BW 040: Grief, Trauma, Mental Health and Healing with Kimberly Koland

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In episode 40 of the Brave Widow Show I get to speak with Kimberly (@hopefully_kimberly). Kimberly is a widow living in Minneapolis. Her husband, a school principal, died by suicide four months and 19 days after their wedding.

Kimberly's hope is that others who are walking a similar journey of love and trauma during and after loss will find an ally and will find hope. She wants you to know that you matter. When she's not scrolling on Instagram. She is teaching or watering flowers.

 

You can find Kimberly on:

Instagram | @hopefully_kimberly

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The Brave Widow Community is a place where you can connect with other widows, find hope and healing, and begin to dream again for the future.  Learn more at bravewidow.com.  

 

Hey guys, I’m Emily Jones

I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary.  Nathan and I have four beautiful children together.  My world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.  With faith, community, and wisdom from others, I’ve been able to find hope, joy, and dream again for the future.  I want to help others do the same, too!

 

FOLLOW me on SOCIAL:

Twitter | @brave_widow

Instagram | @brave_widow

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/bravewidow

YouTube | @bravewidow

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Emily Jones: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome to episode number 40 of the Brave Widow Show. On today's episode, I speak with a lovely person by the name of Kimberly. Kimberly reached out to me on social media and asked if she could share her story, and I, after talking with her and after recording the show, I was just so impressed with her beautiful spirit.

Emily Jones: Her openness, her vulnerability. She even told me before recording the show, like you can ask me any gut-wrenching questions that you have, because she's been through a. Very terrible and somewhat difficult circumstance to imagine as any of us have who have lost a spouse. Um, but Kimberly lost her spouse to suicide and struggled with that very soon, even after initially getting married.

Emily Jones: She was only a married to her spouse for [00:01:00] four months and 10 days, which. Very difficult to, to wrap my mind around the experience that she's had. And so she's had a lot of struggle with that and I just really commend her for the things that she's gone through. Being open and willing to get on a video podcast and share that story, and to be able to say just less than two years later, that got us still good, that good things can come out of tragedy.

Emily Jones: And. To want to be in a situation where she inspires and encourages other people. I think that says everything you need to know about this lady. So let me introduce you to Kimberly. Kimberly is a widow living in Minneapolis. Her husband, a school principal, died by suicide four months and 19 days after their wedding.

Emily Jones: Kimberly's hope is that others who are walking a similar journey of love and trauma during and after loss will find an ally and will find hope. She wants you to know [00:02:00] that you matter. When she's not scrolling on Instagram. Well, she sends lovely voice messages on Instagram, by the way. She is teaching or watering flowers.

Emily Jones: And you can find Kimberly on Instagram. I will put the link in the show notes, but it's hopefully underscore Kimberly and, uh, you'll find some good info on there. So let's dive in.

 

Emily Jones: Welcome to The Brave Widow Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Jones. We help young widows heal their heart, find hope, and dream again for the future.

Emily Jones: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of The brave Widow Show. I am so excited that I have Kimberly here that's with me today, and Kimberly [00:03:00] has a very interesting story. She's been through some unique circumstances and she has voluntarily agreed to share some of the most challenging and difficult things that she went through.

Emily Jones: Kimberly, thank you so much for joining me on the show and being willing to be so open about your experience. I really appreciate it.

Kimberly Koland: Well, thank you for taking the time as well, and I hope that you and your crew of business, people and family are just enjoying your summertime.

Emily Jones: Yeah, definitely. It's warm here.

Emily Jones: I know you said it's pretty warm in Minneapolis as well. I think you said it's gonna be getting up in the nineties, which I guess I didn't realize it gets quite so hot up there, but hope you guys are staying cool too.

Emily Jones: But why don't you tell the audience a little bit about, your background and who you are, and then we can, dive into your story.

Kimberly Koland: All right. That sounds great. Hi, my name's Kimberly and I live in Minneapolis. And I had a fortunate opportunity to meet this wonderful man. His name was Brian. His name [00:04:00] still is Brian. And we, we connected over our similar paths of education. He was a principal and I've been a teacher.

Kimberly Koland: We were one year difference in age. So he had been teaching, one year longer than me. And, we just love, we love our profession. He was a dedicated administrator. He worked in special ed, he worked as a teacher. He served as a building leader for quite some time. And, he loved his job. He loved the students, he loved the ins and outs of the whole teaching framework, education framework.

Kimberly Koland: And, and I love that about him. I love that passion. And what's really neat about him was that his genius, which I always put passion and compassion together to equate a genius. His genius was just taking what he loved. And then what the elements of it that broke his heart in education. He just threw himself into that and trying to be a problem solver for, the organization and [00:05:00] also for the sweeties, the students and their families that he served.

Kimberly Koland: And that's why I'm like, that is the guy. I can't wait to like, be with for forever because, it's really neat to see someone so passionate about what they do. So we get married like, duh, why wouldn't you marry that guy? And we had so much fun. We, were building a home, a retirement home in Wisconsin and step by step cuz it was gonna take a little bit longer.

Kimberly Koland: We were down to about five years left of our profession. And we were going to like, Live in our retirement home there, keep like a little small apartment here in the city and then also take some time to live overseas and, either just like vacationers or, we were also entertaining the idea of just like working, with our passion of education somewhere overseas as well.

