BW 118 Kelli Koepke
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Introduction and Episode Overview
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Hey, and welcome to episode number 118 of the Brave Widow show. Today I talk with Kelli and she shares just the incredible story of the loss of her husband, of healing her heart, and of being open. To what was next for her and rediscovering who she is and a life that could still be beautiful.
Invitation to Brave Widow Membership
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And one that she loved again, before we dive into her story, I want to invite you to join me in the Brave Widow membership community.
If you're interested in building a life that you love again, if you feel like you're stuck in grief and you're not sure What next step to take to move forward? You're not sure how to get past this feeling that life's just always going to be less than the life that you had before. You need to join us in the membership community.
There you'll have access to other widows. You'll have access to me as your coach, and we will help you walk this journey of healing your heart, of finding hope. of rediscovering who you are and creating a life that you can actually love again. And starting this journey now, before all the holidays come, they're going to be here so soon.
It's already October, people. The holidays are going to be here. You know you want additional support. guidance and ideas for navigating this crazy time, go to bravewidow. com slash join, J O I N, and join membership community today.
Welcome to the Brave Widow Show, where we help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. After losing my husband of 20 years, I didn't know how I could ever experience true joy and excitement again for the future. I eventually learned how to create a life I love, and I've made it my mission to help other widows do the same.
Join me and the Brave Widow membership community and get started today. Learn more at BraveWidow. com
Meet Kelli Koepke
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All right, let me introduce you to Kelli. We talk about God ordaining our steps and having his hand in our lives, and we say we believe it.
But do we? What happens when tragic things shake us up? Can we actually believe that God allowed something so bad to happen and still believe that he is good? Kelli Koepke has a vast list of titles to her name, but adding a widow at age 53 was something she had not prepared for.
After the murder of her husband and through her intense grief and personal journey with God, she has been able to see that God's hand has truly been at work in her life preparing her for that dreadful day. Kelli has spoken about her faith and journey with the Lord and encourages others to look for the blessings from the rubble.
They are there if we look. Kelli is a mother of two, grandmother of six, and is currently learning to live life again. Alright, let's jump in to Kelli's story.
[00:03:17] Emily: Kelli, welcome to the show. And thank you for being willing to come on and share your story today.
[00:03:23] Kelli: Thank
you
for having me. It is, it's a story. I wish I didn't have to tell.
[00:03:29] Emily: Yes. It's a story. None of us wishes that we would have to tell in a podcast we wouldn't needing to be host, but I just know that what you're going to share is going to help encourage and inspire so many other widows. So feel free to dive into your story wherever you want to start and we'll go from there.
Kelli's Early Life and Marriage
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[00:03:50] Kelli: Okay brief bio of my growing up of my childhood because that really relates to who I am now. I am the product of a conception that was not a loving one. I was given up for adoption raised in small northeast Nebraska village of about 290 people. Wow. Grew up with two adoptive brothers. Really had a hard childhood.
I never really connected with my adopted mother. I never, I don't know, could have been me. Probably was. I've been told I was a very strong willed child. But it was tough growing up and I always was looking for How to better myself and how to get involved and be in with the popular group. And so I made some poor choices.
I also was very active on sports teams in high school. I did the volleyball, the basketball, the track. And I just really was excelling to try to fit in with the popular girls living outside of the high school area was tough, but I met my husband in high school. We were in the same grade. We went through high school together, but he was that geeky farm boy.
I was never interested in a geeky farm boy. I was never interested in anybody with the farm because all I had ever heard growing up was that there was no money in farming. And so why would I want to date somebody that was in farming? At about halfway through our senior year, he asked me out no not interested.
He asked me out three times. Finally, the third time I used to chuckle with him. I gave him a pity date.
[00:05:29] Emily: Oh no, not the pity date. Yes.
[00:05:31] Kelli: The pity date. Cause I kept thinking once he goes out with me, he'll realize that I am not worth hanging out with and he'll move on. And it was the nicest date I had ever been on.
