Moms Actually

MA Top 12: #FightLikeAMom Ft. Verlonda Jackson (S3 Ep.3)

• Morgan Taylor and Blair Gyamfi Ft. Verlonda Jackson • Season 3 • Episode 24

Share episode

Hey Ma! We’re hitting rewind and spotlighting our "MA Top 12" — the standout episodes from our first three seasons of Moms Actually. From October 12 to December 28, don’t miss the moments that defined us. Join us as a we take a trip down memory lane as we prepare for Season 4. 

---

What happens to a mother's world when tragedy strikes and she loses a child? Witness the incredible strength and resilience of Dr. Verlonda Jackson, a mother who faced the unthinkable loss of her four-year-old son, Judah. Verlonda’s tragedy and journey of grieving and rebuilding that followed is nothing short of heartrending.

We discuss the following:

  • Maternal guilt
  • The pressure of maintaining appearances
  • The importance of honest conversations with our children. 
  • The significance of giving ourselves grace during difficult times 
  • Not chasing the illusion of a perfect mom. 
  • The pursuit of a new normal in the face of a personal catastrophe
  • Diverse coping mechanisms within a grieving family
  • The ways in which Verlonda’s family and other son navigated their sorrow.
  • The often overlooked concept of 'secondary losses' 
  • The struggle of managing guilt and faith post-tragedy. 

Send us a text

★ New Episodes are released on Thursdays on YouTube and Podcast Platforms.
★ Did You Like What You Heard? Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe!
★ Interested in advertising? Email: heyma@momsactually.com

Want to Watch?
Follow Us on Instagram
Shop the Merch
Join our Facebook Community

Speaker 1:

I just can't control everything, you know. I just have to be okay with that. It's still hard.

Speaker 2:

Hey mom, what's up, what's up, hey mom, what's up?

Speaker 3:

Hey mom, what's up? Hey mom, what's up? Hey mom, what's up? Hello, welcome to Mom's. Actually On Flare. Hey, hello, this is Morgan and we have our special guest, dr Berlinda Jackson. Welcome, how are you doing?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing good. How are?

Speaker 3:

you guys.

Speaker 2:

Good, good, I'm feeling good. I'm excited about the episode. I'm excited to have you here, thank you. So I want to go ahead and just jump right in. You guys know how it goes. We do its giving motherhood. Now, this is our icebreaker. This is just for all of our guests to be able to just, you know, get all the kinks out warm up a little bit get used to us.

Speaker 3:

You know what I'm saying? Breathe a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Very, very light. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to say a word. It's going to be a quick little rapid fire. Blair and I are going to alternate really quick, but the first answer actually this is a little this or that. So the first is the right answer and we're just going to ask you which one you would prefer and you just give us your answer and we'll just go from there. Ok, all right, first one coffee or tea. Tea.

Speaker 3:

Girls night or girls trip, girls trip. Ok, she's like give me out of here.

Speaker 2:

TikTok scroll or IG scroll.

Speaker 1:

IG scroll. I don't know how to use TikTok. Don't do it.

Speaker 2:

Don't do it, don't do the TikTok Airbnb or hotel.

Speaker 1:

Airbnb OK.

Speaker 2:

All right, all right. So are you asking first or are you apologizing later?

Speaker 1:

Apologizing later, ok.

Speaker 3:

Riz take care.

Speaker 1:

There's a story there.

Speaker 3:

Phone call or text message.

Speaker 2:

Text message me, don't call. Don't call me, text me babies 20s or your 30s 30s.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree 30s.

Speaker 2:

I feel like when you're a woman, it's giving more freedom. Freedom, like you know yourself better, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3:

You're more comfortable. I always say I would never, ever go back to my 20s?

Speaker 1:

No me either. Not even my teenage years.

Speaker 3:

It's a little ghetto, it's a lot. Ghetto, very ghetto, it was a lot.

Speaker 1:

Just a little maybe but it was needed, you know what I'm saying, I feel like.

Speaker 2:

I mean I had my first daughter at 20. So I would go back because I would love to have her Layla, you needed to exist. Yes, Layla needs to exist, but yeah, learning experiences, but I wouldn't necessarily like to live.

Speaker 3:

No, I'm good. So we have you here today, because 2020 meant something completely different to you than it did to the rest of the world at the time. So I just want you to tell us a little bit about you and your story. Your story.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm originally from Philadelphia. That's where we were 2020. I'm married, I have a wonderful husband and we have three children. They were four, six and eight and, like most people at 2020, we were sheltered in place, can't go nowhere. They only want you to look at anybody. I mean, everybody was just encapsulated and everybody was working from home, my husband's working from home, I'm working from home, the kids, lord Jesus. So working from home.

