Brave Widow Show 003 - Angie Lopez
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[00:00:00] 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. All right, let's get started.
Hey guys. I am so excited to welcome you to episode number three of the Brave Widow Show. Today I have the privilege of introducing you to Angie Lopez. Angie was widowed at the incredibly young age of just 25 and is now a single mother to a beautiful, amazing four year old daughter.
Angie's gonna share part of her grieving process, the PTSD, and some of the traumatic waves of aftershock that she experienced during that time, and touch on a few topics like dating post-loss, and how her social circle has changed since she lost her spouse.
I hope that you enjoy her story, and I'm so incredibly proud of her for being willing to share the details of her life in hopes of helping to encourage and inspire other young widows. Let's dive in.
Hi, Angie. Welcome to the show today.
[00:01:13] Angie Lopez: Hi, good morning. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:17] Emily Jones: Yeah, it's my pleasure.
I, oh my gosh, 25 years old. That seems just so incredibly young, and I know just from the brief parts of what I know of your story, you've been through a lot. I'd love for you to share parts of your story and maybe talk about the difficult parts, but then also the encouraging parts of your journey as
well.
[00:01:42] Angie Lopez: Of course. I'll be very happy to share my story and what's been going on, and yet it's been such a long year and it also feels like it was so short, like it just went by in the blink of an eye. It was all so strange. . So let me kinda go back to, I'm here. What led me here? So my husband passed away on January the sixth, 2022 at three 18 in the morning.
. So it was all very sudden, very odd. He wasn't sick. He was pretty healthy. He just passed away from pneumonia. This is what they said. But leading up to his death, the day, days prior to him passing away, he was healthy, No coughing, not sick, nothing that indicated that he, that something was wrong.
Nothing. So on the day that he passed away, I saw him slowly fade away without realizing that he was dying. It was very hard. It was a Wednesday. So on January the fifth, Wednesday he got home from work. We put down the Christmas tree. We had dinner together. We watched TV as a family, the three of us, my daughter, him and I, we had great conversations about work.
He was up for a promotion. He was very excited. Around 12 o'clock in the morning, he started feeling sick. He said he had a lot of like pressure on his chest area. It wasn't his heart, it was around his chest area, a lot of pressure and he was vomiting a lot. He thought that it was the food, like something must have not set right in his stomach.
And he was vomiting so much and I would see him that he was in so much pain and I offered, I saw something was wrong. I could tell something was wrong because he wasn't that person to get sick a lot. But it happened, like it just happened one minute to the next. I asked, You want me to call an ambulance?
He said, No. He said was gonna be fine. He was very stubborn. He never liked going to the doctor. Never liked getting checked and he said, No, I'm fine. He was sweating so much. He used to sweat a lot, but he was sweating a lot, so I was patting him down with the towel. I brought him water, some stomach medicine.
I'm like, Is there anything I can do to help you? He said No, it'll go away. An hour past, same thing, vomiting another hour past. It was like two o'clock at this point. Same thing. So I had to work the next day and I was trying my best to be there for him and help him, but I just didn't know what was going on.
And I trusted him, right? I trusted him when he was like, No, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's probably a stomach ache. I ate something bad. So I told him, I need to go to bed because I need to work earlier today. So call me and let me know if there's anything that I can do, but call me if you need anything else.
So he said, Let me just go to the living room and I'm gonna sit there for a while cuz he couldn't really get comfy in bed. So I think that was around two 30 when I went to bed. Around 15 minutes later, I just heard some noise coming from the living room. It was like gagging sounds, it was just weird sounds.
I cannot even begin to describe it. And I was in my room and I left the door open and I called him Victor, and he didn't respond. I just instantly felt something wrong. So I ran to the living room and I found him kinda like laying in the couch. He was, to me it looked like he was convulsing, like having a stroke so I quickly ran to him and I tried to pick him up.
I wasn't sure what was going on. I called 9 1 1. I just, to me just seeing him like struggle like that, seeing the fear in his eyes and me not being able to do anything to help him was really hard. His face, his special expression always haunts me every night.
It's, and I I feel really bad. Didn't know CPR because I feel like I could have done something at least to help him a little bit. , So I just stood there yelling at him, and I was punching in his chest. I don't know why, but I just, I was punching in his chest because, I thought he was having like a heart attack.