He was the perfect gentleman. We had a fantastic time. And two years later, we were married. We got married when we were 20. Got pregnant on our honeymoon. Boom. All of a sudden I've moved from the house that I grew up into the house with my husband on the farm. I knew nothing about the farm. So not only was I learning to be a wife, be a pregnant wife, learning farm.
I didn't know the difference between cows and heifers. I didn't know it was so new. His family did all their own butchering. There was a lot of pressure to figure out how to be a Koepke but my mother in law was fantastic. And she just embraced me. And I tell people to this day, she raised me. As a daughter in law, I really learned most of how to be a wife through her.
And we were married 33 years up to the time of his death and really things were going really good. We've all had our ups and downs in marriage there. It wasn't perfect, but he was a good man. He was a good man from the get go. He was way better than probably I deserved, but he was fantastic.
And we had two daughters. Tried, really wanted to have four kids been pregnant six, God said, how about two Kelli that's probably really all you can handle. So we were blessed with two daughters and who both excelled in sports. So we had a lot of fun with that. And my husband's dream had always been that the farm that we lived on, because we were renting it from his grandparents, was to own just a piece of his grandparents land.
And he had, asked for years, can I just buy a few acres? Can I just, he just really always felt he wanted a few acres. Because that ground had been in the farm since, er, been in the family since 1889. And so he had been really wanting to preserve that. And it wasn't until the summer of 2021, where that door opened and his mom had died in 2015.
She just sat down 1 day and died. We have, she was perfectly healthy. Don't know what happened. So we had been helping take care of his dad and. My husband had decided that, if we could purchase some acres out there, we'd put up a new house. We'd put a wing on for his dad. We move him in with us.
And his dad agreed. It just, everything was fallen into place. It was like, Oh my gosh, the door has finally opened because for so many years it had been no. And I kept saying, okay, don't you think God has said, no, don't you think this is, we should take this as a no and just, move on, look at something different.
We raised animals even when we didn't live out there. So we were out there twice a day. Choring, we were running back and forth to the farm, which was about 15 miles away, at least twice a day, sometimes four and five times a day during lambing and kidding season, calving season. We were out there a lot, but the door had opened.
[00:08:45] Emily: He wasn't a guy that took no for an answer. I'm guessing here.
[00:08:49] Kelli: He didn't. And I, to be honest, I never quite understood why until that door opened in the summer of 2021. And in September we closed on the ground in September of 2021. And he was like a kid in a candy shop. He was so excited. He was out there.
He was cleaning things up. He was getting things ready and putting things in order. We sat down with an architect, put house plans together and October 20th of 2021. We signed off on house plans. We had the perfect house plans. It was like, okay, we've got this.
Tragic Day and Immediate Aftermath
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[00:09:28] Kelli: The next morning he had to make a trip to superior had to come down and help terminate an employee.
And I knew that morning I was about nine weeks out from back surgery. I knew that morning that he was uneasy. He never liked that part of the job. He always said, I really hate playing with people's livelihoods, but it was something that needed to be done. And he was very uneasy. I was sleeping in the daughter's bedroom because I couldn't roll in one spot since my back surgery.
So I didn't want to wake him, but about three 30 that morning, I could hear him up and it's okay, that's really early for him to be up. So I knew he was. uneasy about the day. He went out and did chores, came back, crawled in bed with me and we just laid and talked a little bit. And I said, okay, you're up early.
Are you nervous about today? He goes, Oh, I just, I'll be glad when today's over.
So we had breakfast and I walked him out to the truck and gave him a hug and a kiss and I said, I'll see you soon. Now, Superior was about three hours away from where we lived, so it was quite a drive. And he had called me on the way and he said, why don't you get me a motel out of town?
I just I'm just feeling like Something could happen today. So I did. I found him a motel out of town and he went on and I went on about my day. We had just finished harvesting beans. So I was trying to get the bean check get the bills paid, doing all that end of harvest bookwork.
And I got a phone call about one 30 in the afternoon from his secretary, the local secretary, and she was just, she was sobbing on the phone. And I thought, what is going on? And she says, Kelly, she says, Darren's been shot and I'm like, okay, we don't know, I'll find out, I'll let you know.