Speaker 1:

It was a lot and I think we just decided to break away in the middle of the day and get them out to the park from fresh air. Some scooters, some basketball, and so we took them out and the kind of park we went to it was a state park and it has like a walking trail around it. It has a lake in the middle, playground, your typical state park and we took them there and my husband took our oldest son. They went off to go play basketball and I kept my son Judah, who was just turned four, and my daughter Ava, who had just turned six, and we were taking a walk around the walking trail and they had their scooters, I had the dog and maybe within 20 minutes of being there, the kids scooted off and my dog did his business in the grass and I got distracted and I went to go pick up puppy poop and the kids turned the bin and my son got into the lake. I drowned.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I finally caught up to them and I still thought they were on scooters I did hear screaming, I did hear shuffling, but everything happened so quickly and when I got there nobody was on scooters anymore. My daughter was just standing in this. It looked like a limitless lake and I don't see Judah and I'm like well, where is Judah? My daughter's screaming and she's just like we were waiting for you and Judah went under the water and when I heard that, I think my heart just went into a vice grip Because it's like you were just right here. What do you mean? He's under the water. I'm thinking maybe he's at the prey ground, maybe he just can't be under the water. Because I can't see him and I didn't react as quickly as I could. You know, a lot of people shoulda, coulda, woulda, I woulda jumped in, I, woulda. I didn't do any of that. I think it took me about 30 seconds for my brain to register my baby is really in the water and I went in and I saw shoes swimming and I went and grabbed it. I thought it was him, it was just his shoes. And I remember running to get my husband and I just kept thinking my husband can do it, I can't do it, my husband can find him and everything will be OK. But everything was not OK.

Speaker 1:

Thankfully, a good Samaritan called the police. They were there within 60 seconds, dived into the water. They found him. He was at the bottom of the lake and when they pulled him out he didn't have a pulse, he didn't have a heartbeat, and they threw him in the ambulance, took us to the nearest hospital and by the time we got there we were allowed to see him. He was just tubes. He just looked lifeless. And I just remember praying God, please don't take my baby, please don't take my baby. And later on through the night they transported him to a children's hospital and they didn't know whether he would live or die, and so I think during that time they said his brain was so swollen they could not do an MRI. So it was just a waiting game.

Speaker 1:

And of course, you guys know me from social media. We share the kids and share funny stories, and I was very hesitant to share something like this. But I think I needed prayer. I needed the prayers from mothers, from fathers, whoever you believe in. I just needed prayer. And I remember posting it and it just started going viral. Everywhere. We had people everywhere families, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, I mean everybody just prayed.

Speaker 1:

A couple days later they did an MRI and they told me that my baby was severely brain damaged. I remember them showing me a picture of his brain and the neurologist said the pink areas are healthy brain and every area where there is gray it's damaged brain. And by damage we mean it's irreparable. And I remember looking at the picture everything was just gray, everything was just gray. And they told me that my baby would never walk again, he would never talk again, he would never be able to see or hear. He was just a vegetable.

Speaker 1:

And they encouraged me to withdraw care and I refused. I think a part of me refused because I was scared. A part of me refused because I said that Big Lake, they found him and he was still alive. If he still had a heartbeat, if he still had a pulse, that meant he was still meant to be here. And I didn't want to play God. I wanted God to be God, I just wanted to be mom and so I refused to withdraw care, and he stayed alive for about 15 months. I remember just traveling all across the country just in search of different treatments hyperbaric oxygen therapy, stem cell treatment, functional neurology. I tried, I tried.

Speaker 3:

You advocated for him.

Speaker 2:

I did my best, but I have never seen.

Speaker 1:

I did my best and unfortunately, 15 November of 2021, that Sunday night, we put him to bed and all was well. It was his normal and I remember putting him to bed. He had his own bed, but I always just kept him in bed with us just in case something would happen. I'd be able to react quickly. We put him to bed and we woke up Monday morning and he was gone. He's gone.

Speaker 3:

I just also want to say, like I remember they told you he would be a vegetable, but the way you advocated for him, and brought him to different doctors, no matter what it cost you time, money. He exceeded expectations. That's why, when November happened, I think everybody was shocked Because he had started moving a bit, or he had started to.