That was my first thought. I say call the ambulance. It took them like 20 minutes to get there. I don't know how it took them so long and he wasn't breathing when I first found him, but then after five to 10 minutes, he just started breathing so heavily. He let out this very deep, long breath. And it was very slow to me.
I thought that he was getting better. I told the 9 1 1 woman Okay, he's breathing now. He looks like he's gonna get better. He's breathing without realizing he was taking his last breaths. Oh, so it, That was him taking his last breaths and by the time. Ambulance got there. It was very late. They worked on him for 40 minutes and they couldn't do anything.
I thought it was gonna get better, but they later said that, like I mentioned he died from walking pneumonia. But I don't know, it was just so strange to me. And a lot of PTSD came from that.
[00:08:08] Emily Jones: So what were some of the things just, 20 minutes even for the ambulance to get there and then 40 minutes while they work on him.
When you're in that type of environment, I know every minute just feels like an hour, just time moves so slowly. What was going through your mind, or how were you handling just being in those moments of having to wait and not really knowing whether or not he was gonna be okay.
[00:08:36] Angie Lopez: It was the worst.
I can't even begin to describe it. I'm sure everybody knows here, but I tried my best to remain calm. They took me out the house. Everybody that was in the house, which was my daughter, and my niece was taking out the house step outside I called his brother. And I called my sister and they came to me.
We all waited in the garage while they worked on him. And I sat there in disbelief. I was, I think I was in shock. I wasn't reacting. I was sitting down holding my daughter at, in cold weather in January. At three o'clock in the morning, I was just like, no. Like I was in denial. I was saying, No, this is not happening to me.
I always used to believe that things like that happen to other people, but not to me. I'm like, not to it's Victor, Like how is he dying? Victor? No, there's no way. I'm like, No, he's gonna be fine. And I remember holding my daughter and not saying anything. I was just thinking
about everything. I'm like, What am I gonna do if he dies? And I felt so guilty. I just felt so much guilt because I could have done something and I didn't. I'm like, I should have called it sooner. I should have called the ambulance sooner. I should have called for help when I felt it, when I, when he first got sick, when I asked him.
But he was so stubborn. He was like no. And because he was worried about the hospital bill. He just didn't want to go. If everything was fine, I'm like, ah, should have, I should have called. And I was like, No, everything's fine. Everything's fine. I was in shock, but I had a feeling that he wasn't gonna come back.
I had a feeling that me seeing him take his last breath, that was it. But I was hoping I had hope. I genuinely had hope. I had hope.
[00:10:36] Emily Jones: Yeah.
And I think the guilt is something I know now is natural for people to have, what could we have done different? Could we made a call sooner? Could we have taken him to the doctor?
Those types of things. You're still what, just under a year from the time that you lost him, would you tell people the guilt gets better over time? Would you say it comes and goes, or it's just something that you've learned to live with? What would you tell other people that are going through that?
[00:11:11] Angie Lopez: I learned when it comes to guilt that it was gonna happen anyway. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't my fault. I know that it's, I know now that even I called the ambulance he would've died in a hospital. It was gonna be the same outcome because it was already written in the universe. I just didn't know it.
It was already his fate. It was meant to happen as, as bad as it sounds, it was gonna happen. There was nothing that I could have done to prevent it or that you could have done to prevent it. Even if you took him to the hospital sooner, maybe he could have done to me, I thought. Okay. If he went to the hospital, he was gonna pass in the arms of a stranger in a cold hospital bed.
But no he passed away in my arms, in our home that we built, in the arms of the woman that he loved. And that's how I started to look at it. I realized that it wasn't my fault. It gets better. And obviously I seek professional help, a psychologist I've been seeing for almost a year now.
It helped me process a lot of the things that I wasn't really understanding or grasping. So if you haven't seek professional help, I do recommend you do it because it changes a lot of things and it helps you see things in so many different perspectives. But no, it. It was nothing that I could have done to prevent it.
Yeah. And it gets better, The guilt, it gets better.
[00:12:59] Emily Jones: And I think that's such a beautiful way you put it, that he got to die in the arms of someone that he loved and to be near the people that he loved. That, that's just a beautiful way of looking at it. So after the EMT, the folks were working with him for about 40 minutes or so.
What happened next after that?
[00:13:19] Angie Lopez: We were outside. I kept trying to peek through the window I had, cuz I was outside. I tried to peek through the window to the living room. The blinds were closed, so nothing, and I wasn't hearing nothing from people. I could see their face, but they weren't, they had no expression.
