Grief In The Jewelry Box With Lindsay Joy Taylor

Grief growers,

I know that maybe like me,

Maybe not like me,

You have physical objects in your home on your person that remind you of a loved one who died.

And so I'm really excited to introduce you to Lindsay Joy,

Who owns the Joyful Jewelry Box,

And she creates pieces based on loved ones who have died.

So Lindsay,

Welcome to coming back,

And I would love if you could start us off with your lost story.

Hi,

Shelby,

Thank you so much for having me on coming back.

My background is I am actually a motherless daughter.

My mother was murdered when I was just 13 months old,

And I am now 36,

So 35 years ago.

And so naturally,

That was really a tragic and traumatic experience,

I grew up really not knowing anything different.

I don't have any literal memories of her.

Certainly I believe that there's a lot of emotions and memories of her stored in my body,

But I don't have any of those accessible visual memories of her.

And so I really grew up not really even understanding that I had grief per se,

If that makes sense,

Or that I was carrying grief,

I just knew that there was this person who was in my family who was no longer around.

And so probably in my early 20s is when all of that started to really crack wide open.

And it's probably been in the last 15 years,

Where I really started to recognize the amount of grief and trauma that I was carrying,

And really starting to process all of that and really recognize and understand the impact that's had on my life.

And so it's interesting because I consider myself to be very familiar with grief in the sense that I know how complicated it can be and how confusing and isolating and all of those things.

And yet it's also really interesting to connect with other grievers who have very specific experiences and relationships that they're grieving.

And so that has really created very unique dynamic for me,

I think it's given me a unique perspective on just grief in general,

But also this idea that what children don't know,

Or won't remember won't hurt them and how really false that is.

And so it's really fueled my passion in terms of really navigating my own process and speaking truth over myself and giving myself that permission to explore that loss,

But really wanting to change that message universally for people in the world as well.

I love that.

And I think that's where I want to start with you is this notion of what kids don't know won't hurt them.

Because I kind of think,

At least from from doing coming back,

And I'm immediately thinking of speaking to Janet Acristovaro from the Dougie Center about children's grief.

And I'm like,

I think that that early loss,

Early trauma,

Even loss that we don't remember,

Causes grief or starts this domino effect of grief that we don't realize until down the road,

Which sounds to be your experience.

And so the things that children don't know can actually hurt them.

The memories that we never get to make the relationships,

We don't get to forge the touches that we don't retain experiencing can actually be sources of pain later on down the road.

And I think this is the first time we've ever had this kind of conversation on coming back where someone has experienced loss so young that they can't remember.

And so it's interesting to me,

I'm also making this mental connection that you create through the joyful jewelry box,

Jewelry and wearables that honor loved ones who have died.

And it's just interesting that,

At least I'm assuming here and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

But like the pieces of your mother that you've been able to hold on to are these physical things.

And so I'm making that connection of this is this is what you do.

Plus this was your life experience as well.

Correct.

And you interpreted Axel absolutely right.

And what's interesting,

Though,

Is that those stepping stones all along the way really sort of became full circle,

But I didn't necessarily realize it until I ended up here doing this work,

If you will.

So I actually opened the joyful jewelry box about six,

Six years ago.

And that was actually a matter of necessity.

I was working for a mental health nonprofit,

And I absolutely loved that position.

But unfortunately,

The funding was pulled.

And so I was laid off,

Right when we were getting ready to move and buying a home.

And so ultimately,

I needed to act fast to really kind of contribute to my family during this season of transition.

Right.

And so the Joy for jewelry box was really a way for me to be able to work from home to have that creative outlet and that flexibility.

And through that process through the building of my business and in choosing my name and knowing that I always wanted to pay homage to my mother,

I started to remember that growing up,

One of my favorite things to do was playing with my mom's jewelry and her jewelry box was kind of like my little treasure chest.

But again,

Going back to what I said in the beginning,

I didn't necessarily have a concept of who she was,

Right?

It just was this,

I think this natural sort of play that children do at a certain point in time,

Right?

And not really consciously understanding that I was bridging that back to my grief,

Right?