Speaker 1:

They said he couldn't see. He could see. They said he couldn't hear. He would call him, he would look at you. They said he would never be able to feed himself. He couldn't feed himself, but he was able to eat, he could move. And so I had so much faith. I had so much faith and I was such a mom. As moms, we will do anything at any cost, and we don't know how strong we are until we're put in that hot water. And so I did what I could as a mom. I couldn't be God. I wish I could, I wish I could have in those moments, but I couldn't be, just be mom.

Speaker 3:

I always say we're not superheroes, but I'm glad we know how to be a superhero?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we do.

Speaker 2:

And I would definitely say first, before anything, like I just appreciate your transparency, I appreciate your story and I know there are so many other moms who are going to appreciate your transparency in your stories, because there are plenty of moms who have had such a loss and their faith has been shattered and you are a great representation of what faith looks like to advocate for your child and to say no, like the doctor, if I'm not God, the doctor's not going to be God.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean. For you to be able to say that and believe it is so honorable. So I literally am just looking at you as a woman of valor and it's amazing to see because, even though the outcome wasn't what was ideal, you're standing here today in a way that you could show so many women faith. You can show so many women strength, but you can also show that it's hard and it's OK to grieve and it's OK to feel, while also being strong and the same. They can coexist and I think that's just so amazing to see. How has it been since that time. What have you done from 2021 till now 2023, just as you have healed and also supported your children in the process, and your husband.

Speaker 2:

What does that look like for you?

Speaker 1:

I think I tried to give myself. I'm not good at it 100%, I'm still working but I think I tried to give myself space and I tried to give myself grace. I didn't just lose my son, I lost my identity, I lost my confidence, I lost my self-worth. I lost I feel like I lost my place in the world. As moms, we will do anything for our children and when that anything still doesn't actually help the child especially with tragedy, it encapsulates you, demolishes you. It just destroys you as a human being. It's kind of like a tornado, the kind that just comes in and just destroys everything and you have to find the strength and the courage to rebuild. And I think my other two children and my husband, they gave me the strength and the courage to say, okay, I'm going to rebuild.

Speaker 1:

But that strength and courage looks different on different days. I can't be the supermom that I once was. We play so many. It's always expected for us moms to just show up and get it done and be perfect while we're doing it and then look good while we're doing it. There are so many hats, we juggle so many balls and I had to give myself grace in knowing that I can't juggle, not as much as I used to. I might not be able to be the CEO or the PTO this time. I might just be able to just show up and support a fundraiser. I might not be able to volunteer for all of my kids' activities, I might just be able to just show up and be mom. I might be able to get three course meals three times a day on the table. Some days all I'm good for is just dinner, and that has to be okay.

Speaker 1:

And I remember in the early stages of grief I felt so guilty for not being able to live up to who I once was, and then the people around me. I always use the term normal. I always say, since this has happened, I feel some days I feel like 100 years old. I just feel like I'm just looking around and everybody's different, and sometimes I try to compare myself to what other mothers are doing, how they are parenting and how I used to parent, and I used to feel so guilty and so bad. But then I came to a point where I said to give myself grace and I said you know what this is me, this is how I am. I didn't try to shield it from my children, because I want my children to see truth, because who knows what their reality is going to look like when they get older, and I don't want to paint this picture that, oh, it's just perfect. We lost an entire human being.

Speaker 3:

But everything's just perfect. It's strong. Yes, you don't want to do it, especially as black people, as black women, we're always told to be strong. Yes.

Speaker 1:

Always told to be strong, and so I think I just wanted to be honest, give myself grace and just move as I can, and I just needed an environment that was conducive to me being okay and being conducive to how I show up, and it be okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

How's it been for your children? I saw a lot about your daughter because of course she was there, yeah, and she took the swimming in. I want you to touch on that. But your son, your oldest son, how's it been with your husband? Because you know that whole year with your son, you know how's your relate there. How have they been?

Speaker 1:

My husband is. I would say we traveled down, we lived completely different journeys. In that season he was home. We kind of had to divide and conquer, but it was a big divide and conquer. Not you do the kids homework. It was a big divide and conquer and it put us on separate roads, separate grieving processes, healing processes. And for my husband, he has his moments, but I think he's more so hopeful and trying to just be okay, and so he tries to distract himself a lot.