Kimberly Koland: That was going great and everything was wonderful and we married. And it was a very cold may morning. And I, my wedding pictures I don't like, cuz I look like, well if you love looking like yoga, oh no, that's great for [00:06:00] you, but not on my wedding day. And it was like cold but sunny. And I had those classes that changed, like when the positions I don't recommend those for like when you're getting married. Oh no. Wedding tips, change your glasses. So that's why I looked like Yoko Ono and I'm like, oh my Atlanta, this is the worst. But that's okay because life was great. And then we went to Costa Rica and to visit my family there and it was an amazing time.

Kimberly Koland: And then when we got back, from Costa Rica in the, in, towards the end of j beginning of July, we had about three, three weeks before he told me he was suicidal. And he had, I had not. I knew that there was work stress going on. He had shared with me a little bit about that. But I didn't really understand.

Kimberly Koland: I have work stress too, and I'm sure you do, and I'm sure, dear listener, you probably do as well. That would be strange if you didn't have work stress. But everybody processes work stress so differently and he internalized it. Thankfully, he journaled a little bit about it, but the rest of it was really in [00:07:00] internalized.

Kimberly Koland: And for him, the work stress was just another layer to an existing iceberg that I did not see the bottom of the iceberg. Or even like, maybe, I guess I didn't see 90% of the iceberg. And it was just the icing on the cape that spun him in a different direction of which he never recovered from.

Emily Jones: So do you feel that, when he told you this after being married, it was something he chronically had struggled with or it was something recent that popped up for him and did you feel like, well, what, why did you wait till now to tell me this?

Emily Jones: What had to be going through your mind?

Kimberly Koland: Yeah. A thousand things all at the same time? Yes. He had previously had issues with mental health up to, from this state probably 14 years ago, and he was, at that time, suicidal. And he, was acting out his ideations at that time. And, his family, tried to deal with it as best as they could at the time.

Kimberly Koland: He went on anti-depressant medicine, anti-depression, who am I saying that? Right? [00:08:00] Anti-depressants. And and that seemed to, help. Him a lot. And the entire family knew, about this. But Brian never shared that with me. And to my existing knowledge. They did not encourage him to maybe, Hey, I see you're getting serious with somebody and you're talking about marrying her.

Kimberly Koland: Does she know about, and I know that's a tough conversation. And so if you are also in that situation and you see somebody in your family getting serious as somebody else, and you think that maybe something really important, like this should be told, it should be told. And you, it's really important to try to encourage that person.

Kimberly Koland: I know it's hard, it's really hard and it's really awkward and you really don't wanna do it. And I get it, but I wonder sometimes if that would've been a difference, if that would've changed something.

Emily Jones: Yeah. And do you think that. Maybe it would've changed your mind, maybe not, but you could have been better prepared or maybe Yeah.

Emily Jones: Sought to better understand how to best support that person. Okay.

Kimberly Koland: Because, when I found out i, I can only [00:09:00] describe it as like that a massive, like deer in the headlights experience where you're wondering what just happened. Like, we just got married six weeks ago, 52 days went between when we married and when he told me he was suicidal, and then he told me he had not been taking his medicine, and I'm like,

Kimberly Koland: So he shared with me at that time that he had stopped taking medicine when we started dating, which makes sense because your body has different, hormones, endorphins going through it. When you're dating somebody, you're like, oh, I feel so good. This is great. I don't need my medicine. Right, fine.

Kimberly Koland: And I get that, and I understand why he did it. But if you're supposed to be taking something that is helpful for you personally to get through your day to day, continue to take it because another person cannot fix what you need physically or mentally, even spiritually. At that time, you and your doctor knew what you needed to do.

Kimberly Koland: You just didn't want to do it. And I think it was also the stigmatism, the stigma of. Having mental [00:10:00] health as a professional, as a person who wore suits every day as a person who, had enough ties for the entire year. He didn't have to wear, he could have worn a different tie. I mean, that man and more shoes and more ties and more clothes than I ever had.

Kimberly Koland: His side of the wardrobe was here. Mine was like, where are my clothes gonna fit? I'll just scrape aside this part. And so I think just, some people struggle with pride, from time to time. And maybe we all struggle with pride from time to time, just differently and at different levels. So for him, this is a source of his pride because he was really good at what he did, and I don't think he wanted people to second guess him.

Emily Jones: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I actually recently went to an entree leadership conference that Dave Ramsey held in Nashville. And one of the speakers, I think it might have been Dr. John Delony, but one of the speakers said, okay, there's 2,600 people in this room across the United States. 50% of people struggle with depression or anxiety, so let's pretend that's this half of the room and for the other half of the [00:11:00] room, you're probably married to one of those people.

Emily Jones: So it's much more common than we think, but only recently I think more people have been talking about it and it's becoming a little less stigmatized and probably still is to a great degree. But, I'm sure that has to be really difficult as someone being married to that person to know how to best support them or to feel like you're doing everything you can if you don't even really know that something they're struggling with.

Kimberly Koland: Right. And if you don't know what someone's struggling with, like how are you, how are, how was I supposed to help you? How was I supposed to know if you don't tell me? Because he really did such a good job of covering it up the entire time. Not because he was trying to pretend. I just think he wanted to be a different person.