And so I would just dig through it and pick out all my different,

My favorite different pieces and hide them in my little special spots and all that kind of stuff.

And so it was really actually a very full circle and healing experience to really recognize the ways that my inner child was sort of holding my hand along the way.

And I didn't even realize it until now.

And so I've absolutely taken those different concepts.

I think you'll probably relate to this,

But a lot of bereaved individuals have some sort of touchstone or symbol or image or connection that reminds them of their loved one.

And so for my family,

It's dragonflies.

And so that really created this idea for me in terms of how do I take those different symbols and pair them with initials and birthstones and concepts of poetry and spirituality and all those kinds of things and infuse your loved one's memory into those pieces.

And then you can wear them out into the world,

If you will.

And so it's been really interesting to watch that sort of all unfold.

It's been a surprising experience,

And yet it wasn't necessarily my intention in the beginning,

If you will.

Yeah,

And I get this sense with jewelry sometimes,

Especially where it's marrying the symbols,

The initials and the birthstones and the medals and the stories and the poems behind people.

It's like,

If I can just put as many facets of one person in one place as possible,

It's almost as if I brought them back to life.

And I know this is not anywhere near the power of literally raising the dead.

But it's like,

If I can compile all of these little pieces of a person into this one object,

It creates such a touchstone.

It creates such a symbol of now this is who they are and who they were to me in life.

And it's something that,

Yeah,

You can absolutely point to and be like,

Here they are all in one almost,

As opposed to you feeling like you only get these little crumbs that are just scattered everywhere.

Absolutely.

And you get to create that witness for yourself almost,

For lack of a better term.

Because I think,

And again,

Correct me if I'm wrong,

But from your experience,

But so much of what I have learned and heard through my work with other individuals is really just how much that acknowledgement that their pain matters,

That the life of their loved one mattered.

That witness is always so important in other people.

But another big piece of my journey has really been showing up and being that witness for myself.

I think all grieving individuals,

But I think in particular children,

You really learn to internalize what the world thinks about death and loss and grief and how you should handle it and where you should be at a certain point in time with it and all those kinds of things.

And I think that I bought into that for a long time because I was really high functioning and really resilient and stoic and whatnot.

And I got a lot of feedback about that,

But I never really provided myself with my own witness of what my pain was.

And that's sort of what I had touched on in the beginning of our conversation about.

It was probably only 15 years ago that I really started to unpack all of this and say,

This matters.

This wasn't just tragic.

This is tragic and traumatic on all these different levels.

And I can't possibly be the only one who thinks and feels this way.

Yeah.

And I'm wondering how exactly did you learn to witness yourself?

Because I think this is like a master skill,

Though a lot of people end up learning and grief,

But they kind of accidentally stumble into looking at themselves because I think self-knowledge is one thing.

Like I know these things to be true about myself,

But to tell a story and then for some separate part of myself to point at the story I've just told and say,

That's real,

That's true,

That happened,

That matters.

Like that's a whole other plane of self-study.

It's pretty phenomenal.

And I think that you entering into this place when you were in your twenties as like,

Wow,

As you're expanding your view of what the world is,

Who you are,

What place you play in the world,

It makes sense that that's all coming together at once.

And it also makes sense that that's where you're learning to witness your story.

It's like you have that ability as you grow into yourself.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I appreciate you saying that.

And that's an interesting question in the sense that I think you're right.

I did sort of stumble into it.

I would say the biggest seed that kind of took me down this road was going back to graduate school.

I had studied psychology and communications in my undergrad and ended up falling into administrative work right after I graduated.

And after about five years,

I just was very unhappy.

I didn't feel like I was doing meaningful work.

And really now again,

Coming full circle,

I recognize this was,

I was entering the season of time to really be that witness for myself and really start to look at the impact of my mother's death.

And so ultimately I went back to school to get my degree for counseling psychology.

And I thought I was going to be a marriage and family therapist.

And in the midst of that program,

Realized that wasn't the best fit for me.

I'm actually much more of a grief advocate.

So I didn't pursue licensure,

But I did finish the program and I did write my thesis.

