Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
When Grief Gets Real
Tina and Ann talk about the heartbreaking topic of loss, but the episode is also very empowering and gives helps and resources. They uncover small comforts that help mend broken hearts. They discuss the symbol and solace that cardinals have and unique ways to memorialize.
the pair end part 1 with a beautiful quote by Earl Grollman, reminding us that grief is not just pain but a profound testament to love.
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Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Tina.
Speaker 2:And I am Anne. You know it's been a really sad week and today is a little difficult because Tina just had a pretty big loss. So do you want to say what happened, tina?
Speaker 1:I know, I knew it was going to be tough to talk about. Well, I'm sorry. Saturday night in the middle of the night See, now my days are all going together. It was actually Friday night. Days are all going together. It was actually Friday night. Friday night into Saturday Our dog began having seizures.
Speaker 1:His health had been declining over the last two weeks. He's actually. He was a miracle dog. He survived lepto four years ago and if you talk to any veterinarian like ours said they've never treated a dog that survived lepto and the fact that he survived it is amazing. It did damage his liver and so he had been on a liver supplement for years and blood work showed us that his liver was at least a big part of if not the whole part has.
Speaker 1:He took a turn over the last couple of weeks and you know I had a conversation with the vet at five o'clock Friday night and I said I'm just not ready and she said if he still has some quality of life left, you know it's okay and we can wait it out. And I finally asked her well, how long do you, do you think we really have? And she said I expect to hear from you next week. And she's wonderfully kind and compassionate, but I became physically ill and um actually thought I was getting sick and I went and just laid down and I was laying with my dog for a while and he wanted to. He actually was bugging me to go for a walk. He kind of perked up and I, you know, I was like man, this is okay. Are you sure? Like he hadn't been able to go for a walk in 11 days, something that he loved because he was having trouble standing up, he would just fall over. His front legs would collapse.
Speaker 1:He was having some really bad issues. It was he would be wobbly and then his front legs just gave out and he'd just fall over and I hated to see it. And we tried three different medications to help with his inflammation, to help with getting the maybe toxins out that they thought his liver was releasing and to help him not be nauseous and dizzy, hoping that that would help, and half of the time I would say, it did and half of the time it didn't. And so he actually wanted to go on a walk and he was okay If he will not a hundred percent, but okay. So I took him and after that it just went downhill fast and, um, it was around 2, 2.30 in the morning, seizures started happening and my sweet Georgie boy looked me in my eyes and I knew it was time. Neither one of us gave up. We did it as long as we could and so we had to take him.
Speaker 1:In the middle of the night the seizures got more frequent and very, very violent and, um, all the accidents he'd been having for two weeks prior. You know, we we were really hoping he would have made it to the morning so that our children could have said goodbye and our neighbors. He's well known in our neighborhood and he just didn't make it and I just wasn't going to watch him suffer anymore. But here's what you need to know. I will tell you my age. I am 39 years old and I've never lived a miss them so much.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry, Tina. There is nothing like the love of an animal. My animals have gotten me through so much. I mean, I trust them more than people. I have not. You know, I've gone through a lot. I know you've gone through a lot and I, when I go through something, one of the first things I do is grab my animals. Yes, and they help me through.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's exactly where I'm at and you know, georgie was there for me when I lost Cooper, my very best friend, our other dog, two years, two months ago. And I'm still not over that loss and I don't know how I'm going to get over this one. But I'm trying to give myself grace and let myself feel how I feel, moment by moment. If I need to cry, I cry. If I need to push it out of my head, I push it out of my head. If I need to snuggle his blanket that still smells like him, I do. You know, I never want to erase the time and the memories ever in him being here. That's, you know, not my goal. I just I wish that it didn't hurt so bad. But I will say I would never give up the memories and the love, which means I have to accept and manage the pain.
Speaker 2:You know, I've had several animals in my life. I've had at one time I had three dogs, two cats and a bird. At one time I had three dogs, two cats and a bird, and as each one of them has passed away, I of course you know, sometimes you do want to replace eventually, but I've not been able to replace them and when my last dog passed away, I I have her tattooed on my arm. She was everything to me.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I honestly I said I can never get another dog and I like you, I like you, always had dogs in my life. Now I have some cats and I have a cat now, yoshi, and he's eight, and but he's all I have left and it's so weird even just to have one cat, because I always had a house full of animals and every single animal that I've ever had has always been a rescue, and I always feel like they rescue me more than I rescue them.