Kimberly Koland: I just think he wanted that to not be his story. I just think he wanted, he just believed, okay, things are so fun and awesome. Okay, let's just, I'll be fine. But then Covid came and in education, I don't know how. If your children personally are, were in school [00:12:00] during, the Covid experience. But it was torture for teachers.

Kimberly Koland: It was torture for administrators. He and I started and stopped school seven times in one school year and come home, go to back to school, separate the classes. You can only eat here, you can only play at the recess over here. But you kept to play and there was all these whacked situations. Then he got covid and that was hard.

Kimberly Koland: He had hard covid and he had pneumonia on top of that. And his mom died during Covid, not from Covid, but during Covid. And it was just like layer after layer of like what the actual heck is going on. And so I think he was internalizing it. And the only thing that I noticed, over the course of us dating and then, up to six weeks after our marriage was that he was, Slowly sinking into more of a very sole solitary moments.

Kimberly Koland: He would love to sit outside, just by himself. He loved nature. So that made sense to me. And I knew that he missed his mom. So that made sense to me, but it was more than that.

Emily Jones: Yeah. And you mentioned something earlier that I think is a really good point, and I'm curious if you [00:13:00] struggled with that as well of, another person cannot fix someone else.

Emily Jones: You can't save someone else, you can't want them to get help more than they want it for themselves. But was that at any point, something you struggled with and thinking I could have done more, I could have said more, I could have I, should have done this. I maybe I could have prevented this. Did you have moments where you struggled with that?

Kimberly Koland: Absolutely. As educators, he and I are mandated to go to, mental health In, classes. We are mandated to go to suicide prevention classes. He knew, I knew. And often as educators we go to those things, we go, oh yeah, this is tough. I'm somebody else's journey. Wow, this will, well, thank you for letting me know how this is, you know how to help them.

Kimberly Koland: We don't say, oh gee, how can this mental health class help me? Or, I might need to know this information about suicide prevention. For me, it's usually for them, not me. And yet I was thankful for what I had received [00:14:00] so that I knew that there were resources and I could try to help. And all the things that I tried to do.

Kimberly Koland: I, I. I did to the best that I could. He was so anxious about everybody knowing that he was no longer okay, that, he really wanted me to not discuss this with people. And that was hard because I needed to talk to somebody about these things that were happening. And, so I did what every, what I believe was the right thing if he, I asked him point blank, what are the ways that you're trying to di e how are you, what are your thoughts?

Kimberly Koland: What are you thinking here? And he shared with me, of a variety of ideations. And you have to just sit there like an out of body experience. And at that time, love. Love. I love him. I was scared for me. I was scared for him and I love him. And I had to sit there both as a wife and as a caretaker, and as a therapist and as a pastor and all these things that I just was trying my best to do.

Kimberly Koland: And so if he shared with me something, I would try to take care of it. Like, if he shared with me that knives [00:15:00] were giving him anxiety and ideations, I took all the knives outta the house. All the knives. And I hid like one sharp knife and the house is sold. I guess the knife is still there cuz it was well hidden.

Kimberly Koland: If you live at that place, look underneath the, pantry, there's a little, I did my very best. I got rid of,

Emily Jones: there's a nice knife hidden away in the pantry.

Kimberly Koland: So I'm in this house. Look for that nice knife. I took away ropes, I took away hoses. I took away ties. I took away bungee cords. I took away the keys to the motorcycle because that was an issue.

Kimberly Koland: We took away guns and ammo. We took away, sharp implements as much as possible. But again, we're talking about a guy who had every tool known to mankind, because I think in another life, he wanted be, wanted to be Tim. The Tillman Taylor, his, the garage was just loaded with all these tools. It was a, it was impossible to create a safe home.

Kimberly Koland: And I said, Hey, the next step for us is just to become Amish.

Emily Jones: That's it. Is there a point, right. Was there a point too where it was frustrating where you're like, I just want to live a normal, [00:16:00] I say normal life in quotations.

Kimberly Koland: Everybody else gets to have. That's, that was the thought that went into my head.

Kimberly Koland: Everybody else, every other wife who just gets married, gets to have whatever it is that you think that you should have, and that I have to not say that to myself and not believe that lie. I have to learn to tell myself the truth because if I don't, I'm just not gonna be okay. And so I have to instead flip the script on myself and believe that the time that we had was the time that I was supposed to have, the experience that we had was the experience I was supposed to have and to be thankful and to be grateful because I married a great man who just struggled, inwardly with a deep, dark, thinking process.

Kimberly Koland: Yeah. And that's okay. It's not easy to like, get to that point. It took a lot of personal work and therapy to be able to get to that point for me. But it is the truth because if I sit around and I go, oh man, I missed out on my list will be so long, I will never be okay. Yeah.

Emily Jones: Yeah. And then you both had an exceptionally [00:17:00] short time in being married.

Emily Jones: You wanna talk a little bit about that?

Kimberly Koland: Well, four months and 10 days was the total combination of our matrimony with him here on Earth. And again, that should have been, there's a lot of, should have beens in there. It wasn't enough time and that's okay. Because, Of my faith walk. I know where my time will be and I know that time will be for forever. And so I'm looking forward to that. Not in a way like, oh, I can't oh, wait to die. Cause I, I don't want to do that. I've never thought that. I just know that when that happens, everything that was wrong will be okay again.