And for my thesis,

I it's called the forgotten mourners,

Traumatic loss after infancy.

And so really it was a heuristic examination of everything that we're talking about.

The experience of losing my mother as an infant,

The aftermath of that,

What it was like to be a child and know that such a significant person that you don't even know is missing from your life.

And really examining Boulby and Ainsworth attachment theory and Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief model,

And really seeing all of that information in one place and really saying,

This doesn't fit for what my experience was,

You know?

And that was really where I started to recognize how much grief,

Grieving I had not done and how misunderstood it was,

How wrong we have it,

Societally speaking.

I think we're making slow strides,

Thankfully,

But I think for the most part,

We got it all wrong.

And so it was really in writing that and examining my own experience and going through the program of being a witness for other individuals that I learned how to do it for myself.

And it's an ongoing process.

I certainly don't mean to say that I'm an expert by any means,

But it was really about the biggest step was opening that door for me to say this mattered.

This was awful.

And no amount of achievement or accomplishment or resilience can erase how important it still was.

I want to talk about the emotions of losing your mom so young,

Because I imagine even the title of your thesis,

Forgotten Mourners,

Of people who lose so early that they don't remember,

So is it even real?

Is it even valid?

And of course,

Here the answer is yes,

On coming back,

Very much so.

But in putting myself into your shoes as best as I possibly can,

Because I know that's 100% impossible with grief,

But we get as close as we can,

I'm envisioning things like anger,

Like once you realize other people have moms and I don't,

Or jealousy for even people that you work with through Joyful Jewelry Box who have memories,

Who have symbols,

Who have things to draw from that actually have a real life experience tied to them.

And I think these are rational and normal emotions that all gravers have,

But I wonder if they have any particular meaning for you or stories for you because they're coming up in relation to a mom that you don't remember.

I think that you nailed them perfectly.

I mean,

I don't think that I realized as a child how angry I was.

I mean,

Naturally,

Children only have as much understanding of their emotions as they're taught and supported in that way.

But as looking back in the understanding that I have now,

Generally speaking,

I would say I'm mostly shut down.

I was not a difficult child.

I didn't demand a lot of attention.

But the times where that kind of came to a head for me,

If you will,

I was very angry.

I have this one particular memory that stands out so strongly,

But of course I can't remember what triggered it.

But I was so angry and upset about something.

I don't know,

Maybe I was like eight or 10.

And I remember slamming my door over and over and over until I busted the door to him,

But nobody was even around.

Even saying that out loud makes me heartbroken for that little girl.

Not only did she lose her mom,

But then there was nobody around to provide any comfort or support for that massive void.

So there was definitely a lot of anger,

But also really just a lot of loneliness and really feeling like I was an afterthought.

And I think that that continued to be perpetuated as I grew up and learned that the more time passes,

The less people are interested to ask about your grief,

Or not even that they necessarily did in the first place,

But you might relate to this.

But just as people really get wrapped up in their own lives again,

I think as time went on,

It didn't occur to them that that was necessarily an ongoing impact.

And so because others didn't,

I didn't necessarily either.

And so that was a big piece of that title,

The forgotten mourners,

Right?

Especially too,

Because,

And I,

Again,

I can only speak to my family's experience and we all did the absolute best that we could,

It's simply not a judgment.

But I know that children really just,

They have to follow the model that's being set by the adults around them.

And if they don't feel safe enough to be able to communicate that they're upset,

They might even be able to articulate that they're upset,

But if they don't feel safe enough to express where they're coming from,

How they're feeling,

It just continues to get swept under the rug.

And so you start to feel like everybody forgot what happened and yet you're still just living it every day,

If that makes sense.

Yeah.

It's like this,

This continues on for me and yet it feels like it's stopped for everyone else because they're not seeing evidence of that or because they don't know to ask or because you haven't spoken up.

And I don't know if there's fault on any side of this equation,

But I'm wondering how you found safety or if you found safety in the structure that is your family to bring up your mom again,

Whether in the future or if her memory continues on now,

Or if things have changed,

Improved,

Grown,

Worsened,

How that's changed as you've started uncovering all these pieces for yourself.