Speaker 2:

They show it so different they show it very, very, very differently and a strong thing, yes, and they're trying to be their free, like the support for you and the strong man and household, all the things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so he spends a lot of time just trying to rebuild in his own way. My son, I think he's a replica of his daddy, I think he's just surrounded himself with because we are in Georgia now, so it's still fairly new. He's at that age where he's all about his friends. He's just all about having fun and his video games. And sometimes when I see him moving just like I see my husband, like I see my husband moving my husband can just move from point A all the way to Z. Sometimes I can't even get to point B without freaking out. So when I see my son doing the same thing, sometimes I'll stop, and in moments I'll stop him and I'll go.

Speaker 1:

How are you, do you still think about Judah? Because I don't want him to get in that zone where he just forgets and he just distracts because he's unintentionally trying to be strong. I want him to talk about it and so he will mention it. If I say something, he'll mention it, he'll talk. I'll say, well, how do you feel? And he'll go. I'm sad, I'll go. Well, do you still think about it? And he'll go sometimes and I'll go. Well, how does it make you feel? And he goes? It's sad, but then I just do something else.

Speaker 3:

Right, yeah, and to me they're like they look, they have the same face to me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, so.

Speaker 3:

I'm like, whenever I see him, especially when I'm scrolling through your page, I'm like wait.

Speaker 1:

Who's who? Yeah, I have to think about it.

Speaker 3:

To see his face and then your daughter to be there in that moment.

Speaker 1:

Ava is. She's a woman. She is very much a little woman and she expresses herself so much and so well and I'm so happy that she can tell me how she feels and what she needs. I remember, right after Judah drowned, both of us we ended up at the hospital my daughter's there, I'm here and I remember there was an FBI agent that came and she wanted to know what happened and I remember in that moment just feeling so guilty and so I'm like it was my fault and she's looking at me like it was your fault and my daughter's like no, it was not, it was not my mommy's fault.

Speaker 1:

We went away. And so she kept saying, well, it was my fault, because maybe if I was able to swim I would have been able to save him. So no, mommy, it wasn't your fault, it was my fault. And I remember both of us, the old like me, just looking back at her, just two different generations, and we both, just as women, just like automatic guilt, automatic guilt. And I remember just telling her no, it wasn't your fault. I think it was just one of those things. And I remember later on she just kept saying mommy, can you put me in swim lessons? And I just remember not wanting to go anywhere near water, don't put me in there. Bathtub, don't put me in there swimming pool.

Speaker 3:

That's usually the reaction.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to do anything and I don't want my children to do anything, let's just stay away. And she just kept asking. We moved to Georgia and she just kept saying mommy, can you put me in swim lessons? And I said yeah, I'll figure it out, and I'm thinking maybe she was just going to leave it alone.

Speaker 2:

She would ask me and get mommy about those swim lessons, can I please?

Speaker 1:

And then one day I just realized, okay, this is important to her, this is important to her and she has her own. Her grieving process is not my grieving process, so maybe this is her way of telling me. This is what I need. So I found the swim school, I put her in, but I put her in an ASI course. Asi is assisted survival instruction and it is different from your usual swim class. It's where they teach you how to save yourself in the event of an emergency.

Speaker 1:

So, it's like a six week course and your test to pass the class is you are fully clothed and they just throw you in the water sneakers, everything and you are supposed to save yourself. And I just remember going to her classes and before this she really didn't want anything to do with water. I tried to put her in swim lessons before. She was not interested, but for some reason she went in and she just she was ready, whatever I have to do. And I just remember watching her and I was so inspired by now seven year old little girl. I was so inspired at her faith that she would be okay, because prior she was just like I'm going to drown and but she did it.

Speaker 1:

And I remember being inspired by her faith and her strength and I put her in counseling because she just kept wanting to. She would wake up, looking for her brother, just wondering, wonder what Judah's doing. I know he's dead, but can the dead still eat? Can they still piss? Can I still that? And I remember putting her in because I couldn't answer those questions. And I remember putting her in counseling and I think, where she is now, she knows that her little brother is not coming back and she does have moments where she I think she wakes up and it's like where's Judah? I think this is something that both of my children are going to process at each stage in their life, and I'm just hoping that I have the strength and the capacity to support them in all those stages. You do?

Speaker 2:

I'm looking at it. You are literally like living proof of what it looks like to move through grief in a way that works for you. But also God has strategically placed your daughter right where she needs to be, Like the way she has. I'm listening to you talk and it's like he literally made sure that whatever you lacked, she had so that she can inspire you to keep moving and to keep growing and to keep healing.