Kimberly Koland: Yeah. You're absolutely true. I'm excited about that. I'm crying only because it's, it's both the end situation and I've learned that, life is, consistently both in and at the same time, I can be sad that he's gone and happy to see him again when I get to heaven as well.

Emily Jones: Absolutely. And, for me, so Nathan struggled with depression and anxiety.

Emily Jones: He was not quite as suicidal. But enough where it was [00:18:00] just like life was just a burden, yeah. Every day that he was alive, it just felt like it really, the world sat on his shoulders. And in some ways, to your point, I can be devastated that he's gone. I can be happy that he doesn't have to struggle with that anymore.

Emily Jones: That's no longer a burden. But both at the same time. And I think where people get some of the messaging wrong is they say

Emily Jones: things like, well, at least maybe he's not having to struggle with that anymore. At least he's in a better place. And that's like zero. Helpful to hear. Cause in our minds they should be here right beside us and with us.

Emily Jones: And, Continuing on our future path together. I'm curious if as people heard your story and people maybe surrounded you with, support or not, if you felt like there was a different level of sympathy or maybe there were more critical comments because, that of how he died, or if you felt like, Nope, I got the same full support as [00:19:00] probably anyone else gets.

Kimberly Koland: No. It was, because of the short window of our matrimony, there were family members who did not believe that I was, I should be legally counted as his wife, if that makes sense. I am. That was hard because it involved a lot of legal things that, To me at the time, seemed insurmountable and sad all at the same time.

Kimberly Koland: And it was hard because I wanted to honor him. And I know that honoring him, means doing my best to move on with the fam, his family members, including his two, grown children. But they were grown only to the point of early twenties at that time. And so for them,

Kimberly Koland: His as it should be, right, because they were his children, it was hard for them too. But then the way that it flipped over to me was, you're not really his. Are you sure? Sure. Here's marriage license. Whatcha tell? Yeah. And was it,

Emily Jones: were they supportive of you both when you got married or was that something they struggled with even then?

Emily Jones: I

Kimberly Koland: think to them, they believed that their dad should have, asked permission to marry me even though they're [00:20:00] adults. All sorts of things, all sorts of things. And I hesitate to really speak to their sentiments and feelings, except for that is what they shared with me. They just, they were surprised that their dad wanted to be married at that time.

Kimberly Koland: They were, one was living in the home. The other had recently moved out and so there was a lot of inter locking learning to parent adult children situations. Like that. And also just the way that he had since the divorce from his, their mother, he parented them differently than their mom so that they would be more connected to him.

Kimberly Koland: He shared because he didn't want them to disappear from his life, so he just parented them differently. And I think that was hard for them when we married because I took up time and space. And I get that, that happens in a lot of marriages, which is why I'm like, well honey, as soon as we're done with this therapy for your depression and we get all this fixed and we're on the right track, next step is marriage therapy.

Kimberly Koland: Cause we cannot, we have to do this. Well, we have to do this. Well. And I was excited for that cuz [00:21:00] I, I thought Well, it'll go, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. It'll. It just didn't get to that place of, it'll be fine. The way that I thought it would be fine. And then other people shared, people who, are in the church.

Kimberly Koland: I was gonna say in a faith walk, but I'm not really gonna say that. I think people in the church, stigmatized mental health. So I heard things like, oh, he would just pray more if he could just, I heard, is there anything that maybe he hasn't confessed? Is there any, like, is there any like sin going on here?

Kimberly Koland: Like, I also heard, because I, I shared with someone that I really don't get like, oh, visions of my husband coming to me. I don't dream of Brian. I don't like, oh, I feel Brian's presence. Oh, look at that Cardinal. There's Brian. I don't have those. Sentiments and someone said, oh, that's probably because he died by suicide.

Kimberly Koland: Oh. Oh, okay. What a terrible thing to say. I don't know what to say back to that. So I choose to, just me. Okay, well have a good day. Thank you for showing Shana. That's not what I believe, but have a good day. Okay. And so I think when, like at my own church, when [00:22:00] my pastor talks about, mental health, I just wanna stand up and cheer and go, yeah, good job.

Kimberly Koland: That's what we do. That's what you should do. Because if you look around five people in a room, one in five are having serious mental health issues. So look around,

Emily Jones: well, it's good that he's trying to change that culture there locally. Yeah, in the church.

Kimberly Koland: The more people that do that, the more, and it doesn't necessarily need to be just in the church.

Kimberly Koland: It can be in community settings like, what it, like government settings or education settings. You have this notion that you have to have it all together if you are in a spot of leadership and you don't have to have it all together. And I think that if you pretend you do eventually that you get found out.

Kimberly Koland: You can't pretend that long, I think.

Emily Jones: Yeah. So talk to us some about what happened after. So I'm imagining there's that initial shock and you're just trying to survive those first, probably few months or a year. You're just trying to. Figure out what life could even possibly look like. [00:23:00] But, what was that like and what have you been doing in that time?

Emily Jones: Cuz it seems like you really have a heart for helping other widows who have gone through some of the same things.

Kimberly Koland: Oh, it was, it's a blur in a beautiful way. And I think maybe, brain fog from, or, grief brain, it's a real thing. It reminded me of pregnancy brain where, you're like, oh, I don't know.