Yeah.

There was one other point I wanted to make though,

Before I answer that.

Another thing about children,

I think,

At least from my experience in the feeling forgotten is again,

Because so much of their experience is facilitated by the adults around them,

They're sort of on a delay.

I mean,

Obviously developmentally speaking,

But right then you start to grow up and you start to understand who and what you lost and not that people in my family necessarily got over it or moved on on that and simulating that in any way,

Shape or form.

But they're far beyond the sort of fresh grief that you're feeling,

Right?

Because now I'm just starting to understand it on all those levels.

So it really creates sort of like this separation or it did for me,

If you will.

And in terms of my family now,

Thankfully we didn't grow up in,

I didn't grow up in an environment where we weren't allowed to talk about her.

I hear that so often where the grief is just too much and families just can't hold space for that.

And I just have a very,

Very deep empathy for that.

So while we did talk about her,

I would say it was less about memories of her so much or,

I mean,

Naturally because my dad was the one who had them.

I have an older brother and an older sister,

But my brother was nine and my sister was seven.

So naturally again,

Even though they have some memories,

It's still very limited.

So I would say most of our conversations revolved around the circumstances of what happened.

And even then that didn't necessarily happen until later because homicide isn't necessarily a child appropriate conversation.

And when I say that though,

I'm not in any way insinuating that you shouldn't be telling children the truth when that's the case.

Obviously that's the situation I grew up in,

In the sense that I don't remember anybody sitting me down and telling me what happened per se.

I always just sort of knew.

And so as time went on and we were able,

I'm having some hard time putting words to this experience today,

I apologize.

As time went on really and we got older and had a better understanding and could really have more access to the adult version,

If you will.

I'd say we talked much more about the circumstances,

Less about what it was like to live without my mom,

Less about the emotions and the pain of how hard it was to not have her,

Things like that.

As I deepened this work,

My family's actually been really really supportive.

I don't think it's necessarily something that we talk about all that regularly and all that directly,

If you will,

In the sense that we really just give each other our freedom and space to grieve in our different ways.

And I think on some level,

They're not necessarily surprised that I ended up here doing this work.

And so it's actually been a positive experience.

I feel like it's helped them understand me.

I feel like this process has helped me understand them better.

It's given me a deeper compassion and empathy for different kinds of grief that maybe I don't necessarily understand.

And so it continues to be an ongoing process.

I feel like maybe I'm not answering the question and yet at the same time,

That's what grief always is.

There's different seasons to it and different layers to it.

And they would probably answer it completely differently than myself.

But I do think that it's facilitated a way for us to be able to go to a different level.

I feel like the conversations have shifted a little bit instead of what happened that night and who this and who that and how was this possible and those kinds of things.

I feel like it's evolved into more of the different ways that we feel her in our life now.

Talking about,

For example,

The dragonfly,

The different ways that we experience her out in the world.

And I think it's facilitated a lot of freedom and connection for us that I wasn't necessarily anticipating.

And so that's been a big blessing.

I resonate with that because I think for so many grieving people,

You get to the place where you stop talking about what happened,

And you start talking about how it's changing your life,

Or how it's impacting your life or how it's impacting the people around you.

It's like the details fall away.

And then the actual experience of the thing comes to the surface comes to light and enters conversation.

I do wonder with your mom being murdered,

As opposed to,

You know,

Being sick or having some kind of an accident or something like that.

I wonder if there's this sense of resentment,

Bitterness.

Yeah,

Those are the words I'm going to choose because I feel like the story could be construed in a way where she was taken from you and from your family as opposed to another force that was not the hands of another person.

Definitely.

Absolutely.

And it creates all sorts of layers.

For our situation specifically,

It remains unsolved.

And so I think there was years of,

Again,

Not as children,

Like we're going to go out and find this person and do something about it.

But that fascination or that,

What's the word I'm looking for,

That focus of the actual,

You know,

What happened,

I feel like it gave us some sort of sense of control,

Right?

That anger,

That fuel of how could this happen?

How can we find redemption,

For lack of a better term,

You know?

