Live in multiple places. So say hello in the chat if you want let me know. where you're from. Welcome all. Hi everybody. good to see everyone in. alright good I actually. see myself there in Facebook. so that means we're there also very good feel free to say hello on Facebook once you're in there too welcome everyone. I'm so glad to see everyone coming in this afternoon I have a special session A wonderful guest is here with us so if you. Say hello, let me know where you're viewing from I'd appreciate it. Nice to see everyone here in the chat from New York to San Francisco and Philadelphia. Welcome. Welcome. everybody. great. You're all here. so nice to see you. I appreciate that. Alright. very good all. Alright all I'm just going to give everyone a chance to find their way in I if you're this is your first time I am in a few different places I love bringing amazing people to you and we are in a few different groups and then I have the privilege of working with we're also in Facebook coming to you live on Facebook so so glad you're here. I really. Appreciate you joining us today and II often say hello to people as if when I was growing up, there was a show called Romper Room where the teacher would pretend she saw everyone. and after COVID hit and we closed everything down and this group started I would say hi to everyone as if I see them so I see Krista and I see Robins here and I see lisa's here from Michigan and I'm so glad that everyone's. With us joining us and it's so important, I see people from Hawaii and Wisconsin welcome glad you're here as I mentioned we decided in this group. We weren't going to give the virus any more power than it had it could it could do horrible things in the world, but it couldn't stop us from connecting and we've been connecting here virtually ever since then in this wonderful group I also am broadcasting right now into two other groups that I have and it's because today's guest when I talk to her, I thought I want her to be in my grieving fully living fully group, but then I thought, Oh I. And tender hearts, and I want her in the Facebook group and it's because when I just meet certain people, I have to share them with the world. So that's what I'm doing today. I'm sharing someone really extraordinary with you and I'm so glad to have her here. so I'm going to be bringing her on right now to join us and one of the things we always do before I do that is we're all here because someone we love is. Longer physically with us and that doesn't mean we can't send them love and connect with them. So join me in just a moment of silence to send those who are no longer physically with us or love to let them know how much they mean to us. So join me in that moment. Thank you for that. as I talk about the. The idea about how we come together, I also. talk about that concept that. we are also here together. many different religions. Many comes from many different places and many different losses, but we all come together as humans and so I brought some really wonderful. people with a religious and spiritual background to this group. There is no. Religion to this group but we honor all the places that people come from and I'm so thrilled to have the Reverend Cordelia Wallace with us here today. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to have you on let me just unmute you so we can all hear you. There you go hi there. Hi there. How are you? It's so great to be with you and see you here today. I just absolutely we had a wonderful talk. the other day we had a mutual friend who brought us together and I thought I really want to. as I said. Share you with the world and talk a little bit about. obviously we're all here in these different groups because we're dealing with loss and I'm. Obviously as a minister so Reverend professionally, you have dealt with this a lot and my guess is like everyone else on the planet you've had to deal with it personally too. So I wonder if you might just share a little of your story with us. so I just want to say hey David. How are you and to everyone? That's viewing us from all of David's squirrels. What a delight it is to be here this afternoon. almost. In New York. you know I am third. generation pentecostal and so you know I started out with faith. I didn't always live it, but I definitely started out with it and at some point. you know I've been doing what I do now for almost 25 years. and then you know you can be doing something for so long and then you have this traumatic experience truly. Assisted my husband with funeral services we call him homegoing services. and then you know being there to comfort families that have lost their children. and families that have lost their spouses or families that have. lost cousins or grandmothers or all of that you you you live through it you walk through it and and surely you are a feeling or you have empathy to those people, but. Something happens in your world that changes the dynamics of what you've always say what you've always done how you've handled it and so let me just talk about that for a moment. January 2019. I've been married or I was married for 32 years. to a great guy that I always called my dark chocolate Godiva bar and he called me his marshmallow in his hot chocolate We were capable and had two wonderful children. Lived a life pretty simple. He had been a pastor and bishop of our local church for 30 years. September of 2018. and I traveled evangelistic. throughout the country and the world doing what I do. but on the weekend of 2019 January 12th thirteenth we go to church. I'm co hosted with. Of a pastor colleague of mine, so I was there in Brooklyn that morning come back, we have dinner and he said He's not feeling that well, but you know it seems like a cold he had traveled the weekend as well and Monday morning we wake up and he says he's not