Speaker 1:I know there's just nothing for me, nothing like the love of a dog, the loyalty. Oh, I miss the presence. I miss, I miss the sounds of him eating and drinking. And my dog was always one that sat on our sectional on the couch and looked out the window and it's forever indented of his 10 years of doing that. And the thing for me is. Thing for me is I feel like we always hope and think and want more time and really I think we really think we'll get more time until we just don't Right. And then just it's like, yes, I knew of course one day this day would come. I don't think you're ever prepared for it, even if you're thinking about it and knowing. Okay, he has a liver problem, like I know that he's not going to live as long as maybe he could have if he didn't have a damaged liver.
Speaker 1:But everything happens so fast, youie, is that I was pregnant with my firstborn. We already had Cooper and I was pregnant with my firstborn and decided that I wanted to volunteer at the animal shelter and so I reached out. They said yes, and they said you know, one of the best things you could do is if you could take one of our dogs home for a few hours, to get them out of the shelter and to get them, you know, acclimated with another dog. And so I said, oh yeah, I'll do that. Well, the dog I was supposed to get that day to be able to take home and just love on temporarily was sick, and since they knew I had another dog, they didn't want me to bring that dog home and get my dog sick. So they said well, we have a different dog for you to take home today. He's a pit boxer mix and his name is Georgie. Well, what they didn't know is that my husband wanted a boxer and he wanted a boxer so that Cooper would have someone to keep him company. And I brought him home and we never took him back. And all this was history. And we're a family of food allergies and Georgie had allergies and you know he survived cancer to other previous times and he had two major surgeries and we loved on them.
Speaker 1:I think we gave him the very best life and, um, yeah, yeah, between him and Cooper, I I couldn't have asked for two better dogs. My middle son said boy, mommy, we sure have been lucky. We had our. We got a super lovey dog, which was Cooper, a super lovey dog, which was Cooper, and we had a super good watchdog, which was Georgie. You know, cooper was the keeper of everything in the house, all of our feelings and emotional needs, and Georgie was the watcher of everything outside.
Speaker 1:And I loved when Georgie would bark. I could tell by his bark if it was someone that he knew and was excited to see, or if it was something or someone out of place and he was letting me know. Gosh, I just I miss that so much. And I think that one of the hardest things is I have a two and a half year old who loves deeply, like I do, and animals are his thing, like they're mine, and he keeps asking where'd Georgie go, mommy, where'd Georgie go? And he looks for him and then he has a stuffed puppy that he sleeps with and he's been putting that puppy in the spot on the couch where Georgie always was, and then he says now he's all better, there you go. Which means there you go, now he's all better. And it's it's. It's breaking my heart because he doesn't understand.
Speaker 2:He doesn't, but he's trying to understand.
Speaker 1:It sounds like he's coping and I'm, I'm right there with him, just right by his side. You can leave that puppy there. And then he got a doctor kit for Easter and so he's trying to be the doctor. You know, we told him we said something sad happened, honey. Georgie's not here anymore, Georgie died and Georgie went to heaven and he's not coming home. And I know he's two and a half and he doesn't get it, but he knows something's up and he's trying so hard to process it in his sweet little two and a half year old mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, the cat that passed away a few years ago, my youngest was I think he was just three was I think he was just three and he really I mean honestly all three of them, watching them try to cope and figure out what happened, and it was actually almost a beautiful thing it's it's. It hurts and it's beautiful at the same time, if that makes sense. But their innocence and their love just really shines through and their purity. When it comes to something like that, it actually almost becomes a bittersweet moment Because it's so hard and the loss is so great, but yet their strong love for your pet is just. I mean, they're a member of the family, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I love that we both feel that way and that we pass that on to our kids, who also really do take animals on as members of the family, and you know value what they really mean to us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and so blown away by such wonderful friends and neighbors who have gone above and beyond with bringing sweet gifts or just a hug, or a really precious book for my kids called the Invisible Leash. I would recommend it for anyone experiencing the loss of a beloved pet. It's so sweet and such a I love the illustrations in it and I love how the author describes how pets are forever connected to our hearts, even after it's their time to go, and it's a really great book. So it's the invisible leash for anyone listening who would like that. And the same author I don't know the author's name offhand, but the same author has a book for people when people die and I'm told that's a really good book and it helps kids too and brings comfort even to adults who have read it.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the interesting things I don't believe in coincidence. I think we've talked about that before and my middle child had an animal report and I totally thought he was going to pick a dinosaur and out of nowhere he decided that he wanted to do a cardinal. Oh, and for anyone who doesn't know, cardinals are supposed to symbolize like angels are among us and, you know, symbolize a loved one who has gone on and I'm just kind of blown away that that is what he chose and it's totally, seemingly not typically what he would have picked. But we drew it together, we researched about it together and then our beloved Georgie died.