Whereas now I think having that quality change has really been,

I don't want to say a new stage because I don't,

I don't want to say I don't believe in them,

But I think we're on the same page that grief is not linear.

There's way more than five stages,

All those kinds of things.

But I can see a new season,

A new sort of energy surrounding that.

And yet,

Of course there's resentment.

Of course there's bitterness because,

Because,

Right?

We have to choose to have quote unquote closure,

If that even exists,

Right?

We have to choose to believe that there's the good people out there.

We have to choose to believe that people,

The police did everything that they could.

And yet,

You know,

There's another layer outside of that too.

They just,

It creates an instantaneous sensationalism that people just can't help themselves around.

And that was another piece I would say that was really dominating in terms of my experience growing up,

Right?

Just really trying to observe and understand and internalize you know,

The real story and what I heard from adults around me and whatnot.

But it just,

It was hard to find instances where people were really concerned about us as a family or about our feelings or about where we were in our grief as opposed to the focus on,

Well,

Were they ever caught?

Well,

How did this happen?

All those very sensational details,

Right?

And so there's another layer of resentment in the sense that this is my real life.

I am not a soap opera.

And you had to navigate that a lot.

And,

And really when you have such an abrasive story,

For lack of a better term,

It's not like I go around telling the world and my mother was murdered.

And yet there's plenty of times like you're not in the mood to hide your story.

You're not in the mood to create,

To create an appropriate way to deliver those details.

And it was always really hard when people were just so besides themselves that then you now had to show up and comfort them,

Right?

They weren't prepared for the answer to the very question that they asked.

And then they were just so heartbroken for you.

You had to then show up for them.

And so you're absolutely right.

It's just,

There's so many different really complicated layers that you have to resolve on top of grief itself being so confusing and isolating.

And what you said too,

You touched on it perfectly that it was very unnatural,

Right?

And really even when,

Even if it is a parent being sick or an accident or whatever,

When a child loses a parent that is always unnatural,

That is always going to be untimely.

And so it's definitely an interesting,

It's definitely a unique experience to navigate.

It is.

And I think there's an inherent injustice in it.

You said a child losing a parent will never be natural.

And there's especially so young.

Yeah.

Because I don't think for as many people say,

Especially parents say,

You know,

I would hate to have my children die before me and that seems unnatural.

But at some point it's like maybe when we're 70 and our parents are 90 or a hundred,

Then it's okay to lose them.

But even then that societal story doesn't flesh out.

But especially in this case of I was an infant and my mother was murdered.

There's an inherent injustice in that story.

And it's really fascinating and interesting to me that you and your family have chosen,

And you've said these words exactly,

Chosen to tell stories of the police did the best they could,

The people around us are doing the best they could,

The people who are writing about this are doing the best they could.

And there's,

There is a choice in believing in those stories versus everything happens to me,

The world is out to get me,

Nobody's doing a good job,

Nobody's finding answers,

Which would be like the opposite kind of story.

And I think the grief that you have looks different as a result of the type of story that you tell yourself.

And so it's really just fascinating and interesting to hear that,

That you and your family have taken this angle of everybody around us is doing the best they can because that may very well be the truth.

But it affects how you grieve as a result,

It kind of diffuses or discharges a lot of additional rage,

Frustration,

Anger that could be piled on top of the already existing rage,

Frustration,

Anger as a result of losing your mom so young.

So it's just neat that you have gotten there.

Thank you,

You know,

That's an intuitive point in the sense that,

That I want to elaborate just a little bit more as far as,

You know,

My family has really taken on maybe sort of a spiritual approach to it,

I guess,

Especially when you know,

The dragonfly kind of came to be for us.

But through that experience,

You know,

My mom was really a very,

Very strong devout Christian.

Her faith was really one of her main trademarks,

Something that people talk about to this day that they remembered that they found so inspiring.

And through that lens,

If you will,

Through that story,

Like you said,

We've really sort of reached the point of feeling like she has said,

I'm okay.

That it's not productive for you to pour your energy into this,

I'm okay.

And I say that in no way to discourage anybody out there who may be in a similar position who is doing what they can and need for justice for their person.

