daughter on my birthday in 2011.

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Her daughter became an orphan because she had already lost her dad when she was 8. Then her mom, when she was 12.

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We went through the next few years trying to figure out how the why I was mad.

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And that's why I called my podcast my business. Everything the F word because I was pretty effed up at that time and I was going through frustration. I lost my.

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My grief turned into a fantasy, which is where I was stuck and I couldn't get out of it. And then my oldest daughter said to me, mom, don't you see me anymore?

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And I didn't.

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I was. I was lost. I was numb.

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And I I didn't know me anymore.

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I just went around angry and the toxicity from my anger spewed out onto everybody and it made them walk on egg shells. They were afraid of me because I was so angry. I was ferocious. I was fiery.

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And there wasn't a single thing that didn't happen to me.

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That I I fell victim to everything I could not manage my own self.

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So after my daughter said that to me, I decided to do some research and I went from having one book which was on real estate. Well, 2/1 was the Bible, one was my real estate book and I now have a full library of.

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Mental health books. Grief books.

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Self improvement, anything you can begin to imagine I have really built up my library. I've read every book and there's stories of people that have, you know, and toured so much and maybe they had a support group. Well, I did have a support group, but I turned them away. They wanted to put.

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Me.

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And you know, in rehab so that I could get help and you know, there was a big fight. Do it, don't do it. But the drugs that I was on caused me to just be in a fiery state all the time. And I I didn't have really good control.

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But after I started coming out of my seven-year grief, I started to see the world again. Because when you're numb.

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You can't smell flowers, you can't taste coffee, you can't hear. I love you.

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You you know, there's just a lot of things you miss out on and I was going through that and it was really a horrific time and I made a lot of bad decisions. I I can tell you.

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If a person doesn't have control over what they're doing.

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They can lose control over everything, and I just about did that, but I was able to see the path of, you know, destruction I had behind me and I started working on it and I had a lot of apologies to make to a lot of people. And I can tell you.

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I'm not.

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I'm not a.

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A bodacious person. I'm not, you know, one of those people that goes well, you know, you had something to do with it, too. That wasn't it.

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I had to become a very humble person.

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And ask them for forgiveness because.

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My grief took over my whole life.

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My support system tried but I fought them.

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And the hardest thing is seeing a 12 year old learn.

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How to handle her grief?

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We went through suicidal attempts cutting just a wide variety of things and.

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You know she.

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Has finally come out on the other side really well. She's now mommy of two little boys and they just about drive her crazy but.

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Good on her. You know, she she wanted. She needed a family. She needed to have a purpose.

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And she has her purpose with her family and my purpose now is to help others understand what it's like to.

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To lose.

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And then how to find?

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Your yourself on the other side because I I have 3 words that I use, it's called own your journey and that's something we forget to do is, you know, when we own our.

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For me.

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That becomes our responsibility. We don't put it on somebody else. We don't blame somebody else. We don't stay the victim and when we're able to actually own our journey, we can find our joy, our joy at the end of that. So you take the letters OWJ.

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Oyj and turn it around and it becomes joy. But before you can have that that joy, there's three stages that I believe we go through. It's the journey.

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Of the grief. And then we have to juxtapose ourselves to be able to understand. We can go from the black and white to the color again.

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And when we make that transition, we can find joy and color because there's only black and white in grease.

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Because you can't really see it until you make that transition. And I I believe that when we can do that.

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Comfortably without, you know, ignoring our pain or hiding it or.

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You know, just trying to make ourselves say, look, what happened to me because I did that. Look what happened to me. Look what happened to me.

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And now it's like what's going on with you?

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And trying to help them know that they don't have to stay there, they can move forward and there's a lot of people that have lost a child that have lost a parent, have lost a part.

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Have lost a grandparent, a pet, a sibling, a best friend, and they're injured for such a long time because they don't know how to to make that transition from the journey to the joy. And I can tell you as as long as I struggled.

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With my transition.

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I understand the pain much better than what I ever thought I could, and now I'm here to help others, and I do that through a podcast, writing a book called Life. After my loss, you know, grief journeys.

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And also my website I'm going to have courses on there. I'm still building, I'm rebranding myself.

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And one of the big things that I want to have are grief retreats. Women, women are the most emotional creatures on the planet because we have this thing called oxytocin. And that makes us much more susceptible to to enduring.

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Long term, Greece.