feeling well. He wants to go to urgent care and I thought he's not feeling well. It's it's probably the flu and surely. We go to urgent care and and the the doctor that I trust emphatically is there and he he gives him a flu test and it comes back positive so he has the flu but his breathing is quite shallow. he takes. X ray and he he says has a touch of pneumonia He sends him home with an antibiotic already taken at the office and says quarantine him and if anything. Just call 911. I quarantined him, I brought him to my daughter's bedroom because she's married now. and I said I'm going to step out to get some juice and more water and some soup you guys know what that is and I come back 35 minutes later because I needed to go get the prescription as well and and and David is downstairs his name is David too. David was downstairs and for a moment I was somewhat annoying because he had the flu and now he's going to give all of us the flu. And I'm walking in the family room and I'm like what's up Babe and he's like. I'm not breathing. Well. we're talking about 2 o'clock maybe in the afternoon and so I call 911 and. they came immediately within seconds. and they gave him oxygen. He's alert. He's not lethargic. He's listening to all of us. He's talking to me or nodding at me because now he has an oxygen on his mouth. And they put him in the ambulance and they dash off one of our ministers was here and I asked her to ride with him because her car was quite small and and and for thinking I said Bishop is six four so of course, he's not going to be able to fit into a little buggy. I'm going to take my truck. I'm right behind the ambulance as I'm parking She calls me hysterical and said, get inside. and. I'm inside and I walk in and and they are working on him. They are pumping at his heart. and at 436 they pronounce him dead. How can this be? This doesn't make sense we we were together at 8 o'clock in the morning 830 at the emergency room. at the urgent care and 2 o'clock your home. We're we're good and 436 you're gone. that is. A moment in life I will never forget. I'll never forget him leaving and I'll never forget that moment that moment in time it almost like it stops and I know for some of you can say the same thing like there's this gut punch David that you get and and you. you can't explain it. You don't know whether to Scream. I didn't know what to do I went into I went into alert because my children were on their way. to the. I called both of them they both worked in my daughter in Wall Street. My son worked in Brooklyn. I said you need to get your daddy's not feeling well in that second I'm trying to navigate because both of us are public pretty public in our community, Our Christian community and I was trying to cause my kids to get there first. before it spread. I. III don't know how I navigated it all and I I'm not really sure if you're supposed to I think for a second you're supposed to go numb. but you can't stay there, you know and and surely you've gotta go through sorrow and you've gotta go through the stages and you've got to you've got to be able to cry. you know crying is healthy. you've gotta be able to. Be around people that that just want to listen to your story again and again and again, just so that you're emptying out, but it's after it's it's after the services you know, Bishop had lived a very ecumenical life and so the services were 2 days. but after that is what happens next and I am such an advocate of what happens next. If you don't move to next. you will always live in a place of mourning. And never come to a place that you see a new dawn Surely you want to never forget them and and and surely memories anything you know the other day I got an email from the cemetery where bishop is resting and and they were asking. Did you want to order Father's Day flowers you know for the grave site truly a tear, but I can't stay there and I think. That that truly for our community our Christian community that I'm a part of we had so many losses, you know congregants transitioning and so many pastors and bishops left have left now their pulpits unattended I got a call just 2 days ago that one of our colleagues in Pittsburgh, he went to the hospital and 2 days later he was gone so so death is very real. I never want to make it and I don't think you either. Death is real, You know there's a there's a process to it, but but for all of us, you can't stay there You can't live in that place forever the intent of God, whatever religion we are the intent of God is that if he left us here, there's a cause. There's a reason. if he whoever is no longer in our life. There's a cause for that too. We don't have. To that what we do have an opportunity to to go on and to move on and to find a way to navigate that. some days will be better than others. Some weeks will be great some months, you know will be just full of laughter and joy, and then you'll hit a bump but you can't stay on the You know it's like driving a car and you hit a bump you want to go over the bump. I think. Becomes important that we learn how to get through the morning process. so that we can go over the bumps. You know what I'm saying, absolutely and it's interesting. Sometimes I you know how many of us say the same things in different ways and I talk about it from the psychological aspect about we don't want to get stuck in the traumatic moment that is. Place in our life that we pass through, but it's not a place we want to stay in or live from and that's part of this work that I do that you do that so many of us are doing. because I think you know I talk about it many times as. sort of active grieving versus the passive mourning where we stay stuck and I want to go back to something you know. I think it's so interesting and and we've talked privately and folks on here know that. I've shared how my work with