They came out to us at that time. My brother was there. I'm sorry, his brother was there, My sister and some other people, their partners and the EMT came out and he didn't say anything. He was walking towards us, but I knew it. I could feel it. He said we, I still remember his words. He said we couldn't get a heartbeat.
We tried everything. There's no heartbeat, and I didn't react. I think I fell to the ground and I didn't react for a few minutes. I just, I was in shock, obviously, and it just, It, Everything just came out of me. I just started yelling. I started yelling. I started crying. I've never yelled as much in my entire life.
It was crazy. I just couldn't even begin to describe the pain, and I just looked at my daughter sleeping in the garage. And I just thought of her like April. What am I gonna tell them? What I gonna tell my daughter? And it was just in disbelief.
That was it.
[00:15:02] Emily Jones: .
So as you think about the next few weeks and the next few months that have happened I know a lot of people say they go into a grief brain fog your brain's just not operating at max capacity. You forget things or you're irritable. What were those first, few weeks and months like for you?
[00:15:24] Angie Lopez: I had a lot of paranoia. A lot of paranoia, a lot of PTSD, a lot of anxiety. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I was in full alert all the time. I thought I was gonna die next. I was just waiting for me to die because his death was so sudden and I saw him slowly die and I couldn't do anything. I thought that I was gonna die.
I was, if my daughter had the smallest cough, I would call 9 1 1. I was paranoid. I called the ambulance like three times in one week because I thought I was dying, and I thought my daughter was dying because she accidentally choked on her saliva while running, playing. I was, I called 9 1 1. I was hysterical.
I was crying. I said that my daughter was dying. She was choking. She couldn't breathe. They came in, they saw her sitting down playing, and they're like, She's fine. And I was checking her oxygen and her temperature. I was paranoid and I'm like okay. She's fine. She's fine. And they left and I called again.
I couldn't sleep. I was... at the time that he passed, I would always stay awake at the time waiting for me to die. Thinking that I was next. I'm like, Okay, if I had a headache, I'm like, I'd probably have a tumor now and I'm gonna die tomorrow. I was, it was terrible. I couldn't, I lost like 40 pounds not on purpose, and my anxiety was through the roof.
I was shaking all the time. I was dropping everything. I couldn't talk to people. . His family disassociated from me. His mom was battling cancer. Thankfully she just beat it last month, but she was battling cancer at the time and she didn't know how to process it. So she stopped talking to me.
She stopped. Everybody stopped visiting me. I'll leave it at that. Nobody came to see us anymore. So I was paranoid of everything and everyone, I thought everybody was against me. I thought everyone hated me cuz I didn't call the ambulance sooner. I was grieving, I was in a fog. I couldn't remember things.
And like I mentioned, just dropping everything. Couldn't keep a conversation. I just feel like I was. I was sleep, walking, like nothing was, I felt like nothing was real. Nothing was real. I wasn't really here. I was starting to question what life was like, What is life? And I, because I wasn't eating or sleeping, I was hallucinating things.
I was seeing things. It was a nightmare. I was so depressed. And I couldn't even begin to process his death yet because of everything that was going on with taking care of the house, figuring out the bills, the cars. April, childcare, April's my daughter.
It was so much going on at once. But my paranoia overpowered everything. When I started seeking help, they prescribed me anxiety medications to calm down. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't take them. I didn't take anything. I haven't to this day. It was a personal choice for me personally. I didn't feel like I wanted to get on medication, yet I wanted to fight.
Personally, I wanted to do it to try to get over it on my own. If you're a person who does medication and it works for you, that's good. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm not against it, but for me personally, I just wanted to try on my own and. What I, It was like that, just a lot of paranoia, a lot of anxiety, a lot of craziness in my head.
Voices, people talking.
[00:19:47] Emily Jones: Mmm... That's
any kind of grief and loss is a nightmare, especially as first few weeks, few months, and so many people feel like they're drowning and it's never gonna get better. They're never gonna feel better. It's hard for them to understand, why shouldn't I just give up? Why shouldn't I just end it now?
What's the point of life anymore? And I can't really imagine what it would be like, to have gone through that in the way that you did with hallucinations and, seeing things, hearing things. I had insomnia the first several weeks where I was only sleeping two or three hours and I felt... you're, you feel hollow.
There's really very little quality of life. What was maybe that first baby step for you or that first thing where you finally thought to yourself, Maybe I can do this, or maybe this can get better. Maybe my life doesn't have to look like this every day.