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So in creating a way for them to be able to come together with other people like myself and themselves, they can experience, you know, loss in a different way. They can find a new home for all of that pain to go to.

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And I believe the grief retreat is an excellent opportunity for people to be able to experience transition transformation. Just being able to feel that love and.

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Not be alone.

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Do you offer?

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The grief retreat for people that are dealing with grief over.

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Over all kinds of losses like you can experience.

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Grief over.

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Things other than like human, other human beings.

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I do offer an opportunity for trauma. It has to be a deep trauma. I'm. I'm not. I don't have a specialty in people that have had job loss or bankruptcy or divorce. Divorce might be an option. I do have experience in that.

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But when it comes right down to it, my specialty is of heartbreak when it comes to understanding death. Because that.

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That is where my greatest pain has been my whole life.

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You know, in losing a child because as parents, you know, we we put everything everything into building good people.

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And when one of my, when one of my two is taken away.

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It it devastated.

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Me.

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And you know, like it would to any parent. But you know the hardest one of the hardest things that I remember most was when my granddaughter was standing there.

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Looking at her mom in the caskets.

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She asked me 3 questions.

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She said Bama. That's that's what I have. My kids, my grandkids call me.

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Emma, what does Mommy smell funny?

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And I answered her question.

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She said BAMMA.

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Why is Mommy cold? And I answered her question.

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And the one that is branded in my brain forever.

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Is vemma. How do we get ashes?

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And even though we had explained this to her before.

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The reality, you know when you're not, when you're not in that position.

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You know, here's a little girl. She wants to know how we get ashes. And I told her. And I said they're going to burn Momma's body.

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And she had nightmares for the longest time after that, and even though we had told her it's still, it still hurt her so bad because you know, that was her mom.

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And I said Momma's no longer with us.

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Yes.

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In her in her physical body. But Mommy will always be forever with us, with the treasured memories that we have. And that's why my book called, you know, Life after my loss of a loved one. No grief journeys is going to be so important because I'm leaving a legacy behind for.

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A child that had lost both parents.

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And it's and it's a legacy for other people to be able to go.

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That is really, really sad, but at the same time.

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I now have a beautiful outlook on life. I can laugh. Now. I can. I can joke. I'm not, as you know, tensed up as what I used to be. I I was able to find inner peace and that's what joy is is inner peace.

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Wow, that's a lot. It is, I.

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I I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to walk in your shoes. I I came close. I have a son and I got that call at 10:00 at night saying he's been in an in a car accident in a truck accident.

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And he was driving back from Wyoming. He was working in Wyoming and then he would come back to Idaho on the weekends. And I was talking to the officer, and I just was waiting for the next words out of his mouth.

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It's scary.

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It's like.

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What's happening?

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And he doesn't remember and has this been a few years ago, he doesn't remember the accident at all.

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But just the the process of going going through that and the and and processing the loss of someone that you're so connected to you just.

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I have five children and I couldn't imagine losing any of them. It's like.

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UM.

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So did you was your, did your marriage survive this?

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Barely.

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I I'm married to a very.

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Patient, patient person. He's put up with a.

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Lot of stuff I've.

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When I was going through my my severe grief time, I was trying to find a place to put roots.

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And because I was so.

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Dysfunctional. I couldn't put a route anywhere. I was just let I was floating and I could not. I could not find.

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Anywhere I was comfortable, I even went and got my life insurance. My I I was actually a full.

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Pledged insurance agent because I wanted to help other people, you know, not have you know, the lack of life insurance because my daughter didn't have any. So we, you know, I went and did that. I've, I've.

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I just put a lot of hats on and before long I was, you know, I was doing everything but then.

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I I stopped because I didn't know where I was going or.

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What I was going to be doing.

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And now I I'm so fully committed to this and my poor husband, he's he's been up with. He has been up with. You're doing what? And I you know, I tell him and he just patiently, you know, deals with you know.

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My financial.

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Well.

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Disposition it's it's hard right now, but you know I I know this is what I'm guided to do.

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And I'm excited about it. I'm a little nervous about it, but I also know I also know.

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That this is what I'm supposed to.

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Do and I'm.

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I'm.

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Fully committed, I just have to have.

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Of.

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You know authors that wanna pop in and help me out and you know people that that would love to go to, grief retreats. I have so many special activities planned for that. I have to be near water. I think water is one of the greatest resources for healing.