Everybody is different.

Every story is different.

Every experience is unique.

This is mine.

This is my family's.

I'm not implying that in any way.

And yet,

Shelby,

You really,

You nailed it when you said that it really diffused a lot for us.

Right?

Whenever I get back into that dark space of just injustice,

Or who is this person?

Are they still alive?

Are they still a horrible person?

All these things,

When I go down that road,

What brings me back,

What diffuses that,

Like you said,

Is really this idea that I know that she told,

Not told us.

And yet that spiritual kind of just knowing that she's okay and she wants us to focus on other parts.

On other parts of her life or other parts of our life or to go out and serve people and help people.

I'm still making the loss of her and keeping her memory alive is still a very primary part of my life every single day,

Of course.

But I appreciate that you recognize that at some point we had to make the choice to honor that we can't bring her back.

We can't bring her back and that we probably aren't going to get that justice that we hoped for.

And it's okay to let go of that.

I'm not telling you,

Anybody out there that you need to,

But it's okay.

If that's what comes up for your family or for you and your process,

That's okay.

I think it's really helpful to hear examples of this because sometimes,

Especially when working with one-on-one clients or things like that,

They'll be in these places where they're kind of rolling around the circumstances of what happened or the key players in the story and all these other things.

And it's really easy to get stuck there,

To feel trapped there or to feel like I cannot pass go until I have this number of answers.

Exactly.

And a question that I always pose is what would you do if getting the answers was not an option?

If this door that you're trying to open turns out to be a wall,

Then what will you do?

Who will you be?

What actions are you going to take anyway,

Regardless?

And that really points to one of my favorite and least favorite quotes from Cheryl Straight.

It's so funny because it's true,

But it's so true that it bothers me.

Yeah,

Exactly.

She says,

Acceptance is a small,

Quiet room.

And I think getting to a place of acceptance is not about being at peace with what happened.

And it's not about having the happy ending wrapped up in 90 minutes like a movie.

It's very much the small,

Quiet room of these are all the answers I have,

Maybe all the answers that I'm ever going to have.

Now,

Who am I going to be with this information?

What am I choosing to do with this information?

And that's what a kind of acceptance looks like.

And it's not going back to your speaking on like what society teaches us about grief and loss.

Like it's not attractive.

It's not shiny.

It's not I've solved it.

It's not perfect.

It's very much a human version of acceptance as opposed to like a robot or a cinema version of what we've been told acceptance looks like.

And it's just really beautiful to hear you say things like that.

I got chills when you said we cannot bring her back.

Because ultimately,

That's what I think that's what a lack of acceptance is,

Is this attempt to bring back,

To make right,

To find all the answers,

To get to somehow bring all the parts back to the whole.

And I'm like,

What if that's not possible?

And that's not a negative or pessimistic outlook,

But it's a realistic one.

Like what if it's no longer possible?

What if it's been permanently shattered?

Then what do we do?

And so I just love that,

That that has come to you and it looks like this in your life.

Because I think that kind of that kind of phrasing,

We cannot bring her back,

Can run the gamut of everything from despair to,

To this kind of small quiet room acceptance.

So I'm just really intrigued that that's,

That's the story that you tell and keep telling to yourself.

And that's the story that you're living in right now.

Thank you.

Yeah,

I mean,

It takes,

It takes a commitment,

Of course,

You know,

It takes a lot of a lot of pun intended,

But literal work to be able to bring yourself back to,

You know,

What are,

You know,

What your chosen truth is.

But nothing else has quite served me so much in my process as really just saying,

Giving myself that space and permission to speak my own truth,

Right.

And recognizing that not only in the,

The not being able to bring her back,

But also really recognizing that maybe I don't know,

Maybe I don't want those answers,

You know,

Is another piece of that I really had to kind of accept at a certain point in time that,

That those answers aren't going to necessarily feel good.

And those,

They're not going to fix anything either,

You know.

So again,

Everybody's process is different and I'm not trying to discourage anybody.

But that was really,

You know,

That's the continual conversation that I have with myself to bring myself back to that place.