[00:20:52] Angie Lopez: I started seeking therapy the first month. I was working through it the first months.
I had been, but it took me a while to that I needed to snap out of it. I think I was at four months or so. I took my daughter to our first fair trip together without him, and I was so nervous and I was dreading it because I know I was gonna see families together I knew was going to see moms dads together, and it was just me and April.
And I realized that it was affecting the people around me, especially my daughter. My situation was my daughter. It was affecting her a lot, seeing me depressed, seeing me crying, paranoid, all of the above, and I realized that he would've been so disappointed of me. If I would've just given up because of April.
And I always say that I wasn't the love of his life. It wasn't his mom, it wasn't anybody but April, his daughter. That little girl was the love of his life and I didn't want to so disappoint them. I didn't wanna disappoint him and I didn't wanna disappoint her. And I kinda realized how I was. I looked at myself through a different window and said, What are you doing, Angie, with your life?
You have a daughter that is gone, but you're still here and she still has you, and she needs you. You can't just give up. You can't just let yourself go like this. And the first trip that we did together, Was a door that was opened to a lot of different opportunities for us, for and me together to socialize more and to do things on our without, depending on know.
A new chapter like it was us. , like now it's us and we gotta make the best of it and we gotta be happy. At least try to be happy and enjoy life for him because he wasn't here anymore and I needed it to be there for. That's, for me, that's what helped me. But I know that there's a lot of people that didn't have children or are not in that situation, but there's we're all needed.
We're all needed for everyone. Siblings, friends, sisters, parents were all important.
[00:23:45] Emily Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, even think about what you're here doing today, right? Your story will hopefully encourage and inspire other people who have gone through the same thing. And if you had given up or if I had just given up and not made the decision.
Maybe we don't know how it's possible that we find joy again, or that we find hope when we're in that moment. It's making that conscious decision not to stay in grief forever in the hopes that we can do something good and help others that are going through this really horrible journey.
So you talked a little bit about how your family hasn't really come around, hasn't been there for you.
I know a lot of people mention your social circle changes. Sometimes even your in-laws could turn against you or your family doesn't support you. Or maybe people just don't know how, they don't know like how to help someone who's going through this. What was your experience like with that?
[00:24:53] Angie Lopez: Like I had mentioned, my mother-in-law kind of stopped talking to us. She never visited after he passed away. My brother-in-law as well, his brother disassociated from us. We had a friend group, which consisted of all his cousins , but that was our group that we had for seven years, and they would still invite us to gatherings.
For me, at first it was very hard to even step in without him. I used to go at the beginning, but I stopped going because it was very hard. It was still too soon for me. It was very hard to be in a room with the same people we used to hang out with without him. And I used to make up excuses to why I couldn't go.
Oh, I made friends. I made plans with a friend. Oh, April has this thing tomorrow. I have this thing tomorrow. And it was very hard for me to even begin to go back to what it used to be without him social. They took it as if she doesn't wanna hang out with us anymore, and they kinda stopped talking to me.
They didn't realize that I was going through it. I was going through a lot of depression and they didn't realize that I, it was so weird because it was like a rollercoaster of emotion. I wanted them in my life, but I couldn't be there, , and I didn't wanna be there physically, but I still wanted them.
And I was confused. I was sad. I was angry that they still get to keep their families. I saw him and it made me jealous. I saw them and it used to make me jealous, but that wasn't me anymore. If there wasn't any with Victor anymore, I couldn't stand it. It would make me so mad, so sad. I would always leave and I would cry on the way home, so I just stopped socializing with them.
But we have a group chat where we used to talk, but slowly as the months trans passed, they stopped including me in conversations. They stopped inviting me to places they would send videos, and it was just all of them at dinner together without me and April, and it really. It really hurt because I tried to explain to them how hard it was to me.
I came to them and said, You guys realize this is so hard for me. I love you guys so much, and I, but it's hard for me to be there without Victor. And I'm trying to learn how to process this. I'm trying to learn how to accept this and how to move past this so I can get back to this so I can slowly transition into back with you guys without feeling this immense pain and guilt and immense dread.
But they didn't understand. They got very hostile with me. And they're like you... I guess at one point somebody kind of threw it in my face that they helped me, that they were there for me at the beginning and that I just never got back to them. And never talked to them anymore, but they didn't realize how hard it was for me that I was going through so much.