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And you know, for me that what I I I'm not a shower person. I'm a bath person. And when I get into a bath it's like I just release everything and.

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I've just learned so much about.

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This person I am today.

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And pretty soon coming up I will be 66 years old and it's like I'm not ready for that number. But last year I spent my birthday, which was on Mother's Day.

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At the cemetery with my granddaughter, that's where my 65th birthday was and.

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You know, I was happy to share that with her, but it was like a really sad. It was sad in so many ways because I.

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I didn't get to celebrate how most.

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People would do.

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But I'm you know.

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I'm. I'm OK with it.

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It's it's part of my life. It's part of my story.

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And if we don't learn, if we don't learn how to.

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Understand our story.

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We just kind of get lost and for me, I've I've learned so much. It's like, wow, what's next? Bring it on. I've been a stepmother and, you know, grieving mother. So there isn't too many things I can't handle, so I'm I'm O, wonderfully happy and.

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Right.

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And I'm no longer mad at God. I was mad at him for a while, but then I realized.

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You know.

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God's actions are up there.

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He gives us time here.

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And whatever other humans do to other humans, it's not me to blame God.

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It's me to understand that he gave us our time here.

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And Lily's time was up, and now she's serving a greater purpose.

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Her memory is going to be living with everyone for a long time, so I'm very honored to have been her mom.

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And I'm very honored to be a stepmother.

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And a wife too.

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A very, very wonderful, wonderful man.

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He just he still takes my breath.

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Away.

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That's amazing. I love hearing stories that are of of triumph like that, that.

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Where your partner doesn't abandon you and.

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And allow you to just flounder out there by yourself, even though you're like.

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No, no, I don't need any help.

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It's nice to have a man who's like, OK, let me know when you do and I'll be standing over here pushing back up when you start leaning over.

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Yep.

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Well, we're emptying it. We're empty nesters now, except for two dogs. And it feels weird to not have other voices in the house.

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But we have solidified our relationship and it's much stronger than what it was before, even even after, you know, I came out of my madness. I'm I'm now able to, you know, love him even deeper than what I did before. Oh, and I.

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And I want to I have one other.

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Thing that I want to share but.

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You need to talk a little bit because I talk a lot.

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It's all about you.

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I appreciate that I'm looking to create a workshop.

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For young people.

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To help them learn how to harness their emotions and when they get older, they're not stifled by tragedies. They're able to understand. And I have a course that I'm working on for that, and I want to be able to help young people.

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Live a better life without.

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You know, facing tragedy and trauma.

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In, you know, in threatening ways to their own well-being. And I think that's really, really important. Then I want to take that and put it online and allow people to be able to understand, you know, just how it is we think because when we're kids.

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We color outside the lines.

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And then when we become adults, we become so structured, we forget just how much fun it was to be a kid.

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But these kids need to know that, you know, you don't have to win every time, but there's a there's always lessons in life, and you still have to be able to go.

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Through that journey.

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To get to the joy.

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And there is joy in the process. It's I I think your ideas are a really good one. I I know that suicide among teens is, like, off the charts these days. I think part of that is that teens not really taught how to process grief.

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Or trauma in their life and everybody experiences trauma. It's not like.

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It's a new thing. It's been going on since the beginning of time. We just that's how we become who we are. It's it's like the Crucible of trauma.

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Right.

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UM, but we're not ever really taught. In fact, we're only just now starting to talk about these sort of things, about trauma and grief. In the old days, back in the early 1900s, when a woman was in the condition you were in, they would lobotomize you, yes.

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And that's where most of those lobotomies happened were for. For grieving women were women that were struggling to to find their place in the world.

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There, at least now we're talking about it.

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I I did a lot of research on ancient ancient treatment for mental health. It is crazy, you know, they considered witches to be.

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You know, unstable for communities and they would do so many things to them. But you know what?

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You know the witches.

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I want to share one point. The women that were called witches were generally women that were independent.

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They they were the pharmacies of most communities and they were the the birthing moms, the midwives.

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Absolutely.

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Yes, midwives, absolutely, yeah.

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They had a tremendous amount of knowledge and they generally were threatening 2 men and that's why they were called witches.

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Right.

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And killed.

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And and it was, it was the potions and the, you know, medicinal treatments that they put.

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Inclusive.

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Sure, from, you know their surrounding areas and they knew what they did. They knew what you know how they could help. And you know when that did become a threat, you know, they were drowned or put to fire or, you know, a wide variety of things. But.