So really just trying to connect with her,

Her memory more spiritually and carry that forward in a way that helps people instead of a way that traps me in her homicide,

If you will.

I think that's phrased really perfectly because it is this choice to stay,

Stay there in the timeline of events or actually step into the life that you're living right now.

Yeah.

And it's never either or.

I think,

I think you've touched on this several times and I'll touch on it here.

It's never the choice of,

I mean,

Reliving her loss forever and ever,

Or I'm living in real life forever and ever.

I think it really is,

You know,

You keep stepping into that pool over and over again.

We keep going to the past and then coming back to the present over and over again.

And eventually the ratio changes.

It's not an issue of,

I've decided I'm moving forward and I'm never thinking about that again.

It's very much like,

Well,

When she died or when I had this project in my twenties where I really started witnessing others and I finally witnessed myself,

Her death,

Her loss was at like 90% and maybe I live my life 10% of the time.

And now it seems like that ratio is tilting the other way where I'm fully in my life and every now and then I'll go back to visit.

But even then there's a small,

Quiet room of acceptance there of this is what's happened.

There's no more information.

I can't get any more answers than I have.

And I think that's really interesting to note is that when people say they're healed from grief and loss or that they're healing,

I think what they're really saying is I'm living more in my life than I'm living in the loss.

And that's a really big key and neither is bad and neither is good.

I don't think it really depends on where you want to end up if you have those answers for yourself yet.

I wonder before we wrap up this call if you could share a story maybe,

If you have a story about your mom's jewelry or wearing a piece of her jewelry or something that happened while you were wearing something that belonged to her,

Maybe a piece of your own and really bring us full circle with this childhood experience of playing in her treasure box and if any of that has come forward for you or followed you now into adulthood.

It has.

Yeah,

Thank you.

I'm actually looking at her jewelry box right now.

It's over in a corner in my studio up on a shelf.

And what's neat is that I will,

Whenever I get a nudge,

I don't know,

A few times a year,

But I'll just go back to it and see what's in there.

And something new always stands out.

So even as I'm talking to you,

I'm literally wearing her silver hoop earrings,

Which is just so cool.

Like how timeless they are that,

You know,

35 years later and here I am wearing them.

But what was really neat is that for my something old when I got married,

The theme throughout the wedding was dragonflies,

But obviously I wanted to wear a piece of her jewelry.

And so there was actually a tiny,

Tiny ring of her initials that was all tarnished and pretty beat up that I don't ever remember seeing before that.

And I decided that I wanted to wear it on my pinky and my husband's mom,

She actually,

My mother-in-law,

She took it and cleaned.

This was before I was actually doing jewelry before I opened my shop and really gotten back into it and whatnot.

So anyway,

She took it and refinished it for me and then gave it back to me on the morning of the wedding.

And so that was really an incredible way to be able to just have her as part of that day with us.

Yeah.

That's really beautiful.

That's beautiful.

I remember one of the first things I did after my mom died was get some of her jewelry reset.

And what's interesting is that set of jewelry was from her best friend who had died.

And I was,

I remember being alive when my mom was grieving this friend.

And so in her best friend's death,

She got her ring and a necklace that I think they bought together,

Like on a cruise or something like that.

They'd done a cute best friend cruise.

And so when my mom died,

She was like the jewelry I got from my friend is going to Shelby.

And I also,

I got it reset in silver because I don't wear a lot of gold,

But I got it reset in silver and I was able to wear it the day of my graduation in it.

So it seems like these milestones are saturated with like,

If I wear you,

Maybe you're here a little bit.

It's a little wishful thinking when it happens,

But I'm like,

If I wear you,

Maybe you're here.

You're here.

Yeah.

And to touch them,

Right?

Like rub on them and have that tactical sort of tangible,

I can't hug you,

But here you are as much as I can bring you forward into this moment.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so special.

I'm so glad that you have those pieces.

Yeah.

And I'm so glad that you have yours as well because yeah,

Wedding days,

Graduation days,

Having children,

You know,

Getting promotions,

Major moves.

It's like these,

If they can't be there,

We're going to go for the next best thing.