Kimberly Koland: I don't remember what happened two days ago, what happened two days ago. I think that in a way our brains protect us from a lot of things that, are hardened to get through, but then our with itness, for me the looking for strength outside of myself in my own, my parents, or my best friends.

Kimberly Koland: In my own walk with my own personal walk with them. That helped me to get through it. But I, there are things that I'm sure happened, but I'm not really sure how it, how everything happened. I know that I mean, I had to sell the house. I chose to give them sale the house, even though I legally, legally could have lived there for the rest of my life.

Kimberly Koland: I didn't want to because I just, it was the house that I just recently moved into and it was [00:24:00] something that his kids had grown up in. And it felt to them like this was their home and not my home. And so I willingly sold a house, for them to receive the money from that. And also I didn't wanna be there like, That wasn't easy.

Kimberly Koland: Sure, that's fine. Because it just, there was too many little things that I bet his kids didn't even know, like situations that were happening in there that just, it would've reminded me, it would've reminded me of the five alarm fire. So that was fine. And I did that the day he to died.. I just packed up what I could and then two days later my daughter's volleyball team came and cleared us out and I, we only took what we, what I brought in cuz I did not want to be accused of stealing anything cuz that was like the situation that was starting to boil.

Kimberly Koland: Like, oh, now she's gonna come and take all of our dad's money, who is swim? We don't even know her. Like we've, she just came into our lives in the past two years. So what exactly is happening? I didn't want that. And it wasn't how I wanted to live my life. It also wasn't what I wanted. To part of the [00:25:00] story.

Kimberly Koland: Did that and I moved into, rented a house and it was a great house, not too far from my parents. And, just tried to put the wheels back together. I had moved, my, where I was working, I moved to work closer to, to in his school system. And I could not stay there either because it was, his thumbprint was all over everything cuz he had been there for so long.

Kimberly Koland: Everybody knew him. Everybody liked him. The person that I worked for, my administrator was my husband's best friend. That was hard. Everything was just a challenge and so I just gave myself little, little, signs along the way. I need to marker. Signs I need to get to. Okay. Okay, now I need to do, Okay, now my next step is, and that seemed to help a lot better.

Kimberly Koland: So I knew the day that my husband passed away, I knew I was not gonna return to that district. There was no way I could, like, in my own soul, legitimately I could, but I just mentally that was, not gonna be the right choice. And so then I had to just find a different job and it was a lot. But then time rolls on you.

Kimberly Koland: You learn to, I learned to just take [00:26:00] care of my own self first. And I know that's really hard, as a widow, and you know that as well. You have to take care of yourself first, even if you have young children. My children, are all, well now they're all out at that time. My daughter was 16, I think, and.

Kimberly Koland: She needed me, but she needed me to be okay, and I was not okay. So I had to work hard on figuring out how to be okay. And that takes a lot of work to, takes therapy, it takes diligence. It takes, a lot of gutsiness to, to learn, to tell yourself the truth, and not to live in a make believe world. Not to believe the lies that you want to believe and not to believe the lies that people are trying to tell you.

Kimberly Koland: I remember one time, I couldn't find my glasses. And I was looking all over, and then I stopped and I said, okay, God, help me find my glasses. And I found them. But then the next thought in my head was, see God can help you find your glasses, but he can't save your husband. And I just, our brains are just.

Kimberly Koland: Jacked up on a whole lot of things going on. And so learning, tell yourself the truth when you are walking through widowhood, when you [00:27:00] are experiencing trauma and grief all at the same time, when you don't know you're up from your down. I just wanna encourage your listeners to journal, to write truths and to not believe in lies.

Kimberly Koland: Even if you have to like put the truth, take it to your wall, your mirror, your microwave, your fridge, wherever you are, put some truths up, whatever that truth is for you. Yeah. And mine is, I'm not abandoned. I'm not abandoned it. It can feel like that and it can look like that, but that is not the truth.

Kimberly Koland: So that's what I tell myself.

Emily Jones: Yeah, I, when I was driving home from the hospital, After Nathan was pronounced dead. That was the thought that just repeated over and over in my mind was, you're not alone. You're not alone. And over and over. And I just kept reminding myself of that because we can ask why we can not understand, but at the end of the day, reality is what it is.

Emily Jones: And we have to remind ourselves of what the truth is. God does still love us. He does still have a plan for us and a [00:28:00] way to use some, something for good that can out of a terrible situation. And you mentioned how important it is to take care of ourselves before

Emily Jones: we help other people, which I think is so true.

Emily Jones: And as widows something that we tend to do last, we tend to put ourselves last. But one thing that I've learned very clearly is that. Healing has to be a proactive thing. So everybody has a different timeline, a different journey that they're going down, but there is no finish line to grief. But getting out of the overwhelming sadness, the volatility of emotions, the brain fog, a lot of those things, you have to be proactive.

Emily Jones: So like you said, yeah, maybe it's journaling and a support group and therapy, or talking with other widows or sharing your story on a podcast. W reliving some of those things. Acknowledging your feelings for what they are. But being proactive in your healing journey is something that everyone should [00:29:00] focus on, because time does not magically heal all wounds, even though it's something that we like to say.