Nothing in their lives changed. They lost their cousin, their best friend, and I know that it was incredibly painful for them. But they still had their par--- Their families, they, their families were the same, their household was the same. It was a complete 360 for me here. My sleeping habits, our eating habits, our home routines, everything that I was transitioning to and my daughter's depression at four, I was dealing with so much they didn't understand.
It was so painful. So now we're at November 1st. This entire year without them and friends stopped talking to me outside of that group, who I thought was my best friend, just completely stopped talking to me after the funeral. I never heard from her anymore. I know that it's hard for people to approach us.
They don't know what to say. They don't know if we're gonna be crying all the time that we're socializing. They probably think if I invite her somewhere, she's just gonna be there crying all night. Probably . I dunno. I dunno what's gonna happen, but I just stopped being invited to things. Yeah, because there was this black cloud on top of me all the time and people didn't know how to approach me and.
It's not that I wasn't approachable. I never really made comments at all. I stopped crying in public. I stopped crying around people because I just felt like I was making everybody uncomfortable. So I I would always cry on my own at night times, but everybody just pushed me. To me, it felt like everybody pushed me away and that everybody was against me.
That I wasn't grieving properly. That I wasn't grieving enough. Am I too happy? Am I too sad? They told me to move on. I move. I try to move on. Then why are you moving on? It's too soon. Okay, then what do I do? I just, it's been like a whole mix of emotions that I never realized was possible. I felt so many things that I've never felt before, and I even doubted if I'm normal.
Is this normal? Am I going crazy? Am I supposed to be feeling this way? And having no one to relate to around me was extremely hard. That's why it leaned into the group, the young widows group. Yeah, that has helped me immensely. It has helped me so much. It's helped me so much than my friends and family have ever did, and I'm incredibly grateful for that group.
But everybody just left the chat and it was just many people.
[00:31:13] Emily Jones: The widow community. Is really amazing group of people, and I always think about like when you're pregnant for the first time or you're getting married for the first time, people wanna give you all kinds of advice, right?
They wanna tell you what you should do, what you shouldn't do, and you think to yourself, Oh, okay, they've been married or they've had kids. Maybe I take their advice, Maybe I won't, you don't really think about it. But it's amazing how many people have not been widowed that wanna give advice on what you should and shouldn't do.
And. I think as a culture, especially in the US we don't really we try not to think about death and grief. Like we try to, shuffle it off to the side. It makes us uncomfortable. And we don't understand that when you lose a spouse, you are losing a big piece of your identity and yourself.
and you're not only have you lost the past and what you know of that person, but then all of these dreams and plans for the future and all of these things that you had built up in your mind, you almost grieve for that just as much as you do the past that you lost. Who am I now? What hobbies do I want to do now?
Do I still wanna pursue these same dreams? Is there a future with another person? For me, there's just so much unknown of the future and so many missed opportunities now that we feel like we are gonna have because we don't have that person with us that. I think in people's minds it's just like a really bad breakup or a divorce and you just need to get over it.
But not too soon, like you said, , whenever, whatever this magical timeline is of when we're supposed to get over our grief and move on people have that in their minds. But I think to your point, having a community of people around you who. They understand, they speak your language of grief. They get, for the most part, what you go through and having people around them that don't understand is incredibly, helpful in healing.
So I'm glad that you've been able to find that and be able to hear from other people Yeah, this is normal. It's normal to still have moments of tears, almost a year later or even years later. We just don't have to live under that grief for forever.
[00:33:40] Angie Lopez: And people don't realize, like you mentioned, the personality thing is a big aspect.
I was so confused for the longest time. Who am I? Who is Angie as a mom? Without Victor, I didn't know who I was as a mom, and I know I still have moments of doubt, . Who am I to April? Who am I as a friend? Who am I as a daughter? Who am I to his cousins? Who is this new Angie? And what did she like?
It's just finding yourself again, and a lot of confusion to figure out who you are without your person and starting, baby steps. Try one new thing that week. What did you used to like before? What is something you've always wanted to try? Then try it. You like it, great. Stick to it. You don't then try onto the next.
Who is Angie? Who are you? Different things. It's, it means different things. Yeah, sure.
[00:34:36] Emily Jones: So now that you are almost a year out, for example, like with your family and with your cousins and that group, do you think that you'll ever reintegrate back into that group of people now that maybe it's a little easier and you can fit back into that?