Speaker 2:

And so I do believe that you guys are going to just continue to compliment each other. And it's just interesting that how women are just innately like we have it in us already to just do so much and to take on so much, especially the guilt part, like we always immediately want it to be on us, no matter what that looks like, whether it be responsibility or in all ways, we just immediately put it all on ourselves, and sometimes that could be a bad thing. I know we always are like, oh, we're not the superhero, but I think in these cases sometimes it's a good thing because we need it. When you didn't have it, she had it, and I would encourage you to continue to let that thrive in her, because I feel like it's what you need to and you're literally doing it. It's not even like a try, like you're doing it. It looks beautiful.

Speaker 3:

How do you work on the? Because, like we all said, outside of even these circumstances, we blame ourselves for anything. And I think that's a controlled thing, because if you blame yourself, you can fix it. How do you work on the guilt that you have and that you shouldn't have, Like how do you talk about that? Because I think about not just in extreme cases like yours. When I miscarried my first child, I was like man, I shouldn't have those oysters or I should like I blame myself for that.

Speaker 3:

So it's like what's the self talk? Look like to kind of work on that self guilt, because I think all moms, all people kind of do that, or do you even know.

Speaker 1:

I think that's, I think, before all of this happened. It was a lot of mom guilt for everything, if I remember my daughter being on a one of those little stupid hoverboards those electric and I remember telling her not to get on and she said, well, I'm not gonna get on, but I'ma just slide it across. She slid it across with her hands and her finger got caught and it just slipped. And I remember us being in the hospital and I'm just automatically I'm crying, I'm like this is my fault, I should've been outside, and so there was always just your regular mom guilt. And I think when this happened, I struggled a lot for a very, very long time, feeling like everything was my fault. We should've followed the COVID, we should've looked to people on TV when they said don't go outside, I shouldn't have had the dog with me, I shouldn't have let them bring scooters. I mean I could've went on and on and on about should've, could've, would've, but I think in that moment I realized that I could not control what I thought I could control.

Speaker 3:

And I think as moms.

Speaker 1:

We think we can control all things regarding our children, especially when they are little, if we just we think we have a sense of control and what I realized was that I don't have control and I had to cling to my faith a lot. There was so many nights I spent just on my knees just crying out to God saying, well, this wasn't my fault, like why, how do I fix it? How do I fix it? And I just remember a guy saying to me you can't and I fix it.

Speaker 1:

And I think the last couple of years I have just tried to, I've just tried to tell myself this was not me. I just can't control everything. I have to be okay with that. It's still hard, because not only did I mom guilt myself because of Judah, but I mom guilted myself on my children's trauma. Oh my God, now they have to go through this because of me, now my husband, we don't have three children anymore because and so it goes deeper- yeah, it's like a snowball almost, and so when I catch myself, I just have to stop and I just have to just stand in God and just let Him surround me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know what I mean. How'd you keep your faith? There's a lot of people like and not to say you didn't have a why God or is God moment. But how do you keep your faith when you've had such a tragedy?

Speaker 1:

I never doubted God's. I've seen too much of yes, I've seen too many miracles in my life, and they may not have been as tumultuous and terrible as this, but I have seen God be God so many times in my life and I just kept telling myself that he's the same God.

Speaker 1:

Nothing about Him has changed. And if he could do it back there, then he could do it here. Will he do? It was what I could not control. Will he heal my baby, will he? That was something that I couldn't control. The only thing that I could do is just have faith, and you know, there's a scripture that says faith without works is dead. And so, on this journey with my son, I wasn't trying to be God, I was just trying to do the work.

Speaker 1:

I was just trying to get my baby to a place where I just wanted God to be God, and when my baby left, ultimately I just said okay, this must be what God wanted, and my faith suffered a lot because, it takes big tall faith to believe something like that, especially when you have because I had to go against science, I had to go against doctors. I mean it was a literal fight every day every day.

Speaker 1:

And it's a big tall faith for me to say I'm gonna wait on God. I'm gonna wait on God, looking at my baby, day after day, just struggling, and I just said, it's okay, we're gonna wait on God. And at the end, the way that he left without a goodbye, it was just you wake up and boom, he's gone. And it's that big mountain of faith that I climbed for 15 months. I think it was just a drop Very, very, very long way down. I feel like I just I fell, I hit the ground and to this day, I still pick myself up. Yeah, pick myself up and I fall down again, pick myself up. It's a hard fall. It's a hard fall, but I still believe God. I still believe God.