Kimberly Koland: Absolutely. And other things, I know I, I assume that you found helpful was, Eating well. Like it's so easy to not eat. It's also easy to overeat. It's easy to not eat the right things. There's a normal human not walking through a grief journey, but then the grief journey comes on top of you and now it's that to like the nth degree.

Kimberly Koland: And you either don't eat at all or you overeat all the time or you eat junk food and you, it's just, you have to be proactive about your health and you have to be, you like, get outside, move your body. Do something, get let nature come and just. Talk to you and be with you. Be outdoors.

Kimberly Koland: Do something like that. Do something you love. Maybe it's an indoor activity, like maybe you were a swimmer. Okay, then go swim your laps. Take it out in the pool. Do what you need to do. Maybe you're a biker, bike. Bike until your butt hurts. I don't know if it's,

Emily Jones: can we make that a tweet by Can tell your [00:30:00] butt hurts

Kimberly Koland: cause it'll hurt.

Kimberly Koland: Other things that were helpful. Oh, my therapist, suggested, and it's a great idea. Go to the doctor. Go to the doctor. Now, I went to the doctor. I guess I was having nightmares and I was like, for a good spell of four or five months, like every day. So I went on some medicine. But as the mental health field is challenging.

Kimberly Koland: I experienced that with my husband. Maybe you did too. All they wanted to do was give me drugs. And those drugs were not, I didn't really feel like they were helpful. It didn't stop my nightmares. So it also came with a price tag, and I only had two appointments with my doctor, and that was $800 outta my own pocket, even though I had health insurance.

Kimberly Koland: Wow. So I'm like, this is why people don't do this stuff. This is why people don't go to see a psych, psychiatrist. And but you can talk to your doctor, and your doctor is a very good person. And they will listen. They will help you and you can just say, Hey, I need clarity on my fitness.

Kimberly Koland: I need clarity on my food. I need clarity and my sleeping. I need [00:31:00] clarity and. They're there to help you If you have a good doctor, not one that's gonna try to give you meds and charge you a million dollars.

Emily Jones: Oh, well, yeah. And I think, everyone's insurance is a little bit different. A lot of times people may just have a copay or something like that they're responsible for and that's what,

Kimberly Koland: that was my copay.

Kimberly Koland: Yeah.

Emily Jones: Oh, well that, yes, that's a hefty copay, but yeah, I think it's hard because to your point, maybe someone like your late husband needed medication and maybe other people need it for a short time and maybe other people don't need it at all. I do know, a lot of people have warned about taking sleep medication because you can get, yourself not necessarily addicted to it, but where you rely on that to help yourself sleep at night,

Kimberly Koland: or.

Kimberly Koland: Yeah,

Emily Jones: exactly. But yeah, I think, there are a lot of good options out there and people just have to trust their gut on what the right options are for them. And to try different things. Now, let's say that somehow someone has come across this podcast episode and they [00:32:00] also have a spouse who's still living, who has suicidal thoughts and they're trying to figure out how to navigate that or how to best support their spouse.

Emily Jones: Is there any advice or anything that you would tell people who are in that situation while your spouse is still here's something that you can do or maybe hears some warning signs to look out for?

Kimberly Koland: Well, the mental health system was precarious to navigate because at that, my husband was an adult and they believe, and I believe that there were times where he was able to navigate the system himself times when he was not able to navigate the system himself. And those times were not consistent from week to week or day to day, or moment to moment. And you never really knew, exactly what were what. I never really knew what I was working with, what, how deep in his intrusive thoughts are you today?

Kimberly Koland: Because if it's not that, if it's not that deep, if he's having a good day, then [00:33:00] medical decisions will be easy, to, to navigate them. But when it's a hard day filled with, intrusive thoughts all day long, it was, it's just. Really hard. And because he's an adult, getting, talking to the doctors wasn't easy.

Kimberly Koland: And because my husband had so much pride, he was lying a lot to me, to family, to doctors. He convinced a doctor, he was just fine, and they let him leave. And the day that he died, he convinced the staff that he was just fine. And of course he can go out for a therapy walk and he just didn't come back from that therapy walk.

Kimberly Koland: He ran away from the group. It, there was a group and there was a medical staff person there and he bolted. He, they didn't have like an area, an enclosed area for the set therapy. It was around the perimeter of the hospital and, Though we tried to, as his family sue the hospital or at least go through like the initial steps to do so it became evident that though the hospital aired, they did it based on what my husband told him.

Kimberly Koland: Yeah. So they did it [00:34:00] as informed as they could be, but it was just not true. So he tried to leave therapy multiple times through lying, and that hurts. And that's hard. So I guess if you're in the situation, you just need to, have, I needed somebody to process with, I had his twin brother to process with.

Kimberly Koland: But his twin brother was also aching and hurting and like me going, what the actual heck is going on here? And so I also needed to process with my friends, I, a close group of best friends. And, at first I said to them, oh, no, Brian's just in the hospital for his anxiety and his depression.

Kimberly Koland: No, he's, no, he's just, yeah he's just in there for anxiety and depression. But it wasn't until September, so he had been in and outta the hospital then from the middle of July. It wasn't until the beginning of September when I finally said, no, he's suicidal, because I realized that this was not going to stop.