So right away I hung up, started getting all my stuff together cause I knew I was headed to Superior. And she called back a little bit later and she said, okay, she said, he's talking. He's still talking and I thought, okay, he's just been shot in the arm or something, no big deal. He'll be fine.
Still getting ready to go and headed down there. And,
I was probably an hour out of Norfolk and I got a call from the doctor down here at Superior that said he was in a lot worse shape than they could handle here. And they were flying him to Lincoln, which was a trauma hospital. And the doctor, he said, Mrs. Koepke it's not good. And I thought, what? What do you mean it's not good?
What does that mean? What does that mean? So I changed directions and I'm headed to Lincoln and about that time I hear that another woman at the elevator down here had died. And I thought what somebody else was shot to come to find out the another woman in the elevator. One of the merchandisers down here had been shot and killed.
And at that point, I'm thinking what happened down there today. What else went on? What else is happening? What else am I going to hear? Anyway, got to the hospital. My daughters both lived in the cities, Lincoln and Omaha. They both jetted over there. My oldest daughter was about six months pregnant with grandbaby number four, grandbaby number five. And We beat the life net helicopter there. Anyway, the whole evening just went from bad to worse to the doctor going, okay, Mrs. Koepke, you've got to come in and see your husband. He's not going to last long. And it's like, what, the whole day I'm just going, what is happening?
What is happening, Lord? What is going on? And we went through all of that, got into the room. I'm pretty sure his soul was gone. He was in bad shape.
I just remember it just, it was like we were in there praying, our pastor was there. And next thing I know they're handing me all these clothes and saying, okay, we need to prep him for, transfer. And what, I have to leave now? I'm standing there holding his shoes, his, his pants. It's what do I do now?
And that process was really hard getting through that because I just, you're in such a state of shock, such a state of denial, such a state of. What the heck just happened? I couldn't even process it all the while this is hitting the news, all of Northeast Nebraska. It is hitting CNN. It is hitting, it made national news.
It's all over during this time. I'm having to call people back home going shield my father in law from this. If he hears this on the radio, he is going to freak out because he knows where Darren went this day. And so I've got people running interference and it was just like chaos. It was chaos. And it was the hardest.
That's the hardest day I've ever been through in my life. I hope it is the hardest day I will ever go through in my life.
[00:14:32] Emily: I can't even imagine, your mind was racing, all this is going on, and you're praying, and it's okay, we're praying, at first it sounded like things were getting better, then now all of a sudden he's gone, like he's just dead now?
What, Did you feel at that time you were questioning your faith at all, or you just felt like you were in shock trying to figure out your exact next step? What was that like?
[00:14:58] Kelli: I don't think I was questioning my faith. I was questioning God. I questioned Him a lot. It's Wait a minute. What is happening?
Why would you let this happen? Why would you allow this to happen? We had all these great things coming up. We just approved house plans. We just, we know where the house is. Darren has been so excited. Finally, his childhood dream. Why now, Lord? Why me? Why me? Why do I have to go through this?
Why do my girls have to go through this? I remember crawling into bed that night, and that was my as I was going into shock, because I was shaking so hard, I just, all I could say was, why Lord? Why? And in the book of Job, Job said the same thing. Why Lord? David, why Lord? And I think that's our common response when we have faith.
I've never been angry at God for this. Not once have I been angry at him because I understand that things have to happen. So the glory of God is seen.
I purchased a book, a little journal. I call it my blessings book. And I had to start writing down all the good things that I could see that came out of Darren's death, out of Sandy's death. The people in the elevator that are still struggling today. Because it was such a traumatic event, but there's so much good coming out of it.
And we've seen so much good and God has put so many people just to cross paths with me to share with them that there is hope, that there is hope. But I've had people ask me, why didn't God save? If God is all good and he's all powerful, why didn't he save your husband? Because he could have. And I said, he did save him, he took him home, who knows what he would have had to live through here, because at the time of his death, they had removed a lung to try to save him, his heart, his liver, his lung, his stomach, that bullet ricocheted inside, hit every organ inside of him, there, there was no way he was supposed to live through that.