my mother dying in a shooting and it was was racially motivated and I couldn't be there sounds a lot like today. Things haven't changed as much as I wish they had, but we've all gotta work towards that and. my younger son died a few years ago. David also another David. He's beloved David, the beloved David's exactly and I'll tell. It is just like you you were doing the work you were committed to the work you were serving people in crisis and death and grief and what a different moment it is when it comes to us again. I actually said I wanted to write so many parents that I had counseled and other people I've counseled saying I had forgotten how bad the pain was. that there's something so visible and like you said, I think you said, like it's a moment of definition in ourselves. That's right it, it becomes that moment that that it's almost like for a second you lose breath for a second just for a second you lose breath and then you have to find ways to walk through the process You know for me. I started this thing called thinking out loud because in my community. Christian community. We're so private, you know we're we're there for the public but the public never really does get to see who we really are what we're really feeling We come back strong. We come back with another preaching message or another teaching lesson and so I started to write on my social media, particularly on Instagram this whole almost weekly for a while, thinking out loud this I've missed him coming up the steps I've looked for his. It didn't seem right that the garage door wasn't opening and I've talked about those losses. How II needed to move the clothes, but I wasn't ready to do that and I talked about how going back to the church. you know he had just preached there the following Sunday. What was I supposed to do in this moment? So I think for me I had to come to the place that I became very transparent about how I how I was feeling not so much looking for sympathy or empathy, but. Downloading what I needed to get out of me. and isn't that also sharing the human and the spiritual experience. We see just like you say publicly we see your faith and to let people know it isn't easy. Yeah, I mean it's not. I mean you have to you know you you have to say you know you're this this. This hurt me. This is devastating to me. this is trauma to me you know and and even now you know just simple things that I've I've done so that I can get to my morning, you know every day not tomorrow, but every day get to my morning, you know I repainted my whole house. I changed all the furniture I and it wasn't like David had you know transition. In the house, but to live, I was no longer living as a married woman, I was now living as a single woman as a widow woman and so the concept of how I've lived had to change as well. I think sometimes we hold on so much to the and and please hear my heart to the death of the moment that we omit the necessity to take a deep breath assess that that no matter. Where you were in that moment, there was little, we could have done you Know II even said that even at at bishop's funeral service that I would have given life for him. I just thought he had so much more to offer the World III would have been you know. II take me instead he he just was that man that I just felt the world needed but when you come through this, you realize that God intends for you to go on. Will come and you'll cry days will go and you'll find laughter days will come and and you'll just want to cover your head with a pillow at the end of the day, it's it's it's imperative that that your moment of mourning really, there's a scripture in the Bible and it says weeping may endure for a night. but joy comes in the morning. Joy is that thing that does not change based on a circumstance you walk into it, it becomes almost. Rinse of internal strength to where you're going and how you're going to get there, sometimes you even have to recalibrate your thinking to be able to adjust. because now there becomes adjustments and whatever those adjustments are it's necessary to make them and I don't feel like we're teaching anything new right you Know, II always. It's almost an unlearning process of this modern world. I often think about I'm teaching people what our great grandparents knew. I say to people you come from a long line of dead people like every ancestors died. This isn't a new thing that's happening to us but I do feel like we encounter and we work with. there's there's all different speeds to this. That's right. Our grief is different your grief looks very different than my grief looks very different than everyone who's watching here. There is no one right grief, one right speed and we do as you say sometimes get stuck have trouble taking that next moment. I say it is that getting stuck in the trauma. What do we say to people who have lost their way? I think what happens is when you lose your way you you have to find people that are stronger than you You know III. I'm grateful for men and women that are in my life and I think there has to be a time that you have to say help me through this. they may not be able or they may not have had the the loss that you have had, but like you, said everyone has lost someone. You know. my grandmother, I don't know she's been deceased now so long I can't remember the years but but every now and then I'll think about it or something she did or something, she said. So that was a loss but I didn't stop there. I kept moving and so all of us need someone or or we need our faith. Let's not. deny our faith whatever that faith is let's let's hold to that. That should be a strength for you that should be an encouragement for you that that you know there are. And our parents taught us that that they have lived through it almost becomes an echo in our ear to be able to do that. And I