Speaker 1:That report, now in the drawing, is just bringing me such comfort, isn't that something? He had no idea what it meant, my son had no idea what it meant, and at the time when he picked it I was just like, well, that's interesting. And then he said, well, you know, mommy, all birds are from dinosaurs. I didn't believe him. Well, I looked it up and sure enough, that's true. And so I thought, oh, okay, well, you know, maybe that's that's why he picked it in. Red is his favorite color. But with everything that's happened, the meaning behind a cardinal is just like, wow, maybe there was a higher power that picked that for him. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't believe in coincidences either, and we have a little picture of a cardinal in our house that we got right after Mimi and our family had passed away. And what was really interesting about that is, after she had passed away, that day we had a cardinal that would not leave our back deck porch. It just stayed there and then it would, you know, venture a little ways but then it would come right back and it just stayed with us for a while and every single one of us we just felt Mimi's presence. We knew that it was. You know it was her, or it represented her, or it was just. You know, because it's it really does make you feel the presence of that person or animal.
Speaker 1:Oh, it does I. So you know, in the midst of our grief, we're smiling at the things that you know we're just totally uniquely Georgie. Georgie was a very unique dog. He had two distinct places. You would always find him in the house Three if you count his circle chair, our bed, which are right next to each other, and the spot on the couch that looked out our front window. And any time that our little guy was awake or that a neighbor would be over or a friend or family, he always go to this cupboard, the only one that we had locked, and our youngest, our two and a half year old, would open it up and they would. He would give them treats. They were just two peas in a pod, and so we're, you know, we're just gosh, just missing all of those fun things that were so distinctly him, and I know they'll bring us more joy as the days, weeks, months go by. You know they're a little painful still because it's so raw.
Speaker 1:You know, georgie loved peanut butter and he loved carrots, not together but separately, and carrots and peanut butter will forever make me think of him. And he was just. He was stubborn and fun. And he was just, he was stubborn and fun and he really taught us some really great things to do, things that make you happy. He enjoyed taking naps and he taught us to enjoy the sunshine you know he loved being outside sunbathing and to love. You know he loved. He loved us and he protected us and he was very loyal. And those are just things that I'm going to so deeply miss. I have another friend who is a counselor and she passed some information on to me that was just so helpful and it's kind of what I had said earlier.
Speaker 1:But this loneliness, it's a desperate, aching, overcoming loneliness when you love an animal so much and they're such a part of your family and then they are gone and our job is to just feel it and to give ourselves what we need, moment by moment. It could be cry, sleep, lie around and do nothing. Order food in, remember, avoid, hold soft things, sit in the shower, take deep breaths, curl up in a ball, shake, sob. You know she encouraged me to just follow my body and my heart moment to moment. Even take time off, work if you can or, if needed, help family, help with kids or cooking.
Speaker 1:Just take all the pressure off of myself to be okay and to just not be okay. You know to be okay with not being okay, that I don't have to do normal life for a minute, because you know, when you don't expect something, or even if you do, it's still hard, it's still shocking and overwhelming to your body, to to your brain, to your heart, and so there's no expectation to be anything except exactly how we are, how we feel right now, and so just gentleness and compassion is what she told me, and knowing that I'm not alone and that was some of just the best pieces of advice that I needed to hear and that I'm living my life by right now.
Speaker 2:Well, that's really beautiful and it's really good advice for any of us that have had any losses or major changes in our life for us to be able to take that in. And I was thinking about the loyalty and love of a dog or a cat or a rescue animal or service animal. You know, there is nothing more special than having them love you, love us. You know we go in. Like when I saw Yoshi in the cage at the pet center and I knew he was mine, I just I walked by and I said, oh my gosh, I mean he's mine.
Speaker 2:But there's nothing like that trust and love in the eyes of an animal when they're looking at you and that loyalty that you've been talking about. I mean it is probably. I think that that's one of the hardest things to let go of, because when we are dealing with people, you know there's just so much involved there, but when we're dealing with an animal, there's just so much love and innocence and loyalty that they give us. I mean they are happy to see us no matter what we do, I know.
