Jen Best

After the Sudden death of our first child, my whole life pivoted from a successful working mom in marketing and advertising to a mom just trying to survive and get to a healthy place to raise the son I was pregnant with at the time. 

 

We were devastated to the core with the loss of our healthy, happy, thriving son, Maxwell. Things had been going so well for our family with a new home, career I loved, and a healthy, beautiful boy that our lives revolved around. Then one night, right before Christmas our lives changed forever. 

 

We thankfully had an incredible support system around us from family, friends and the Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhoold Program. We tried everything and resource you can imagine to help us through our grief. From individual counseling, couple’s counseling, EMDR therapy, group counseling, retreats centered around grief and healing. We met with intuitives, psychics, QRNT specialists. You name it, I am sure my husband and I tried it. We knew we wanted to have hope and joy in our lives again and when you lose a child you can’t imagine ever experiencing either again.

 

I am happy to report after all the work (and continued work) we do have a very joyful, happy life while carrying our son along with us on this journey. While his presence is lost, his life is not forgotten, and we are fortunate to receive signs from him all of the time. We have had three subsequent children and they are all happy and loving. We continue to celebrate and remember Max in a way that works for our family.

 

Everyone’s grief journey is different, but you have to do the work. If you don’t it comes out in ugly ways. I believe one of the gifts that came out of our loss is my ability to be empathetic with others going through tough times. I have lots of tools and resources to incorporate in our coaching sessions.

 

Back to Joy. I lost all Joy and Hope. I will never take them for granted again. Joy is different from being happy. To me it is finding the gifts in each day and acknowledging the littlest of things. Expressing gratitude for the mundane yet meaningful things that fill our days. From a great cup of coffee in the am to a connection with a friend or a carpool with your child. 

 

I promote the Growth Mindset and the “not yet” perspective. I also believe our thoughts create our reality and we can change our perspectives when we reframe. However, I also believe there are hard days and things to get through. We can be positive and optimistic but sometimes things are just brutal, and we need to practice self-care and love to get through them.