Kimberly Koland: This was not gonna be a one and done situation. It was going to be a loop of craziness. And so finally I just had to bring my besties into the conversation and they were so kind and generous [00:35:00] and understanding as to why I didn't. Feel like I could talk to them, partly because Brian didn't want me to really talk about this with other people cuz of his, of who he was, what he didn't, and how he wanted people to view him.

Kimberly Koland: And I try to respect that, but that wasn't helpful. And so I think you just need to find people to talk to. You need to be assertive with the medical team. You need to, I ask for things that seem ridiculous and be more, I should have been more, demanding. I should have used my teacher voice more often.

Kimberly Koland: My teacher, stare downs. No, that's not how it's gonna go. Because we asked for things like, would you please take him off all the medicine that you are now giving him to try to get his body to regulate and to catch up? And they're like, no, you're not. Like, take him off. I wanted him to be off everything and then start to reintroduce things.

Kimberly Koland: Right. Yeah because it was just jamming up like an old fashioned long jam. And I asked for, shock therapy, and I know that's really hard. I don't want him to do that. I think that's hard. But I was hoping for anything to get to un unstick him to go [00:36:00] back into a regular regulated thinking.

Kimberly Koland: I saw that carotene was, being given to some people, and I'm like, let's try that. No, let's not try that. So the doctor, I asked for like, research to be done over about hard covid and brains and changes in the brain. No. So I got a lot of notes and I sat with those. No. And my brother-in-law sat with those.

Kimberly Koland: No. And it was just really hard for us because. We just felt like we were hitting a lot of dead ends with not a lot of conversation from the medical staff. So if they're in the same boat, hey, put on your big girl, big boy underwear. Buckle up. It's gonna be a big journey and a tough ride. So do it anyhow.

Kimberly Koland: As much as you can. And I feel like his brother and I did as much as we could, but ultimately the decision was my husband. Yeah. Yeah,

Emily Jones: that's, I can't even imagine trying to navigate all of that. And even though, my husband was suffering from Covid and pneumonia and that he got put on vent, and it's hard to know.

Emily Jones: You might try to get a second opinion, [00:37:00] but you also inherently wanna trust the medical team that they're making the best decision they can and that they're experienced. And, so it's this weird spot to be in of, I wanna trust that they're getting the right care. Maybe I need to get a second opinion. I also wanna push a little bit, but at the end of the day, we don't know what the outcome's gonna be either way.

Emily Jones: Well, so let's see, it's been almost two years for you. October will be two years. Since you lost him. And what would you tell people maybe who are, they just lost their spouse to suicide or to a very, traumatic death. What would you tell people, to help them in their healing journey and what advice would you give them as they're trying to get their feet underneath

Kimberly Koland: them?

Kimberly Koland: It's hard because system like people who are working with in the grief community, and people outside of it might share, there's, don't make big decisions, but you have many big decisions that you need to make right out of the gate. Have yourself surrounded with people who are wise.

Kimberly Koland: [00:38:00] Really wise, and lean into their wisdom because my brain wasn't working either. Now my brain was glitching, my brain still glitches. Just the other day I was doing laundry and I was mining my own business. I know how to do laundry and instead of putting in laundry soap, I put in cat food.

Kimberly Koland: Which is not what they advertise on commercials. So I'd undo that mess. Your brain will glitch and it's okay. You're, it's going to be okay. These little things that happen are normal. You are going to be okay. Your thinking might be a little erratic. You might be feeling. Like, you can't go on, you will feel like there are a million fires burning all around you, but surround yourself with people who won't let you burn because it is hard.

Kimberly Koland: And then eventually you'll find your feet again, and people will say, okay, just step forward. Well, you know what, sometimes a step forward is really big. And even a foot, one foot in front of the other. I've heard that. No, that's, that can be too much [00:39:00] too. So I just wanna recommend one pinky toe at a time, if that's all you can do.

Kimberly Koland: Just the size of your pinky toe today. You actually made yourself a wealthy breakfast and ate it. Good for you. Write that down. Accomplish day. Done. Now what else can you do today? It doesn't matter because you, you did a goal. So like creating small goals that might look absurd to someone not in your journey.

Kimberly Koland: It's your journey. What you, can do and what you can't do. Create small goals for yourself even if the world around you thinks that's stupid. Even if like, your goal is today I'm going to wash my hair. Yeah, that's probably cuz you put in four days worth of dry shampoo. Hey, what did you, not today, you actually washed your hair.

Kimberly Koland: Good for you. That's great. Or you took, you hosted a dinner for people that changed me. I started to host dinners at my house on Thursdays. I only cook now on Thursdays. I don't cook any other day of the week, and I don't want to, I, who am I cooking for? My children are adults. So I have my parents over and my kids eat here on Thursdays if [00:40:00] they, want to.

Kimberly Koland: And I invite friends, cook on Thursdays every other day. No, I don't care. I have leftovers. I'll make a smoothie. I'll have toast and eggs or rice and beans because I'm Latin and that's my favorite item. Confidence cooking. That really helped me to like, okay, now I need to take care of another human.

Kimberly Koland: I, I started watching my nephews over the summer, but they come from California and stay with me for a month. That was helpful. It was insane, but helpful because now I had to like, think outside of me and I needed to do that because if I start. Making everything inward, then I'm just gonna be like my husband keeping everything inward and not working on the things.