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Comes right down to it.

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You know, how do we handle mental health today? We have kids that, you know, the youngest person that ever actually committed suicide was.

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A six year old.

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She told her parents. I'm going to go kill myself. And she did.

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Did she really know what she was doing? No. And until we're about 10, you know, we don't really know how to handle life. You know, we don't have enough experience, and our brains aren't, you know, mature enough to handle that. And when young people are, you know, in very, very negative.

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Situations it's hard for them to have hope.

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And you know, they feel ostracized at home. How do we expect them to feel, you know, outside of the house? You know, do they do they put a hoodie over their head and then, you know, kind of hide. I did that when I was a kid.

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And I went through some awful experiences, but.

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I have been able to come out on the other side in a more favorable condition, and I'm and I'm very, very happy about that because I, you know, when you're when you're going through Greece time doesn't matter.

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You do things that seem normal when you're out around other people, but then when you're by yourself.

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You just kind of do that flip flop.

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And you're back in your head.

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And when any aged person is going through difficulties.

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And they are stuck in their heads. That's the mental. That's where the mental destruction can happen. And I want to work on that. I want to help people understand. You know, there's there's shy people out there.

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They they don't quite understand their personality type and I think that's very, very important to understand because a lot of people don't know the difference between introversion and extroversion, and if if they can have a whole new light shown on them to go hey.

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I'm an introvert and this is. This is how you know my life looks to other people and this is what I can accept about myself. I'm going to be alright and you know they just need to hang out with the people that fit.

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M.

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And boundaries absolutely. I am big on boundaries.

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I am big on understanding how people can understand, you know, my bubble and your bubble. You know, the only two, the only people that really get Debbie Fied would be, you know, parents when they're holding their their child or their or their or another loved one. But you know, when it comes.

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Right down to it, we just need to understand our our mental wealth.

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A lot better because we can build on that or we can destroy it. We can put it in the red real easy.

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And just being aware of what you're thinking about.

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Sometimes, especially I think when you're in grief or in trauma, you you tend to like, go into your head and let all of the thoughts run rampant in there, and you're creating all of these realities for yourself that don't actually even really exist, right? They exist in your head. And because they exist in your head, they're reality for you.

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And until you can.

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There's a verse in the Bible that says capture your take your thoughts captive.

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Until you take your thoughts captive and you really focus on what you're thinking about and you recognize that, hey, I'm thinking about this, let me make a decision here. Is this serving me or is this causing me to?

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Absolutely.

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Go into a spa.

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You have. Well, I I know that I used to think yoga was hooking and I used to think meditation was hokey. I can tell you both of those are now practices in my life. I I may not do it.

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In their traditional manners, but.

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It is so important for people to, you know, take care of their mental well-being as well as their physical well-being. And sometimes we work ourselves to death. Sometimes we worry ourselves to death. But.

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There's ways to handle life a lot better than just, you know.

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Not thinking about what you're doing because the moment is what where we are at the past is behind us. That's not what you want anymore. You want to look forward? It's not what I had. It's what I want.

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And that's that's a big picture. But but even the big picture has to.

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Be built upon.

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And you only exist in the present.

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Yep.

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The features.

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It never happens. There's only the now. Now is all that ever happens, right? Just one now after the other.

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So with your, your guiding and your retreats, do you have them set up yet? Are you actively looking for people to come and join you in a retreat, or are you working on setting it up?

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I.

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I I can put.

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I haven't advertised it yet.

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And the reason is because I'm. I'm a little chicken to start it because it can be, you know, a very expensive hobby or it can be something that people can really benefit from. But I'm I'm trying to write my books. I'm trying to, you know, help other people write their stories.

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Just trying to do my other job so I can support what I'm doing and the grief retreats. I want them to happen, but I have to be realistic. You know, you just can't pound yourself with so much stuff and you know still be good at it. So I'm I've got to finish up my story.

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And finished writing. You know other stories because I actually interview people to get their story. Because when when you tell your story.

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You're not including.

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The voice tone, the facial expressions, the body language.

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And that's what I capture.

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Because.

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To me.

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You can't always tell your story.

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The way it needs to be read.

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Or shared with others.

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And.

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Think I think that's a beautiful part of my part.

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Of sharing the story.

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Is that what you do on your podcast?