Or do you really see this kind of evolving into a different social circle for you?
[00:35:02] Angie Lopez: I reached out to every single person. I reached out to my mother-in-law, to my brother-in-law, and to that group of friends, and I told them, it, it sounded, it sounds like me begging for their friendship, but I started off with my mother-in-law.
I said, Your granddaughter needs you. It's been a tough year for everybody, but what's going on? Why haven't you been in her? She already lost his father. She gonna lose her grandmother too. She's been going through a lot of pain as well, and you guys pushed her to the side and I just wish she could be more present in her life.
I spoke to her directly and I told her, she apologized. She said she just been going through it. She just didn't know how to process it and how to even approach her because she looks so much like her daddy. She's been making an effort ever since. And that wasn't long ago.
I messaged his brother, told him the same thing.
What happened to your niece? Why haven't you reached out to her? She needs you guys. You guys push her to the side. Are you gonna be involved or not? I wanna know yes or no so I can stop trying to beg for you guys to be in her. And then he's been making an effort ever since it, It sucks that I had to be the one to reach out, and it wasn't for me, it was for my daughter.
They're not bad people. They've just, their heads been elsewhere, their heads have been elsewhere, obviously, and I just needed to know if they still wanted us in their life or if they still wanted my daughter in their life, just so we could stop expecting them to come back. And I'm glad that they have been making effort to be in her life.
When it comes to our group of friends, I also told them that what I felt, you guys make your plans. You guys go out, you guys go and have fun, and you just push me to the side. Their excuse was lame. , they're like, Because we go in couples, we didn't wanna make you uncomfortable because you're, you weren't with a couple and.
That was their excuse to why I'm never invited, and I said, it's, at first it was hard for me to process and wrap my head around that, but I've gotten over that. And I've been asking you guys to hang out with me and you decline, so what's gonna happen? They apologized. They said it wasn't their intention to make you make me feel bad.
They just thought they were doing me a favor by not inviting me to places, so I wouldn't feel bad. It sounded like a lame excuse to me, but I accepted the apology and they've been making an effort as well to include me in their plans. I know that they're not bad people. I know it's just a hard situation and It's just they don't know how to approach me because they've never been in that situation with anybody, especially 25 year old, like to invite her to go out or not.
She won't, like I never grow out, but they don't know how to approach me and that's okay. At least try to ask me a question. You never know what's the words that could happen? I say, No, I don't feel good, but you'll never know. You never know how I'm feeling if you don't ask . So it's so with that, it's just me.
It sucks that I've been making an effort to put people in my life again. But I also understand that they, they don't know how to approach me. Cause for them, they've never been in this situation with anybody before. They don't know what I'm gonna be like or how I'm going to respond. And I've changed so much throughout the year that sometimes I don't even know myself anymore.
So I understand it. But at the same time, it's just ask questions, ask me .
[00:39:05] Emily Jones: Yeah, we used to joke at work before, I'm such a homebody and introvert and I'm like, I still wanna be invited even though I'm gonna probably say no, Like I don't wanna go out and be out late, but I still wanna know somebody thought about me and somebody would want me there and I'm invited.
And I think especially after the first few times of us saying no then people are like what's the point of asking? They're just gonna say no. We still wanna be asked, one thing you mentioned too earlier is that in the beginning people do things for us or they reach out to us or they do nice things.
And I don't know if you went through this too, but to me, my husband and I were sick for weeks before he ended up passing, and I was just overloaded with text messages and Facebook messages and people dropping stuff off and I'm like, I can't res I, I can't respond to everyone. It's just too stressful thinking about having to put that responsibility on my shoulders.
I wasn't thinking clearly and I. Maybe two or three people that would consistently reach out to me, even if I never responded. And I've gone back to some of those people and said, You have no idea what that meant to me. That for every birthday, holiday, occasion that would come up, that you would still reach out even though you might not get a thank you from me.
Or I may respond like weeks later and say, Hey, thanks for thinking of me. But it's that knowledge, I think in the back of our minds that somewhere someone out there is thinking of us wanting us to be included and cares about our existence and how we are, and that's just so important I think for people to hear and know is that.
Even if the person says, No, I don't want help, or No, I don't wanna go, or, Hey, thanks, but no thanks. Just keep reaching out to that person so that they know you care and that they do matter.
[00:41:09] Angie Lopez: I know, and, exactly. Exactly. It's just when you're grieving, it's a rollercoaster of emotions and you don't even know how you're going to respond to things.