So God did save him because he didn't have to come back and I've always said just him knowing he lost another employee Would have devastated him mentally So God did save him and I'm grateful to God for saving him and not letting him linger that it all happened One day that he didn't have to suffer for long.
Coping with Loss and Finding Hope
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[00:17:24] Emily: Yeah, so it's so powerful and In the moment, it's sometimes really hard to see that I remember when I was headed back to the hospital to figure out what was going on with Nathan, I just prayed don't let this draw just be a long drawn out process if he's gonna not be able to function, if he's gonna be miserable, if, he's gonna hate his life, if it's gonna be months of ups and downs and not knowing, just let it be done, just, it now. And that's a really hard thing to pray for. But I also see other people that struggle on a daily basis because there are things that are worse than death.
[00:18:08] Kelli: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I didn't come to that day. I didn't think of it that day. It took a few days later before it was like, Oh yeah, God did save him.
He answered my prayer. The night he died, all I wanted to do was just run. I wanted to get out of that hospital. I wanted to run. I wanted to go as far away from that as I could, but I couldn't, I have children, I can't abandon my children. And they were in just as much shock as I was. Because their dad was so involved in their life.
He was just like a big ol teddy bear. Wouldn't hurt a fly, it's just, just a good solid man. I was more concerned that maybe my daughter would have pregnancy problems. It's Oh Lord, please just don't let her lose this baby because of all the grief, you just don't know.
Thankfully, she had other kids at home that kept her very busy. So I think she processed things a little bit differently, but Yeah, it got really quiet at home because like I said, we had all these animals. I was just out from back surgery. So I had to immediately sell things. I had to get rid of the animals because I couldn't catch anything.
I couldn't put them in the barn. I couldn't do anything by myself. So I had to sell all the animals because I'd go out there to chore and it would just I would just cry walking around because everywhere I looked was my husband, and it was just too hard to be out there without him. And so when things was hard and stuff, we had spent years building up genetics and bloodlines.
And if you're from the, from any farm background, you know what I'm talking about. That takes time and money, and we had built quite, quite a little business.
[00:19:51] Emily: Yeah. So what have the past few years been like for you? It's been right at three years or almost three years. And I, just the fallout from losing your husband, the way that you did from having to sell off.
Things that you had dreams for and that you guys had built, then looking at, okay, am I still going to build a house? Am I not going to build a house? Like, all of that is really hard when you're battling the brain fog and you're battling just your own grief. How, what was helpful to you in those early days and how did you manage to navigate all of that?
[00:20:33] Kelli: The early days are hard. There's just such a, I'm ready to be through this because this hurts too much. I don't want to keep feeling like this every day. And where I had retired from the corporate world to help my husband on the farm. Now the animals were sold. I had nothing to do. And so I sat in my house all day, every day.
And I about drove myself nuts. I, about six months in, my daughter had said, Why don't you move down to Omaha, Mom? Just come down, lease an apartment for a year, and just come down and just heal your heart. And so I did. I soon realized. The city is not for me. It's very different than rural life, but I did it.
I went down, and I was only a mile from their house, so I could run over and play with the grain kids for 15 20 minutes if I wanted to, and it was good for that season, but my prayer the whole year was Lord, take me where you need me. I really don't think it's Omaha, but if it is make it abundantly clear that you want me here.
And I had been coming down to superior where my husband was killed to check on his employees. I just felt like Darren said, you need to go make sure they're okay. You need to go look in on them. And so about once a month, I was coming down here and. There was a couple weeks in Omaha, I was driving around, and I kept seeing the words on street signs at Billboards Superior, and I'd see names of some of his employees, it just kept, and I would just smile, I would just think, Nice little God wink there.
But after a couple of weeks, I finally stopped and went, wait a minute. Are you telling me that I should go to Superior? Cause Superior is a great little town, but there's not a lot here.
House Hunting and Divine Signs
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[00:22:27] Kelli: So I thought, okay I'm going to investigate this and God will make it known if I'm supposed to be down here. So I came down here one weekend and looked for houses because I knew my house back home.