think that that often times when and and I don't want to sound self righteous but there are times we like where we are some and you've gotta be able to say I don't want to be here anymore. You know there. There's a story David in the Bible and it talks about this man at the pool of Bethesda for Thirty-eight. And and he kept making excuses about why he was there and and at some point you've gotta be able to say I've gotta get up You know I have two legs I'm going to make them walk and I'm going to move my steps like you, said David, My steps might be might be in Bitsy steps. Remember that that that Simon says game we used to play on dating myself. Remember that and sometimes Simon would say, take it a step and your feet were so large, you couldn't even navigate. Bringing both feet along and then sometimes Simon would say, take a giant step and so grief is like that you you take a little step some days, you'll take a giant step some days you'll have the the courage Doing this kind of group work with all these different groups because I have a group here called tender Hearts I have another group for people who have had a spouse die I'm going to have another one soon for a child, die and another one for when we've had a parent eye the Facebook group and why I love those and here's what happens in this is I believe we find ourselves in each other's stories. and people, especially in Facebook these days, I think our group is a little different, but so many. Talk about how bad it is and we go into the darkness together and it's interesting in my groups. We do a lot of talking about. as much as I want people to share their pain and it's okay to share your darkness when you're in that dark night I also tell people it's okay when you're feeling okay or in grief, you're having a good hour or a good afternoon to share it. It gives hope to others and I say people to people when you see, sometimes people will tune in and everyone's so hopeful I'll go. It's not every day. It's like this, but just know know if you're hopeful we're holding hope for you. That's right, We know that this darkness will not last forever and that no darkness ever has. Absolutely, we know that and and and and and and it you know we not only do we know that we have to be confident of that we have to be. knowledgeable that this confidence is hard. I'm going to tell you is hard. It's hard. I gotta say. confidence confidence in grief is hard. I'm confidence and grief is hard and and but that's why we have groups. That's why we have. Close friends. That's why we have David's. That's all we have Reverend Wallace. That's why we have these kinds of networks that causes us to build some kind of confidence those of them those those persons that exercise every day they didn't start out with twenty pound weights. They were they're now lifting or thirty pounds. you know they started out with a two pounder. You know I was thinking the other day I probably need to start going back to the gym, but I probably need a one pounder to get started. But but but you build confidence you you you do it one pound and then you do it two pound and then you do a five until it comes along. It's it's having those right people around you those those and I don't want to call him right energies. I want to say right people because the right people will say the right thing that's right and that's really important. you find whether you're choosing your church, you're choosing your synagogue. You're choosing your grief group you want to find. That really resonates with you because they do have different energies and people have different energies. That's right II totally agree with that I think sometimes you know you have to find you've gotta find a group that when you walk away even though it may have been painful, walking away, you know or or you left the group and you weren't feeling the because you felt like they weren't being they weren't caring about how you were feeling but when you get home and you think about the conversation and you drink a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. and. You rehearse what they were saying it starts to make sense about how to better equip yourself to get through this, you're not going to not remember the person you're not going to not remember the the love that you shared for them. You're not going to you're going to remember those things you're going to be thoughtful of those anything a birthday can bring it back. a cartoon that they enjoy you know or or anniversary. Or a date, a Mother's day or father's day or whatever it is, but but but those things will happen and even those days will become days that some days you'll laugh and then some days you'll cry. You know this this this year January, I said to my son, you know, I don't know if I can make it back to the cemetery this year it just creates this pain for me that II just feel like I don't know why daddy loves us. I can't I don't have. As you know as close as I am to God, he didn't tell me why you know and so I said, let's do something different. Let's let's let's figure out another way that we can think about Danny on this day and think about and and I said, let's go to his favorite restaurant, one of the things that that my husband love was dessert, I said, and for the cause of forgetting about weight, we're going to order all the desserts and we're going to just enjoy everyone that daddy would enjoy sometimes you've. Just change the way change the thought change the process right now. Let me ask you you obviously Christian family I come from my family has a mixture of Judaism and evangelical Christians, so you can imagine some of the get togethers but I want to. About those who they don't have a particular faith or maybe they're atheist or agnostic when it comes to grief. What are the things I've been? really challenged by sometimes is