Speaker 1:We could walk out of the room, out of the house for two minutes and come back in, and there they are to greet us just as happy as they were two minutes ago. Sometimes I feel like we don't even deserve dogs, but what had me thinking a lot is that, you know, for those of us who believe dog is God backwards, and I do feel like dogs are a piece of God on earth. You know it's.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that, yes, I can't tell you how many times I say that. I do believe that. I believe that it is God with fur on. Yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's just so hard to let go. It's just so hard Even though I know it was the right thing, without a doubt. It is just so hard to let go so much that you miss and no one grieves the same way. It is just so hard to let go so much that you miss and no one grieves the same way. And I guess I just want to say anyone listening, if you're in this state of grief, it's okay to not be okay, just feel it. It's really the only way through, I think, is feeling it, but it's really the only way through, I think is feeling it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I've done with my animals, because it is such a huge loss, is I memorialize them. And I still sleep with my daisies ashes in this it's, you know, a nice box. Yes, it's a it's, you know, a nice box. And I have that sitting on my nightstand with her blanket that she passed away with and you know it just still. You know I go and I hug it and it she still just gives me that comfort, even in small ways, just knowing that she's still there. And I have all of her pictures around. And I have a shelf in one of my rooms in my house with all the animals that I've had and a little memorial to each of them.
Speaker 2:Because you know, when I see obituaries of people and I think you know obituaries of people and I think you know it would really be nice to be able to memorialize people like this we did. My very, very first dog in my life was a boxer and I loved him so much and when he passed away, I think that my mom felt that she was doing the right thing by putting him in a pet cemetery. But you know, we never really went back and visited and I have felt awful, even though I know that I mean he doesn't know that he's still buried underground in a cemetery and we never really got to bury or got to visit him because it was far away. But you know, it just always affected me that I just want them still close to me, even though you know they're gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we we are having Georgie cremated and we had our Cooper cremated and one of the things you know, we've also had a stillborn baby before both of our dogs passed and we had our baby cremated and they actually have a. I guess you would call it a. I don't know. Not I don't know if biodegradable urn is the terminology, but when we're ready one day, we love the ocean so much and it's where we feel really connected and we named our baby Ocean. That was stillborn and so we'd like to sprinkle the ashes for our baby and some for our dog together in the ocean, and so then it would be that connection as well there, you know, even a deeper connection.
Speaker 1:So I do love that there are different ways to memorialize or to keep you know your, your pets or family members when, when they do pass on, and it having the ashes with me. You know, in in my home it is, and you know I, I will be getting a tattoo, I have one for our baby and I will be getting one for our dogs as well. It just helps me feel connected. I can't really explain it, I just need that.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I look at my arm with Missy on it and I still want to get my one cat's tattoo as soon as she had passed away. Then COVID hit and different things and I just never ended up getting her memorialized on me. But I have the picture set aside for when I finally go and get her on me. But you know, she's forever in my heart and in fact we have like a little collage of pictures of her that the kids and I made together and we got a bunch of them printed and with them in the pictures with her and we just made this collage and I think it helped all of us to be able to do that together.
Speaker 1:I love that. I am going to be. I've been thinking a lot about that and I think that's that's so perfect. Instead of me doing it myself you're right I want to involve all of my kids and my husband, and we'll do it together, as a family, to memorialize and honor their their such loyal, compassionate, loving lives.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we got this time, that we didn't get when our Cooper had died, is they. They did the paw prints, of course, and we got a piece of fur, but we also got nose prints. If you know me, I am oh, I'm a lover of dog noses. I kissed those noses, oh, every single day, so many times a day, and I love the nose print with all my heart. It, it, it's just the sweetest thing, and I'm it's. It brings me to tears too when I see it, but I love it so much and so I wanted to. I wanted to put that nose print in a frame as well and have it, you know, with his picture and with this, this beautiful card, and, you know, keep it all together.
Speaker 2:I have never heard of a nose print. I know and.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it so much I it's my favorite thing, and there's just enough little bit of you can like see a little bit of like his whiskers under your little fur and I just it's. It's my favorite, it is my favorite thing, so I wanted to share that in case anyone else goes through it, that maybe you could request it if you think it's something that your family would like, but it's such a treasure to me and I know, anne, you picked out just a sensational quote to close with today, before I get more teary eyed, but it'll probably come after hearing you read it.
Speaker 2:Well, grief is not a disorder or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is grief, and that's by Earl Grohlman, if I'm saying that right. But yeah, that makes me want to cry too.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. You got to feel it to heal it. The only cure for grief is grief. That has stopped me in my tracks.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening.