We were already planning to leave that. To build a house at the farm. So I was already, I had already said goodbye to that house and I felt God saying there was nothing there for me anymore. My, my chapter, that was that chapter and that chapter was closing. So I came down one weekend and I looked at some houses, pulled up some met with a realtor, had her sign a confidentiality because I didn't want anybody know I was house searching because I didn't want any of that to get out.
And I looked at these houses and I thought, no, this isn't where I'm supposed to be. All the houses needed too much work. I couldn't do any of that. And just as I was getting ready to leave town, the young man that showed me a house, he goes, Hey, I've got a friend that's thinking of selling his house. It's not on the market.
Do you want me to call him and see if he'd let you look at the house? And I said that's great, but you're going to have to do it now because the bags are in the backseat, I'm leaving town today. He called him, he said, yep, she can come over, drove up in front of the house that I live in now.
And I just stopped and I was like, that's it. That's the house. I just could feel it. Come to find out, I knew the guy that lived here. I had met him before. He sold it privately to me. On the way back to Omaha that day, this is the part that really confirmed it for me is on the way back to Omaha that day, I was just lamenting to God about everything and being nervous because this is, again, it's two and a half hours away from my kids.
Is this really where you want me to go? And Lord, if it is, you have to help me sell my house back home because I'm too tired. All I had been doing was selling things and running here, running there, doing this, doing paperwork, headstone, all the stuff. And it's I just need your help. You have to help me if this is where you want me to go.
And 30 minutes later, not even joking, 30 minutes later, my phone rang from the gal who had temporarily been renting my house and asked if she could buy it.
[00:24:46] Emily: That's amazing.
[00:24:49] Kelli: I laughed all the way back to Ma. And we did the same thing we did.
A New Home and New Beginnings
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[00:24:53] Kelli: So I bought this house the middle of May closed on that one, the end of May bada bing, bada boom truck movers boom, I'm here.
And the place I live in is just under four acres. So I have a little bit of space. So I have a little, I tell people, I have a little bit of a little piece of the dream that Darren was working towards. Plus I own the farm that he wanted. So I rent that out for cash to live on. And it's just maybe that's why that all had to happen.
The way that did, God lined all that up and did it before we built a house, before we moved out there, before I had this house payment that I wouldn't have been able to afford without his house, without his paycheck. But God gave him 30 days of joy that he had waited his whole life for. And I'm so grateful for that because he was so excited.
But here I am in Superior, Nebraska.
And I had a friend call about 30 days after I had moved here and said, so are you still like in Superior? I chuckled. I said, I am. I said, God moved me here. How can I not like it? He wants me here for something. So here I am.
[00:26:14] Emily: I love that. What a beautiful and just inspiring story that you were willing to take a step out in faith.
Faith and Coping with Loss
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[00:26:23] Emily: And one of the things that I help with coaching widows on is, in order for God to direct your steps, you have to be taking steps in some direction. And if you hadn't been keeping your eyes open, if you hadn't gone out there to look at other houses, if you hadn't thought maybe this is something that could be meant for me, then you would never have come across that.
House that you love and that you're enjoying now. So I just really commend you on just being open on trying new things and just being Really living in surrender. Okay this is where I'm supposed to go. You're going to have to make this easy on me. I'll do it.
[00:27:08] Kelli: Sometimes I wonder if God had been tired of me lamenting all the time going, okay, I need it.
I need a direction. It's, I'm sitting now in an apartment. I went from sitting in my house and I'm sitting in an apartment. And while I was in Omaha, my dog of 12 years, so much, and it was just like, okay, but she was there for the first year. She was there to comfort me for a year. So she did her part and really, I had been studying the Bible prior to my husband being killed.
The Book of Job and Finding Purpose
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[00:27:38] Kelli: I had studied the book of Job and I think really understanding the book of Job going into tragedy. It's such a helpful tool if you understand that God allows things to happen that Satan can't just come and take my husband. Yes he had his say that day, but God had the final say. God's the one that allowed it to happen.