Kimberly Koland: And I know that I needed to do these things. Now that wasn't like a pinky step, right? That was a big leap. So there, you just have to know your journey and be okay with it, and be okay with the progress or the digress, of it. And find things that start joy and make you laugh. And I can laugh. I can laugh at some of the things.

Kimberly Koland: Like I can laugh at some of Brian's choices. No, like not in like a sadistic. [00:41:00] Like, but more like, I can see why you did. Okay. All right. I can see why, you can see why you did that. Not recommending it, but I can see why you did that. And I can also have compassion and and also, I guess my last bit of advice is to journal it all, write it all down, however you journal, whether it's like, dear me or Dear God, or Hello, God, it's me, Margaret, make your own.

Kimberly Koland: Oh, hello God, it's me, Margaret. But because you have to get the thoughts out of your head and then you can look back and you can see how far you've come because you won't really know how far you've come. If you don't, I believe write it down, it's going to be a blur. I can go back into those journals of the days leading up to Brian's death when it was going massively crazy, massively insane.

Kimberly Koland: And I can go back into those journals and go, oh wow. So that happened then, huh? Because I can for, I forget some of these things and I can see then a year later and I can see. 16 months later, it's been helpful.

Emily Jones: Well, good. I, those are some great tips and I think words of wisdom on some things that people can do post a loss.

Emily Jones: And I love [00:42:00] the idea of journaling too, because you can see, even though it feels like maybe you haven't gotten very far, you can look back and be like, oh, wow. Yes, I have, even though it may not feel like it, you can see some of those changes in mindset and changes in struggles of things that you've gone through.

Kimberly Koland: Yeah. And then, if some of your listeners also have their own unique faith block, for me, I can look back and I can see the goodness of God. It's hard to see that when your world shatters. It's really hard to see that, but you can't go by what you see. You just can't, you just can't do it.

Kimberly Koland: My dad said it well, because, people were like, this was a surprise to me it was a shock to me. It was not surprising to his family. I think it was sad for his family, but not surprising. But for me it was shocking. Like what the actual heck just happened. My dad said, you weren't none of us, even his whole family.

Kimberly Koland: We were not ready for this. But God was ready to welcome Brian home and that is all I need to know. That's all I really need to know. And I'm sure that was true for your situation with your sweetie. [00:43:00] You weren't ready, but God was ready and there is the mystery, right? And if you're sitting around and you're listening to this podcast and you're wondering, I can't figure this out, that's because some things are just unfiguroutable.

Kimberly Koland: They're just not made for us to figure it out here today or tomorrow, or maybe on your journey here on this planet. And that's okay. That's the mystery. And we have to learn to live within that mystery. Because if you don't learn to live within that mystery, you are going to really hurt your own spirit, cuz they're not answers.

Kimberly Koland: And you have to be okay with not having answers on this side of heaven. And then the glorious reunion for me, for you, with your sweeties, everything will be like, oh. Oh, okay. And that was hard, but I get it. And you're not alone. It wasn't done to you. God didn't put a curse on you. God doesn't hate you.

Kimberly Koland: It's just you're not alone.

Emily Jones: Well said. And what a beautiful testimony for someone who maybe they're only a month out and they have no idea how they're gonna breathe again, how they're gonna live again. And they get to [00:44:00] see just the moments of joy and the faith and belief that you're still able to stand here with today and know that eventually they'll be in that same spot.

Emily Jones: So thank you so much, Kimberly, for coming on and sharing your story and just being so open and vulnerable and willing to share your experience so that you can help and encourage and inspire other young widows too.

Kimberly Koland: Well, thank you. And I think it's really neat that you have this platform that can speak truth into people's lives in a way that's gentle and in a way that's loving, because that's what we need.

Kimberly Koland: And our culture. As it's not very good at talking about these things like other cultures are good, much better at this than we are. They have rituals that are past the funeral, right? They have more dedication of time to the journey, as opposed to, oh, your husband died.

Kimberly Koland: You'll be fine in a little bit. She'll be fine in a few months. It might not be fine in a few months. That's why you need to listen to podcasts and read good books and surround yourself with people who love you so much and [00:45:00] will protect your heart and your mind and do it for yourself too.

Emily Jones: Yes. A good community can really go a long way.

Emily Jones: I loved how you said surrounding yourself almost with like your own board of advisors to help you. Cuz you lost a lot. You lost your thinking partner. You've lost your own ability to think clearly. And so having people who are in your corner and want the best for you around you can be super helpful.

Kimberly Koland: It is. And if you need to cut your hair because you need to be a little crazy, cut your hair.

Emily Jones: All right. Well thanks Kimberly.

Kimberly Koland: All right. Well thank you so much.

​

Emily Jones: Hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Brave Widow Podcast. I would love to help you take your next step, whether that's healing your heart, finding hope, or achieving your dreams for the future.

Emily Jones: Do you need a safe space to connect with other like-minded widows? Do you wish you had how-tos for getting through the next steps in your journey, organizing your life or [00:46:00] moving through grief? What about live calls where you get answers to your burning questions? The Brave Widow Membership Community is just what you need.

Emily Jones: Inside you'll find courses to help guide you, a community of other widows to connect with, live coaching and q and a calls, and small group coaching where you can work on what matters most to you. Learn how to heal your heart, find hope, reclaim joy, and dream again for the future. It is possible. Head on over to brave widow.com to learn more.