to learn how much comfort. how much comforting we give with faith that when I've had to talk to an atheist, I've had to really make sure. I don't. Speak a language that they don't understand or is it their language. and I've also realized that many times. it's not that they're devoid of anything they have a different meaning that they have meaningful lives. They don't attribute it to God. How do you do you talk to people who you know? Minister them or talk to people who don't have a particular faith when it comes to grief and loss? Absolutely I. There it's a world and we don't all agree you know and but at the at the conclusion, we're all human and we feel what we feel you know you cut me. I'm going to bleed red blood If I cut you you're going to bleed red blood. we might have different blood types, but it's all red but but absolutely and and in those moments we talk about being human We talk about what. Tears feel like rolling down your face in those moments you talk about that gut punch that no one hit you, but you got this gut punch you know in that moment we can talk about that crying becomes healthy. We can talk about words that are comforting you know and we can talk about love because no matter what religion we are or we are not everybody needs love and and and one of the things that I think COVID taught us. Is that we need each other more than we need less of each other and so when we have situations where. our religious differences may be on the table, then we go back to the very beginning when we were human. and and we only knew each other and we knew what made us go forward, holding my hand, you know, giving me a hug, you know or or saying something that. Everlasting one thing that I know that lasts forever is when we don't know what to say the best thing is to say nothing right and just and the person right that's right and you know grief in a lot of ways is truly about being not so much about doing that's right because we can't fix you because you're not broken, You know one of the things that I will just speak for myself. My son died, I was so angry with God I was so angry with God. and I really allowed myself to be angry with God and for me God didn't take it personally my God is big enough to handle my anger. In fact, my anger is part of all of this experience here that's right. How were you were you ever angry? I don't. I was angry I was disappointed. and I don't know if that's anger too right, but I was disappointed I was disappointed because I felt like I should have gotten a heads up, You know I felt like you know I'm I'm doing all this for your service and you didn't tell me that this is what the plan was, you know so II don't know if I ever got really angry but I. I'm muddled in disappointment that I thought that. It just didn't make sense, You know there. there was a calendar that he had just delivered you know it didn't make sense. so II have felt and I and I'll be very transparent. I you know I still have moments of disappointment like how could you have blessed me? You know what what I needed? I have questions there. You know you you let you know. I'm the girl who needs a David. So so you know II, you are my security blanket so to speak you know and and so I don't think I got angry but I felt tremendous disappointment. that that he was no longer here and maybe that is a form of anger. You know, maybe maybe that is what I was feeling but I still have moments that I'm just like like for real for real, you know like the kids would say, like for real for real, are you for real about that and some people in my family? Went to there with Jesus. It's fine. And I'm very much like I get that and I'm having a human experience and it doesn't feel fine. I'm so glad they're okay, but I wasn't and I think that was part of my work to go through. Absolutely I think for me you know to. this was my final statement to this that I knew that God never made mistakes. I got that I just didn't know that it was going to feel like this right you know and I you know. As a as a parent who wants to who wants to see their child, you know, it's it's always you think the reverse of this you know and and for me, you know I was older than my husband so surely if anybody left it would be me right, you know so so. those those are times that you cannot wrap your head around it. but you come to a place of resolution. or you come to a. Of peace about it or you come to a. I always say let me acknowledge what I'm feeling right. I always say you gotta heal it to feel it. That's it. You gotta feel it to heal it. That's right. That's right. So that's the reality. There's no going around it. There's acknowledge this. yeah, let me acknowledge how I'm feeling so at least I'm not playing games with myself. So this is how I'm feeling so I can do that and once I do that I set the tone like you said for that place of healing right. If it's alright with you if you're up for it, we're going to say goodbye to the folks on Facebook who are watching right there and we're going to stay here and some people from my groups are going to come on in okay. Talk to us live. Let's do this. let's see what they say. Alright. Alright. Thank you those of you in the Facebook group. Thank you for joining us. Please continue to post when you're having a bad day post when you're having a good day support one another we need each other. Let's hold one another's hands virtually. Thank you. US thank you for joining us. Thank you. please follow me if you like us, tell us where to find you. where to find me I'm reverend C Wallace on social media I Instagram Facebook and also on YouTube, I have a YouTube channel called Reverend Steve Wallace and so join me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Bye Facebook. We're going to say bye and tender hearts and in grieving fully and living fully give me a moment here.