So if he allowed it, there has to be a purpose. It doesn't make me feel any better that he allowed it. It still hurts terribly. I'm three hours from my husband's grave. I don't get to go sit at his grave every day. I've lost a lot of family through this. I've had a lot of family turn and walk away from me.
I've lost friends and I keep calling it my chapter. That was that chapter. This is a new chapter. And so I've got to keep moving forward because I do believe that God has something out there for me, I don't know what it is, but I have to keep my eyes open, and I have to keep in tune with him, and I have to keep in step with him, and maybe it's just to encourage other widows in my church, I'm now in a new church,
I don't know what he's got for me, I may never understand what he's got for me, but I'm trying to find life again, this is the first time in my life I've ever lived alone, I've never lived alone before, that scared me to death, I was scared, I was so lonely, I didn't know how to function by myself, All of a sudden, every decision is mine.
Every single decision. I'm so tired of making decisions, it's overwhelming. It's I can't do this today. And I'll have my, sometimes my, one of my family members will be like you don't have that done yet. You've been talking about that for a month and it's because I can't get my mind mentally wrapped around sitting down and doing it.
It's just. Exactly. It's been a lot it's been three years of a lot, and I tell people that on the job deaths, there's a lot of paperwork to them. There's a lot of stuff you got to go through. So that, and then moving twice in two years, I don't plan to move again. Wait, I probably shouldn't say that out loud, but God does good things and we just have to have faith that he knows the path and he's not going to let us down.
And on it, he's not going to tell us why he's putting that, putting us through this, but someday we're going to see the big picture and it's all going to make sense. We'll understand. And I know that for some of the faith that I've seen grow around here because of this tragedy down here, I say, if that's what my husband had to die for, if you asked him, he'd do it again.
He'd do it again.
[00:30:26] Emily: Wow. What an incredible human being he was. Yes, he was. I have a couple of questions for you as you've talked through that. One is so what I tend to notice is that people of faith have different reactions in their relationship with God and the questioning and just I want to feel close to you, but I just, I feel like the rug's been pulled out from under me and I don't understand you, maybe like I did before.
And you mentioned the book of Job, and I did relate a lot to that as well, and also think, I think for me what I focused on the book of Job was like, he lost everything, but God gave him a life that was just as beautiful, if not more than he had before, so for me, I wanted that to go.
Fuel my belief that some way, somehow I could have a life that I loved again, even though it felt really impossible in the beginning, but for you, what really stood out to you about that story or for people maybe who aren't familiar with that, what were some of the key things that impacted you the most as you were walking through all of this?
[00:31:43] Kelli: I think with Job, it was just how much he lost losing his family. I can relate losing money. I can relate losing so much and I didn't lose as much as he did, but I can relate to losing pieces of life that you didn't ever expect to lose. But yet he praised God through it and he just held fast to that.
And I hung on to that. I kept thinking the whole time it's okay, I just have to trust God that he's going to do something with this. But when you're in grief, nothing is ever fast enough. It seemed like it took a long time. It took a year and a half before God said, okay, go to superior year. A few years before Darren was killed.
We were thinking the company was going to move us here. We had looked at houses down here. We had been investigating that. I think God was already softening my heart for superior back then. And then that didn't happen. So many things that I can look back and go, Oh, that's why that happened. One of the houses I looked at my physical therapist lives in.
I've been to his house when I first pulled in the driveway, I bust out laughing. I said, okay, Lord, now I know why this house wasn't supposed to be ours, but so much, he has lined up being adopted. He opened that door like only God can do to my birth family a few years before Darren was killed.
That's the family that has stuck with me every step of this grief journey is family. I have only known for eight years, but they're. Warriors with me. They're in the trenches. They feel me. They understand, they're just, how can I not trust a God that opened a door that only he could do?
How can I not trust a God that moved me somewhere that only he could do? Everything just, it works out. And it's hard to have faith because it's hard to have faith in the beginning. I couldn't hear from God. I was used to hearing from God. We had conversations. I couldn't even read the Bible. Satan worked my heart over and over again, broke my reading glasses, broke crowns on my teeth.