And you're right. Like the fact. People are thinking of us. We're in somebody's mind. It always helps, they don't realize, but it helps. It helps. And you don't know what people's minds are going to change too in five months from now. Maybe they say no back then, but maybe they'll say yes today. . It's just a lot of things that go on.
[00:41:46] Emily Jones: Yeah, and to your point, we'll, we need a shirt that says warning may burst into tears unexpectedly. Like it's gonna happen. We can't help it. But it doesn't mean that we don't still wanna be around those people, or we don't still want to have those experiences. I think some of that just takes time for us to get to a place where that becomes a little bit easier.
I know we're coming up on time. Is there anything else that you would want to share with people maybe who have been in a similar situation as you, maybe something you wish that you would've heard or learned sooner, or anything that you would just encourage people as they continue through their healing journey,
[00:42:27] Angie Lopez: Breathe. Just breathe. Accept the help. For me I used to let my pride sometimes not. Let me accept help from others. I later realize I should of. They're trying to help you out of the goodness of their hearts, so accept the help. Breathe, take it one day at a time. If you're a person who struggles with PTSD, the mind is such a powerful thing.
The mind has led me, led to believe that I was dying many times, even still sometimes tricks me into thinking that I'm dying. I just learned to take control of the situation, analyze. I learned from me to sense everything around me.
If I feel like I'm going into a panic attack, what can I smell? What can I feel? What can I hear? Everything. It helps me ground myself back. This is real. I am present. Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's in my head. It's not real. I'm fine. I'm okay. Just put on, Usually I, I spray a little bit of perfume, My favorite perfume or essential oil, something that's gonna bring me back to reality.
My brain travels to a lot of crazy places and I try to feel what's around me, my clothes, my hair, a table, grass, dirt, and I hear music, meditation, things like that. Seek professional help. Think it's better for sure. It's never going to be perfect, but it will be manageable. You'll learn how to get out of situations like that where your head of powers what's real.
And I think that it's a slow process. It's process. It's very slow, but be patient with yourself and be kind with. I wasn't patient with myself, and that was a mistake that I made. I was rushing my healing process. I was rushing being, I needed to get better today because I need to work. I need to pay bills, and I need to be good for everybody but me.
Slow down. Slow down, and take time for yourself. Be selfish. Be selfish and take time to yourself. Take a day to relax. If you wanna take an hour in the shower, take a an hour in the shower, put music on and do whatever you need to do to feel better, but be selfish. That's something I wanna say, be selfish.
Do things that will make you happy. You have children. If you struggle with childcare, like sometimes I do, it's okay to put them on the phone, on YouTube, watch them videos while you take an hour to yourself and do something that you want. I know that they'll thank you later because if you're okay, the people around you will be okay.
Like your children, your doggies, everyone around you. So just be patient, be selfish, and breathe and it's gonna be okay.
[00:46:01] Emily Jones: Oh, thank you. That's so perfect. And I'll definitely reiterate accepting help. People want to help, especially in the beginning. Like you said, a lot of times they're not gonna be there weeks and months later.
And I'm one of the worst at accepting help. But do it. I think people wanna help. It helps them feel good, to feel like they're helping you out, and it makes your life, a little bit easier. So I think those are great recommendations.
Angie, any, is there any one other thing, like a resource or anything that you would share with someone or point them to, that you felt was helpful to you?
[00:46:41] Angie Lopez: For me, like I had mentioned, the widows group was very helpful for me. Everybody's so kind, non-judgmental. I ask for advice all the time. Support groups are amazing, so lean into support groups, talk to people, listen to stories, and you're not alone books as well. There's, I'm pretty sure that it's, this book is called The Young Hot Widows Club.
It's how. Me allow to process reading books to my daughter about grieving as well has helped me process. So read books, listen to books so you don't have time to read support groups. That's what's helped me a lot and of course, professional help.
[00:47:28] Emily Jones: Awesome. Yeah, that, that book is a great read and I like the, it's a very written, in a very casual style and I thought it was really well done.
[00:47:38] Angie Lopez: It doesn't feel very heavy. . Yes.
[00:47:40] Emily Jones: All right. Angie, thank you so much for joining us today, and I'll make sure to put the links to those some of those resources in the comments.
[00:47:49] Angie Lopez: Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.
[00:47:51] 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 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. 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.
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