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Do you interview people on your?

:: 35:08

Podcast I'm going to be doing that, but my my first punch is to actually put myself out there a little bit more and it's scary. It is scary, you know, I'm not afraid of doing it.

:: 35:25

In a way.

:: 35:26

I've I.

:: 35:28

And see. I still, I still battle with myself. It's it's a it's putting in the work to make it, you know, out there for people to see. And you know, like I said, I'm I'm doing, you know, some financial struggles right now. But you know I've I work day in and day out.

:: 35:48

And you know, that's all I do is just work, work and once in a while I'll sit down and watch a movie with my husband. But you know, my brain is always going about writing to story or writing that story.

:: 36:03

But everybody has a story. I I know a gal that she lost her husband and.

:: 36:11

It was the hardest thing for her because she was left alone.

:: 36:17

And she ended up getting frostbite. Well, not frostbite, but she got sepsis and she had to have her fingertips removed. And everybody was far away. And she had to do a lot of the struggle on her own.

:: 36:32

And.

:: 36:33

And it was, you know, difficult for her. But, you know, she's she's doing much better now.

:: 36:40

She is not as bad as she was.

:: 36:43

But we get.

:: 36:44

Mad, that's all part of the process.

:: 36:49

So people can can find you at dinkysmith.com. And I'm also going to leave the link to your Amazon bio in the show notes because I want people to be able to read your bio but be also be able to find the books that you've contributed to.

:: 37:10

And purchase them.

:: 37:12

And also.

:: 37:14

By the time this episode actually drops, it'll be in July, and you'll probably have a large amount of work on the website dinkysmith.com done.

:: 37:22

Ohh.

:: 37:24

Yeah. Oh, I should. So I do. You know, I'm doing everything myself because I'm one of those. You know, people that I have to dot all the I's myself, cross all the T's myself, and then, you know, changes that need to happen, you know.

:: 37:27

We'll leave them with that.

:: 37:46

I I can hire somebody to help me with that.

:: 37:49

But you know.

:: 37:51

Everything is all about time. How much time do you have? It's that dash between the year you're born and the year you die.

:: 38:00

So what's and? It's such a small thing. The dash is so small, but it holds so much. That's that's what's crazy.

:: 38:06

Your whole life.

:: 38:10

Yeah. Thank you for that visual, because I think I'll remember that forever. The dash that holds your whole life.

:: 38:19

Yeah.

:: 38:20

It's not very big, but man, it has so much.

:: 38:24

That's, you know, that's the person that's there or you know that you're.

:: 38:31

Not going to have anymore.

:: 38:35

Such a small thing, but it's such a big thing.

:: 38:39

Yeah. It's so huge. So what's the one thing you want the audience to take away from our conversation today?

:: 38:48

We've covered a lot.

:: 38:50

Yes, we have.

:: 38:52

I think the biggest thing is that in order.

:: 38:55

To love yourself.

:: 38:58

You have to take good care of yourself, and that includes your mental health. Too often we we just work and work and buy stuff and then you know is it used, is it appreciated. You know, we just have to learn to love ourselves and appreciate ourselves a lot better. And that's only done through the power.

:: 39:18

Of understanding your own mental health, and that's where I come in because I understand what it's like to have shattered mental health.

:: 39:28

And how to come from the bowels of, you know, grief?

:: 39:34

I hated. I hated that because that that was not who I was. I used to be a very happy.

:: 39:43

Outgoing social butterfly. And then I became cocoon.

:: 39:49

And now one of my one of my favorite.

:: 39:56

Representations for who I am as a drive and fly.

:: 40:01

And you know, because they they are cocooned for a little bit and they can live in the water, they can live in the depths. But you know my dragonfly.

:: 40:10

She's she's beautiful and she is soaring and she's out there telling her story.

:: 40:17

So.

:: 40:18

And one of my and my grief retreats. I want. I actually want to take a shawl and project an image onto a wall and let people trace that out.

:: 40:32

And then then paint their own dragonfly.

:: 40:36

And they can have that forever.

:: 40:38

And I've I think dragonflies are so beautiful and they're so you don't get to see them all the time.

:: 40:45

But you know the beautiful you needs to come out and I think dragonflies are good representations of that.

:: 40:53

Very beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing.

:: 40:56

Your story. Thank you.

:: 40:58

Thank you. And hopefully by the time this does air, I will have changed parts of the world.