There was so much that he did to me in those first 60 days of grief. I couldn't listen to worship songs. They would just, I couldn't do it. So I sat in silence for months, twiddling my thumbs. I couldn't read. I couldn't sing. I, but the whole time I just kept thinking the song that one of the songs we played at Darren's funeral.
Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. If I could just not let go, if I could hold on to that lifeline, he'd pull me out when the time was right. Just like he did to Job. Just like he did to Job. Hold on to the lifeline.
[00:34:46] Emily: I love that. And I love that. Especially as time went on that you were looking for like your blessings book that you mentioned You are looking for the positives not to be like, oh, My husband had to die so that I could have this great conversation so that I could share my story on this podcast but we can look at it and say a bad thing happened period And out of that can still come good things.
You can still find blessings. You can still see opportunities that God brings to you. And I think in many of those cases, to credit you, it's because you're actively looking for those things. Our minds are really trained with confirmation bias. So whatever it's looking for, it's going to go, Oh, see, told you, and right.
Because you weren't living in a mentality of nobody cares about me. God's abandoned me. I'm just stuck here. You are willing to say, I don't like this. I don't really understand it. But I do know what the, that God promises us that he doesn't abandon us and that there are still good things out there.
And so I'm going to choose to try to look for those things and see what happens. And it's blossomed to do this whole like new adventure for you now.
Unexpected Connections and Support
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[00:36:08] Kelli: And there was one time in Omaha that I was walking around the lake because I did a lot of walking through. The last couple of years, just to try to clear my head a little bit.
And I was walking around this Lake and there was a gentleman in front of me. And as I'm, I got my earbuds in, and I'm just. I'm walking off grief. I'm just powering through, but he keeps turning around and looking at me. Cause I just keep inching closer and closer to him. And I'm like, Oh gosh, I bet he thinks I'm stalking him.
I bet he, all these thoughts. Cause I'm in Omaha, so I never think anything normal when you're in the city. And I got up close to him and it was going around and I popped an earbud out. And I just said, sorry, not stalking you. I'm just walking off grief. And he stopped and he looked at me and he goes, You too.
Wow. We sat down on the bench. We walked. So started a conversation, sat down on the bench, and I shared a little bit of my story of why I was walking off grief. And he told me that day, the reason he was walking was because it was a visitation for his wife that day. And he was preparing to go to the mortuary.
And I thought okay, God. So we sat on the bench and I prayed with him and when I got done, he immediately started praying for me. And I was so moved. I was so moved. But it was just those little things that just propelled me to keep going. God would just keep putting things in my path and saying, Here, keep going.
Your story has value. And we as women, we don't share our stories in our hurts. Because we think we're supposed to be tough. And we don't want to share them. But there's value in them. It doesn't matter who you share it with. There's value to our stories. And I'll never forget that. I just couldn't, I just couldn't believe that God had put somebody that was so fresh into that journey on the same walking path with me that day to have that conversation.
[00:38:14] Emily: Yeah. And to give you the words to just completely open that door and that conversation. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. You gave me goosebumps.
[00:38:25] Kelli: And I've got, and I've got pages of stories like that because then when I have a bad day, I can pull this book out and I can remember all the good. Instead of falling into that pit, I can pull it out and go, Oh, yes, I remember.
Oh, I forgot about that. Yes, that did happen. And remember the good that is coming out of this because there is good. It still hurts. I still miss him every day. It's hard to be in a place that I have no memories with him.
Embracing New Chapters
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[00:38:55] Kelli: I don't have any memories in this house with him, but it's my new chapter.
So it's time to make some new memories.
[00:39:02] Emily: Yeah, it is. I think of that, I think it's from Night in the Museum. Love that movie. Yeah, where he's basically, where are you going? He's I have no idea. I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. And Robin Williams is like, how exciting. And I remember that sentiment a lot to try to encourage myself in the beginning of like my life isn't going to look anything like what I thought it was going to look like.
And I can either decide that. My best days are over and I'm just going to be a hollow shell of myself or I can decide to create a life that I want to live and to have now just such an elevated sense of what's important in life and right, letting go of a lot of the superficial stuff and making the most of it because we don't know when our time's right.