Speaker 3:

Like how, how, um. So, like he said, when you share this story initially, like everybody around the world praying for you, there for you when you shared of his passing, everybody there praying for you, and not that you need the world or social media to be okay, but everybody's there for you. I can't imagine how the last two years have been as the world kind of moves on and the support, like even in the family and friends, like how has that changed been, I guess, like from a support point, or like having all these people and then going from like now you're back to I don't know for a reason, okay.

Speaker 1:

I call them secondary losses. There is what you lose in the beginning and there is the support and just people around the world, because it's a popular story and it's the story. But life goes on and I think one of the hardest things, one of the hardest things that I took from this journey, is that life goes on, the world keeps on spinning, even when you're part of the world stops. The days keep on moving and you still, you still. You wake up the next morning and everything is just still empty and everybody's going back to work and it's hard and I remember friends that I had when we were in PA, that were we were all so close and when tragedy struck, everybody just disappeared, but not because they were bad people, it's because you know you. I realized during this time that people don't really have a lot of depth to them. They don't have a lot of depth. They know how to tell you they're praying for you. They know how to say there's anything you need, I'm here, yeah, I'll give you a meal, give you a couple dollars, but they don't know how to be there and so sometimes it's scary and they just back away. And so I remember just being.

Speaker 1:

I remember it being a lot of my husband and I. And then my husband and I kind of kind of kind of drifted apart from a grief standpoint because we were suffering in different ways. And so, you know, we spent a good portion of our marriage being able to compliment each other and be there for each other. But now our grief is different and what we need is different, and so I think we were just a house. The world went on, and so there was me and my home and my children, and then we became sort of a house divided, and I just remember feeling alone. I think the biggest blessing was sisterhood. It was sisterhood. It wasn't my husband, it wasn't my children. What gets me through every single day is sisterhood friendship.

Speaker 1:

Just mom, and they don't have to have the. They don't have to go through what we go through, but just as women, we know how to be there for each other. And I think that is what. That's what saved me. It still saves me every day.

Speaker 2:

I say that, I literally just said that this morning I was saying, like we, we love to rank, like you know God, family, friends, you know all the things.

Speaker 2:

I'm like God, sisterhood, family yeah, they're going to be there. They're great, husband, awesome but it's nothing like a sister, it's nothing like a friend who can just understand exactly where you're at and you don't even have to say a word. They just know to show up, they just know to call, they just know to pray. You know what I mean and it is a beautiful thing and I love that you just said that, because it's why we're here. There's so many moms right now that are watching and they're they're going to need every word you just said there.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes your sister is maybe not somebody that you can tangibly reach. That's the beauty about social media too is like to be able to even feel that sisterhood with somebody you don't even know, but you feel it and you feel that warmth and you're like man. If my girl could get through that, I know that I can do it. I so applaud you. Is there anything you would even say to a mother or to a sister that would just encourage her as she goes through the same journey of loss and grief and just trying to continue to show up, but show up in grace? What encouragement would you give her?

Speaker 1:

I think I'll give her just what you said to show up as much as you can when you can't don't. The world needs to be conducive to how you grieve and how you show up and it be OK and give yourself grace the days that you can Applaud yourself. The days that you can't Just applaud yourself that you still got up because it's it's hard. It's very, very, very hard. Every day that we open our eyes and give ourselves, every day that we open our eyes to life, as long as we are alive, god will give us a reason to live every day.

Speaker 2:

Wow, this is an eye.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm like this is amazing. Thank you, absolutely. Thank you for sharing your heart. You're welcome. Thank you for being so transparent, so vulnerable, with two strangers but now sisters hopefully. Is there anything you want to share with our viewers before we go.

Speaker 1:

Find a sister, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, we appreciate you. We thank you for watching. We pray that if you were not watching this with a sister, that somewhere along the episode you sent it really quick to someone to join. We ask that you share this, that you subscribe, that you like, you comment all of the things and, yeah, make sure, where can we?

Speaker 1:

follow you. Yeah, my Instagram it is the Jackson Family Values. I do have a TikTok, but I don't know how to put it. It's just Instagram for now.

Speaker 3:

That's so good. Thanks you so much for joining us. Yes, absolutely. Thank you guys for watching us. Mom's, actually, we're motherhood, we're sisterhood.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Blair Gyamfi

Co-host
Head Shot

Morgan Taylor

Co-host