[00:39:58] Kelli: And my youngest daughter, they bought for Christmas for me, a water colored picture of the house that Darren and I lived in for 23 years. And it was so sweet. And so I had a little plaque made underneath it that just says last chapter, just as a reminder that was good. And I don't want to dwell on the loss.
I don't want to, I don't want to dwell on all the things that have been taken from me because like Job, I believe God will bring me. More good someday at some point. I mean he already has this is good. I'm so thrilled to be here and I'm so thrilled that God has just held me up these last almost three years.
Sorry if I'm so weepy today, but it's October. So I know I'm 20 days away from that craziness of the three year anniversary. I thought of that this morning and it's Oh, it's October. Probably should have rethought that date a little bit, but it's part of, it's part of it.
[00:40:58] Emily: Yeah, it is. It is. And we just tend to think of some emotions as better than others, but it really.
helps just to be able to cry and share from the heart. And I know it's just going to encourage so many other people that are out there. It's what probably helped keep me sane for a long time is just hearing that other people could go through a similar experience and still feel hope and still feel positive about life because there are people out there who aren't and who just live in misery and I couldn't fathom like having to face the rest of my life like that.
[00:41:38] Kelli: Yeah, it's and it's hard. One thing my counselor encouraged me in the beginning was okay it's time to figure out who you are and what you like to do. So what do you like to do?
I don't know. I don't know all the things that I enjoyed doing as a wife I didn't enjoy doing as a single person So trying to figure out and tap into me and I really think that's why God has kept me That's moved me away from family so that I'm not using anybody as a crutch. I'm learning to stand on my own two feet and just take time to figure out who I am and what I want.
[00:42:15] Emily: Yeah. That was the most unsettling thing for me was just feeling like I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I even liked anymore. I didn't know if I could get excited about things anymore. Yeah. just being someone who's a planner and a dreamer and, I want to take on the world type thing to see all of my dreams just completely evaporated.
It was so unsettling. Like I felt unanchored, untethered, just bobbling around in the ocean. I don't know, I'm just drifting. I don't know. And you can get through that and you can build a beautiful life. So it's great to see that you're on that journey. What advice.
Advice for the Grieving
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[00:42:58] Emily: If you were going to leave someone who, let's say, is still early on, or someone who's gone through a very traumatic experience like you did of their spouse dying in a work accident or, a shooting or a similar situation, what advice would you give to them or what encouragement would you give them?
[00:43:18] Kelli: They're going to get the advice of be patient and I'm not going to lie. I had people tell me that and I got so tired of hearing it. Be patient in God's timing. Come on, God, hurry up a little bit. It takes time and it's not an easy journey, but you have to sit in it for a while. The only way through it is that you have to literally sit in it and you have to allow yourself to feel and it will get better.
The waves won't come crashing quite as hard and as often, but it takes time. And it's. I really lean into your church family. If you're not in a church, find a good church and really lean into people who understand, get into a grief share group. Grief share is amazing. Went through that a couple of times after my mother in law died.
So again, preparation for my husband's death, but just get a blessings book. And every little good thing, write it down, put a date to it. The sky is blue today. That might be as simple as that. The birds are singing, the air is cool. Just any little thing. I love sun sunrises and sunsets. Go watch the sun come up, go watch the sunset.
Just taking God's beauty, just taking God's beauty. And remember that he made you for such a time as this. He knew the path. He knew you'd be on this. Doesn't make it feel any better, but he wouldn't have left us on it if he didn't have more work for us to do. So we can't get stuck. We can't get in the quicksand.
We've got to keep marching forward.
Conclusion and Encouragement
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[00:45:00] Emily: Kelly, thank you so much for coming on the show today and for sharing your story. I know it's going to just help encourage and inspire so many people.
[00:45:09] Kelli: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate any time I can talk about my husband.
[00:45:14] Emily: Are you a widow who feels disconnected? Do you feel like you're stuck or even going backwards in your grief? Widowhood can be lonely and isolating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us in the Brave Widow membership community and connect. We teach widows how to find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future.
Find your purpose and create a life you love today. Go to bravewidow. com to get started.
